This is like a Bluesky exchange but in real life

Well let's see how this strategy of telling "white liberals" to "fuck right off" works out in the local elections

They're cheaper now, as nobody much wears them, but £50 then doesn't sound too daft - the Brando 'Wild One' imitation Schott Perfecto styles were at least £50 new in the early 80s. So if you got one w a good 'patina' 2nd hand in late 80s Camden (not a cheap spot) for £50, you arguably got a bargain.

You know who else famously used paid informants to infiltrate extremist groups?

The Justice Department.

Ah. But looking at Llewellyn's bio, he'd done 'international' / o/seas 'quasi-diplomatic' roles most of 1992-2005, so could presumably be argued to have relevant experience?

Photo of researcher in hat talking to pensioner with baseball cap on… Dave Taylor (left) debates the local elections with John Doult, who says he will vote Reform at the upcoming local elections in Swindon (The Independent)

But on a visit to the former railway town last month, the outlook for Sir Keir and his party was bleak. "I'll be voting for Reform - it can't get any worse," said pensioner John Doult, until now a lifelong Labour voter who was among the thousands employed in the town's once-famous car industry. The 86-year-old bemoaned the "terrible" state of the town centre,

“I’ll be voting for Reform - it can’t get any worse”

Oh it really can.

You put a bunch of corrupt, racist, incompetent, lying Trumpists in charge and things will get very much worse.
Potholes and empty shops will feel unimportant compared to the loss of the NHS, social care and a torched economy.

The total tax Tice's companies are known to have avoided through onshore and offshore entities, or failed to pay, in relation to Quidnet now amounts to almost £800,000. Photo of Tice in House of Commons Richard Tice is the MP for Boston & Skegness HOUSE OF COMMONS/PA

How the company that donates to Reform benefited from the non-payment of tax QUIDNET REIT Dividends paid but not taxed into TISUN 1,2,3 and 4 Arrows flow from each down into £98000 Corporation tax not paid by Tisun 1-4, leaving more cash for their parent company Arrows join and flow into Tisun Investments Ltd REFORM UK Arrow to TIL paid loans, later converted to gifts, to Reform UK Graphic by The Times and The Sunday Times

Reform is corrupt.
Tice is a tax dodging cheat.
They want power to make money for themselves.
The foreign bribes, the crypto donations, the bitcoin investments, Farage and Kwarteng’s cosy little deals…

They’ll treat the UK and the NHS as their own fire sale.
We must never give it to them.

Tice ‘happy to put things right’ after ‘he failed to pay £100k in corporation tax’ Mr Tice said last year Angela Rayner would resign if she had “any moral decency” after admitting to underpaying stamp duty

Richard Tice deputy leader of Reform ran four shell companies which did not pay any tax on profits between 2020 and 2022.

He's now offering to "put things right".

Go on then Richard - resign.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

Perhaps suggests our modern younger UK political wonks are far more familiar w the US system, as per TV's West Wing etc, where Ambassadorial appointments are in the gift of POTUS and v much that (favour payoffs etc)?

I remain baffled by the idea that sports cycling is seen as a way to promote everyday cycling.

Enjoy the spectacle, but if you want more people to cycle, then provide infrastructure.

The BBC, like most broadcasters, does not have a dedicated energy editor, which is a glaring omission given that almost everything revolves around energy

The Mandelson fiasco reveals the true nature of Starmerism This is a prime minister who does not understand the difficult trade-offs involved in governing

Keir Starmer famously said there was "no such thing" as Starmerism. He was half-right: there is no such ideology. There is however an approach to managing and running the country that is core to so many of the government's difficulties that we probably should call 'Starmerism'. In tomorrow's paper:

When I was flying long-haul a lot in the 1990s, I took to deliberately paying 10% more *not* to connect through Heathrow. Was ghastly then, & doesn't sound like it's got any better. Back then any H'row connection <2hrs basically guaranteed your checked bags wouldn't be on your connecting flight.

Keir Starmer ‘pressured Foreign Office into Mandelson appointment’ Sir Olly Robbins will use his appearance before the foreign affairs select committee on Tuesday to hit back at the prime minister after he was sacked

Every development in this scandal is just so tedious and predictable:

They laughed at us because people were stupid enough to vote him back into office. Now they look at us with disgust and distrust.

"Trump CRIME Family". Say it.

Once you think of it like that, so much of it makes more sense.

The Trumps are white collar criminals and swindlers, and associates of even shadier folk. 'Connected', as you might say. E.g.

www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Back to the simple natural order of things…….. not human arrogance based on destruction of our water,air, environment for profit…… for the 1%

Artist: Dennis Goris

How tragic that you could publish, then re-publish, then re-publish, then re-publish, then re-publish a cartoon like this over and over again...

How Republicans can win the Midterms – and how to stop them A longer analysis of why the 2026 midterms may be far closer than they look, focusing on marginal districts and voter suppression

All the talk is of a blue wave in the 2026 Midterms. But Republicans do not need to get more popular to hold the House - they just need to stop enough Democrats voting in key seats.

I've done a deep dive in my latest post.

christinapagel.substack.com/p/how-republ...

Are they not tree-friendly? Always thought Kiwis were pro-tree. My distant memories from a quarter of a century ago have Christchurch as quite leafy.

I agree - it is a peculiar but undeniable fact that even when the polls make it obvious from space that a party will do terribly in local or devolved elections, the losses actually arriving still have an impact.

Quite - clear from start Mandy was to be appointed as a 'Special Trump Whisperer' due to his long association with the same circles of oligarch creepiness as Donnie Dumbf*ck.

As for Starmer, we already knew he was a klutz and a plodder. Though to give him due, he is not a fascist.

Unlike Farage.

I need to post more photos of my dog

The headline is – Anti-Islam influencer Valentina Gomez blocked from entering UK for far-right rally.

What the Guardian has missed is that Gomez is a Russian propaganda mouthpiece who is rabidly anti-Ukraine, anti-NATO and parrots the Russian antivax script.
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

V interesting. As I keep saying, economic statistics really matter (& need funding). A state that doesn’t know what’s what (about itself and its oppos) is in trouble.

If you look up “Roger Scruton Foundation Memorial Lectures,” the first lecture posted on RSLF’s website is a 2023 lecture by Peter Thiel (JD Vance’s mentor and benefactor).

Free speech absolutism.

Today's winner of the Internet. Congratulations!