Well, at least the BBC is covering this.

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...

Palantir manifesto described as ‘ramblings of a supervillain’ amid UK contract fears Alarm caused by posts of Alex Carp, tech firm’s CEO, championing US military dominance and of AI weapons

“a parody of a RoboCop film” and “the ramblings of a supervillain”.
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

From @caolanrob.bsky.social

OMFG I had to go and check that this ACTUALLY happened.

Since when does the BBC ever do chyrons with a political party's branding, rather than their own? Not to mention this is during a pre-election campaign purdah.

(h/t @iainsol.bsky.social)

Picture of street filled with people when cars are prohibited, with a prominent sign saying “road closed.” Via Urban Truth Collecrive (Also, it’s a street, not a road)

How come they keep spelling “open” wrong?

Does that street look closed to you? Only if you’re a car… and presumably that’s the real problem. #UrbanTruth

This from trade guru Richard Baldwin on Trump's trade war conduct is great. And helps explain why in fact he is not remaking the world economic order or anything else. He's just going to leave a huge mess behind. www.linkedin.com/pulse/trumps...

.📣 @ChrisGiles_
👉 “there was a 16 per cent drop in services exports to the EU in sectors where Brexit imposed new trade frictions “

Price hikes aren’t the only way to pass on the tariffs to American consumers 👇
>Levi Strauss will limit items for holiday shopping season
• Limiting selection should mitigate tariff costs, protect margins
• Strategy has been used by other brands including Hasbro, Nike

Trump avoided punishments for his post-2020 abuses, but many of his lawyers did not For the attorneys who helped fuel the president’s efforts to remain in office, the consequences have been severe. Take John Eastman, for example.

And they remain mystified as to why it's so hard for them to find real lawyers who will work for him...

Eastman: disbarred

Giuliani: disbarred

Chesebro: disbarred

Clark: facing possible disbarment

Ellis: law license suspended

www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...

“Some people in the Epstein files are monstrously gross. Some are moderately gross. Some are situationally, aspirationally, or cosmetically gross.” Josh Tyrangiel sifted through nearly 3.5 million pages to determine a taxonomy for those named in the files. theatln.tc/TYNK1H3C

This from @dsmitheconomics.bsky.social is a commendable exception to the astonishing parochialism of UK economic reporting.

Tthe IMF downgrading UK growth by a few tenths of a % is not the story here, it is the damage done to the global economy by Trump's madness

www.thetimes.com/article/389a...

It doesn't take a forensic accountant to work out whose interests Nigel Farage really serves

EU’s energy crisis response is broader than expected: remote work mandates, heat pump subsidies, EV leasing schemes — plus electrification targets and new laws to tax electricity below fossil fuels.

Nigel Farage Has Personally Accepted £675,000 from Foreign Sources Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has accepted more than half a million pounds from foreign companies, governments, and donors while serving as an MP, DeSmog can reveal. Since July 2024, when he was elect...

DeSmog: Nigel Farage Has Personally Accepted £675,000 from Foreign Sources
www.desmog.com/2026/04/18/n...

Has Tice resigned yet?

Trump lawyer from effort to overturn 2020 election to oversee probe of ex-CIA director, DOJ official says Joseph DiGenova, a conservative attorney, is being tapped by the U.S. Justice Department to lead an ongoing criminal investigation into former CIA Director John Brennan.

“For my friends everything; for my enemies the law.”

DOJ has become an instrument of authoritarianism. No more laments for what it was; or talk of “abuses”; or wishful thinking about how they can’t get away with it. They can, if not confronted across the board.

www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-l...

Two nights ago, Russia sent nearly 700 drones and dozens of missiles at Ukrainian civilians. In the fifth year of the war, aerial attacks on Ukrainian civilians have become even more intense and more frequent. Please join me in this campaign for air defense equipment. You can help protect lives.

Trump, IRS In Talks To Settle U.S. President's $10 Billion Lawsuit Trump's adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization are also plaintiffs.

Trump is reported close to a "deal" with himself under which US taxpayers would pay him $10 billion.

I served in multiple communist and authoritarian dictatorships, but I never witnessed corruption on this scale or this blatant.

The Trump Organisation plans to build a 70-storey Trump Tower in Tbilisi, Georgia, which is currently in the grip of Putin puppet party Georgian Dream, WSJ reports.

The skyscraper, featuring luxury residences, retail and a hotel, would be the tallest building in the city.

“We could never do THAT in OUR city.” Leadership doesn’t make excuses. Via the Urban Truth Collective. Background image of people walking on a popular Montreal pedestrianized street and people-place.

NEW: “The initiative is less an advocacy group & more a communications intervention. Its premise is blunt: the reason so many good urban ideas stall isn’t because they’re wrong—it’s because they’re losing the narrative war.” Read about us in @momentummag.bsky.social! momentummag.com/urban-truth-...

Sunday Times headline from March: Reform's Richard Tice avoided nearly £600k in tax

Despite receiving dividends, the companies paid zero tax in 2019, 2020 and 2021 for reasons that Tice said related to wider losses suffered by the groups. Although no such information appears in their accounts, he said: “The accountants advise on this and sign the audit and they are top drawer so I trust them.”

Richard Tice had a different explanation for why no tax was paid when he spoke to the Sunday Times last month.

Tice's statements here are all incorrect.

Hmm. Via London Centric: "Bailey Nash-Gardener, founder of the widely-followed social media news aggregation account Politics UK, is standing for Reform UK in Havering."

Traders placed over $1bn in perfectly timed bets on the Iran war. What is going on? Suspicious wagers on the US-Israel war in Iran are creating huge windfalls and raising concerns among lawmakers

Who not What

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

“There is a specific, high-octane brand of exhaustion that comes from watching a superpower self-destruct in real-time....because the sheer velocity of the news cycle ….and the rhetoric of a president unhinged—has effectively hijacked your nervous system.”

Nigel Farage: People tell me they've always voted Labour, but not any more The Reform UK leader is expecting a political earthquake' in the local elections next month — but insists the era of Tory defections is over Nigel Farage refused to rule out a confidence and supply deal with the Conservative Party if Reform fails to secure a majority at the next general election Steven Swinford, Political Editor Friday April 17 2026, 10.15pm, The Times

The Times seems to be backing their man in the run up to the local elections. Chummy, unchallenging ‘interview’ that reads much more like a Farage advert.
Free passes handed out on his racism, misogyny, corruption, Trumpism, Orbanism, useless councils, dire candidates, failed Brexit…
Really shabby.

Thanks for posting this Sarah. The obscenely rich Murdochs know for sure who will look after their interests.

Here's the un-paywalled article to which Sarah refers: archive.ph/vx77L

“Muskism, nurtured in the tech fortress of apartheid South Africa and hardened in the gold rush of early Silicon Valley, is a philosophy both cynical and utopian”

How Elon Musk and the Tech Billionaires Hijacked the State and Our Minds Historian Quinn Slobodian tells Byline Times that Elon Musk's rise tells a deeper story—of fortunes built on state power, and a new politics where humans are treated less as citizens than as systems t...

How Elon Musk and the Tech Billionaires Hijacked the State and Our Minds

Historian @quinnslobodian.com tells Byline Times how governments have subordinated the future of political economy to the direction and desires of Silicon Valley.

bylinetimes.com/2026/04/17/h...