But she explains her position in every interview these days: she's the leader of the opposition, it's her job to oppose. If the government says it's raining, she says the sun is shining!

i was on the 08.01 to Paris this morning and just wanted to say that every interaction i had at SPI and on board with Eurostar staff was fantastic / really above and beyond. I can’t see that there’s an official account so alighted on yours!

Of course, you can only push the comparison so far, as this contemporary description of John shows.

An Afghan man who served alongside US special forces and fled his native country after its takeover by the Taliban died over the weekend shortly after being detained by immigration authorities, according to his family and an advocacy group. https://cnn.it/4uxaXvs

Proposal: when someone says “I got Chat GPT to do this” we should look at them the same way we would if they’d said “Look! Everybody! Look! I just shat my pants!” Think this would be effective as a social sanction and beneficial in the long term.

I'm reminded of one of the conclusions in my biography of King John: 'He set about needlessly provoking people when he felt strong, then desperately trying to win them back when his confidence had evaporated.'

This is Amy Madigan and Ed Harris refusing to applaud Elia Kazan's honorary Oscar in 1999. During the Blacklist Era, Kazan named names.

Good on Amy and Ed.

Happy March 15. Here is my favorite Ides of March meme:

"Jewish communities are not to blame for the policies of the Israeli government, whose sole purpose is to foment war, deepen the occupation, and bring us all more blood, suffering, and tears...

well the last half hour was magnificent!

Southampton’s Flynn Downes commits a high challenge which misses the ball and goes studs-first into Frank Onyeka’s calf

Dasilva and Thomas-Asante rightly got big suspensions for violent conduct. Downes should get no less for this absolutely horrendous challenge. #pusb

MAX DOWMAN. 16 YEARS OLD.

ETCH THAT INTO EMIRATES HISTORY, ARSENAL HISTORY, PREMIER LEAGUE HISTORY!

People of my age recall the mess that was San Carlos Water.

We're entering an age where islamist groups in Europe and America think they can target synagogues and Jewish schools - and nobody is really saying or doing anything to stop it. This cannot become normalised. Or we may as well start writing Jude on shops

Video supposedly showing fight at Birmingham City Council was actually filmed in Pakistan – Full Fact A video shared online with claims it shows a fight among councillors at Birmingham City Council was actually filmed in Pakistan.

A video has been shared with claims it shows a fight breaking out at Birmingham City Council after a councillor was seen “eating during Ramadan”.

This is false. It actually shows an altercation between lawyers in Pakistan.

Just stop taxing us so much to hire people in the first place.

Telegraph: “Work and Pensions Secretary is expected to incentivise firms with a £3,000 taxpayer subsidy” www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...

I just need people to realise (and tooooo many do NOT) that going up to random Jewish ppl & harassing them about Palestine is racist - see also doing the same thing online

Guys there is no way out of broad based progressive taxation if you want a functioning state. Sorry to break it to you.

4) "Stop crying about an incident on the Tube while people are dying".

You know it's possible to think 2 things are bad at once, right? You don't actually have to try and pretend that being a bigoted prick doesn't matter simply because something worse is happening in the world.

US cabinet wearing matching clown shoes.

‘The law changed around me’: top Sudanese students blocked from UK universities by visa ban [FREE TO READ] High-achieving applicants’ educational plans derailed by ‘emergency visa brake’

I'm trying to think who this idiocy is for, who would say: I wasn't going to vote Labour but now they've blocked a clearly exceptionally bright Sudanese woman from doing a postgraduate course in computational biology at Cambridge, I'm all in?

www.ft.com/content/4493...

Just discovered a company clearly manipulating trustpilot with fake reviews using AI. People need to understand how quickly AI is going to destroy trust in a lot of information.

I would like someone - a journalist, a backbencher, an opposition leader - to ask the prime minister to defend this, explicitly.

Increasingly it's clear that the "open borders" charge levelled at the last Government is really ill-advised.

The simple fact is that vacancy levels were at record highs in the care sector in 2021-2. Any sensible Government would have increased care visas.

www.skillsforcare.org.uk/news-and-eve...

Russia tightens control over abortion in Ukraine's occupied territories Russian-controlled authorities in occupied Ukraine are increasing restrictions on women's reproductive rights, effectively preventing them from accessing abortions, according to the NGO East Human Rig...

Russian-controlled authorities in occupied Ukraine are increasing restrictions on women's reproductive rights, effectively preventing them from accessing abortions, according to the NGO East Human Rights Group.

Two of these panellists lost to the Greens after young voters did exactly the opposite of what this panel claims

Children killed, a school turned into a graveyard: even in wartime, we can’t accept this | Gordon Brown There are rules and world leaders must insist they are honoured in practice and in spirit. After this atrocity in Iran, a more effective tribunal for crimes against children is essential, says former prime minister Gordon Brown

Children killed, a school turned into a graveyard: even in wartime, we can’t accept this | Gordon Brown

Zack Polanski stood by breast enlargment hypnosis claim A newly unearthed interview from 2013 casts doubt on the Green Party leader's claim to have apologised.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... the audio here is genuinely jaw-dropping in the context of repeated claims from Polanski that the Sun interview was entrapment in which he was baited into saying things he didn't believe

This 18-year-old Afghan girl nearly escaped the Taliban – then we took her visa away She resisted a forced marriage and studied in secret, winning scholarships to leave Kabul and attend a British university. But now the home secretary’s ban on study visas has removed her one chance of...

18 yr old Bahar had offers from York and Reading, but 'thanks to Shabana Mahmood, she will now never escape the Taliban.'

'Britain has decided that the girl who fought the Taliban’s agenda, who learned English in secret, who turned down a forced marriage, who won her place, is an asylum risk.'

I'm surprised opera people have been so offended and taken back by all this.

It would be like if I got arsy because someone suggested County Championship cricket isn't as popular as the Premier League.

Opera is good and I go sometimes and I'm pro subsidising it up the wazoo, but come on lads