A deeply touching moment in the House of Lords today.
Lib Dem peer @lynnefeatherstone.bsky.social spoke movingly today about her nephew, who died aged 35 from hepatitis C, and her sister, who campaigned for justice on the contaminated blood scandal for 40 years and passed away just weeks ago.
@althistorian.bsky.social
It's hilarious to me that London could've had a suspended monorail (like Wuppertal in Germany). The article features a delightful list of urban megaprojects around the world that weren't built in the end. Source: buff.ly/MPm8CH5
🇪🇺🏳️🌈⚖️🇭🇺 A legal earthquake - CJEU finds Hungary to have violated EU law on multiple counts with its anti-LGBT+ legislation (as expected) but also for the first time in history, in an EU law-reshaping precedent, finds Hungary to violate Art 2 TEU in a self-standing manner.
Denmark at UN: There must be accountability for international crimes committed by Russia in this brutal campaign to destroy independent Ukraine.
Denmark fully supports efforts by International Criminal Court, Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine,
𝗧𝗛𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗗
Let's discuss...
Piers for use on beaches, the ELCAS-M
If you think the nuclear-powered supercarrier USS Gerald R. Ford is the most powerful ship in the world, you are wrong. It's actually the German cruise ship Mein Schiff 4 (pictured), which successfully transited the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend
Anyone who has come across a group of German pensioners on holiday will find this outcome entirely unremarkable
EU: The European Union will require sale of mobile phones with “user-replaceable and longer-lasting batteries” starting in 2027.
The regulation demands “availability of spare parts and manuals for 10 years to curb planned obsolescence”.
A grid photo of 16 different characters all played by the legend Tim Curry.
Tim Curry, the absolute legend, turns 80 today. This man took huge swings.
Ehhhh...
Read the political agenda of the #Palantir bosses 👇. Allowing this company to run our most critical systems - in health care, police, security - is beyond naive. It is knowingly exposing our society to those who want to destroy it. Our governments are inviting them in.
Dumb for the people - cunning for his boss. Where is justice? “Now new emails released to Byline Times, following a freedom of information request, reveal the true extent of Dominic Cummings’ subsequent involvement in lobbying senior officials to hand over huge Covid contracts to Thiel’s company”
In case you’re confused - the £100k of tax Richard Tice failed to pay here is totally different to the
- £92k of tax not properly withheld on dividends
- the £600k side-stepped via highly aggressive tax avoidance
Industrial scale grifting revealed by @danneidle.bsky.social and Gabriel Pogrund
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.
Psychologically hard for Europeans to take. But national security has to be built on worst case scenario planning, or it is naivety dressed up as strategy.
observer.co.uk/news/interna...
I did research on antisemitism in Britain in 2024 and early 2025 (before the Manchester attacks), visiting a synagogue and interviewing people working in support groups. Even then the statistics about hate crimes against Jews were really worrying.
"Artemis II—though it flew the American flag and sported the liveries of NASA—was also an international project." www.liberalcurrents.com/to-the-moon/
the thing is that sometimes there are cases when the fans are actually right
and it’s still not a good idea to listen to them because then you start listening to them when they aren’t, which is most of the time
@liberalcurrents.com
Duncan is absolutely right. This incredibly silly debate has dragged on because it wasn't clearly and immediately ruled out.
But part of that is because neither Number 10 nor the Treasury have ever wanted to actually level with the public on tax and spend. This is just the tip of the spear.
For no particular reason today, I'm thinking back to late 2024 when @fullfact.org published a very prissy "fact check" about how it was false to say that "local elections were being cancelled".
Meanwhile here we are in Surrey with the 2025 elections definitely cancelled, never to be rescheduled.
Couldn't sign in this morning. Very slow to now. Pictures/visuals not loading.
You forgot the sliding ladder...
I've spoken to several journalists this week who have suddenly had to research naval mine warfare and are delighted that they're finding it fascinating
The last time the UK political class was even half this indifferent to education was the 1950s.
Margaret Thatcher, in her pomp, paid for me to have a free university education, and to eat while I was doing it.
What's next now, bringing back smog?
