Still of the view that the biggest risk in this whole mess is widespread hunger in poorer countries leading to political instability.

Twitter/X is a story on its own:

🔴 While users have become more Republican
💥 POSTING has completely transformed: it has moved nearly ❗70 percentage points❗ from Democrat-dominated to Republican-leaning.

📉 Visiting and posting on X and Facebook has collapsed: nearly 50% drop!

On X, it is mostly Democrats who have become inactive.

Many still occasionally log on, but rarely and quietly.

Telegraph newspaper editorial on Mandelson's appointment in December 2024 versus editorial today

I checked this too.

*20 seconds* of Reform logo display.

*No other* party logo displayed.

In local election purdah.

This is not normal. At all.

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)

The oldest known image of Keith Richards, published around 1140 AD ...

How to assess the 2026 local elections A cut-out-and-keep guide of benchmarks for the 2026 council elections

Ahead of the local elections, here's an easy guide of how best to assess the results as they come in, including the best metrics to use and some historical benchmarks.

It's on the longer side, but is split into sections and filled with lots of (hopefully) useful data, and completely free-to-read.

Is Ukraine winning the drone race? Barely six months ago it appeared that Russia was ahead in the drone race.

New post from @ldfreedman.bsky.social

"Is Ukraine winning the drone war?"

The Russians certainly think so.

What are the implications of Ukraine's innovations for the war and, more broadly, for how other countries should be thinking about drones?

(£/free trial)

open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/i...

Trevor Phillips said on Sky News this morning that "everybody in the country who could read a newspaper" knew in advance of the Mandelson appointment that he was problematic

is this the same Phillips who interviewed Mandelson on October 08 2023 and didn't ask any questions about Epstein friendship?

Graph showing Farage's income and Stack BTC investments.

Impressive (observer.co.uk/news/nationa...)

(And to anyone replying with a "but Israel" post - you're a big part of the problem.)

Reports of a third attempted arson attack on Jewish targets in North London this week. It's getting really scary and more people need to start taking it seriously.

Had the same thoughts this morning listening to that story. If you decide to make a headline story about that kind of inflammatory accusations you shd have a few more facts to support that claim.

Grey cat has woken up. Accusatory amber eyes.

Oops. Paddington hard stare.

Grey fluffy cat sprawled on a sofa on his back. The belly is exposed and is clearly a trap. He is fast asleep, propped on an excessive number of cushions.

It's been a busy day

Overall half of Britons say that there should be a referendum on rejoining the EU in the next five years. Younger generations are much more likely to want another referendum soon than older ones

🧵With EU relations and alignment back in the news most Brits say, across a series of areas, they want at least a slightly closer relationship with Europe than the one Britain has at the moment.

The Sun’s accounts are out and I haven’t seen anyone report on them so…
*Pre-tax loss of £31m
*Revenue down from £296m to £273m (Sub now in the same ballpark as the Guardian)
*Phone hacking costs (now into its third decade) of £36.6m
*Big fall in audience but still claim to be UK’s number one brand

Today at sunset begins #YomHashoah, the Jewish commemoration of the Holocaust.

If you are interested in learning more about the Holocaust, there are LOTS of great resources out there.

I might selfishly suggest the @holocaustpod.bsky.social as well. We are up to 76 episodes as of today!

I was thinking this morning how both Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan would have been delighted to see a Westward-looking, centre-right party defeat a pro-Russian autocrat in a former Eastern Bloc country.

The EU is sitting on €6.4 *billion* in grants for Hungary

With a likely constitutional majority enabling Magyar to govern with a freehand, I suspect that money will flow quickly

Ukraine's €90bn loan will also be approved

Hungary will now move into the European mainstream

To the doomers who keep saying Trump will rig the 2026 and 2028 elections: Do not concede in advance

It must be a totally overwhelming result for Orban to concede on the night. Congratulations to the Hungarian people for choosing to believe that things can actually get better. And I hope Vance endorses more terrible leaders in the future. He seemed to push it over the edge.

Hungary has voted for Remain.
Britain next, please.

Really looking forward to JD Vance campaigning for Netanyahu later this year.

Now preparing myself to find out which right-wing pundits were getting paid by Hungary by henceforth seeing them turn up a hell of a lot more doing 24-hour news channel paper reviews.

HMG: We must boost growth! We must tackle the cost of living!

Also HMG: You there! Sole trader, is it? Why are you doing productive work? You're meant to be doing this extra bureaucracy we've invented. What d'you mean, you don't want to spend hundreds of pounds on the software? Why are you crying?

It's OK everyone, Richard Tice underpaying £91,000 in tax was just a "minor administrative error", whereas Angela Rayner underpaying £40,000 stamp duty was a resigning matter.

Oh, yeah, that was the Obama Iran deal.