On days like this I keep thinking back to this blog post by Polly Mackenzie about Starmer's Levers and how he had apparently expected to be able pull them in order to get an ambassador appointed or something like that.
howtorunacountry.substack.com/p/there-aren...
"Dangerous misunderstanding" is quite a phrase.
Will never forget when my phone was confiscated at secondary school because I got a phone call telling me a family member was in the hospital, and this meant I had caring responsibilities. Told them and school still insisted on taking it off me even though I needed to, you know, do that caring.
There’s just always a suitable Yes Minister or Yes Minister clip.
youtu.be/NX45hc0aZt0?...
I'd be willing to wager that Starmer never watched Yes Minister / Yes Prime Minister. Yet somehow, I could see him being a The Thick of It fan.
(BTW Yes Minister's Party Games is just sublime.)
He's the VAR Prime Minister; universally loathed, makes poor decisions despite a great process lads, still can't help Arsenal win anything
I suspect they like being called Brummies about as much as the good people of Solihull. (Which isn't in Birmingham, but they get called it all the time regardless.)
Very interesting as always.
You may like to know that Birmingham has 1 Town Council - Sutton Coldfield - and, even better, 1 Parish Council - New Frankley in Birmingham.
They also have elections in a couple of weeks time:
www.birmingham.gov.uk/info/20097/e...
So Palantir are like Fascist fascists i see yeah maybe we shouldn’t integrate the nazi computer into the NHS
Just read Kevin Danso has been receiving racist abuse since yesterday.
One mistake. He's been great for Spurs in those inconsistent opportunities he's had, and has twice the heart of a certain Argentine fraud.
If you're giving Kevin racist abuse, you can fuck yourself and fuck off out of the club.
Provided the euro bit of the calculation is a close call, we should definitely rejoin! It's a no brainer! A different matter whether people can be made to understand that. People could not be made to understand that it was a huge mistake to Brexit in the first place.
If a robot one day delivers a parcel to your front door, would you say thank you?
www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/a...
What should have happened: the REIT paid no tax but the Tice companies holding shares in the REIT paid ÂŁ98k tax on the dividends they received. What actually happened: none of the companies paid any tax.
Our new report: Richard Tice signed accounts wrongly claiming ÂŁ98,000 of tax exemptions
A 🧵 with the evidence:
I see that Iceland vs England Euro Qualifier is being shown on ITV4 this afternoon (ko 5:30).
At that time on ITV’s other channels:
ITV1: News, followed by Celebrity Catchphrase
ITV2: King Fu Panda
ITV3: Midsommer Murders
That seems to me to be a howler on ITV’s part.
None of these are good scenarios for Starmer. Either there is a culture of fear between No10 and FCDO that overrides national security concerns (1) or No10 overrides national security concerns without telling Starmer (2) or Starmer has lied (3).
No10’s account is incredible.
I held Developed Vetting for nearly ten years and spent three years at the heart of the Cabinet Office. I have never heard of a Developed Vetting denial being overruled. Here’s why…🧵
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Paxman’s “why is this liar lying to me” mantra wasn’t wrong.
NEW: Interview w/ Lib Dem leader Ed Davey
🔶 Davey thinks the Lib Dems could pick up environmental-focused Green voters who are unhappy with their party’s leftward shift
👀 He shares some of his more critical MPs’ “restlessness”
🇺🇸 Hillary Clinton gave him some “choice advice” about fighting Reform
Tisza party
Magyar victory speech here. These people are so euphoric now. Damn I hope he can manage it!
walking from my election party to the Tisza rally and we heard crowds cheering in the distance as Orban officially conceded 🥰
Trump, Putin, Farage… your boy took a hell of a beating.
Congratulations to the people of Hungary for showing that populist extremists can be defeated – even despite Donald Trump’s best efforts.
The last game I went to at the old stadium was a 4-0 win against Watford. Dele scored an absolute peach - beautifully curled into the far corner. That was 8 April 2017, so a few days before he turned 21.
FAO @markpackuk.bsky.social
A few potential updates for you:
Of the 62 Reform Councillors elected on May 1st 2025 that are no longer Reform Councillors:
17 have stood down as a Councillor
22 are now Independents
12 have gone to Restore
6 to Advance
4 to the Conservatives
1 has set up her own party: Better Way Of
That's an incredible amount of churn.
Of the 70 in Mark's list:
3 have gone back to Reform
1 was a defection rather than elected as Reform
5 were elected in by elections rather than on 1st May 2025
So that leaves 61. One of whom was a double hatter - elected to 2 Councils on the same day.
Been having a bit of fun going through Mark Pack's list of Councillors Reform has lost since May.
The question I was trying to answer was how many of the 677 Reform Cllrs elected last May have they lost.
Eighth possible update - number 67 - Andrew Barry - seems he defected to Reform rather than being elected as Reform - so should he appear in the "Other Reform councillors who have gone" section?
nation.cymru/news/reform-...
Seventh update - number 45 - Caroline Gladwin of isle of Wight Council appears to have rejoined Reform.
iow.moderngov.co.uk/mgUserInfo.a...
