"He won a second term on the back of ordinary Americans’ widespread anger at inequality and dissatisfaction with their economic prospects, and yet his return to office has been marked instead with a fixation on culture-war grievances that many of those supporters find alienating."
Catch up on @iandunt.bsky.social and @dorianlynskey.bsky.social's live show from last week at Bloomsbury Theatre. This will be the last bonus episode before season 9 starts next week!
Listen / watch ⬇️
linktr.ee/originstoryp...
The Sussex White Storks have hatched three little storklings 😍
www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0li...
Yeah this is a real thing happening in the actual world. They are going to rename the Donbas "Donnyland" so an orange toddler-brain demented psychopath feels less pro-Russia.
I have a history degree. Genuinely I don't know of any precedent for this much stupidity.
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/u...
A derelict Victorian building with boarded up windows, holes in the roof and overgrown with vegetation.
Guess where I was yesterday.
Compelled to point out that this is what the earliest air combat looked like around the start of the First World War; pilots shooting from their aircraft with shotguns, rifles, or pistols.
Election material from the Conservative Party came in the post today in the form of a letter from Kemi Badenoch. Lots of anti Reform stuff in it. But no mention of local issues or the fact that a Residents Party are the local favourites. Or even that the current MP for the district is Kemi Badenoch.
From yesterday: Home Secretary accepts she can grant further leave on the five-year route without the no recourse to public funds condition | Nakita Hedges
Speaking on Sky this AM about Mandelson, energy sec Ed Miliband says:
"Prime ministers make errors. Prime ministers are fallible. Prime ministers are human. As you know, I steered well clear of Peter Mandelson when I became Labour leader in 2010. But people make mistakes."
The only bet I'd make about these glasses is that someone wearing them is going to get the shit kicked out of them.
NEWS: The anti-DEI labor secretary is out amid her own personal scandal, as seems customary in Trump world.
www.advocate.com/politics/nat...
I suspect it’s the latter. “ #Palantir’s manifesto, which embraces AI state surveillance of citizens along with national service in the USA, is either a parody of a RoboCop film, or a disturbing narcissistic rant from an arrogant organisation,” said Martin Wrigley.” [Lib Dem MP] #AlexKarp #r4today
On BBC Radio Scotland this morning at 8.30am
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)
YESTERDAY: Farage pledged to deport hundreds of thousands of refugees including those who have been given asylum stays. & he did so on the anniversary -58 YRS AGO-that Enoch Powell delivered his infamous & highly divisive “rivers of blood” speech
www.ft.com/content/b9d9...
What is missing from this pretty accurate long assessment of UK-EU ties is the bigger picture vision from either side as to the future of Europe in the age of unreliable superpowers - and that is what will have to change for the relationship to move on fundamentally. www.ft.com/content/2007...
More good news.
However, we’ll probably have another day of Mandelson and more Mandelson 🙄
Sam @samfr.bsky.social sticks his neck out further than I’ve done on predicting local elections but force me to say and I’d agree with nearly all of these open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/e...
“Farage rarely turns up to do his actual job. Yet he finds time to jet off around the world on his donor’s private plane and trouser half a million quid while families struggle. Reform are not on your side. They’re just in it for themselves”
It’s so obvious, it hurts.
www.desmog.com/2026/04/18/n...
