"All that's left is 3 million horrible photographs of Epstein and his mates doing terrible things, which isn't enough for us to prosecute anybody, so the case is closed." Literally. That's his argument. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

An interesting report on the role of bookshops in the community. Focused on Wales but can equally apply to England, Wales, Ireland 📚📚📚🌞 www.booksellers.org.uk/getattachmen...

This comment betrays the complete incoherence at the top of Welsh rugby. The 'optimal solution' talked about cohesion, about having access to players. RCK recently talked about the difficulty Tandy had in arranging a get-together with players. Yet, simultaneously, they're better off in Gloucester.

Our important work at Kent Council to spend £600k on a car park to provide free parking for Reform councillors while staff have to pay, is all part of our 'We don't give a shit about anyone but ourselves' policy.

This is a thoughtful write-up by @kenanmalik.bsky.social on the discourse around struggling areas. One of the arguments I made in my recent report is that government/politicians need to address material conditions *and* communicate how they care about people/places that feel overlooked/neglected.

EXCLUSIVE: It is an 'insult' to expect taxpayers to foot the bill for Peter Mandelson's return to the Lords after fresh revelations over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the SNP have said

Three things: 1) holy sh*t. 2) Gloucester are 1 from 10 this season, Ospreys are 4 from 11. 3) this thinking infects the men’s and women’s national teams too. We are already at the point where English based players are being preferred to Welsh based players www.thetimes.com/sport/rugby-...

Ok, let’s do this🙄 We’ll start with an explainer covering: 🕒What is a 15-minute city 🏫What on Earth is going on with Oxford 👽Where the conspiracy theories have come from And then we’ll look at the Telegraph article 🧵 1/25

This literally made me LOL this morning.

Most of Epstein’s victims were either too frightened to come forward, or silenced through legal threats. Oh, and here’s a senior British politician giving Epstein tips on how to silence them

In a South Wales context, there are not many worse things you can be compared to than the NCB in the 80s… ex-miner Anthony Buchanan knows exactly what he’s doing here, and I hope every member of the WRU board gets that, and feels the stain of it on them, when they pick up the Times today.

The chuzpah on Jamie Roberts turning up to an Ospreys match when he's on the WRU Board #OSPvDRA

Curse of Private Equity Asda has lost its mojo and has a big fight to get it back. Debt £3.8bn. Annual finance cost £611m. Staff/Wages cut. Low investment. Suppliers squeezed, less customer choice, assets sold-off piecemeal. Market share down. Future?

From today’s Sunday Times. It should shame the WRU Execs but I don’t think they care.

gwladrugby.wordpress.com/2026/01/31/d... Do Not Go Gently, Ospreys There is something almost poetic about the Ospreys’ current predicament. Not poetic in the soaring, triumphant sense—more in the Dylan Thomas, rage against the dying of the light sense.

URBANISM IS POLITICS

"It is alleged that some senior figures among Welsh rugby’s so-called “big three” have not attended a single URC match involving a Welsh region this season. As Dylan Thomas might put it, doing absolutely LLAREGGUB". Nathaniel Hale for Gwladrugby. gwladrugby.wordpress.com/2026/01/31/d...

If all these oligarchs named in the Epstein Files are totally innocent, surely they’d be in favor of an independent investigation into Epstein’s crimes. Right?

How on earth did this uncouth buffoon ever make it to the White House? More baffling, how on earth is he still allowed to continue wrecking the country; economically, socially and politically? The U.S. is sadly unrecognisable!

every epstein file drop underscores how elite power operates through shared socio-economic networks, regardless of people's ideological differences, populist posturing, or public feuds

This lays out the true terror of what’s coming. Politics being replaced by technology to drive through legal changes whereby the world is run for the rich, not the irrelevant voters. This is real. Do read and repost - @carolecadwalla.bsky.social truly understands the situation.

I’ve written this lengthy FT analysis overnight about the multiple multi-thousand pound Epstein payments to Mandelson’s husband these particular paragraphs are worth reading slowly www.ft.com/content/608a...

Honestly what is the point of having a programme that is *not* live if you are not going to use that function to aggressively factcheck the people on it?

Andrew might face further sanctions, perhaps even moving again to a mansion that is slightly smaller than the last one

Do you have a research project that would benefit from extra funding? The VAG offers grants for the study and presentation of vernacular architecture and there's still time to submit an application for the current round of Research Grants! Closing date: 28 February. See www.vag.org.uk/grants.htm.

This is the start, in the run up to the 10th anniversary, to try and change the narrative that brexit has been an unmittigated disaster. They're re-hashing the "but we haven't had a proper brexit yet" bullshit. It hasn't worked yet and won't work again.

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NEW: Elon Musk has insisted that Jeffrey Epstein invited him to the notorious island and he declined. But new emails show the opposite -- Musk was practically begging to party with Epstein in the Caribbean, years after Epstein's sex convictions were public knowledge futurism.com/future-socie...

Please don't put in the paper that I specifically asked to go to the wildest party hosted by the worlds most famous pedophile

Well i think its a try for the Scarlets but what happened at half time. That fog.

4 Black journalists have been kidnapped by the federal government

Ok - clarification- the new refinancing deal only kicks in when the Y11 / WRU / Cardiff deal is signed. THEN the £14m gets repaid to WG. You can see why the WRU are in such a hurry to get this done.

24 hours later: Trump has two journalists arrested

But the BBC told me that the President was pivoting to change the national conversation and de-escalating! They can't have ignored a decade and more's evidence of he truly is!

New Town development corporations were in a unique position to recoup land value uplift, which resulted from their wider investment into the town & its expansion. But the premature sale of assets has had a damaging impact on town centres. Our new blog explores New Town assets: shorturl.at/T5VSs

Two posts over the last couple of weeks on retail vacancy and what to do about it. First by me stirlingretail.com/2026/01/19/r... Second by @vacantshopsacademy.bsky.social stirlingretail.com/2026/01/26/r... @scotlandstowns.bsky.social @stir.ac.uk

This. I'm not a BBC-basher but IMO Mason is a poor political journalist. It's not that he's 'biased' per se, it's that he reports politics as a kind of giggly spectator sport and as such is preoccupied with spectacle, talking up 'exciting' events rather than analysing them. 1/2

Chris Mason is pretty much a full on propagandist for Farage now.

ICE is upset that ICE isn't welcome in restaurants after ICE ordered food at a restaurant, ate it, then arrested restaurant employees, and ICE believes this is someone else's fault, do I have that right?

Let’s get places to try halve their headline vacancy rate and drop the long-stuck national empties percent into single figures. Seeing the government is planning to publish a ‘High Streets Strategy’ later this year, I thought to re-table the top item on my tackling #highstreet vacancy ‘manifesto’…

Possibly the main reason why the people ignoring Trump's depravity are as dangerous as the ones excusing or actively supporting is that he wil clearly start a war to avoid scrutiny of anything from ICE to Epstein if he thinks he will get away with it.

Putin's lapdog is at it again.

The Boss has spoken.

This confirms my feeling…that Find Out Now are not a good actor. Why would you release a poll with a sample size of 143? What’s the point of it? (A boost for Labour, tho, in that I assume they will plaster this all over their ads in the home it “becomes” true.

Honestly embarrassing to put this out based on such a tiny sample.

Can the BBC now please stop referring to CBS as their partner news organisation? It's clearly holed beneath the waterline and there's a loony on the bridge. The BBC urgently needs to cut itself loose.

N=142, not a serious poll.

So basically Albert Speer’s defense at Nuremberg.

This is how the BBC is reporting Matt Goodwin's selection as Reform's candidate in Gorton and Denton. He's not an academic. He holds no academic position and hasn't done for quite some time.