The mega-queue for pass printing on a Saturday at Labour Party Conference makes me think maybe they just didn't send any out this year?

If I were the Labour government, I would simply govern on behalf of the people who elected me in 2024 and might vote for me next time.

First thought, was I know I'm tired but I didn't realise I'd slept for 3 years. This is an absolutely crazy way to use and report polling. It should not be getting this kind of priority at this stage in an electoral cycle.

Selling ID cards as the way to stop illegal immigration rather than as a tool to simplify everyone’s lives is yet another colossal and very obvious mistake.

I would genuinely like to know who the hell in the No.10 comms team thinks: 1) that a comms strategy from 1995 was the way to do the big 'unite the country' message 2) that leading it with 'our opponents were right' was a good plan At least its in the Telegraph so no one will see it

Hard to overstate how much it grinds my gears to see the PM is framing the value and benefits of digital identity to appeal to people he has _no_ chance of getting on side. But making employing someone a doddle, no matter who you are and where you're from, is undoubtedly one of the many benefits.

Excellent thread, outlines the issues with this way of framing the argument well. Voters aren't stupid, they know when they're trying to be appeased. We need an argument of substance and coherence, and to take the risk that not everyone will agree with it.

We have one of the highest minimum wages in the OECD! I am just begging for a government that actually engages with the economy and the public policy choices we *actually have*!

This really sums up everything wrong with Kemi Badenoch, just a politician incapable of not responding with partisan caterwauling, and of doing her job properly. “This needs a national debate”, imagine for a moment that it will involve a legislative process and parliamentary debates. Do your job!

“You’ve got sadness in you, I’ve got sadness in me – and my works of art are places where the two sadnesses can meet, and therefore both of us need to feel less sad.” HBD, Mark Rothko ...

Burnham’s positioning in the NS and Telegraph is essentially “I will continue to deny the constraints like Keir Starmer, while being even more explicitly hostile to London and the South, where a majority of parliamentary seats are”. Hard to see how that works well for Labour.

Mrs R: "There was a woman on the ward today who didn't want to take paracetamol. We've had to explain that we're not giving it to her because she's got a fever and we want her to feel better, but because she's got a fever and if we don't get her temperature down then her baby is going to die."

Never understand anyone who slags off London. Have you been here? It’s fucking amazing.

statistic of the day

"You had 60,000 people in hotels. At least 59,000 of them weren't going to Rwanda. You didn't have any plan at all for 99% of them did you?" was not a question he was asked on Today

The even more unbelievable crime fact (which I learned relatively recently) is that burglary has fallen by more than 90% since the 1990s. Did anyone notice? Nope. Does anyone believe it? Nope. But is is true? It is!

Noticed this on the BBC Radio 2 news this morning* - the first line was "Trump makes speech, saying many unproven things" Great to hear - now do it with Reform, guys. *I love Scott Mills, sue me.

There should be a high bar for politicians attacking the media, but maybe Ed Davey has half a point here? For example, the first three paragraphs of this BBC story repeat Reform's £243bn figure without saying that the thinktank behind the estimate now disowns it. (This is mentioned in paragraph 35)

In 2019, my world was blown apart by the death of my best friend Nichola. This week I wrote about how much she meant to me, and the specific challenges that come with grieving a close friend, in @theguardian.com

Strongly suggest subscribing, good local journalism is so essential at the moment. Has scared me off Lime bikes though.

Sarah Andersen, contemporary US cartoonist and illustrator #womensart

Say what you will about them but at least Change UK managed to have a Nando’s dinner first

It’s going to break your heart how many people you know, love, and respect will turn out to be cowards. Prepare yourself as best you can. You are not alone, but you are your own center. Be a strong center.

Indeed, as I wrote on Tuesday. It might sound alarmist, but it's pretty clear we're following down a similar track: national.thelead.uk/p/america-tr...

All political tribes can be hypocritical but the right's current level of hypocrisy on free speech is deliberate. It's an assertion of power not a blindspot.

When Ted Heath sacked Enoch Powell he was acting in the face of a majority in favour. Harold Wilson backed him up and called the speech “evil”. Long past time for Keir and Kemi to do the same.

Absolutely !!!insane!!! to me that the UK government, lobby and newspapers litigate at length every minor infraction by the BBC, rival newspapers, or what some random columnist has posted. But all of them just carry on not even commenting about this media owner. He’s not hiding, he’s telling you!

In a queue to join another queue, what an exciting morning.

One can be crystal clear that political violence is utterly out of bounds, mourn a human being's death, mourn his children's loss of their father, condemn his murder, without actively sanitising the far right at a time when the far right itself poses a severe, violent threat to people everywhere.

Just utterly horrific, a despicable act, a personal tragedy and an anathema to democracy.

This is maybe the Most Art that a Banksy has ever been

This is such positive, powerful, direct communication. The fact that this seems so remarkable and so rare speaks volumes about our failure to stand up to the fossil fuel lobby.

I wrote about what I think is a genuinely revealing document of elite depravity and impunity. It is shocking and sickening. But it's also a crucial moment. We're about to see what happens when conspiracy theorists actually get what they asked for but it turns out not to be what they want.

Shabana Mahmood's promotion to Home Office is best explained by how she handled the prisons crisis, which had run for years. She took several big unpopular decisions fast and at once – getting awful headlines, but crucially addressing the worst of the problem so it didn't resurface monthly.

Also the first time the three great offices of state (FCDO, Home, CX) have all been held by women at the same time.

Laurie Magnus: Rayner acted "in good faith", had "the intention to pay all appropriate taxes", "was twice informed in writing" that the lower rate was due, "sought quickly to correct the mistake", "acted with integrity", but didn't seek expert advice. That was a mistake. But I find this much worse⬇️

This is really excellent. I was in Norway around the same time, and feel slightly embarrassed telling people how beautiful and perfect it all was.

The takeaway: 👉 Accommodating the radical right on immigration doesn’t win back voters. 👉 It alienates the progressive base. 👉 And it raises the salience of the very issue the radical right owns. In short: it’s electoral self-harm.

He brings up kids who’ve travelled from Portugal to see the band and says “we’re all just people, friend” and then brings a kid with muscular dystrophy to be on stage for a song and it’s so easy to roll your eyes but it’s just good and nice and the world is better for celebrities who do this

My conclusion from the Coldplay gig is that it’s good when celebrities are cringe in pursuit of being good people

any US congressman who is fully across a row between the Nottingham Post and Nottinghamshire council is welcome to holiday in the Cotswolds AT ANY TIME, and we will not refuse to serve him in our farm shops

Nigel Farage just repeatedly denied – under oath! – to @raskin.house.gov ever banning journalists he doesn’t like from his party’s conventions. This happened to me *literally today*.

The reporting of this did the rounds a week or so ago but I think it’s nice to hear it from the horse’s mouth if you will. What a great and warm thing for him to have done. I hope people who might not have ever considered the importance of learning about others take something from it.

Nigel Farage is about to give evidence to the US Congress on threats to free speech in the UK. So here's one for him: Reform UK has just banned me (and @thenewworldmag.bsky.social) from attending its party conference this weekend. www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-w...

Must read - something quite wrong with the current strategy, on both a moral and political front. It's more important than ever to make the case for progressive governing.

I don't disagree with the first two sentences, but I think in general there's been far too much movement from 'not really noticing the problem' to 'despair'. Let's experiment with 'people and organisations try and enforce the norm' and then see if it is actually hard for it to be re-bottled.

It is insane to me that the richest man in the world is using his global megaphone to call for millions of British people to be rounded up and deported (including my family) and somehow this isn’t even news.

To take the lowest hanging of fruit: If I wanted to keep the damn hands of the far right off my flag, which I do, I would have invited the winning England team to Downing Street on a day the prime minister could actually make and be in the photographs and clips for!