Bath Abbey showing solidarity with the people of Ukraine on the fourth anniversary of Russia’s 2022 invasion.

I’ve had to mute a few touchy Arsenal fans over this. Thing is, I can’t really blame any football team for doing what works within the rules. I just think blockading the keeper is ugly to watch and part of a general negative trend that’s making football less interesting as a spectacle.

This pub league corner kick routine that Arsenal started is really indicative of the disintegration of modern football. It’s hideous to watch.

‘Land of the Free’ latest.

Hearts, Hearts, Glorious Hearts. Those are my thoughts as the weekend draws to a close and I sit down to watch Sportscene.

Another couple of hours pacing around, manically hitting the refresh button with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. A happy ending to this one than, thankfully. Only two more months of torture to go.

The main goal for the UK and other European countries over the next decade is to put ourselves in a position where we no longer have to care about whatever crazy shit America has decided to do.

There is nothing “false” about linking Andrew Murray to the Kremlin. He actively promoted a fringe Ukrainian party subsequently exposed as a front for Russian intelligence. He shared a platform with two of its members. His proximity to this story make investigation of a Russian angle entirely valid.

I’d certainly make Melania firm favourite to win the FIFA Oscars.

Unless the US is prepared to launch a ground invasion - which it very much isn’t - I don’t see what it can hope to achieve here. You can’t topple a regime with bombing alone. It’s been tried.

If we’re this happy to see one member of the Royal Family arrested, imagine how good it would feel to rid of the whole monarchy.

This is worth reading for anyone who wants to understand why the Filton 6 were acquitted. It’s also an important reminder of why jury trials remain an essential safeguard against abuses of state power. It reveals shocking attempts to withhold evidence and pervert the course of justice.

The Government can’t be allowed to just brush this off. Either Cooper is not telling the truth when she says the process was correctly followed or the process itself is deeply flawed. There needs to be an inquiry to find out which.

The High Court has rightly overturned the ban on Palestine Action. I could see the government’s defeat on this coming six months ago. Why couldn’t ‘top lawyer’ Keir Starmer? He may be terrible at politics, but he is at least supposed to be good at this.

We focus a lot on the judiciary and the media, but the subordination of independent polling organisations is an under-discussed feature of authoritarian creep. It is essential in helping populist leaders to monopolise the public narrative. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

The large majority of immigrants contribute to our economy by working and paying taxes, which is more than this tax dodging tosser does.

It’s only natural. Never in doubt.

The UK drops a point because Lord Ali was given a Downing Street pass. The US drops a point after the Trump family helps itself to $4bn of public money. 🤔

The funniest thing about this map is that there’s a Dutch Progressive Community at completely the opposite end from the Dutch Progressive Politics and Culture people. I think this must tell us something about the Dutch.

The good news is that after today we won’t have to listen to any more boring shit about the Super Bowl for another year.

“Rejoinerism”? Yeah, who needs a policy that’s guaranteed to lift growth and has broad public support? Let’s just continue to blame everything on immigrants.

I don’t know why people have a downer on VAR. The social function of football is to provide talking points. VAR does that in spades. It’s opened up a whole new dimension of partisan moaning and futile argument.

I’ve been trying to think of an example of where the resignation of a controversial aide has helped a Prime Minister turn their fortunes around - Alan Walters, Alastair Campbell, Damian McBride, Dominic Cummings. The precedents are not good for Starmer, are they?

This is nonsense because an early election isn’t in Starmer’s hands. The King would surely refuse a dissolution of Parliament on the grounds that someone else would be able to form a majority. The PLP would close ranks to ensure it.

I like Michael Carrick’s post-Punk frontman look.

Listening to Gordon Brown this morning was my regular reminder that the country took a serious wrong turning when it dumped him in favour of that superficial posh boy, David Cameron.

Says the woman who gave Mandelson a patsy interview only last month. Labour is rightly shamed by all of this, but there really needs to be more focus on how Mandelson was protected over many years by his gaggle of media pals.

Dominic Sandbrook was on 5 Live just now confidently predicting that the Mandelson scandal was about to fizzle out because everything was now known and the story has nowhere else to go. As he was speaking the police were raiding Mandelson’s homes. 🤦‍♂️😂

I’m no fan of Labour Together, but journalists are a bit hypocritical about this kind of thing. Journalists are public figures wielding significant power over public debate. Their actions and motives deserve scrutiny using all the legal investigative means they themselves are happy to use.

“Trump authorized ‘is murder.” I could only read that in a cockney villain stage voice, like Bill Sykes or something. It felt weirdly appropriate.

Is it just me or does anyone else find Shakespeare incomprehensible? I can’t deny the passion of this performance, but it might as well be in Hungarian. Do you develop an ear for it after a while or is it something we’re supposed to understand?

Here’s the thing👇. Starmer can be faulted for lack of charisma, poor judgement and the absence of any discernible principles. The main problem, however, is his stubborn attachment to what must count as the most blunderingly foolish political strategy adopted by any major party leader in decades.

Starmer is now in the apology stage of his downfall. So we still have a sacking, an inquiry and at least one attempted relaunch to go. Have I missed any stages?

One thing that ought now to be clear from the Mandelson revelations is that the Blairites weren’t just soft on oligarchs and the super rich, they actively colluded with them against the public interest. They did so because they wanted to join.

What people arguing about whether Epstein was a Russian or Israeli spy failed to understand is that monogamy doesn’t exist in the intelligence world.

Don’t have kids, get drunk. That’s Farage’s plan to save the country.

Everyone is fixating on the U-16 social media ban in Spain, but the full package of policies announced by PM Sanchez is much more radical than that. This is what real leadership looks like. We need this here. We need it now.

Adding to Starmer’s woes and questions about his judgement, the entire basis for his decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation has just collapsed. The proscription order should be rescinded at once and the Government should apologise for abusing anti-terror laws.

The Government can’t be the final decision maker on what, if anything, gets held back from the Mandelson files if it wants to restore confidence. That responsibility should be given to Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee or some other cross-party entity.

None of this is a surprise. Chomsky’s complete indifference to the suffering caused by anti-Western regimes always spoke to a deep lack of humanity, illustrated again here in his indifference to Epstein’s victims. What a nasty piece of work. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

I wonder if Andy Burnham is now quietly relieved that he was blocked from standing in the by-election? Even his local popularity might not have enough to overcome the desire of voters to give Labour a thumping.

This is like going after Al Capone for tax evasion.

Something tells me this is going to involve Russia.

Trump would have to be cross-examined under oath about his relationship with Epstein, which is why this is never going to happen.

Another example of the state’s attempt to criminalise support for the Palestinians. I predict that any attempt to prosecute this will collapse when the meaning of ‘intifada’ is tested in court and found not to be a synonym for terrorism as the police falsely claim.

Putin might easily decide to kill Zelensky in Moscow, believing that the consequences would be short-term and manageable. That’s how badly deterrence has been eroded through a combination of Western weakness and Trump.

It astonishes me that hardly anyone can see what Kisin for what he is. Says he loves the West, but just happens to hate all the things that make it the West. Attacks it repeatedly using thinly disguised Putinist culture war talking points. Of course, our self-styled ‘patriots’ lap it all up.

This is the second day in a row that Reform UK has threatened to use the law to punish “hurty words”. Imagine what would happen to free speech in this country if Farage ever got his hands on state power.

An “anti-imperialism” that aligns with the most aggressive form of modern imperialism - Putin’s Russia - is just a hypocritical facade.

Do we want the UK to be consumed by the same destructive hatred we’re seeing in America? That has to be the central question of the next election.