Early days but the shine may be going off Reform.

And worth remembering that lots of people weren't racist even then. Dadabhai Naoroji was elected as an MP in 1892! www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-p...

Again, the *obvious* weakness Reform has is combining its first ~10%, who are much more conspiracy adjacent, with wider mainstream appeal. This is a wedge both Labour and Tories should be kicking. Remember how much Ref. floundered under Tice when they became the party of Covid-skepticism?

Important 🧵 Former leader of the Donbas Russian separatists Pavel Gubarev to Visioner: “…on many sections of the front we are attacking, while the enemy is defending. Because of this, we are suffering incomparably heavy losses."

Poland’s Foreign Minister cracking his knuckles.

Very interesting. Trump seems to finally be getting intelligence that Russia is not doing well and Ukraine has actually started to gain an upper hand in some areas. The narrative of Ukraine failure, which was always overblown, might be ending in Washington.

Farage is a fully paid up Trump-groupie. He’s campaigned for him. Worn his cap. And models Reform policies on Trump’s anti-minority authoritarianism, fossil fuel fandom and dangerous anti-science quackery. He pretends to be on the saner side of the line. He isn’t. Vote for angry prejudice. Get chaos

"Tariffs Will Hit Slowing U.S. Economy Hard in 2026, OECD Says" 🤔 www.wsj.com/economy/glob...

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said today that Europe is facing a “pattern” of threats at its borders, after drones disrupted air travel in Denmark and Norway overnight.

The most embarrassing moment in US history since the burning of the White House in 1812.

Unfortunately / unsurprisingly the "line" is emerging that this was a great UK government success story. Though neither of the main tariff objectives was achieved, and the tech MoU is flimsy at best in content. Though could have been much worse - Trump's interest in tech is limited.

What on Earth is this? An "in depth" BBC article about free speech in the UK that only cites examples of right-wing/ 'anti-woke' speech being suppressed. How can you mention Lucy Connolly but completely ignore Palestine Action / Just Stop Oil? Gob-smacking. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

My theory is they are being radicalized on X. It's basically a nazi grooming platform

Some of us do.

Danish Reporter about Trumps' Speech to the UN General Assembly: "We have NO idea how long he's gonna talk! It can go on for hours...." Actually, I think he's stopped.

Expertise matters. I strongly believe that one of the problems with the media has been the tendency to treat everything as just a branch of politics, and to (wrongly) assume that fundamentally politics-focused reporters can 'get across' any topic. It's not just wrong - it's enormously damaging.

On the one hand, better late than never. On the other hand: why so late? The case for doing this was just as obvious in May as it is in September.

Politics is to important to leave to political reporters. Look at how badly Chris Mason or Laura Kuennsberg do their jobs over here.

"Struggling crypto-hoarding companies are launching share buybacks in an attempt to boost their stock prices in the latest sign that this year’s “crypto treasury” craze is unravelling" on.ft.com/4gBRqTS Apparently investors are"raising questions about the business model" Yes. I have questions too

Why don’t the BBC (and other media outlets) find some of these people and get them to challenge Farage? Show the contrast between someone who does useful work in this country and someone who spends his time abroad, avoiding his day job and attacking this country.

This would be a good start. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

The Chancellor has set the date for one of the most challenging second Budgets in living memory. What should be the tax strategy for the upcoming Budget and beyond? Join @danneidle.bsky.social, Caroline Wheeler, and @ruthcurtice.bsky.social tomorrow to discuss ⤵️ buff.ly/qwa9eNG

More than anything, the MAGA phenomenon is about letting an incredibly stupid man have near-absolute power.

Major policies that have impact on life and death “based on what I feel”. Even the Taliban base their views on an illusory (in my view) higher power. Trump is completely primitive.

Why on earth the government doesn’t do a proper purge of the BBC is beyond me

breaking from me: the trump administration just suffered its first major loss in court over its onslaught on offshore wind the revolution wind project can now resume construction after a federal judge found its developer orsted was likely to win against the trump order to stop work @heatmap.news

oh bravo @privateeyenews.bsky.social 🏆

#bbcnews had an interview with Ed Davey on 6 o’clock news tonight. What did Chris Mason ask him about? Yes you guessed it - Nigel Farage. Nothing about LibDem policies. Mason forced the discussion back to Farage over and over again. Disgraceful journalism.

I’m old enough to remember Harvey Proctor getting booed at the 1983 Tory conference for suggesting something like this.

Last day of astronomical summer today. Autumn Equinox is at 19:19 BST. www.timeanddate.com/calendar/sep...

Small boats: TV coverage - day after day after day after day.... PPE scandal: TV coverage - let's stick this powerful, enraging documentary on at quarter past ten on a Sunday night.

This touches on the problem with any deportation policy by the 'modern' Right – ultimately there will be no bottom to it. The Right's faulty internal dynamics, demonstrated in spades with Brexit, will always result in them doubling down, driven by gobby/emotion-pushing outriders like Lowe.

Greed wins out over Free Speech when it comes to CEOs and Board of Directors. That is the reason for canceling Disney subscriptions. If it hurts the wallet, greedy CEOs will change their minds.

Picture's worth a thousand words. '‘Send your daughters or you get no aid’: the Taliban are making religious schools girls’ only option', www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Reform are now coming after people with permanent residency. It'll be citizens next. No one is safe from authoritarian governments.

Oh very good. Applies to a lot of other organisations too!

Some years ago I went to the National Archives to see the original of this map, drawn by TE Lawrence and presented to the British war cabinet in November 1918. Proposes a divvying up in which Faisal getting Syria and Transjordan, and Abdullah gets Iraq. Always struck by the ?? over Kurdistan.

A BBC investigation exposed a Russian-backed operation spreading disinformation ahead of Moldova’s 28 September election. Recruits were paid to post fakes, distort polling, and film opponents. The network is linked to Kremlin-aligned, sanctioned oligarch Ilan Shor. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Wonderful thread on Leicestershire churches, some of which I know, many of which I don’t. Growing up in Nottinghamshire, I used to say of Leicestershire, “We’ve got the city, they’ve got the villages.”

I’ve learnt something new today. Some counties had counter-exclaves! I’ve always thought exclaves were bonkers enough but this….!

On ITV tonight. @quaestorix.bsky.social says we have to record it because she doesn’t want to watch something before bed that will make her blood boil. www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

Can't work out from this piece whether it's the coke, the fraud or the kicking of a police officer in the head that Liz thinks he's been unfairly demonised for. So I'll presume it's all of it.

"Migrants try to move from Germany and other European countries to Britain partly because of Brexit. After Britain left the eu in 2020, it lost access to the Eurodac fingerprint database that shows whether an asylum-seeker has previously applied in another country" Oh my goodness

What a galaxy brained strategy. Campaign for Brexit in order to make it *harder* to manage immigration, then whip up massive fury on the issue to win power after that. Then fail to solve the problem. What patriots.

One of the great ironies of the immigration problem is that the people trying to come here think Britain is brilliant, the people most furious about them trying to come here pretend they think it's a crime ridden dump www.economist.com/britain/2025... From The Economist

Maybe - just a crazy idea, but bear with me for a moment! - the reason why the Lib Dems should not “get serious“ is that the UK’s most important media organisation covers politics in babytalk so much of the time?

What "impact"?

“The truth is that we exited the European Union, we left the Dublin convention, we did not have arrangements in place with countries to return” Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy

Yes - all the people objecting now are going to be massively screwed when they run up to old age and realise that not only is their personal pension tiny, there's barely any state pension to top it up

Most younger people advocating the abolition of triple-lock are on the red line here. It’s hard to imagine a greater act of financial self-harm.