Farage says he's "boycotting the BBC" all the time. Here he is last year. Normally lasts until the next invitation comes.

Nigel Farage said their flagship council in Kent would be a "shop window" for how they would run the country. Just months after taking over they're now set to slash multiple council committees as they struggle to fill posts after sacking nine of their own councillors bylinetimes.com/2025/11/12/r...

This and @davidallengreen.bsky.social's previous post are must-reads on the Trump - BBC thing.

Lib Dem Leader @eddavey.libdems.org.uk: "A great British institution is under attack from a foreign government. President Trump is trying to destroy our BBC... Trump has undermined press freedom in America. Now he's trying to do the same here, disgracefully egged on by the leader of Reform."

NEW The letter the BBC could send back to Trump A proposal for a reply to his $1bn claim By me. Enjoy. emptycity.substack.com/p/the-letter...

Just amazing stuff from the strategic geniuses in No10 🤦🏻‍♀️

I suspect being sued for a billion dollars by Donald Trump, who is about as popular as cholera in Britain, for saying something true about what Trump did (albeit with a bad edit) will probably do the BBC's public trust and approval ratings quite a lot of good in the end.

Finally, a bit of a reality check from our 2024 election book (out soon!) for everyone hyperventilating about collapsing public trust in the BBC - free to air TV (mostly the BBC) is still the most widely consumed and widely trusted source of news - blows print, online & social media out of the water

Irish business save millions by not adapting pointless and non functioning “ai” services

Cash seized in Chinese student money laundering case bit.ly/3JOPN9E

‘Maybe the lesson of the first National Grid is that the state should own and operate more assets, just in case.’ Interesting as ever from @arthurdowning.bsky.social energynetworks.substack.com/p/the-grid-a...

What is it about Far Right MEPs?

Nowhere in the hysterical pile-on against the BBC in the British press has anyone mentioned that BBC News now has 77 million viewers & listeners in the US and has established itself as the second most trusted news source there.

“Trump has managed to cow huge swathes of America’s institutional media, despite the supposed protections the First Amendment offers. Thanks to his friendly relationship with tech CEOs, he has huge sway over online media, too. The bully pulpit has never been more powerful than under Trump.”

The collapse of Noah Smith from 'interesting writer whose occasionally a bit random' into 'complete idiot and mentalist' is one of the most clear cut cases of twitter-poisoning I've seen

Net zero is one of the many areas where commentators are out-of-touch with public opinion in Britain. There is still broad support for cutting carbon emissions - except from among Reform supporters, who are the outliers.

Media lawyer explains significant legal hurdles Trump faces to sue BBC

Another case of Reform saying one thing then doing the other: A Reform-led council is planning to double council tax on second homes six months after party leader Nigel Farage denounced such policies as “madness” and “extortion” By me, for Politics Home www.politicshome.com/news/article...

Today’s labour market statistics show that the labour market is weakening on multiple fronts, with unemployment reaching 5 per cent for the first time in almost a decade (pandemic period aside). Here’s our @resolutionfoundation.org thread, from @nyecominetti.bsky.social and me.

Well I’ve long thought @nyecominetti.bsky.social did some impressive stuff (economics, labour market analysis and all that) but this….

UK unemployment rate rose more than expected to 5 per cent on.ft.com/49iGIjT

Or presumably even a nominal award if a judge - plausibly - decided that any falsity didn’t actually damage his reputation (given that his role in the 6 January events is pretty well established eg by the Congressional inquiry).

(I’m not a defamation lawyer, but it seems pretty obvious that any case brought here would result in at best a modest award.)

A question not asked by Joshua, but which seems quite important, is whether any judgment by a Florida court (assuming as Joshua does that it would assert jurisdiction) would be enforceable here. Any views?

"Research released this month by economists at the Bank of England, the Bundesbank, King’s College London and the universities of Stanford and Nottingham underscored the economic hit from leaving the EU. Brexit had reduced UK GDP by 6-8%" on.ft.com/4p1NoHv

Works better if you imagine 10,000 angry Chris Giles's shouting it outside the ONS

"A BBC edit was harsh to Trump so the people in charge there have been fired" is just such a bonkers story showing how much of the UK right is being colonized by Trump simps engaged in a culture war against their own country. An "issue" with close to zero resonance for the average British person.

The CURRENT sitting MP for Clacton earns £511,000 as a presenter for GB News and took £281,000 as a brand ambassador for Direct Bullion. So maybe sit this one out, you rancid herring.

i literally went for a drink at the french house literally this afternoon what are we even doing here

A single shared source of truth is essential for a functioning democracy. Without it you’re left with fragmentation, polarisation and a perpetual culture war where the discourse focuses on what divides us rather than what we have in common. My column from last week: www.ft.com/content/5060...

Latest @theguardian.com cartoon #BBC www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

If Trump does sue the BBC for $1bn it may leave some of his ideological fellow travellers here in a tricky situation. Do the Conservatives and Reform join in with BBC bashing? Or will doing so be seen as unpatriotic? After all, it would be the British public who would ultimately pay for any damages.

Boycott Checkatrade!!! #BoycottCheckatrade

It's rubbish anyway. Know a couple of builders who are "checked" and wouldn't trust them to sweep my drive.

It’s going to be interesting to watch what impact this has on a consumer facing business that ties itself so closely to Farage and Reform. Will it achieve the Tesla effect?

SUPERB and angrily unvarnished response, by former BBC chairman, Lord Patten. "I don't think that we should allow ourselves to be bullied into thinking that the BBC is only any good, if it reflects the prejudice of the last person who shouted at it." ~AA

Robbie Gibb criticising the BBC for journalistic standards is a glass house so big you could hold the Great Exhibition of 1851 in it and still have room for an excellent tomato crop

Grimly depressing that someone so directly and obviously connected with the spread of misinformation has so far succeeded in pushing claims about 'bias' at the BBC -- and that you have to really work hard reading the news reports to extract this crucial piece of information.

Isn’t the answer to this for the Scottish government to increase the income tax rate too? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Last night, Dick Tice launched Students4Reform (See what they did there, the scamps? They replaced "for" WITH THE NUMBER). It will be led by Matt Goodwin, a man in his mid-forties, and it looked exactly like you imagine. ~AA

Public trust in media (Reuters/Oxford) 2024 reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news...

Can’t wait to hear fuel duty get frozen again in the budget in ten days or so!!

Summed up my thread on one sentence.

The story of the west & China is one moral bankruptcy followed by literal bankruptcy

The time to confront it was 20 years ago but those of us who argued for it were dismissed or ridiculed. China was going to be coaxed into the liberal democratic world by trade and the Olympics. Didn’t happen and was never going to.

China's growth also makes it likelier than countries will have more dependencies on them, just as they used to do on the EU and US... and yes pharmaceuticals is one sector of concern. This is all basic stuff but usually ignored. www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/econog...

All things being equal, a growing and competitive domestic market should also enable its companies to compete better globally than a shrinking one trying to protect itself. The EU and US are making it easy for China to grow its global trade. www.ft.com/content/c84b...

Huh? How do you do a "balancing" program when one candidate did an insurgency trying to overturn the election and the other...didn't? Would Prescott have been satisfied with an hour of people telling BBC journalists why they didn't try and stoke a riot to overturn Trump's second win?

It’s the laziness that’s so galling. You have one of the easiest jobs in media. Do a little bit of work.