Reform is a protest party. A protest against decency, integrity, kindness, expertise, and progress. It's a party of pettiness and hate, and it is made up of petty and hateful people from the grassroots to the very top. What it doesn't have is competence. So good luck with the bins and potholes.

Is there an update on this awfully sad story?

NEW: Weekend News Agents A story which hasn’t had as much attention as it should. How did Reform become so financially dependent on one Thailand based crypto billionaire? And why did that donor personally gift Farage £5m? Listen now podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

A woman recording an ICE agent tells him "Shame on you." The agent responds, "Have you all not learned from the past couple of days?" "Learned what?" she asks Then he knocks her phone out of her hand

1/ James Meek has a brilliant long piece in the LRB about Blyth – ex-mining town in Northumberland, turned Reform stronghold. The puzzle? Blyth’s economy increasingly depends on green energy investment (offshore wind, cable factories, renewables R&D), yet it’s voting for an anti-net-zero party.

I feel compelled to write a review thread 🧵 for The Liz Truss Show because in the madness of the content, other aspects - vital aspects - are being missed. 1. The Aesthetics Unless they were aiming for "Harley Street urologist waiting room circa 1992" this interview area is just unacceptable. 1/

4. The Psychology I admit that I find one aspect of Truss fascinating. Does she see what everyone else sees? At times I am convinced that she is genuinely oblivious to her own absurdity. Other times, I think I see, through a vulnerable chink, the pain of someone trapped in their own grift. 10/

NEW: After an 86-day blockade of food into Gaza, starving residents are pictured being herded like livestock & surrounded by fencing and barbed wire as they await food parcels. This photo was posted in the last hour by Gaza-based journalist Motasem A Dalloul.