Four weeks since I have been on X and it is actually amazing how quickly and easily it disappeared from my routine. The impact is all upside.

'The expansion comes as demand for heat pump installations continues to rise, but the industry faces considerable shortages of trained engineers.' Renewables: just quietly getting on & creating jobs.

If Vance isn’t able to attend an Olympic event without an entourage of armored vehicles that looks like he just landed at Normandy in 1944, maybe he shouldn’t go.

Thick as mince

Peter Mandelson – the great genius at the heart of New Labour. Dominic Cummings – the great genius at the heart of 'Leave'. Nick Timothy – the great genius at.... Morgan McSweeney – the great.... Steve Hilton... Can we ban all alleged great geniuses and cast them into outer darkness forever?

This series of articles by Peter Oborne is so spot on - withering about McSweeney - and his obsessive focus on party politics, scheming and tactics, at expense of policy conducive to the national interest - and in process ultimately ruining Starmer’s govt.

I wonder whether the PM chose the wrong chief? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sue_Gra...

BREAKING: Morgan McSweeney quits as Keir Starmer's chief of staff amid fall-out from the Mandelson scandal

Kash Patel halted Nicole Good probe over fear it would blow up Trump claims: report www.rawstory.com/nicole-good-...

Here is the FBI's Epstein List open.substack.com/pub/jkbjourn...

Now BOTH Putin and Trump have pledged to undermine European liberal democracies, it seems “civilisational erasure” of democratic Europe is Kremlin/White House joint policy. What a time to be alive.

We all live in Jeffrey Epstein's world now. That's what we can't face. It's our world. Where sexual desire for children is protected, victims receive no justice & the President of what used to be called the free world is Jeff's friend. This is Jeff's World now. 1/ open.substack.com/pub/broligar...

USA is now a kakistocracy in toto. The fact that there is no functional mechanism to remove this man from office shows the USA is defunct as a democratic entity.

On a day with so much awfulness just taking a moment to note with admiration a dignified leader

"Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen participated in cutting off the water supply to a UNRWA building in the occupied Jerusalem" Israeli Minister Cuts Water to UNRWA m.youtube.com/shorts/KV6rc...

Corrupt Racist Pedophile Occupying the White House Posts Video Portraying the Obamas as Apes www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/u...

Sir Ian McKellen drawing upon Shakespeare as only he can, to underline the inhumanity of much of the debate on immigration

‘But the frenzied and remorseless focus on political fallout – and not the male-on-female debasement that is the entire heart of this story, and always has been – is weird, isn’t it?’ www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️ Name this band

Dockers from Italy, Greece and beyond will stage co-ordinated port blockades on February 6, declaring ‘we don’t work for war’ – in a call in solidarity with Palestine. This is huge news and it’s not been covered. morningstaronline.co.uk/article/medi...

Reform’s Matthew Goodwin’s big idea would punish millions of women and strip them of their basic dignity to choose.   Even more dumfounding is that Nigel Farage appears to agree with it.   This is the kind of divisive politics we must stand against.

He wouldn't be the first King who thought he could hold back the sea... It didn't go well for Canute.

No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition. Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Sarah Rogers, a US state department official, is understood to have travelled to Europe and spoke with figures in Nigel Farage’s party, as well as officials from right-wing think tanks. Discussions centred around deploying cash to spread American values. www.thenational.scot/news/2583163...

What was the Queen's role in the cover up of her son Andrew? Charles knows all about his uncle, Lord Louis Mountbatten & his abuse of inmates of Kincora. Lord Louis Mountbatten ‘abused children trafficked to his Mullaghmore estate’ – The Irish News share.google/oAm9P3SRyPsk...

There's no reason to accept this as normal, though. Much of Starmer and Labour's unpopularity is not misfortune but his own doing. Mandelson was a choice. Consistently pursuing policy positions designed to appeal to people who will not vote for you - and alienating core supporters - is a choice.

Shell is suing the Netherlands for potentially billions of euros: all because its government is taking necessary climate action to protect people and the planet. Corporate courts hand corporations power to hold countries to ransom - we must end them. www.globaljustice.org.uk/news/shell-s...

I can't stop thinking about what Bezos has done to the Washington Post. But I also don't know why I & anyone else is shocked. I went undercover in an Amazon 'fulfilment centre' in 2013 and saw first-hand exactly who Bezos is. We have all been SO naive. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

No progress in Poland to ease the strict abortion ban because of anti-choice politics or reluctance in the gov't - but five years after Poland's top court gutted abortion rights, access to legal abortion has expanded a bit – only for women who learned to work within a system designed to say ‘no’.

Dave Keating It is really important for Europeans to understand who is running policy at the White House right now. Everyone should read this explainer. samf.substack.com/p/the-most-d...

open.substack.com/pub/thomhart... Dear Trump Administration Official, I’m writing to you not as a political opponent, but as a historian who’s spent a lifetime studying what happens when democracies flirt with strongmen and otherwise decent people

The European Commission must decide by 2 March whether it intends to give legal follow-up to a European Citizens’ Initiative that gathered more than one million signatures in 2025. It would allow EU states to voluntarily fund women's abortion care when they need to travel from another EU state.

Congratulations to Nathan Gill’s successor as Reform Leader in Wales. Bizarre to pick someone who has spent the last 27 years living in London and abandoned his role as a councillor a few weeks ago. Bit of a kick in the teeth for overlooked local Reform representatives.

The toxic burden of pesticides is growing all around the world Pesticides are becoming more toxic and just about every country is using more of them year after year, despite a UN target to halve the overall risk by 2030 www.newscientist.com/article/2514...

There’s a v cynical media and political blindspot in the Epstein shitshow. A feeding frenzy to get rid of Starmer while red-carpeting Farage into No10. Who is named in the files. As is Candy, Reform’s treasurer. With Bannon. And Brexit. Don’t cry about abuses of power and then do nothing about him.

Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again. #Pinks #ProudBlue

I just signed a petition calling for an urgent investigation into Peter Mandelson's dealings with Palantir. Did he use his position as UK Ambassador to benefit the US spy tech firm? Sign now: www.foxglove.org.uk/campaigns/ma...

BBC News - Heavy rain expected across island of Ireland as weather warnings issued - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

It almost seems like they went out of their way to hurt the victims even more, while protecting the predators. Nude photos. The names and faces of sexual abuse victims. Bank account and Social Security numbers in full view. But perps names redacted. Error or malevolence? apnews.com/article/jeff...

The Home Secretary's view is that if a care worker & spouse come to the UK in 2022 and have a kid in 2024, then it's fine for that (British-born) child to stay in poverty until 2037 *even if their father/mother stays in work throughout*.

Some interesting reporting in the New Statesman. There was a shortlist of four to be UK Ambassador to the US. Starmer favoured George Osborne. It was Morgan McSweeney who pushed for Mandelson.

"If Mandelson’s links to Epstein disqualifies him from holding power, why does the company controlled by Epstein’s business partner and co-owner retain access to Britain’s most sensitive national security infrastructure?" @mattbishopmp.bsky.social - well done for speaking out last night - & now?

😠😠😠😠😠😠😠 And here we see exactly why our so-called impartial reporters are anything BUT! #mandelson

In case it wasn’t ALREADY blatantly clear!

Most of our media is studiously ignoring the Epstein links to Brexit, Farage and far right populism. Farage is being touted for No.10. He wants an even more extreme Brexit. A race to the bottom to sell us out to this global network of oligarch crooks. Why TF isn’t he being investigated and stopped?

McSweeney surely finished. Starmer’s fate, now in serious doubt, now essentially in the hands of the ISC and what is in those documents.

The Intelligence and Security Committee of the UK Parliament is promised all the administrative resource it needs to process the unknown amount of Mandelson material about to be disgorged by the government. The Tories are now raising doubts about contracts with Mandelson client Palantir. #R4Today

One by one, Europeans mentioned in the Epstein files who still hold political office are beginning to resign or are being forced out of office. Meanwhile, ruled by an administration almost entirely made up of Epstein associates, the US carries on as if nothing really happened.