Apologies if it's already been mentioned, but Friday will mark a year to the day since the FT published this quote www.ft.com/content/085e...

Extraordinary: Mandelson told Epstein that JP Morgan should "threaten" then cabinet colleague and chancellor Alistair Darling over tax on bankers' bonuses. In plain language: "Minister conspired with US bank against own government". More brilliant FT reporting www.ft.com/content/91e8...

🟨 Print Edition — Drowning in Denial As Nigel Farage’s party scraps climate schemes around the country, Nafeez Ahmed reports on new data that shows flood risk surging across the 10 councils it leads 🔗 https://subscribe.bylinetimes.com/edition/82/drowning-in-denial/

Do you get it now?

I’m told by those who should know that the most dangerous nexus of all these Epstein revelations is the Russian-Israeli connection, and could have been lethal to Epstein himself

Excellent on the howling unsuitability of Matt Goodwin to be a Manchester MP… or indeed an MP anywhere at all. But that’s Reform for you. Frothing racists and needy inadequates demanding support from a voting public that doesn’t deserve any of their shit. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

This is political wipeout territory.

Devastating analysis. I had thought that the agent who removed Pretti’s gun negligently discharged it, the shot leading others to start shooting Pretti. Not even: they shot *after* disarming him. No shots were fired from Pretti’s gun. A cold-blooded execution. www.nytimes.com/video/us/100...

It will be an awkward first day for some!

Now is not the time to undermine the PM: The Independent Editorial www.independent.co.uk/voices/edito...

Retail sales in the UK bounced back in December with a better-than-expected performance over the Christmas season, according to new figures news.sky.com/story/surpri...

Well, it’s certainly an innovative approach to handling bondholders.

“One of the hecklers was Al Gore, the former US vice-president, according to two executives present.”

Jenrick defection to Reform is the end of him. Farage already struggles to contain more than one outsized ego in his parliamentary party. Certainly no room for anything the size of Robert's inflated sense of self-worth. You mark my words - it'll end badly.

Right, this is the thing, "the Budget is not honest", okay, sure, I'm with you, "because they made things seem worse than they are" - are you on glue?

🚨 BREAKING: Kent County Council is hurtling towards financial oblivion under Reform. A shocking new council report reveals a projected budget black hole of £46.5 million for this year. The Reform Administration has completely lost control of our finances. 🔶

It's obviously a bad thing if any prisoner is released by mistake, but why is it worse if it's an asylum-seeker? It seems just to be taken for granted now that someone is more dangerous because they're an asylum-seeker than because they're a criminal. Something very dangerous is building here.

“Travelling at about 100kmh (62mph), he ploughed through several warning markers and traffic signs before crashing into a slanted guardrail. “The collision with the guardrail launches the vehicle into the air, where it flips several times before landing,” www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Do you know how badly you have to screw up as a Republican to get this kind of turnout in IDAHO? #NOKINGS

Holy shit, New York! Here’s the full view. #NoKings #50501Movement

Jeremy Bowen BBC News, "What the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is trying to do is associate very strongly criticism of Israel and the way it conducts the war in Gaza, with anti semitism, essentially trying to make it the same thing"

Make this make sense. 🤷🏼‍♂️

Bravo, Greenland. 👏 🇬🇱🇪🇺 “Greenland dumps Donald Trump, signs lucrative minerals deal with Europe in a major blow to the president.”

An independent review of sentencing will tomorrow recommend scrapping short prison sentences. The review has been led by David Gauke, who has said that sentences under 12 months do not work and should only be used in exceptional circumstances. www.itv.com/news/2025-05...

I’ve learned some arcane nerdery about metro mayors in my time and it won’t be the first time I watch one of them learn what they can’t do

Remember this one. In five years, or ten, or twenty. When we're a weird, dirty, backward nation that still sets fire to stuff, and places like China and India start to ask us why.

‘Free Speech’ latest.

Elon Musk attacked White House trade counselor Peter Navarro as “dumber than a sack of bricks” as a fight over President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariff regime spilled onto social media

Well, 5 years- it's a slow start but better than nothing. Now let's see some of the other carpetbaggers arrested... AND I include MPs and Tory Ministers in that, for misconduct in public office.

Canada initiates WTO dispute on US duties on cars and car parts www.wto.org/english/news...

A quick 🧵of the incredible sights in cities across the USA right now. Millions are on the street speaking out against Trump & Musk trampling the Constitution. Let’s start here with Salt Lake City 😳👏 #HandsOff #HandsOff2025 #FiftyFiftyOne (📸Nate Blouin)

As Trump’s tariff policy melts down, I’m running a competition for the dumbest things members of his administration say in defence of it. Treasury Sec Scott Bessent is currently winning. He says the global market collapse was kickstarted by China announcing DeepSeek AI , not by Trump’s tariffs.

The clearest formulation of the Trump administration pitch to the average American I can articulate is: "You should accept an indeterminate but significant amount of economic pain short term, and higher prices and less choice long term, in order to live in a country that has more factories in it."

🚨So, why are uninhabited islands tariffed? A: The White House is even more stupid than you thought. Tariffs have been done by internet domains, not by country! So Heard & McDonald Islands (.hm) has a different domain to Australia (.au). So the penguins are considered a separate trading nation. 🤯

On the tariffs @strangeloopcanon.com over at the other place has pretty convincing evidence that the White House may have used LLMs to come up with its tariff model and that that evidence may have come from LLM scraping of a Peter Navarro book. We are in the dumbest AI timeline.

🔥OUCH! Farage’s "biggest rally in history" flopped. - empty seats, protests, and ejections marked the weird night in Birmingham.

This from Der Spiegel - if confirmed - suggests that Trump’s key appointments are all seriously compromised … www.spiegel.de/internationa...

No wonder there’s *bed blocking* in the NHS Just 86 new care beds created in 2024 and, over the past 10 years, the supply of care home beds has risen just 2.9%, while the over-65 population has grown 20.7%.  www.ft.com/content/1d00...

According to a source I have at the CIA, Director Radcliffe lied today under oath. Signal is absolutely not loaded on agency computers. As a matter of fact it’s specifically prohibited as an outside app. Skype is allowed for conference calls but not Signal. He’s lying. @markwarner.bsky.social

Gift link: www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

There were 4 council by-elections yesterday Reform UK won 0. 0 out of 6 this week. That’s 224 council by-elections since the General Election, still just 12 seats won for Reform UK. Seems they can’t win by-elections.

Bullshit. How the FT has fallen for this nonsense is beyond me. Musk has bought shares from some mugs who helped him buy the site in 2022, and whose losses he probably promised to underwrite. This is him giving them their money back, it's not a new or real valuation.

Full, updated story just published in the Washington Post👇

Liz Kendall references this @theifs.bsky.social data in the commons...👇

YouGov suggests Badenoch has major popularity deficit: 32% of Britons hold positive opinion of Keir Starmer, while 60% have a negative view 27% have a positive view of Nigel Farage, against 65% who have a negative one 18% have favourable view of Kemi Badenoch, while 50% have unfavourable view

Part of me wonders if the reason for this morning's vapid and rushed speech is they got wind of what the government was going to do and decided to do a speech calling for it so she could stand up and go 'see? The government listens to us'. But I, uh, doubt it.

MAGA acts like finding fraud in government is some new thing DOGE invented. They aren’t good at it, but experts who were let go were.

Badenoch going on a judicial ruling made because legislation her government passed was flawed. She goes from strength to strength, you know. #pmqs

“I would have thought the leader of the opposition might support day one protection employment rights given where she’s going” Keir Starmer #PMQs