"Venezuelans at celebration parties in Miami could not believe it, insisting that Trump had misspoken. His plan appears to be for Venezuela to remain under the day-to-day rule of a senior chavista, with its democratically elected leaders excluded and its wealth controlled by American corporations."

Timeline serendipity @showerabsolute.bsky.social @yiannisbab.bsky.social - why any broadcaster takes this charlatan seriously

“What appears to be a newly created account appeared to invest $30,000 Friday in Maduro's exit. After Maduro went into custody Saturday morning, that same investor netted $436,759.61.”

European weakness on full display by these horribly contorted responses from Merz, Macron and Starmer - neither condoning nor condemning US actions in Venezuela Such weakness only risks making the Europeans more vulnerable (ie Greenland)

I am going to need UK political elites to accept they are going to have to start doing Gaullist foreign policy Right Now

Oh boy.

hahaha Trump Always Chickens Out lolllzzzzz

If we can capture another country's president, can another country come and capture ours? Asking for a friend.

i don't want to minimize the horror of Trump saying that we're going to occupy Venezuela, but...does he understand that doesn't happen just by kidnapping Maduro? Like, this is not what an occupation is?

There’s going to be a motion of censure at the UN and Starmer is going to have a decision to make.

"How did you hear the news?"

this but more aggressively bsky.app/profile/stea...

As modal shift has happened in the City, you really notice how a certain type of reckless driving has shifted from cars to cycles. Obviously as a pedestrian that is preferable, but boy it is striking!

Good on her. I cycle to work in the City and not sure which of my routes feels sketchier: riding through Bank junction, or crossing Upper Thames at the top of Southwark Bridge. Both are lousy with people who barely know how to handle a bike shooting through reds giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

I remember having conversations with people who said they wanted Trump to win because he was the anti-war president.

Alex Davies-Jones MP, the Minister for Violence against Women and Girls has posted this today to Elon Musk. This is about a future law the government proposes. There is also a compelling case that X is breaching *existing* legal duties under both the Online Safety Act 2023 and the 2010 Equality Act

15 minutes into the new Traitors and everyone is quite annoying aren’t they

it's impossible to overstate the risible stupidity of the sentence 'Trump's attitude to American military power is almost indistinguishable from that of, say, Jeremy Corbyn'

What is the mechanism to prevent Putin from taking out Zelenskyy or Xi Jinping from taking out Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te in the same way Trump has just done with Maduro? Moscow and Beijing saw Venezuela as an ally, but they’re also noting the silver lining for them here.

Nigel Farage expresses support for Trump's "unorthodox" breach of international law - on grounds that they may "make China and Russia think twice" But the main impact on Russia and China will be to help them to legitimise aggression in cases like Ukraine and Taiwan, citing Trump/US as analogous.

So many academics supported this bigot & still think no one can tell why

David Miller says Jews have been conducting a “centuries-long programme of entryism and subversion.” But this is just anti-Zionism right?

And perhaps care homes can advise councils to pay fee rates that cover their costs … @frasernelson.bsky.social @thetimes.com

Great to see Enough’s harmed being called out more and more Police warn victims are being duped into buying self-swab rape kits www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

This is what worries me so much. Children can have severe needs because of any number of reasons as well as send. I have my own child who has complex needs. But will they be “severe” under the new scheme. Enough people already say to me that because she’s mobile, she’s not actually disabled.

If the British government, and indeed other governments, can’t muster a fast and strong response to Twitter adding a facility enabling users to create and share AI child sexual abuse material then not sure what Musk could ever do that would actually provoke a response.

On this point, I know BSky has little sympathy for farmers, but now that the government has effectively admitted it got the policy wrong, it's worth revisiting a moment from 14 months ago that stuck in my mind, because it said a lot about how the government was developing policy...

The real question is how, in a country full of bright, educated, moral people, unqualified idiots like this end up in positions of influence

The "Ovenden window" is the range of policies that I want to do but can't because other people don't want to do them

“Stakeholders” didn’t tell this govt to cut fuel payments to pensioners or oppose raising the benefit cap, nor did “stakeholders” tell this govt to use reform chasing rhetoric on immigration, nor did “stakeholders” tell Labour to reject broad based tax rises in favour of narrower measures

There are many situations where organised lobbies take up disproportionate time and attention but (a) there’s often a reason for this and (b) it doesn’t work as a general theory for failings of this govt, whose most unpopular choices often involved actively ignoring or angering “Stakeholders”

let's not forget they were upset when he left and considered him a victim

Fundamentally, he used the wrong meme. 0/10 'Paul Ovenden was director of strategy in No.10 Downing Street from July 2024 to September 2025'

“Politicians are listening to NGOs and their lawyers, who weren’t elected, when they should be listening to their political advisors like me, who weren’t elected.” That seems like a good summary.

This is just a massive whinge that governments have to actually government day-to-day in addition to pursuing their policies. That's why smart politicians actually use their time in opposition to think things through because government is too hectic. Didn't do the job properly then, won't do it now

Would Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe have been included in this "stakeholders" definition I wonder?

Just like the Tories, Labour's centrist hacks think themselves omniscient and infallible - they cannot fail, they can only be failed. So when they do fail, they blame everyone else. We saw it with the Tories, and it's already started from the Starmerites with this idiotic dreck: archive.ph/rHoXA

Jan 1: this is the year of new Me Jan 12: [eating shredded cheese directly from the bag] new years resolutions are a bourgeois construct for disciplining bodies into productive units for capital

If you want to imagine the future, imagine a robot apologizing for making child porn in Celebrity Who Said A Slur Voice, forever

The Rosenior Chelsea Strasbourg situation is another example of why multi club ownership is just wrong and has no place in football. When Chelsea fancy it they just pull Rosenior out of Strasbourg and effectively already own his contract. Strasbourg left hanging

If rumblings about Special Needs changes are true,they'll place huge pressures on schools, in the absence of the necessary resources.Also, taking rights away & putting schools in the driving seat would be a retrogressive move: the Labourism of institutions rather than the empowerment of families 1/2

What a weird name for a dog. But sorry for their loss.

“tax progressivity analysis reimagined as racial biology” perfectly sums up the new, very unpleasant (and ultimately misleading) fad for talking about members of our society as “net fiscal contributors” or as “net fiscal drains”

“Since annuities pay more if you have a lower life expectancy, these injections could lead you to shed pounds in more ways than one”

Friendly reminder that the Hootenanny clock men are available for hire for events where "clocks and times are prevalent"

The Queen knew. She fucking knew.

Issue is lack of primary care. I assume the majority of cases will be for infants with new parents, who become worried after some hours (or hiccups with secondary symptoms such as regurgitation, distress, refusal to feed) but cannot get through to a GP or minor injuries centre. First and last option

the thing is, “differing political views” used to be about what percentage to tax high earners and not whether brown people are humans

Parenting tip for those with young children (mine are now all too old): show them a YouTube video of fireworks between 8 and 9pm, sing Auld Lang Syne, declare it midnight and put them to bed.