"It's the finest place to live on Earth!" @mrjamesob.bsky.social defends London from 'racists and freak shows'.

Good God

Hear hear! 👍

Pair of charmingly grumpy owls out on skates for winter fun. Have even brought along a snack! By Adriaen van de Venne, who died (alas!) on this day 1662.

Key point: "The only margin Labour are currently at is the marginal of survival. By focusing on a few tactically important constituencies they are missing the overall strategy - govern well, govern clearly, and in the broad interest of your overall voting base."

Sounds like Morgan McSweaney is more paranoid than Brown in full bunker mentality end of days. McSweaney is a big part of Starmer’s problems - a good campaigner but has been promoted above his own competence and it shows. IMO McSweaney should go. And by doing so he could perhaps save Starmer.

Sometimes you can use narratives to explain politics. Today I’m (just for fun) using Lord of the Rings. I think of Keir Starmer as King Thoeden in a torpor..with Morgan McSweaney whispering Reform light Blue Labour Wormtoungue persuasions in Keir’s ear, steering his leadership… 🧵👇 1/5

I wld initially prefer to get rid of McSweaney & his paranoid macho SPAD friends in number 10 than Starmer - & see what Starmer can do without having Wormtoungue whispers in his ear all the time. McSweaney’s court can’t do policy strategy nor comms, & seemingly doesn’t care for Labour voters’ values

Goodnight. 🖼️ The Ghost Story, Louis Wain.

Nearly two years ago, I wrote about the extraordinary influence of former Tory spin doctor Sir Robbie Gibb on the BBC. It's still a helpful backgrounder for what's going on now. New readers start here: www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/media/...

🚨UPDATE WITH COMMENT FROM THE BBC: Byline Times can confirm that of the four-person BBC panel that interviewed Prescott and made the decision to appoint him as an advisor, three of them had longstanding Conservative Party ties. bylinetimes.com/2025/11/11/b...

Trump sues Everybody!

MPs and BBC staff call for Robbie Gibb to leave broadcaster’s board

Go on, go out and look

This is good 😺 www.theguardian.com/music/2025/n... youtu.be/Xgp7wlBfASA

The thrill of right-wing outlets and politicians over the BBC tells you all you need to know... The BBC is a vital British institution. from @bjennings90.bsky.social⭐

Please sign & share 🙏😊 It’s not perfect, but it’s ours. It’s NOT Johnson, Trump & Farage’s to destroy… but if they do, our media & political landscape will get much much worse 😳 👇 “Save our BBC: don't let the likes of Trump and his UK cronies meddle with our public broadcaster” 38d.gs/bbc_o_eaio

One to read. An indictment of institutionalism through one man’s life story, beautifully told. ““He was trying to escape,” Jodie Young told me recently. “You risk something worse happening to you when you run off but you still feel anywhere’s better than care”” www.theguardian.com/news/2025/no...

Hear hear 👍😊

Injustice thrives when we look away. Solidarity and community are antidotes to despair.

Should Gibb be sacked? yes, obviously. He's an abomination of basic journalistic standards. His GB News channel spreads conspiracy theory & disinformation. His Jewish Chronicle newspaper spreads invented stories. He is plainly trying to undermine the BBC so it's as bad as everything else he touches.

A six-month review of Reform-led county councils explores how effectively they have delivered what they promised to their electors | Gary Gilligan

“His wife has shared the wonderful news that Sam woke up briefly yesterday, and she was able to speak with him for a short time. This is a truly positive step forward, though there is still a long journey ahead in his recovery.” Excellent news. ~AA www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crim...

Please sign & share 🙏😊 It’s not perfect, but it’s ours. It’s NOT Johnson, Trump & Farage’s to destroy… but if they do, our media & political landscape will get much much worse 😳 👇 “Save our BBC: don't let the likes of Trump and his UK cronies meddle with our public broadcaster” 38d.gs/bbc_o_eaio

The other fact that people are ignoring is that Prescott is not some random chap plucked out of obscurity to do an 'independent' report. He's part of the campaign from the start.

We’ve all seen how “herd mentality” works & can be harnessed in the recent Celebrity Traitors. This is the equivalent- in that Donald Trump’s push to remove trust in bbc is like the uk population is being told by the traitors not to trust the faithful.

Trump - the king of fake news and hypocrite extraordinaire - has the gall to welcome someone else’s resignation… we’re talking about a man convicted of rape and of tax fraud - who did not resign and never would. Incredible. And btw, I resent his interference in our media and our country.

If the BBC is guilty of anything it has been far too ready and willing to follow the right-wing media narratives pushed by the billionaire press barons, instead of pursuing its own independent journalism based on exposing and uncovering the truth – regardless of whether people want to hear it.

So there’s a lot of talk about Rachel Reeves putting up income tax and doing a cut in NI. If RR puts up income tax - It’s about bl**dy time! I just hope all those Labour & progressive voters who SAY they want investment in public services actually give RR some credit if she does raise income tax.

We’ve all seen how heard mentality works in the recent Celebrity Traitors. This is the equivalent- in that Donald Trump’s push to remove trust in bbc by claiming misrepresentation of his speech is like the uk population is being told by the traitors not to trust the faithful.

“Others, including Sky’s former political editor Adam Boulton, have said the overall impression that Trump egged on the insurrection was fundamentally true. It is not unusual practice to edit together sections of a long speech to accurately summarise it.” www.theguardian.com/media/2025/n...

If you want to sustain your carefully-cultivated fury at the stupid Panorama edit then don’t, whatever you do, read or listen to Trump’s speech in its entirety…

Dominic Cummings, in an earlier incarnation, ran a secretly-funded 'think tank' dedicated to attacking the Beeb while Robbie Gibb glided effortlessly from GBNews to the BBC & started lecturing staff on impartiality. Imagine (cos you'll have to) how the 'left-wing' equivalent would be reported.

This is an absolutely brilliant form of philanthropy and if I had spare money some day I’d love to do something similar!

“The aim of Media Liberation Day is to raise awareness of this billionaire capture of our media. They are asking people to print off a “Cover Story” A4 sheet from their website and place it on top of the piles of billionaire newspapers in supermarkets…”

Interesting report 😊 “Drawing on workshops and conversations with over 700 students, they challenge the lazy headlines about Gen Z to reveal a generation that is thoughtful, diverse and far more politically aware than many assume.” demos.co.uk/research/ins...

It blows my mind that there are real people who see a post like this and actually believe the whole “Christmas is being cancelled by Muslims” BS 🙄 Let’s have a quick look at what’s happening to Sheffield so you can put your Express reading uncle’s mind at ease!😆 1/15 🧵

Time to have brunch and get my Quiet Riot fix. It is deffo something to look forward to on a Sunday 😀👍

“New figures reveal that this year the ombudsman has concluded 1,191 investigations into Send provision; 97% of complaints have been upheld. “In nearly every complaint we investigate, we find some fault.. each of these represents… [people] not having their needs met”” observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Hear hear

Dear GOD if you want to save money in the asylum system 1. LET ASYLUM SEEKERS WORK 2. FAST TRACK STATUS FOR EVERYONE FROM CLEARLY UNDAFE COUNTRIES like Sudan, Syria, etc 3. Run an asylum accommodation system that is NOT FOR PROFIT #r4today

“The question we should ask is not whether AI is trustworthy. For some purposes, it may be. It is whether people really want it to tell them the truth — or whether, just as in their human relationships, they sometimes prefer it not to…”

AND HE WAS LIKE, BUT NOT MY FACE, RIGHT? AND I WAS LIKE WELL IT'S A FACE, SO

only in the small print of this article do they make clear that the pensioners paying an extra £2,500 of tax would have to have “earnings over £125,140” I know many pensioners are asset rich but how many have income at that level?

On Reform”s PIP economic illiteracy “The idea that restricting disability benefits saves public money has been tested…& it fails every time…what looks like a saving in the Department for Work and Pensions budget reappears as pressures and costs elsewhere...” lucykwills.substack.com/p/the-9-bill...

What key steps can the Government take to overhaul car taxation in the upcoming budget?

When a chatbot gets something wrong, it’s not because it made an error. It’s because on that roll of the dice, it happened to string together a group of words that, when read by a human, represents something false. But it was working entirely as designed. It was supposed to make a sentence & it did.

Keir Starmer is off to COP30 climate conference in Brazil today, so David Lammy will be taking PMQs 😀 Be interesting to see how he approaches it.