This will be well going to.

Strongly recommend @yuanfenyang.bsky.social’s “Private Revolutions” on women’s lives in modern China. Beautifully written and insightful.

Some thoughts by me for @labourlist.bsky.social on the Assisted Dying Bill and the Lords. labourlist.org/2026/02/assi...

Well, I went yesterday to hear Lise Davidsen as Isolde and all I can say is that if you ever get a chance to hear her in that role you should do whatever it takes to get tickets: she is the Isolde of our time. Quite extraordinary. Great production (despite this review) and conducting too.

This was a minor story on London news this morning - but suspect is a real cautionary (and alarming) tale of an older man getting radicalised online. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

A nod, too, to the remarkable flexibility of constitutional principle of those who loudly opposed any suggestion that the Lords could properly block or wreck the Safety of Rwanda Bill but equally loudly insist that it can properly block or wreck this legislation.

And there were bloody footprints Where mercy should have stood And two dead left to die on snow-filled streets Alex Pretti and Renee Good

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Stay free

Similar klaxon for BBC R4 World Tonight’s description of the Parliament Act as “arcane”.

This sounds interesting - and obviously topical.

Should jury trial be scrapped for most offences? What can behavioural science tell us about how juries make decisions? What can we learn from the history of the jury system? Join our online panel to explore all this & more on Tuesday 3 February 12:00. All welcome! us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Time to repost my (not entirely complimentary) assessment of Suella Braverman’s time as Her Majesty’s Attorney General. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/388...

There are some things states could try to get away with when cameras weren't everywhere. To see the same lines trotted out when the world can see the evidence directly, that's where a culture of pure lawless impunity gets you. Not only post truth, but post shame.

The variety of “independent” and “arms-length” bodies, and their very different legal set-ups, is indeed extraordinary.

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

Federal law enforcement agents shot and killed a man in Minneapolis on Jan. 24 according to local police officials. DHS told Fox News that the man was “armed with a gun”. A video of the shooting appears to show that a gun was taken from the man before the first shot was fired. x.com/BillMelugin_...

I had forgotten this line from the Ghorman senator: "They don’t even bother to lie badly anymore. I suppose that’s the final humiliation.” We're not there yet, but heading towards it.

I'd trace the start of the chain reaction back to Citizens United, but @cjsprigman.bsky.social is spot-on in this thread

The federal government is gunning people down in the streets, lying about what happened and then preventing any independent investigation of the killings

Ultimately you're not supposed to believe it. It not mattering is the point. The bolder the lie, the greater the impunity. The ultimate victory for evil is not convincing you, it's the truth being irrelevant.

All the coverage of Andy Burnham is about what it would mean for Labour at Westminster. Can one outlet at least mention that Burnham is less than halfway into his term as mayor & would be legally obliged to resign that role if he became an MP? There's a serious case for a party saying "no" to that

The Bar Council of England and Wales extends a hand of support across the Atlantic to colleagues who are being targeted" says Kirsty Brimelow KC, offering support to US lawyers and to mark the Day of the Endangered Lawyer today. Find out more ➡️ https://bit.ly/4qw00I6 @kirstybrimelow.bsky.social

Appalling that @jessasatomp.bsky.social had to write this, but good on her for doing so.

The decline of the west, 1818-2025

"I am just going outside and may be some time."

I've done My Week: Donald Trump (again) for tomorrow. My first draft genuinely had a joke about Trump thinking there were penguins in Greenland but I took it out because it seemed too stupid.

This is absolutely right - as I argued in detail in my chapter on EU relations here policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/british-lega..., the options are either the government’s approach of step-by-step deals (à la Suisse, but keep quiet about that) or full blown application for membership.

Basically, Frost says the UK should throw in our lot with Trump's US rather than the EU alternative. But then Frost is so lost in Brexitism, he's hardly going to say anything else. Indeed it's faintly commendable that he has said this out loud, unlike many others who just hint at it.

NEW Why the Hillsborough law campaigners are right to be resolute The attempts to water down the duty of candour should be resisted Me at @prospectmagazine.co.uk www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/th...

So it was Badenoch *personally* who stabbed Britain in the back during the Greenland crisis! Simply unbelievable. Ought to be a resignation matter. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

🚨The Petition calling for by-elections to be called automatically when MPs defect to another party is now closing on 80,000 signatures! Let’s get it to the 100,000 needed today! petition.parliament.uk/petitions/73...

One reason I am gloomy about Britain’s ability to rise to this geopolitical moment is the sheer parochialism and unseriousness of much of its media. The Times, which used to be a serious paper, does not have a single comment piece today on the gravest international crisis in 80 years

This is (1) disgraceful at a moment of national danger, (2) laughably unserious and (3) deeply unwise when the President is obviously becoming incapacitated and the most unpopular person in the whole UK. Utterly disqualifying.

It's so exhausting to to be constantly told by American leaders that the defining policy of the 80 odd years during which the US became the most wealthy and powerful country in the history of the world was a grossly unfair failure for them.

Not just Chairman for life but with a veto, and rights to designate his successor, to wind the body up, and to appoint/dismiss all members of the Executive Board, which controls the accounts (and so could allow transfer of assets, such as the $1bn entry fees, to a certain individual’s bank account).

It's time to "take the brakes off rebuilding our common future in Europe". www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

This will get massively overshadowed today and as ever the devil is in the detail, but is should be one of the best things Labour has done. It has the potential to improve the lives and finances of millions of people. www.businessgreen.com/news/4524489...

Trump is famously against court-packing.

My post on ICE, a marauding lawless private police force.

After one day of unity over Trump the Mail, the Telegraph, Times and Badenoch have decided the Chagos are more important than the destruction of the western alliance and backed the insane ramblings of a rogue president who was fine with the deal last year. We see you #collaborators

Text transcript of Mark Carney's address to Davos courtesy of The CBC. If anyone doubts the weight of this moment in history... www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

The real issue here - of course ignored by the Policy Exchange paper to which @joshuarozenberg.bsky.social refers - was brilliantly summarised by @profmarkelliott.bsky.social in his piece here publiclawforeveryone.com/2025/07/09/t....

Carney: "American hegemony in particular helped provide public goods, a stable financial system... this bargain no longer works. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition... recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as a weapon. Tariffs as leverage ... "

NEW ISSUE: Renewal 33/3&4 Guest co-edited by @neilwarner.bsky.social & @beccagold.bsky.social, this special double issue features nineteen (19) brilliant essays analysing Labour's statecraft and debating the strategic challenges for social democracy in Britain and beyond

Very pleased to have contributed to this fascinating double issue of @renewaljournal.bsky.social.

Wrote this last week @matthewholehouse.bsky.social labourlist.org/2026/01/brit...

I think the White House badly underestimates the strength of the pan-European folk memory of 1930s appeasement, and how deep it still cuts. I suppose this is what happens when you learn in school that WW2 started in 1941 in Hawaii.

We were deriding you because you are patently unwilling to fund a viable alternative to consensual US hegemony in democratic Europe. You’d get to preen if you’d been calling for massive defence spending hikes, an independent nuclear deterrent, minimising out-of-home-theatre commitments and so on.

"Welcome to the front line on the battle for the right: Mansfield" reflects an ongoing media bias towards treating the edge of the spectrum as representative of it Why is Mansfield (71% Leave) more the frontline than, say, Basingstoke in Hampshire (52% Leave) www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...