there's a thing I like to call "load-bearing assumptions", that you don't notice until they're suddenly gone (e.g the air you breath has oxygen in it). the post-ww2 order is a load-bearing assumption for basically the entirety of american life. trump took a sledgehammer to it in the last 90 days.

The idea that Labour is now picking up the transphobes that the Green Party of England and Wales has ejected ought to appal every decent Labour member.

I get the anger on the left over glib takes about similarities between Farage and Polanski, but I'd also remind them that continuing to insist a Labour Party delivering workers' rights, votes at 16, taxes on the rich and increased public spending is the same as the Tories is equally ludicrous.

Emily Thornberry’s words on Radio 4 in response to the Green win in Gorton and Denton. This is why wins like this are so important, whatever you may think of the Greens (much like the immigration rebellion brewing).

FT EXCLUSIVE: The Gulf governments are talking about declaring force majeure on the full gamut of contracts because they say they're short of cash. This could wreak some global havoc and slash investment in the US from regional sovereign wealth firms.

there are like 50 people in the country who want the UK to get involved in the Iran War, one of them is Kemi Badenoch, one of them is Nigel Farage, and the other 48 are newspaper columnists

LIke reading that Jarndyce v Jarndyce has been settled out of court. Can it really be true?

That's the same Professor Jacob George of the MHRA who had to be recused from involvement in the puberty blockers trial because of social media posts that exposed his hateful bias against trans people.

Erm... maybe the Greens want to look into *why* he left Corbyn's office before celebrating this too much.

Sadly true, stuck is the right word, but somebody has to be the person to change it. The fact so many are still validating musk and his views via twitter is a huge part of the problem, also a symptom of it, ie refusal to maje changes 😔

Kind of shows that they are out of time

Having the entire information economy dependent on maximising clicks is probably a bad idea.

Sally Phillips did an interview for the i expressing concern about botox; the headline had her endorsing it. Zak Asgard wrote for the Times about the awfulness of Gen Z men demanding obedience from women; the headline had him endorsing it. Rage bait is now the lifeblood of the British press.

In other news, having to apply for settled status after 40+years of working and paying taxes…Never forgiven.

On the one hand, a clearly deranged lunatic in the White House starting a dangerous illegal war on Iran with already-serious repercussions for the region and world... Or having a pop at Keir Starmer. You just knew which side the Right would come down on.

Netanyahu: ‘These So-Called Genocide Experts Have Probably Never Committed A Genocide In Their Lives’ https://theonion.com/netanyahu-these-so-called-genocide-experts-have-probably-never-committed-a-genocide-in-their-lives/

All of the local racist scumbag parents with their fraud and drug convictions suddenly couldn't attend things like parents night or other events at the school. The thing is about opening cans of worms... they crawl out in every direction. You'd better be okay with worms.

When the racists were protesting outside a school running ESOL classes near me, they were shouting about unvetted males etc. The males were actually vetted, but as a consequence of the protests PVGs were brought in for any adult in the school. Guess what happened next? Yep.

Joani Reid has resigned the Labour whip while internal investigations are underway following her husband's arrest on suspicion of spying for China. One less transphobe in the Parliamentary Labour Party.

That's the thing with Reform - they're a party made up of the group that used to be the fringe of the Tory party, where when they advocated stupid things like this, the sensible Tories then said "that's stupid and electorally unpopular" and ignored it

Hmm. Not defending US actions here but this story seems potentially misleading. The IRIS Dena was not participating in the MILAN exercise when it was sunk; that exercise finished on 25 February. The ship was en route back to the Strait of Hormuz likely to participate in its blockade.

But it can be a barrier for non-native speakers getting a job or continuing onto a college course or apprenticeship. The same N5/ B2 is needed for that. If there's no way forward, they can end up trapped on benefits, which I guess is part of the government's reasoning.

i mean one only has to interact with many americans on here taught via the three-cueing system to know that even people who think they can speak english can very often be extremely bad at reading it, understanding it, or parsing difficult concepts!

I don't think it's very helpful to call it A-level English. As I understand, it's B2 level, which is upper intermediate and about Nat 5 grade C in a modern language.

The thing about all these tests for recent immigrants - knowledge of life in the UK, the ability to speak and write English at a decent level and so on - is that we all know a large proportion of the existing population would fail them. There's no justification for the double standard beyond racism.

This should be a bigger story. Following an exchange between the MP and the Reform-run council, Cllr David Wimble, cabinet member for economic development and special projects, posted on X: “Well perhaps we could pull funding for her lovely turner contemporary?... Polly Billington MP] suck it up.”

No rubber stamp from Europe, as Macron, Starmer and Sánchez resist Trump’s demands to back his war. www.politico.eu/article/dona...

"When we allow bigots to define womanhood by a set of arbitrary physical traits, we give them the power to exclude all of us. The transvestigation of Margot Robbie is a warning shot. It is a reminder that the people who hate trans women do not actually love cis women."

Is it going to be transphobia again? It's going to be transphobia again, isn't it.

Haven't we got enough experience of what happens when people are incentivised through competition to express ever more controversial private views

Erm… why am I reflexively worried about this

Big money has bought British politics 75% of Reform’s money has come from three rich white men democracyforsale.substack.com/p/75-of-refo...

"The rich really value the ability to move and work wherever they want, when they want, and when something like the Iran war disrupts it, they don’t like it." *stares blankly at screen*

This *sounds* ridiculous, but if you actually check out all the other political strategists in the world he's probably not far wrong and this turns into a pretty well delivered insult.

This is very true.The appeal of Populists making promises that will ultimately have a detrimental effect on people’s lives is waved through as if they are credible.The consequences of being a serial disrupter are rarely challenged emboldening charlatans and grifters further.

It did occur to me that, one reason the Greens did very well, was that they chose the candidate to represent the electorate, rather than choosing the candidate to represent the party.

Critical point this. Credibility and trust has been systematically undermined in institutions that previously enjoyed some level of esteem, and that was done explicitly to clear the path for non-credible actors on the right, but it also clears the path for non-credible actors on the left.

America is the only Real Country, all the others are Non-Player Countries:

This sounds amazing.

Are SFP values representative of all Christians? Does preventing women seeking healthcare protect every life?

He wants his party ballot paper description to read as follows: Scottish Family Party - Pro-Life Scottish Family Party - Christian values Scottish Family Party - Valuing Every Life Scottish Family Party - Protecting Every Life You can comment here: www.electoralcommission.org.uk/about-us/con...

The odious wankers (wanker?) at the Scottish Family Party is in the process of updating their (his?) party registration with the EC. If you are bored and want to fuck about with his application you can find it here, dated 12th Feb: www.electoralcommission.org.uk/political-re...

Logistics is woke. Supply is woke. End-state planning is woke. Force protection? Believe it or not, woke

He's literally refused to allow the UK to be dragged into the war. Hence Trump is massively annoyed with him. Yet still the "Mmm, war is bad, m'kay?" crowd witter on as if entirely disconnected from reality.

They did pass the responsibility to LBJ via the Gulf of Tonkin resolution though - which effectively gave the President a blank cheque. But yes, its all semantics. If what the US did to Iran happened to the US, you can be damn sure they'd consider it an act of war.

It’s a special military operation, how many times do we have to say?

Did you see this headline? Did you feel the requisite anger and rage at asylum seekers that The Sun was asking of you? Did you maybe blame Starmer because.... um... it was probably his fault🤷‍♀️ Would you like to know the reality behind the headline? Course you would!😜 Let's take a look 🧵 1/25

Worth remembering that Congress also refused to call the Vietnam War a war, despite more bombs being dropped than during the entirety of World War Two, and despite 58,000 US deaths over two decades. Even today it is referenced as "the Vietnam era" in official Congress documents.

I'm not saying the white supremacist neo-Nazis organising the "Unite the clans" rally on 21st March are morons whose knowledge of Scottish patriotism stretches no further than typing a prompt into an AI image generator, but I am loving the brave warrior holding the St Andrew's Asterisk shield here.

I only keep a FB account open because I need messenger. I rarely actually check what shite folk are posting. But yeah, it's massively funded indoctrination.