An absolute banger of an exclusive from the Sunday Times. It's devastating. For the first time, I'm uncertain if Farage can actually survive this www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Welcome to Pride in London 2026 🏳️‍🌈 Today we celebrate our incredible LGBTQIA+ communities and the diversity that makes our city so special. Pride is both a celebration and a protest, and I'll always stand with you as we fight for equality and a fairer London for everyone.

We made a short (3.5min) film introducing our @sprockethub.bsky.social innovation hub for improving the lives of children with complex health needs and those that care for them. Do have a watch! I think it really captures what SPROCKET is about. youtu.be/WIjhjciUfD4?...

two minutes on how the Trump administration has undermined public health in the last 2 weeks youtube.com/shorts/_YA0S...

I'll summarize this: Mamdani asked NYers to keep air conditioning at 78 degrees. A wave criticism hit online. A MSNBC broadcast pointed out the US Department of Energy recommends that 78 degree figure. Immediately after, the US Department of Energy deleted 6,000 web pages related to energy saving.

I know there’s a market for this stuff, but it’s wildly depressing to see a polite request with zero threat of enforcement behind it or even, given it’s in the privacy of your own home, any mild social disapproval for acting differently being met with “outrageous! this is WOKE SOCIALISM!”

'Tens of thousands have joined pro-Restore Britain Facebook groups being run by people who appear to be based in Pakistan and Bangladesh... the politics in these groups is "incidental", with the groups ultimately just "a vehicle to monetisation"' #R4Today

Dolly Parton’s message thanking Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce for their $2 million donation to her Imagination Library! “I'm blown away and overjoyed with that gratitude. Now, it's evident that you two have made giving back a key part of your lives.”

Go on, girl. I think Facebook over-estimates how fond people actually are of it. It's full of ads and strangers and AI slop. Wouldn't take much of a tipping point for people to finally just ... tire of it, and everything that comes with it, and leave.

So, presumably the free speech absolutists of Silicon Valley will be queuing up to pay her costs... bsky.app/profile/ianf...

The work was done with @martinmckee.bsky.social , two fab research assistants, @uclpolicylab.bsky.social and @unchecked-uk.bsky.social . Thank you also to @instituteforgovernment.org.uk for their input along the way! Substack on it is here: christinapagel.substack.com/p/a-new-guid... 7/7

Andy Burnham confirms he's creating a "Number 10 North", based in Manchester, which will focus on devolving power across the country and driving growth locally. It'll be "the nerve-centre of a rewired Britain", he claims.

Burnham promises the biggest rebalancing of power the country has ever seen. 'Growth can't be top down, it has to be bottom up.'

Burnham says he's going to give Britain the "circuit-breaker" it needs, by building a more "collaborative politics" and devolving power out of Westminster. He repeats the theme of the Makerfield by-election - 'place first, problem-solving, not point-scoring'.

Posted without comment

So it turns out the massive scandal here is that Bridget Phillipson's mum bought a council house for £9k in 1990 and then sold it *33 years* later for £99k. That's the entire story

Oh has Dom defected - sorry, I mean changed his direct debit - ?

More safe routes are good, but these need to be seen for what they are - numbers will be in the 100s and arrivals not until next year. Meanwhile, this government closed the Afghan resettlement schemes and has "paused" refugee family reunion, which helped 10,000s www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Toll in Venezuela earthquakes climbs to more than 900 dead and 3,360 injured, authorities say. Here's what we know.

We're delighted to announce that we've secured a seven-year, £1.5 million Propel grant to support its goal to transform London’s advice sector workforce, supporting advice workers’ entire career journey: bit.ly/4ojJlak

📢 Up to £200K in funding for advice services! Our next member Funding Update is packed with opportunities ranging from £7K to £200K. Not a member yet? Join now to receive funding updates like this: https://bit.ly/4ouvUVb Members, make sure to check your inboxes on June 25.

This is just infuriating. Ministers have been letting this happen and their response? Blame the appeals backlog on lawyers and judges and scrap the immigration tribunal.

The Independent Chief Inspector's report on ‘An inspection of asylum casework’ has been published and is available on the ICIBI website:

It was inevitable, wasn't it🙄 Of course the Telegraph would run with something like this👇 So let's remove some of the rose-tinted spectacles and also look at some of that data comparing 1976 with modern heat waves Because the 1976 nostalgia porn is wearing a bit thin at this stage 🧵1/23

3/ But our most striking finding is that even more powerful actors behaved similarly. Major law firms and corporations, despite having resources and autonomy, often aligned with the administration, prioritising access, profit, or survival.

🧵1/ In our new paper, @chrischirp.bsky.social & I argue that while institutions can resist authoritarian pressure, some enable it. Looking at the current US regime, we examine why universities, law firms, and corporations often chose accommodation over resistance.

Credit where credit is due, Finally Sally Nugent asked Nigel Farage real questions about £5m on BBC breakfast. His answer literally is "No one cares". WTAF. (I've speeded it up to 1.3x to fit within the BlueSky video limit)

Nice one @libdems.org.uk 👍

These journalists do realise I presume that Ed Miliband was literally the leader of the party in 2015 and fairly few people were expecting him to be Mitterand then. Plus there’s very little HMT experience in Labour and Ed has tons of it.

There's a bit of debate about whether a 3 month transition is a good idea. Fwiw, regardless of whether there's a contest, I think it is. We got into this mess because someone came into power without a clear idea of what he wanted to do.

With racism it’s always the same tropes: that a racial, ethnic or faith group is inherently different, have different values, not as loyal/patriotic, more violent and so on. That’s why it’s important to call anti-Muslim prejudice what it is: anti-Muslim racism. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Horrendous attack on the streets of Edinburgh. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

NEW: ANDY BURNHAM RETURNS TO PARLIAMENT AND STORMS BY ELECTION WINS 24K VOTES 9000 MAJORITY OVER REFORM HUGE WIN.

"Everyone knows that politics isn't working, everyone can feel that the country isn't where it should be," Andy Burnham says after winning Makerfield by-election This is a chance to "build a new politics", he adds

It is extremely annoying the way that Hunt, like Osborne before him, personally undermined the foundations of the British state and now gets to opine as if this mess was absolutely nothing to do with him.

A new report "Understanding anti-Muslim hostility" from @britishfuture.bsky.social and British Muslim Trust sets out the reach of positive, neutral, negative views towards Muslims, to signpost the range of strategies we need to challenge + reduce hostility + hatred towards Muslims in Britain today.

So you can say that “defence spending has fallen while welfare has risen” if you’re clear what you mean by “welfare”. Health and education are part of the welfare state, and they are classified as ‘benefits-in-kind’ by the ONS...

In truth, the peace dividend has been spent on the entire welfare state, not working-age social security. Recently the most dramatic increases have been in health. Since 1980, health spending has risen by 4.5% of GDP. Funding also came from low debt interest costs that have also recently reversed.

I was surprised to see a chart on BBC Verify yesterday - www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... - highlighting that “defence spending has fallen as welfare spending has risen”. It didn’t look quite right to me so we took a closer look....⤵️

A disaster like Grenfell must never happen again.

Today marks the ninth anniversary of the Grenfell tragedy. My thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of the 72 innocent people who lost their lives, and with the wider community whose lives were changed forever.

Solidarity with the Grenfell community in their ongoing struggle for justice today and always 💚 Every individual and organisation linked to the catastrophic failures that led to this tragedy must face the full force of the law. #Justice4Grenfell

Excellent article by @ciaranm.bsky.social

Justin Webb now stating as fact that in Northern Ireland - and across the U.K. - for years people ‘have been able to come here and get access to services’ that local people can’t Is there any evidence for this? Why is a presenter on the BBC stating this as fact?

The houses of ethnic minorities in Belfast didn’t ’go on fire’ last night - as my radio has told me - they were set alight

The family of the Belfast stabbing victim have released a statement saying - like the family of Henry Nowak last week - that the attack should not be used to "divide people or fuel hostility" They condemned disorder and praised the "valuable contribution" by migrants inews.co.uk/news/politic...

This has nothing to do with stopping crime. It is to do with a global far-right movement, coordinated on X, organised by some of the most powerful men in the world from Silicon Valley to the White House inews.co.uk/opinion/fara...

The @nao.org.uk is right: too many people do not know that support exists for debts on essential bills, or how to access it. But support schemes only work if people know they exist.

Advice services help people access support schemes, challenge billing problems and manage debt, but demand is outstripping capacity. Investment in advice services is an investment in prevention. Read our full response: www.adviceuk.org.uk/2026/06/10/a...