🔴Michael Gove Made Orwell Prize Judge Despite Record of Attacking Journalists and Dodging Scrutiny “Orwell would have enjoyed the irony” of the former Conservative minister’s appointment, say critics bylinetimes.com/2025/11/25/m...

Amol Rajan introducing the lifting of the 2 child cap without ever mentioning it lifts children out of poverty, just all the reasons why the Tories hate it, but no, the BBC isn’t partisan. #r4Today

“This is about economic incompetence” says Mel Stride and that he knows the conservatives had “their challenges in government” - wow - stunning understatement and disingenuousness. #r4Today

‘You, Boy! Go and racially abuse everybody you meet …but not in a hurtful or insulting way!’

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

A safe route would be a way of providing control. #wato

Just so we're clear: President Donald Trump on Tuesday defended Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the killing of Washington Post opinion columnist Jamal Khashoggi, saying "things happen.” www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...

This mural has gone up in Kingston, ostensibly for Christmas but AI has ensured it's actually to celebrate the return of our dark lord Cthulhu

why can they not just fix it

Post hoc ergo proper hoc - can we please disentangle failed asylum seekers having children and not being sent home from the reason people have children - do we really believe that’s the main reason they are having them? Really?? #r4Today

Can someone ask the government minister why giving people a legal route to enter the country to claim asylum would not serve as a disincentive to getting on a dangerous boat? Why do we think refugees care about their children less than us, ffs? #r4Today

Alf Dubs describing the Home Secretary using children as an immigration weapon as shabby. And the rest, Alf! 👏 #r4Today

We should stop the boats because it's dangerous, and we should stop the scapegoating of immigrants because it's wrong and cruel. Controlled migration is good for the country, helps build our economy and diversity strengthens our communities. (1/6) 🧵

Ridiculously irritated - am listening to a The Rest is Politics episode on Vance and Rory Stewart has just described mithril as “a kind of dwarfish armour” - ffs! But am also mortally embarrassed by my inner nerd.

Very much sniggering at @mrjamesob.bsky.social describing Andrew Mountbatten Windsor as “the man formerly known as as Prince”…

Lovely. 👏👏👏

🔥 Excellent from Lisa Nandy! "I've seen this before. When I was growing up in Manchester, my dad used to debate with Enoch Powell." "What you're doing is trying to create fear and distrust and division, because that's the only way that you and your friends can thrive."

She’s right. She *deliberately* hacked into Harriet Harman’s website, whereas Rachel Reeves is accused of obtaining a license late by accident. I assume that’s what she means, given Badenoch is widely known for her thoughtfulness and her self-awareness.

The Farage Factor. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Ugh DPD the delivery service that (am guessing) sits in a warm warehouse sending “sorry we missed you” messages to everyone sitting at home waiting for deliveries and then makes you schlep to their collection point while charging their customer for deliveries they never make. 🙄 not a bad work model!

NEW What the Chinese spying case witness statements reveal The Crown Prosecution Service appears to have made at least one serious error, while the government's position now makes sense By me emptycity.substack.com/p/what-the-c...

INCREDIBLE clip. <Richard Holden MP shouts like an angry man in a pub> Lisa Nandy: "Can you calm down a bit, mate? You're shouting like an angry man in a pub." Richard Holden: "That's not fair." <continues to shout like an angry man in a pub>

Timeline cleanse

I think my cleaner may have gone a little nuts…

This is a lie. There are many criticisms you might sensibly and truthfully make of the Sentencing Council and the Sentencing Guidelines. I’ve been making them for years. But this is an outright lie. Pure fabrication. A fraud on the public.

Punching down as usual 😒

Mel Stride on #r4Today saying the proposed Tory welfare cuts are “considered and principled” - good to know they’ve really thought about how to focus on the poorest people to make them poorer and that’s a conservative principle! Nice to see them doubling down on the horror of the last 14 years!

A Chip in the wild:

Cancles in history….

Well that escalated quickly…

Well, that’s not at all creepy….

The roofs of Beaune and the little men that crawl down them…

Well done Nick Robinson, sinking entirely to Farqge’s level, by using his opening question to a Labour spokesman to quote his “cab driver”… 🙄 #r4Today

Not wrong

The most heartbreakingly powerful piece I’ve ever read on Substack. Please, please read and share. And look after your family, friends, neighbours and colleagues for whom England is becoming frightening. @sturdyalex.bsky.social 👇 open.substack.com/pub/bestforb...

So the DFS sale really has been going on as long as we thought

Bryan Lanza on #r4Today just now saying in the UK we throw people in jail for speaking up on pseudo- science - and this was not disputed in any way by Justin Webb.WTAF? Are we just accepting Trump’s rubbish as gospel now?

Hmmm who should I listen to? The research professor who says there is no evidence that screens are damaging children or the pressure group mother who has no evidence and wants her child to grow up in the 1970s? Tricky 🤔 #r4Today

Just been severely menaced by a squirrel while trying to eat a sarnie in Lincoln’s Inn Fields - now for the first time fully behind the rat with a fluffy tail narrative - genuinely afeard.

Reform need to be v careful about accusing people of dodgy tax dealings I would say… it’s a fair bet there will be all sorts of things that could be dug up if people focused on them as much as Raynor…

Unbelievably exhausting listening to Richard Tice squirm, obfuscate and fail to answer any question in #r4Today followed by blatant lies eg the facts of the Linehan case, which go entirely unchallenged… sigh.

Now that is a cocktail! Edible picture and all…

Breaks his heart, IT REALLY DOES. Zahawi, who claimed thousands from the public purse to heat his stables, attended men-only events where female staff were groped, was fined seven-figure sum for tax irregularities and breaches the ministerial code by failing to disclose it, suggests EQUIVALENCE.

Any fool blithely saying they’ve now had a bit of a think about the ECHR and we should leave - is part of why we’re now stuck in the mess of Brexit, being told by the far right to hand our human rights over to them to administer. FFS people. Have you learned nothing from the last decade of failure?

So acc to a very agitated Malcolm Rifkind on Today we are in a national crisis re Immigration and the only solution is to leave the EHCR. - This won’t solve anything. It’s just Brexit 2.0. The absolute hysteria that has engulfed some politicians and the U.K. media is astonishing. To put it mildly.

Leaving the ECHR is the latest iteration of the "one weird trick" politics that has served us so well in recent years. It appeals because it's simple and it won't work because it's simple.

Philippe Sands making Malcolm Rifkind look like a blathering lunatic on #r4Today right now…

41% of Tommy Robinson and Nigel Farage's followers who got arrested at the Riots last year had previous for Domestic Abuse. But apparently it is immigrants who are the problem and not your friendly patriotic wife beater.

This is one of the most beautiful things I have witnessed, the craft here is impeccable.

For once, Thought for the Day on #r4Today made a really good point. In summary that was: Robert Jenrick is a poisonous xenophobic toad. Well done, both accurate and needed to be said.