It's good to be on a platform where people express normal human empathy and dismay at the horrific synagogue attack rather than on one where they weaponise it for their grubby, divisive purposes and try to turn a tragedy into an opportunity

Lots of people asking about the Government's prospects for recovering the £120m from Barrowman/Mone/their companies Short answer: I don't know. I'm not an insolvency specialist. No clue how the £120m was paid out to them from PPE Medpro So I have no technical answer But...

🚨 IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: The Labour Government has won its £122m case against former Tory peer, Michelle Mone, over faulty PPE. 👉 Read more: www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o... 🤳 Share on Bluesky!

You might think that the mayor of Yellowknife, the capital of Canada's vast Northwest Territories, would be a fan of giant pickups. Nope. He's disgusted by car bloat. www.linkedin.com/posts/benjam...

6 Tory leaders in 15 years. Cameron. May. Johnson. Truss. Sunak, now Badenoch. Their austerity, greed and incompetence, coupled with their unnecessary, advisory referendum, agitated by the Brexit arsonist, Farage, broke Britain's economy. Grow up. Apologise, show some humility? #Toriesaretoast

In the biggest overhaul to marriage law since the 19th century, reforms are set to give marrying couples greater freedom and boost the economy by £535 million.

On Yom Kippur many Jewish people in Britain have their phones off to mark the holy day. As it ends at 723pm, some will hear the tragic Manchester news for the first time. At that time, please join many of us to send a message of solidarity to British Jews.Thanks Together coalition for proposing.

Javier Milei had to beg a bail-out and already needs another. Argentina's economy is in a tailspin. Gov't bonds and peso in freefall. People starving, throwing rocks at him. Farage last year: "He's amazing. It's Thatcherism on steroids. Cutting and slashing expenditure. That's leadership." SHARE!

This would be the easiest Labour win ever so can't see why this wouldn't happen. Really serves to illustrate the extreme level of corruption we have just witnessed under those Tory years.

The UK needs a road tax by weight instead of a flat fee. It works everywhere else. You want to drive around in a wankpanzer, you get to pay the 2 grand a year bellend tax. (Road tax for pictured Range Rover is €527 per quarter in The Netherlands)

Farage, in his bubble of media-shielded hate, has been made to feel invincible. This is a rare breach of that bubble exposing his crybaby weakness. If he loses from here, it’ll eat him up. If he wins, he’ll have to govern and be held to account. He’ll be shit at it and end his career in disgrace.

Strong moment as Keir Starmer calls out the racism we’ve seen in recent weeks and months: "Labour is proud of Britain's flags but if they are painted alongside graffiti telling a Chinese takeaway owner to 'go home', that's not pride - it's racism."

Some good news. London is meeting legal limits for toxic NO2 pollution for the first time – almost 200 years earlier than predicted – following the Mayor’s "world leading air pollution policies," City Hall announces. The Ultra Low Emissions Zone - and similar policies - really do work.

Michelle Mone's company breached their COVID PPE contract and must pay the government £122m. Will they? Who knows... ...but she lost the case, the government won. Now the battle to force the repayment happens...and, importantly, the criminal case can now continue!

We absolutely need an SUV tax. We never had enough space on roads to begin with so it's ridiculous to be allowing this car bloating, never mind the environmental costs.

This very good Sun editorial of 2014 - saying it is not racist to be worried about the high levels of immigration, but it is racist to be prejudiced against all Romanians, because they are Romanian, was about Nigel Farage making an overtly prejudiced argument ("you know the difference")

Single Transferable Vote would be a start...

“That Brexit has made control of immigration more difficult, damaged our economy and weakened opportunities for future generations should make people think twice before putting Brexit's chief proponent in charge of running the country” Times letters: a lonely oasis of sanity in the far right storm.

Keir Starmer, "Before we left the EU we had a returns agreement (for asylum seekers) with every country in the EU" "These are Farage' Brexit Boats that are coming across the channel"

Keir Starmer, "Politicians who lie to this country, unleash chaos, and walked away after Brexit" "Who equivocate on Putin and Ukraine" "Who even now go to America and grub around for money" "Talking this great country down" "No more lectures from them"

Keir Starmer attacks Nigel Farage and Reform UK: I will take no more lectures from 'politicians who lied to this country, unleashed chaos, and walked after Brexit.'

The country needed to hear what Starmer just said about racism. Say it again and again. Hatred is not free expression.

If my Portuguese wife had had to do 10 years and then volunteer we wouldn't be here and neither would the jobs we create. We met abroad, and we would have stayed there.

The level of impatience in modern politics is helping populists. Presumably related to social media. "I need tangible results now" is simply unrealistic. But I keep hearing it from people who should know better.

On the morning of Keir Starmer's conference speech here's a new post on an odd psychopathology in British politics - our main parties don't like the people who vote for them - the dreaded Professional Managerial Class. And so they are acting out like a divorced dad seeking cooler voters. 1/n

The government now appears to have briefed that the natural reading of this message & speech is not government policy: that those here (who arrived 2021-25) will not face these rules to "earn their right to stay" (but that those rules would apply to future arrivals)

Worth pointing out the Scottish parliament is elected using PR, it's a very different voting system designed to ensure smaller parties are represented. It's not like for like, difficult to make a comparison v FPTP.

There is a key moral distinction between immigration policy on new arrivals, no matter how draconian, and on people who have already been granted status, on set conditions. It is about being a country that keeps its word. If we're not that, we might as well fucking give up now.

Plus, as much as I might like to rejoin, especially as I live in France and it’s pretty fucking inconvenient for all sorts of reasons, I’m also well aware that the EU will not go anywhere near us as long as Farage is in the background. They remember what he was like as an MEP.

Starmer clearly did not say this. He said it is wrong to strip the status of those told the UK is their permanent home - and added this policy was 'racist' when asked

Just fuck off with this. How about start the conversation by highlighting how much immigrants contribute to the UK - not least by propping up the NHS and social care system! Also - forced volunteering is not volunteering, it's unpaid labour.

My semi-regular reminder of a really important reality about cities, density, services and taxes. Original graphic cleaned up by @kathrynmathias.bsky.social. #CityMakingMath

Extraordinary level of blatant lying on the Mail’s front page this morning.

This entirely dishonest headline explains why Starmer and co have been hesitant about making the moral case against Reform. The government is subject to relentless bad faith reporting that’s then magnified by the broadcasters. But fear should never stop you doing the right thing.

Very good explanation on possible tax increases in the upcoming budget podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, calling out Farage for his visit to the US, begging them to place sanctions on British workers. "That's not patriotic, is it?"

Miliband says it's 'possible' government should come off Elon Musk's X social media platform DO IT www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

There seems to be some *confusion* among Reform supporters over Nathan Gill being one of them “But, but, Reform didn’t exist when he took his Russian bribes” “But, but he was in UKIP” “But, but it has nothing to do with Farage, he barely knew the guy” So here’s a little history lesson 👍🏼🧵 1/14

The Labour PM laying in to Reform over their policy which would see our friends, our families, our colleagues,ez, our NHS staff, our schools teachers deported simply because Reform don't want them. "[Reform's] policies would tear this country apart"

Switching 2p from National Insurance to Income Tax would bring the rate of tax paid by pensioners closer to that paid by working-age people. Even so, pensioners with incomes below £40,000 would still be better off next year than this year, due to upcoming increases to the state pension age ⤵️

If you live in the UK and wonder what Labour has done since the election, here's a thread you can show to others. This wouldn't have happened with the Tories in charge.

that it was a Conservative Govt that made it that you have to show ID to vote, yet rage when Labour introduce a Digital ID Card! - the hypocrisy is astounding. People need to grow the hell up and calm down.

Shall we calm ourselves into a minor frenzy, Digital ID cards are not going to be compulsory except for employment, much like a NI number. The only info held will be Name, DoB, nationality/residency status and a photo. Its modelled on Digital ID apps used in Australia, Estonia, India and Denmark.

Labour delivering policies that make a difference…. “It says polling found eight in ten familes say breakfast clubs help them to get to work on time and drop their kids off at school more easily.”

I would go further. The vast majority of people have a biometric passport. Those who don't are, mostly, the poor, the old, the young, homeless, etc. In short, the people who are constantly CHALLENGED to prove their identity. To those people, an ID card is an empowering document, not a dangerous one.

My grandson already goes to Breakfast club 3 times a week. It dovetails in with the childminder his little brother goes to paid for by Labour 3 days a week. With my day of childminding my daughter can now work 4 days instead of 2. She’s better off, job gets more tax. Win/win.

The fact the extreme right and left wing are against them also suggests they are a good thing. Only compulsory for work with you choosing what else you want on it seems to be ignored by most commentators.

We have to show our 'papers' to open a bank account, get a new job. I had a nightmare trying to prove who my 87 year old Mum with dementia was a few years ago for a financial matter. Her driving licence was long expired & living in a care home she had no utility bills. What world do they live in?

If we don't want a "papers please" society, we need to roll back the checks brought in to satisfy the Mail and its screaming siblings. If we're going to keep those checks, we probably do need some digital system for meeting them - which means thinking hard about safeguards and security.

Nail on head by Adil Ray, "If a Muslim extremist rallied 100,000 people we would be worried, but when Robinson did we say: they have genuine concerns"