America seems to have lost its mind.

A small point from the Mandelson/Robbins saga. Refom and many Tories argue for a civil service than can be more easily bent to the will and whims of their elected political masters. This is precisely what happened here.

Breaking News: President Trump is said to be in talks to send Afghans who helped the U.S. war effort to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

This is incredible. Absolute game changing compared with what’s been on the market www.ft.com/content/1773... CATL claims 6-minute charge and 1,500km range for new electric vehicle batteries

Despised by Trump, not quite trusted by its European neighbours: Britain is in a hard place. My look at how, exactly, the UK could move closer to the EU. With thoughts from @lscazzieri.bsky.social and @davidheniguk.bsky.social eu.boell.org/en/2026/04/2...

The Home Secretary is equal parts obnoxious and hypocritical

In 2025, the world started construction of nuclear power plants that would generate 12 GW of power if completed. In the same year, it installed 108 GW of batteries and 600 GW of solar capacity.

RFK Jr. just said that immigration is to blame for the outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases in the U.S., not him.

"The photographer is real," say scrupulously honest Reform. In which case, their supporters have 6 fingers, can perform levitation, and are campaigning to "Get Stuppence Out." Stick to tax evasion, Tice. You're absolutely nailing that. www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-...

So far Olly Robbins has dropped govt in it x 3 - that Cabinet Office suggested Mandelson might not even need vetting, that No 10 pressured him to get on with it, that publicly rejecting M on vetting grounds wd be v awkward - & himself in it on maybe 1 (dsn't sound like he recorded much of this...

Election material from the Conservative Party came in the post today in the form of a letter from Kemi Badenoch. Lots of anti Reform stuff in it. But no mention of local issues or the fact that a Residents Party are the local favourites. Or even that the current MP for the district is Kemi Badenoch.

Lots to say here - but one of my biggest takeaways would be that this shows just how much pressure Mahmood now feels under. She is *badly* losing the argument, and doesn't really have anything to fall back on other than trying to imply opponents aren't legitimate. This is that fustration showing

Scenes from a personalist regime: A nominee to an independent federal body refuses to acknowledge that the President ever lost an election.

The insider trading suspicions looming over Trump's presidency: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Will Bain, Head of Trade Policy, British Chamber of Commerce: "We've also had enormous extra cost injected into the systems so an export health certificate costs £200 if you're loading a truck with multiple consignments it can be about £1,400"

Very interesting overview here of efforts across Europe.

Sure, Russia hasn’t done anything good, so the oil bonanza billions from the US can’t be a reward. It’s just an expression of Trump’s general policy to make life easier for Putin. It serves no US interest whatsoever. kyivindependent.com/this-is-not-...

The BBC, like most broadcasters, does not have a dedicated energy editor, which is a glaring omission given that almost everything revolves around energy

Resolution has applied my model to data up to 2025. As the chart shows, we can be less confident as time goes on. But firm-level evidence from Bloom et al shows a 6% loss. I think it's time to retire the OBR's 4%, which was a simple average of pre-Brexit forecasts.

Telegraph newspaper editorial on Mandelson's appointment in December 2024 versus editorial today

I think whatever happens with the situation in the Strait of Hormuz is going to have a bigger impact on the UK than whatever happens with Keir Starmer's leadership.

It’s quite something to see this happening from across the pond where this scandal wouldn’t even be noticed or commented on at all. Much more an indictment of the state of US politics but this really feels pretty small with the context of warmongering fascists marauding around the planet.

Olympic deception: Russia’s doping program is run by the same FSB team that poisoned Navalny The Insider exposes the FSB directorate that handles both athletic doping and political assassinations. theins.press/en/inv/291614

This is right. I think can’t rule out that the local elections cause a mass “screw it, we just need to change” panic.

OK. It’s over. Starmer made it seem a bit boring. But couldn’t explain why he chose Mandelson, looks on wobbly legal ground re DV process & sacking Robbins, was unconvincing on ignoring cab sec advice to do DV before announcing, & admitted knowing of Kremlin links before appointing Mandelson. /1.

OMFG I had to go and check that this ACTUALLY happened. Since when does the BBC ever do chyrons with a political party's branding, rather than their own? Not to mention this is during a pre-election campaign purdah. (h/t @iainsol.bsky.social)

A video viewed over 1.7 million times appears to show an interview with two Muslim women saying people shouldn’t bring dogs to the beach. It’s generated a huge amount of negative engagement and comments, but it’s fake. It’s been created with AI.

Fed up with the state’s censoring of Plato, Joan of Arc and Romeo and Juliet, humanities professors are leaving Texas public institutions in pursuit of academic freedom. 🧵

Yesterday, the BBC covered 600 people crossing the channel in small boats on Saturday, noting it was the 2nd highest in a day so far this year. What they'd didn't add was that even including the 600 people, crossings are down 35% compared with the same time last year. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This from trade guru Richard Baldwin on Trump's trade war conduct is great. And helps explain why in fact he is not remaking the world economic order or anything else. He's just going to leave a huge mess behind. www.linkedin.com/pulse/trumps...

A very informative, well-informed thread. Long but worth reading in full.

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I've spoken before about this happening in my own family - but it started a really long time ago. It didn't start in lockdown, I am trying to work out when it did but I certainly remember speaking about the impact of Facebook before the 2017 GE.

Good piece but, tho' it's true Labour are edging to seeking something like 'Chequers', it's misleading to call that the "Chequers deal" - it was a proposal, most of which was rejected by the EU (e.g. Tusk statement after Salzburg summit 09/18).

“X is now becoming a very unpleasant and a very dangerous place” ...says Nigel Farage today

Burning wood for power worse for climate than gas equivalent, report finds Research casts doubt on plans by UK government to offer subsidies for carbon capture attached to the power source www.theguardian.com/environment/...

The JC has published an op ed by Nigel Farage rallying against Jew-hatred. This is a man who sang antisemitic songs, and supposedly said “Hitler was right”, “Gas them” during school days news.sky.com/story/nigel-... theguardian.com/politics/202... thejc.com/opinion/jews...

Reform pledges to review the previous 5 years of asylum grants if got into power - deporting those granted refugee status if came without permission. Reform claim 400,000 people granted asylum would be "in scope" - and they would deport most of them www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Reform are announcing today that they would review and retrospectively strip asylum status from hundreds of thousands of people who are making their lives in the UK. Notable that the Conservative response to the plan seem to effectively endorse it.

Reform UK party has pledged to deport hundreds of thousands of refugees who have already been granted protection in the UK.

This is really sad, actually. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Three weeks to publication of geni.us/PeaceMakers. This week’s🧵is on the women of the Foreign Office in WWII. They were barred from joining the ‘administrative grade’: the senior staff/policymakers. Many hundreds joined the FO in support functions like typing. BUT 1/6

The ocean continued to warm in 2025, reaching record high levels. It is expected that the ocean will continue to warm well into the future – a change which is irreversible for hundreds to thousands of years. Check out the #StateOfClimate 2025: bit.ly/StateOfClima...

Unclear to me why anyone should be relieved if the Tories manage to stay ahead of Reform, when the party is now happy to be represented in Parliament by raving Europhobic nut jobs.

"Pancreatic cancer mRNA vaccine shows lasting results in an early trial: Scientists caution that more research is needed, but nearly all of the patients who responded to the personalized vaccine are still alive six years later."

Bang on. And it is our exceptionalism that is keeping us stuck, gradually getting poorer than we need to be. I rejoice in so many of our cultural differences and our strengths. But I also rejoice in the benefits of cooperation even when it is hard, which is sometimes will be.

IRGC Aerospace Commander MajorGeneral Seyed Majid Mousavi: “During the pause in hostilities, our speed in upgrading and refilling missile and drone launch platforms is even higher than before the war.”

If you’re just waking up, here’s what we know so far about last night’s firebombing of a Synagogue. Yes, another one. www.jewishnews.co.uk/kenton-synag...

A large crowd as always at the weekly march in Tbilisi. Georgians have been protesting in 8+ cities every day for the last 507 days.