I spent some time with the wonderful staff and students of the Madani Schools, which is a centre of excellence for speaking skills. hyphenonline.com/2026/04/29/t...

A few years back for a story I spoke to a content moderator who was pretty much broken by having to review this type of content on a daily basis. Now that's basically most active social media users.

Two stabbed in knife attack in Golders Green

PSNI charged three times more 'terror' display cases relating to Palestine Action - a group only banned last year - than they have for loyalist paramilitaries in over 25 years. Amnesty NI said using terror law against peaceful protest was 'absurd'

A temporary rent freeze was introduced in response to wartime inflation (and a huge rent strike that threatened military production) in 1915. There would be rent controls in one form or another for the next 73 years. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Excellent work from @charlottetobitt.bsky.social pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/d...

Listening to Today on the seafarers stranded in the Straight of Hormuz and reminded of the plight of the crews who were first stranded and then rotated/stationed in the Suez Canal on ships that were there for…. 11 years.

140 children have died in temporary accommodation since 2019. Most of these deaths are never subject to a full and public investigation. I tried to tell the stories of 20 children who were homeless when they died: www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

“Welsh Labour has been in power in the Senedd for 27 years. Yet in 2026, the air of quiet confidence that once defined Cardiff Bay has become stagnant” My report from Wales - Port Talbot, Cardiff, Swansea, Cwmbran, and Wrexham (among other places) - ahead of a historic Senedd election.

Question to the pollster/politico types: is there a point at which the Labour brand in government is so damaged that no leader could turn it around?

Headlines give the impression that Dr Keith Wolverson was struck off for asking a woman to remove her niqab. He wasn’t. Here’s what actually happened ⬇️ hyphenonline.com/2026/04/24/k...

Deep dive into the disarray in this huge council. Here's why it's important: 'the local elections are mainly discussed in terms of what they signal for Labour’s grip on power nationally. But for Birmingham’s 1.1 million residents, there could be much more immediate consequences'

🔴New from @sajeraj.bsky.social on @hyphenonline.com: can anyone fix Britain's largest local authority? With no party predicted to win a majority, it's likely some sort of coalition will run Birmingham after 7 May. Whether that's good or bad depends on who you ask. hyphenonline.com/2026/04/23/b...

For Hyphen, I wrote about the local elections in Birmingham, which promise to be very consequential for the UK's second city: hyphenonline.com/2026/04/23/b...

I've written about how the public are more into heat pumps than politicians assume. www.newstatesman.com/spotlight/su...

Gross.

An important piece from Ben Gerstein for @justsecurity.org on the aggressive efforts of Russian-backed Bosnian Serb secessionist Dodik to court support among the international far right for his effort to destabilize Bosnia and the whole Western Balkans. www.justsecurity.org/136681/bosni...

Terrible news. Giles was an excellent person on housing law and always generous with his time. He'll be missed.

Insightful analysis from Angelo Boccato www.newstatesman.com/internationa...

What a delight to guest on one of my favourite pods, @overunderpod.bsky.social with the brilliant @carysafoko.bsky.social. We talked Strait of Hormuz, Melania Trump, the maternity crisis and Telegraph sale. Prizes for guessing which were overs and which were unders overunderpod.com/episodes/str...

I'm truly not sure which is worse. If Keir Starmer was informed and is lying about it or that he is so absent as PM that important decisions are taken for him by officials. At least lying about what he knew, while intolerable, would show there is someone in charge and taking an interest.

I'm most read on the @newstatesman1913.bsky.social site. Apparently prostate cancer policy is more interesting than yet more proof that the political system is broken: www.newstatesman.com/spotlight/20...

Today's newsletter: although of the three scenarios that would explain 'he's failed his developed vetting - oh well!', only one is traditionally a resigning matter, all three reveal a man either unwilling or unfit to do the actual job of prime minister.

Anyone else finding the Palantir campaign in Playbook a bit on the nose?

It's @prospectmagazine.co.uk pod day, and this week @ellenhalliday.bsky.social and I spoke with @trillingual.bsky.social about his excellent new book, which is all about how the British establishment made the far right respectable www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/podcasts/pro...

My analysis of the fiscal impact of the "earned settlement" proposals, based on government's own data. The direct savings are a fraction of the Home Secretary's misleading claims, and likely to be offset by the substantial costs of lower work-related migration. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Journalists know that losing the Wayback Machine would be a nightmare: www.wired.com/story/the-in...

Israeli forces fire teargas at schoolchildren holding West Bank sit-in

I know this is me still mourning a long dead world but it does feel remarkable that, not that long ago, British papers on the right would have run editorials and columns arguing that Hungary showed that only a solid, reliable centre-right party could defeat dangerous populists, but now? [crickets]

They say you notice doctors getting younger as you get older, well my (younger) friend's younger brother is now a therapist. He's basically short-circuited the standard Millennial career path.

A trial of controversial live facial recognition technology that scanned thousands of faces and cost tens of thousands of pounds produced no matches, The Detail can reveal. Passengers travelling from Dublin to Holyhead were scanned in February as part of a UK immigration enforcement pilot.

Palantir sponsoring Playbook this morning had me 👀

The “Greens ignoring their traditional core” critique both odd and (imo) seems bad faith. From the late 90s to 2010, Greens mostly expanded in Labour-voting university towns.

More people died in Israel's latest bombing of Lebanon than died in the 2020 Beirut port blast Brilliant reporting by @rayajalabi.ft.com as.ft.com/r/3d576d7b-9...

Public service announcement: Baban’s Naan now has a branch in Dalston called King Naan

IF WE TOLERATE THIS is out on 30 April - just ahead of the elections. Come and see me talk about it... 5 May, Nottingham @fiveleavesbooks.bsky.social fiveleavesbookshop.co.uk/events/if-we... 13 May, London @londonreviewbookshop.co.uk www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/daniel-tri... Hope to see you there!

This is a real cautionary tale for journalists thinking of using AI for editing/amending/adding text to their work www.theguardian.com/books/2026/m...

Remember when the biggest threat to Nato was Zack Polanski suggesting maybe Europe shouldn't be so dependant on the US for its security? www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2...

Israel has been carrying out summary executions for decades. But there is a thick new layer of darkness in ritualising murder as capital punishment. Exclusively for Palestinians (for now; give it a few years.) In military courts, rigged for 96% conviction. Dark, dark, dark day.

Does Labour really want to do it like Denmark? I've written about why the strategy is increasingly beleaguered, www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/728...

FT exclusive: The UK government is on the verge of fully nationalising British Steel, almost a year on from using emergency legislation to take control of the business www.ft.com/content/f885...

I’m thrilled that the Guardian Saturday magazine has excerpted one of my favourite chapters from THE ASSET CLASS this weekend: www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

NEW: Largely forgotten in the West, the "Sacred Defense" (Defa-e-Muqaddas) of the Iran-Iraq war shaped the ideas, people and institutions now fighting the #Iranwar. @dannypostel.bsky.social and I on the long shadow of a defining conflict. In @newlinesmag.bsky.social newlinesmag.com/essays/the-l...

Fascinating and grotesque story of an unnamed boy who was "brought home on board for your honour" by a naval officer as an (unsuccessful) bribe for Pepys: www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Wild that street stalls get a plug here. Green campaign managers have worked for years to ban activists from spending time on these over doorknocking and leafleting. The Green air campaign was much more effective than any previous election imo.

This is a 16-year-old British boy who became obsessed with neo-Nazism from his remote Northumberland home When he was 14, he joined a group stoking a race war. But the American man running it lives in Russia, and his activities chime with sabotage efforts in Europe www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/w...

Morgan McSweeney did not disclose his No 10 job in phone theft 999 call, transcripts show

Labour lost white working-class voters to Greens in Gorton and Denton, party analysis finds www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

A photo finish in Slovenia, with PM Robert Golob's ruling Freedom Movement just edging Orban-Dodik ally Jansa's SDS by 0.50%. The seat distribution in the National Assembly, however, is challenging for Golob and Jansa alike; unstable govt or even hung parliament likely.