Here's an exciting thought: I wonder if political parties might consider separating governing from campaigning...

Evening.

The problem with credulous berks like Madeley is that they look across other media output and hear things like 'Never known anything like this in my lifetime!' And 'Only the Profumo affair was as big as this!' If those are your starting assumptions, then this opinion piece is the inevitable result.

So brilliant that his boss has one of the lowest ever net favourable ratings of any PM.

Madeley. FFS.

Badenoch accuses Starmer of making his problems 'somebody else's fault'. From a party that has turned the 'someone else's fault' doctrine into an art form. bsky.app/profile/rola...

McSweeney going is excellent news. It doesn't fix any problems by itself, but it is the precondition for fixing those problems.

'The Labour Illuminati'

Hubris and karma are a mesmerising combination.

Smirk/grimace

Oh Lord. Just seen that daft Susan Hall woman in Amersham Tesco. She must live among us...

Peter Mandelson – the great genius at the heart of New Labour. Dominic Cummings – the great genius at the heart of 'Leave'. Nick Timothy – the great genius at.... Morgan McSweeney – the great.... Steve Hilton... Can we ban all alleged great geniuses and cast them into outer darkness forever?

BREAKING: Keir Starmer’s statement on McSweeney quitting government

Madeley. FFS.

Here comes the backlash against the Lords over assisted dying bill… MPs and peers have established an all party parliamentary group to push for Lords reform. “It is clearer than ever that this institution, which dates back 700 years and is the second largest on earth…can no longer be justified.”

'Vote out the system that made me Prime Minister without any reference to the electorate.'

Exclusive: Investigators carrying out developed vetting (DV) on Mandelson failed to ask interviewees about his relationship with Epstein One of those interviewed during this phase told @theobserveruk.bsky.social there was “not a single question on Jeffrey Epstein” observer.co.uk/news/politic...

Terrifying that such powerful people have mad and dangerous religious extremist views.

For fuck’s sake … it is long past time the British media ostracised these absolutely deranged clowns. Once your ‘intellect’ has been disgraced in public by the actions you took, that should be it. Hide in shame forever. The Profumo Model.

I wonder if members of the public saying they'd prefer Andy Burnham to Keir Starmer can even remember what Andy Burnham sounds like, never mind whether he'd be a more effective PM.

I don't think we have to engage properly with Matt Goodwin talking about birth rates, he's just trying to signal that he wants more white people, it's not really anything beyond that.

John Virgo's Snooker Impressions. RIP www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv6y...

Ali Miraj on LBC is discussing the whole Kisin/English/British thing. Yes, another outing for it.

I guess it's just a better story than 'most of our members are over 50 and they're all pining for The Good Owld Days™'.

And speaking of scoops… McSweeney’s brand of political genius looks more like the Cummings variety every day.

The pothole situation is now a full-blown crisis. And it's not over yet.

The absolute fucking state of: 1. This man who used to be in charge of schools & was behind the introduction of ‘British Values’ 2. The fact that the conversation is happening at all. Gove is a fucking horror.

Nice to see a 'classical liberal' Brexiter still tweeting about both Benn and Powell in 2026. So very on-brand.

Its not a new sentiment but: Fuck Matt Goodwin. I have family members who'd dearly like to have kids, but can't due to medical stuff. Friends who have spent years trying but it hadnt happened. Multiple miscarriages. Fuck Goodwin and everyone who supports him.

Surely this isn't how the big AI crash is meant to play out.

At last, Musk has chosen the right side. Only took him four years.

No one believes a staffer did this.

Morning.

Labour MPs & party insiders tell me they’ve never seen Keir Starmer so angry as over Mandelson’s lies about Epstein links. But those who know him well say that anger has now turned inwards. That Starmer is, above all else, a man of public service, and will be grappling with his conscious this w/e.

Gotta love the French. They don't even try to hide that they think the Americans are trashy and contemptible.

A good moment to recall that bitcoins are a, if not the, central plank of Farage's economic policy. It's an order of magnitude madder than Trussonomics: www.cityam.com/farages-cryp...

This has now been deleted. So Piers Morgan can continue to fawn over Trump.

No of course he didn't realise, Piers. FFS.

Gove 'tackles' the Kisin English/British thing and waffles because he's a fan of Kisin. It's apparently all about the Left 'calling everyone a racist' and the Left pushing boundaries e.g. a black Ann Boleyn. It's basically the Left's fault for annoying people. Sigh. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Smg9...

Lucy Connolly is having one or two 'moments' in the other place.

On Starmer/McSweeney appointing Mandelson. Great piece full of gems.

Labour MPs are advising each other not to go away over February recess, so quickly could the end come for Starmer "It's imminent," says one minister He's "dead in the water," says another senior MP observer.co.uk/news/the-sen...

Imagine building a political strategy around what Trump might say from day to day

Reminder: this is the same outfit that expels and deports people for criticising a foreign government

'...which they fear could torpedo Starmer's relationship with Trump.' Well, that might encourage Starmer's successor into more 'muscular' Carney-type/Macron-esque diplomacy.

'The highest in 10 years'. What, more than when Braverman and Jenrick were at the Home Office? Fancy that, eh.

I'm starting to think we need a new swear word to describe Trump because c*** doesn't cover it. H/t @hhesterm.bsky.social

These guys, whose problems are *always* someone else's fault, are condemning Starmer for suggesting it's someone else's fault. Pots/kettles/people in glass houses.... Morning.

New Brunswick, an east coast Canadian province of about 900,000 people, will no longer use billionaire Elon Musk’s social media platform X for routine government communications, its leader announced