Badenoch says both we need the biggest ever rearmament programme and that we should not borrow to fund it. As she’s not demanding borrowing stop immediately what does she think she is saying? That borrowing for the arts is good but for defence is bad? Has she thought about any of this at all?

Kevin Keegan: he hated fascists

Seen a few people saying rough sleeping policy isn’t aimed at median public concern. Quite apart from any policy/moral imperative it really is - rough sleeping comes up time again in focus groups as one of the most visible signs of Broken Britain and community decline!

Nicaragua’s president says country will not hold any more elections

Huge mistake to think that because Healey is now Chancellor defence spending will simply rise to what he was demanding a few weeks ago. Not how government works.

Globally almost nobody watches the world cup final for pre- or mid-game shows. ‘Crap’ as it was memorably described on the BBC. This stuff is generally seen as poison.

Do the BBC have a correspondent outside the Cabinet Office to catch these people as they leave? Of course not.

Once again Ofcom volunteer to be booted in to the Sun by the new PM. I hope he does.

Labour has now sacked both the two black men who have ever held leadership positions in the last two years. That isn’t a good thing and people with responsibility for appointments need to be very careful - representation matters.

Keegan lived the game and wore his heart on his sleeve. No matter what team you supported you had to have a heart of stone not to admire that passion and energy. And he was a world class player too.

Sad news about Kevin Keegan. Very sad.

In 1979 I arrived home from school ‘just in time’ to see Thatcher’s riff on St. Francis. Not watched them all since but was very privileged to be on the street itself in 1997. Some have been memorable and not always for good reasons.

Nerdy but important constitutional point: Andy Burnham will be appointed PM because Starmer recommends that to the monarch. BBC seemingly unable to state this. It matters because the principle is that, unless in extremis, the monarch acts solely on ministers’ advice and that’s quite important.

Has Jezza claimed he’s just ‘seen off’ another Prime Minister yet? Hope Karie has her best frock ready for the call from the Palace. 😂

Lot of Boo-ris going on here

Farage’s political career circling the drain? Maybe www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Argentina truly dreadful. Right result even if it was a terrible game. I wonder how a truly competitive France v England final would have gone.

The 1994 final, also in the US, was also a limp ending to a disappointing tournament

This is all technically brilliant by Spain but it is also a bit, well, dull

Reminder: there's NO legitimate use for crypto. Its only practical uses are tax evasion, money laundering, fraud, specualtion, and crime. No Democrat should vote for the so-called CLARITY Act, a bill backed by the crypto lobby that would make this Ponzi scheme even worse.

That match won’t be featuring in any list of all time great finals. But that’s hardly Limerick’s fault. #GAA

Galway needing an ‘Offaly v Limerick in 93’ type recovery to save themselves here #GAA

The BBC’s coverage of these big GAA games is an interesting political phenomenon. President coming on to the field just now has been ignored but the playing of Amhrán na bhFiann will not be. Must be a lot of tricky internal politics to get through when they plan coverage.

Soccerguy is real - Italy and Argentina are both referred to as ‘clubs’ in this. Life imitating art.

Easily the most enjoyable watch of this World Cup. Not many examples of ‘the beautiful game’ in this over extended contest but that was one of them. Poor consolation for either team but they kept us entertained.

Going to take a wild guess here and suggest being a brutal dictatorship with no free public debate, parties, parliament, civic associations and trade unions has something to do with it.

I did once (1978) stand there on a sunny day at the start of the season. Loved it I’m not so sure about: but I did get to see Billy Bremner play (for Hull)

AB, a 🧵

Well the ABs should have played most of that with 14 players but even then we probably would have lost.

We’re not getting either bonus point, are we?

Ridiculous that is staying as a yellow

For all their brilliance the All Blacks continue to be dirty b^stards

Generally against slagging off political journalists, even not very good ones, but. think if I’d used my massive state backed platform to claim this farce was going to create a ‘split screen summer’ I’d be feeling pretty bloody stupid right now. And no, it was obvious then that judgment was wrong…

I know it's only a PCC election with low turnout but 11% for a party that happily accepts neo-Nazis as members is really bad.

You know you're in trouble when the Spectator of all magazines publishes this

In May we said Nigel Farage probably didn't owe tax on his £5m gift. The Guardian now reports the gift followed talks where Farage said he'd need £5m to return to frontline politics. *If* that's right, we think there's a high risk of a £3m tax bill - payable by Reform.

Britain’s tiny collection of Maoist groupies are presumably turning triple summersaults in their defence of the Communist Party of China’s attack on Britain’s social democrats for nationalising a steel plant.

I've lived in Beijing, and the thing is - they don't have elections.

Did the Lib Dems *really* demand Argentina were excluded from the final? Good grief.

"Isn't it humiliating to be unable to answer this question?" This exchange between Sen. Ossoff and Trump nominee Jay Clayton—about who won the 2020 election—is well worth watching.

In 1974 the third place playoff was one of the best games in the World Cup, really the only one where the Brazil of legend turned up. At least that is how I remember it at the time (I was 8)

MPs don’t get paid until they have sworn the oath. So even if he wins poor old Nigel is going to have to struggle on without his MP’s salary for a few weeks as the house won’t be sitting. More time to advertise gold bullion though?

It's interesting how much of this stuff is coming from within Reform. Not a happy ship.

One thing that has definitely changed in my lifetime is that English football analysts are now open and honest and not just the rutting stags of my youth. It’s a good thing.

Wayne Rooney are real revelation in this World Cup

England tried to defend for 25+ minutes against Argentina rather than stay on the front foot and the result was more or less inevitable.

Never previously watched this fixture wanting (mildly) England to win. In 86 I genuinely didn’t think Maradona had handled the ball even after watching the replay. Don’t know if that was expectation bias or what. In 98 Owen’s marvellous goal was obscured in my mind by his earlier dive…

I’m sure everyone who has done any sort of ‘law for journalists’ training (mine was PCL/Westminster Uni rather than NCTJ though) has been told this sort of stuff is verboten. Amazing if it’s never previously been actioned though.

Badenoch judged her questions well.

There are limits to computing power imposed on us by the physical world. This is why you don’t have 7Ghz cpus (power wall) and even the number of parallel cores in the cpus we do have is limited (off chip bottleneck). That is why I routinely discount the oft repeated claims of the imminence of…1/3