In these very cold 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 days I've discovered the delight of the heated car seat - never thought I needed one - how wrong I was #toastydriving

Asylum seekers, housed in hotels in Manchester, are reaching out in their own words to address the concerns of the local community. Please take a minute to read their letter, & share it with the people in your life who need to hear the truth about the people they are protesting.

Thinking of them all as they'll have been roasting out on the hills today 🥵

@hyndlandsec.bsky.social good luck & have fun to the young folk heading off on their #DukeOfEdinburgh trial #Silver expedition today. Child 5 designated videographer for their group 📹 - hope to see some good pics🤞🏻

What’s it like to be an asylum seeker inside a hotel where racist mobs chant for your removal outside? What will it take for the frightened children to recover from this & be able to feel safe & at home in this country. Which WILL BE their home. eastangliabylines.co.uk/immigration/...

Providing safe routes to reach the UK is the only logical, evidence-based way to stop people travelling through irregular means. Last night Ben Kentish challenged me on @lbc.co.uk on how that would work & whether A MILLION BILLION PEOPLE might come😱 www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al4R...

More useless tinkering announced by the government today around the asylum system. No one in their right mind thinks this latest tedious rehash is going to turn the dial. We need radical change.

Including our youngest starring as Rizzo #FutureMusicalTheatreStar

Our #GoldenGirl is Philly - we took her to her happy place today for the first time in quite some months. She's 15 yrs & 9 months old & she was totally invigorated by it 🐕Her sight & hearing are poor but she has still got it - this is the end of a 45 minute walk #SeniorDog #LiveInTheMoment

I only recently started watching this on the recommendation of @kinglucythe1st.bsky.social and others. Still on series 2 and Jo & Sam were my favourites. 💔 for all his family - sending them positive thoughts. RIP Sam

This weekends reading sorted ✔️ Finally made it to Mount Florida to pick up my reserved copy! @thisismyglasgow.bsky.social

I have been so angry over Starmer's speech. As an emigrant myself, but also out of disgust at the horrible divisive language, and out of concern for immigrants in the UK. I must say it: this episode was, for me, a balm for the soul. It solves nothing, but there is a solidarity there I really value.

"There’s a reason a relapse is more unnerving than the illness: because you start to worry you’ll never get better at all." Why I have bloody well had it with the sodding Labour party.

How fabulous to wake up this morning & find this in my podcast feed ❤️ One of lifes great guys 🐩🐕‍🦺🐕https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/walking-the-dog-with-emily-dean/id1220510307?i=1000708200795

Meanwhile in Spain...

The Pope on jailed journalists, at his first press conference: "The suffering of these imprisoned journalists challenges the conscience of nations and the international community, calling on all of us to safeguard the precious gift of free speech and of the press" www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/w...

Starmer's anti-immigrant speech today wasn't just a moral and political embarrassment. It was also an intellectual embarrassment. inews.co.uk/opinion/star...

Gov't criticised from all sides. From the right, "not enough". From all others for its awful rhetoric. "Why are we trying to ape Reform when that will do nothing to improve constituents' lives and just stoke division?" ~AA @timfarron.bsky.social @carladenyer.bsky.social @nadiawhittomemp.bsky.social

And politically stupid, too. Alienates core vote (& they do have places to go) in pursuit of votes he'll rarely get, & demolishes his core policy agenda of growth, making his re-election more unlikely. Even those (inc. me) willing to cut him a lot of slack feel betrayed. A truly awful day for UK.

As Britain's government marches ever further down the path of old-fashioned racism and fact-free scapegoating, Zoe Gardner has been one voice consistently telling it how it is.

Mainstream radio presenters like Vanessa Feltz are perfectly happy to contribute, in their own small way, to the rise of the extreme far right. Her interview with me on LBC just now was chock full of lies. Calls herself a journalist. Really I wonder how they sleep at night.

If you are not already following @zoejardiniere.bsky.social please start now, for genuine heartfelt and empathetic discourse on immigration. Along with the @greenparty.org.uk one of the very few voices that challenge the Reform consensus on immigration.

Fantastic 🎉 Congratulations!

Remembering my lovely mum on what would have been her 87th birthday but who was taken too soon by a life-changing stroke. She adored her children & her grandchildren - sad she has missed so many of their achievements & seeing the fabulous young adults they have become ❤️

Sadly our gorgeous boy was found deceased in a neighbour's garden last night - he looked like he was asleep but had a gash on the back of his neck & we think some debris from that garden fell on him. We are 💔 & he leaves a huge cat shaped hole in our life. Run free over the 🌈 bridge Otis 🐈‍⬛

Otis 🐈‍⬛ is missing from the Drumoyne Avenue/Drive area of G51 - he's a friendly boy & likely familiar to anyone who passes through the lane between the 2 streets regularly. His fluffy tail is very distinctive. Last seen Friday 14th March. Any info welcome as he's hugely missed 💔