Indeed. It's why I continue to think that a really important and underrated part of 'being an effective antiracism organisation' is 'just polling ethnic minorities' because otherwise you get the loudest voices and most box office perspectives shaping perceptions.

We are going to see a great deal of this over the next few weeks and months. Even Farage doesn't really know what he's done. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Meanwhile, I'm still reeling from the fact that Richard Tice can't find it in him to condemn someone for saying that Nigerians should be melted down to fill potholes.

Keir Starmer has told @theobserveruk.bsky.social: “There’s a reason that [Farage] is walking away from interviews where questions are being put to him. He doesn’t want to answer the questions because he knows that those answers are not going to be very good for him.” observer.co.uk/news/politic...

Been wondering for a while what the effect is of the Daily Mail and others constantly promising their readers that this is the moment Starmer goes when it isn't.

this really does make me despair. this is a woman who has just got elected as a Reform councillor. she works for the NHS and wants to know “where the money is going”. it’s going on social care, babe

One consequence of Reform's success will be Farage facing more scrutiny, especially about various aspects of his financial dealings, & it makes him very tetchy - the trademark grin & chuckle he often uses to good effect completely desert him. His core voters may not care but the Reform-curious may.

Reform councillors are going to ignore bins and potholes to try to stop the boats Green councillors are going to ignore bins and potholes to try to free Palestine And then British voters are going to somehow blame Keir Starmer because their local services are completely fucked

So when are Reform going to take action against this elected councillor with disgusting views?

NEW: Keir Starmer has appointed Gordon Brown as the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy on Global Finance. No 10 says: “PM has committed to boosting the country’s security and resilience. In this role, Brown will advise on how global finance cooperation can help to achieve this.”

Featuring the TV moment of the year: Vicky Atkins vs Robert Jenrick. thecritic.co.uk/toda...

The state of it

I interrupt your breakfast with news that Saiqa Ali, one of the two Green Party candidates in #Lambeth who was arrested on suspicion of stirring racial hatred and (apparently) suspended has been elected to the council.

I don’t know whether Ukraine will try to attack the Moscow parade today. But that after more than 4 years of the Russian war against Ukraine the Russian president is afraid of attacks against Moscow is a victory for Ukraine.

It’s increasingly hard to argue with the idea Kemi Badenoch is a good leader of the Conservative party, because it’s difficult to argue while laughing.

Again my proposition is not that Labour don’t have a left bloc problem, inner London is going to show that starkly. It’s that they have a both problem and these results I think bear that out. Obviously Reform switchers will count double in lots of seats

“According to the report, Russia has also lost 11,918 tanks, 24,515 armored combat vehicles, 94,312 vehicles and fuel tanks, 41,478 artillery systems, 1,775 multiple launch rocket systems, 1,363 air defense systems, 435 aircraft, 352 helicopters, 276,061 drones, 33 ships & boats, and two submarines”

Wind and solar have now beaten fossil fuels in Great Britain for a record 15 months in a row Just a decade ago, fossil fuels were generating four times more than wind + solar Now that's flipped: Since the Iran war, wind and solar generated twice as much as fossil fuels

What’s funny about this take is a complete misunderstanding of the tone of the Sun article. Go out and read it, it’s easy enough to find. There was no “rage bait”. It was not a “hit job”. It was on Polanski’s side because the two thing the Sun loves is tits and quirkiness.

ban. the. pervert glasses.

When Bill Cash is there as The Token Sane Panellist you know you’re in trouble.

NEW: GM Police have arrested a man in the heart of the Broughton Park Jewish community in Salford. He is alleged to have made threats including to "take knives and cut your throat” & “Jew leave the country, and we’ll make it like the Nazis in the gas chambers.” www.jewishnews.co.uk/man-arrested...

Oh god, they're on the pencil thing again

For Orthodox Easter, Russia proposed a ceasefire. Only to intensify its brutal attacks on Ukraine - almost 8,000 violations of the ceasefire they proposed. Now, a ceasefire proposed only to guarantee a pause for their Red Square celebrations.

fascinating analysis from Lyse Doucet suggesting Iran now has inflation at 72% and has lost a million jobs due to the US:Israeli invasion

Trump may end up being the US president who does the most to speed up the transition away from fossil fuels

6 May 1934 | A Hungarian Jewish girl, Judit Berger, was born in Nagyszőlős (Veľká Sevljuš) to Moshe and Anna Berger. In May 1944 she was deported to #Auschwitz and murdered in a gas chamber. --- ▶ The ruins of gas chamber and crematorium III: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ipQmBPAlJQ8

Labour councils in London are making our communities fairer, safer and greener. Labour councils are building the affordable homes our capital needs. Don’t risk it all tomorrow - vote Labour ⬇️ www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...

Useful intervention from Poland's (UK friendly) Foreign Minister in two parts at least - to not expect any special deals if rejoining the EU becomes an option, and for politicians to understand more fundamentally about what the EU means. www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

Badenoch reprimanded by statistics watchdog for misleading MPs - day after her call for inquiry into PM's honesty rejected - www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

If there’s one thing I hope comes out of the antisemitism crisis in the Green Party, it’s that more people on the left finally sit up and take note of what is happening. There is a nasty, extremist faction on the left that thrives on self-righteousness, intimidation and lies. 1/7

Zack Polanski has regularly used the Board of Deputies as a punching bag to appeal to his far left base. So if they're telling you that yes, the caricatures of him in certain papers are in fact wading "into centuries old anti-Jewish tropes", it's worth listening.

🔴 Reform UK Candidate Shared Antisemitic and Anti-Muslim Posts And Campaigned for Far-Right Restore Britain Caspar Thomas, who Nigel Farage’s party says has now been expelled following inquiries by Byline Times and HOPE not hate, shared posts including grossly offensive racist slurs

Reform Watch: New report reveals extreme views of Reform’s local election candidates

There are many, many reasons why Zack Polanski’s *share early, share often* social media policy is incredibly stupid, but this is just the latest. (H/T @adamlangleben.bsky.social)

In a normal democracy, this would be a resigning matter.

"Polanski has also liked posts accusing Starmer of “defending a paedo ring as well as enabling genocide”…one calling Labour “a bunch of rancid, murderous bigots”, another calling Starmer a “genocidal Zionist” and numerous posts labelling Starmer a paedophile apologist or enabler."

Reform UK expels London election candidates on eve of poll after London Centric uncovers them as ex-BNP members. www.londoncentric.media/p/reform-lon...

Any comment @sianberry.bsky.social @elliechowns.bsky.social @carladenyer.bsky.social @adrianramsay.bsky.social www.economist.com/britain/2026...

85 years ago this week, one of the worst single disasters of the Blitz took place. A year before, the cellar of W.A. Wilkinson’s Lemonade Factory in North Shields, North Tyneside, had been designated a public air raid shelter.

Green Party leader does need stronger boundaries, policies & processes to vet & reject antisemitic candidates than it had when selecting at pace in this cycle. He is also being portrayed using antisemitic tropes in the national press. The newspapers need their cartoonists & editors to recognise that

I don't think some people on the Left quite understand *why* so many Jews react negatively to some of the language that is so commonly trotted out about Israel on the Left these days. Perhaps this (from the National Front's newspaper in the 1970s), will go some way towards helping you understand.

Times headline "Muslim voters rank Gaza over the economy in local election poll" is reporting a poll where the top issue for [some] Muslim voters was the cost of living (50%) ahead of Gaza on 25% and economy on 21% Anti-Muslim hostility on 22% Times headline gives an entirely misleading impression

This can't, or shouldn't, be even remotely good enough, and surely wouldn't be accepted as such for any other party leader. Amongst many, many other things, it can't have been both 'unconditional' *and* 'to pay for my security'. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The average amount of time taken to earn a pint on minimum wage has fallen from 32 minutes in 1999 to 25 minutes in 2024

No Party is immune to antisemitism. In the last month, @jewishnews.bsky.social has published examples of antisemitism from Reform UK, Conservative, Lib Dem & Green candidates. It took a matter of days for Reform, Tories & Lib Dems to publicly announce suspensions. The Greens are the exception.

Lots of Green supporters furiously proving Robster’s point!

President Stubb: We in Europe have to get out of the mindset that it's only us helping Ukraine. We have to ask ourselves the question: how can Ukraine help us? That's why I have, from the beginning, been a strong advocate of Ukraine's EU membership and of Ukraine's NATO membership.

The Reform leaflet I got makes lots of promises to do things which have been enabled and/or funded directly by the Labour national government over the last 18 months.

Reading a lot of Green Party leaflets over the weekend it struck me how many of the policies being promised are identical to Labour ones. Not just locally, but policies literally made possible by the Labour government’s legislation.