I think it is also worth pointing out that it is one thing for the government to use that sort of language - as offensive as it is - and quite another for the civil service to be expected to apply pejorative language to public announcements. Started by the Tories, this shames Labour as well.

my great-grandparents arrived in the UK in the 1890s with nothing. they sold pickles from the front room window, took in laundry, worked as tailors. their children were nurses, teachers, salesmen. their grandchildren were professors, designers, opticians, doctors, magistrates, entrepreneurs.

It's also emblematic of Starmer's government having the worst comms instincts imaginable. A policy of fast tracking settlement as an incentive is, at least by the standards of modern immigration debate, relatively inoffensive... ... but then they couch it in Reform talking points about "takers".

Their definition of takers is being defined as anyone who isn't a higher rate taxpayer, unless they're a medical professional, teacher, entrepreneur or accepted onto the global talent visa. So an accountant earning £50,269 they'd call a taker.

From the @wsj.com chief foreign correspondent

Remember how everyone stood on their doorsteps 5 years ago, clapping for care workers? Well, anyway. Now they can fuck off.

The fact that everyone *including news media* is always talking about the news in terms of political strategy, palace intrigue, and their own posturing, leads to a culture of treating every issue politics touches as just another pro sport

This is so disgusting.

As I was saying...

Imagine the reaction to allegations that Corbyn had made hissing gas noises to Jewish kids as a schoolboy - and then if he had responded to those allegations by shouting 'Bernard Manning!' at the journalists

The radio silence about Farage from people who are usually supremely vocal about antisemitism is so so telling.

He doesn’t care: he’s been shown over and over that the path to power is just lying and bullshitting, and convincing Britain’s horrific media outlets to puff you up. What happens after that is basically irrelevant, as you can see now.

The Reform U.K. leader of Staffordshire county council has been expelled from the party because he failed to disclose one of his social media accounts during vetting: www.ft.com/content/3849... Can you guess what the problem with that account turned out to be?

"'Where are you from?’ he asked. Within seconds of offering my rather confused and sputtering answers, he had a clear response: ‘That’s the way back to Africa,’ with an accompanying hand gesture pointing towards a place far away." www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

this shit is just beyond parody, man

this story isn’t going away www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Sometimes people tell me that I exaggerate when I say that the US openly hostile towards Europe. The NSS speaks a very clear language though, and it is a hostile one.

🚨 I am hearing from multiple sources that the EU Commission is announcing its first DSA fine tomorrow against X on ad transparency, blue check & dark pattern, and researcher access to data. The fine is in the "100s of millions of Euros." Elon about to get big mad.

DOJ's newest recruitment ad features Judge Dredd, the comic satire about the dangers of lawless policing and authoritarian power

Holy shit. Reuters reporting that new admin instructions on visas are if you worked at a platform in trust & safety or content moderation or on fact checking or online safety at an platform you *and your loved ones* are ineligible for H-1B visa. www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

Just the best headline.

Made the mistake of reading this while drinking tea and very nearly ruined my keyboard.

In a surprise to absolutely no one, the mum she’s describing is not claiming benefits as a “lifestyle choice”. This paywalled article is full of “in my grandparents day, blah blah blah” and nasty sneery comments about latest iPhones for spoilt children🙄 🧵 1/9

1) What the actual fuck how did this just get normalised in the space of three years…. Oh yeah everyone just hanging out on Twitter like boiling frogs 2) not broadcast, as they aren’t quite ready to push Ofcom on this. This is the “good stuff” for unregulated YouTube.

GB News now broadcasting calls to remove the ethnic minority MPs from parliament

Don’t worry David they can all go and work in Glasman’s munitions factories

Nigel Farage was a racist bully at school but Rachel Reeves won the wrong chess championship so who can say who is worse?

Ah it’s that contribution thing again

I think I know the answer to this one..

How the backlash against Black Lives Matter reconfigured politics in the UK and USA: alanlester.co.uk/blog/how-top...

I wonder if it's time to retire the role of "political editor" altogether Return most of the coverage to the Economics Editor, the Health Editor, the Home Affairs team & so on. Leave the "who-said-what-to-whom" & "what-does-it-mean-for-the-polls" to others. The BBC doesn't need to foreground this.

This has got to be one of Gavin Newsom's best...

Lies, damned lies and the Telegraph. They posted CSJ figures using an outrageously false comparison of 2 cases. It claimed a benefits family were better off by £18k than a working household when the real figure was £16k worse off. The details benefitsinthefuture.com #benefits #budget

“Many came to the UK in good faith, believing they could apply for leave to remain after five years. They now feel betrayed. These retrospective changes risk keeping workers trapped, unable to speak out and unable to put down roots.

This sounds like modern slavery to me. I've clients who've been recognised as victims with similar facts. People in authority shouldn't be afraid to make this connection and it will push back on the government's narrative that these people are somehow scamming the system.

Oops sorry we ruined the country and everything we voted for was a lie. Our total bad. Anyway, how about those bloody migrants eh??

Unaccountably, as always with these pieces, the sub-editors seem to have cut off the conclusion, which was surely “and my judgment has thus been proven so bad no one should ever listen to me on anything again”.

Appalling and incredibly corrosive of democracy and the rule of law. Jenrick’s attempts to wriggle out of responsibility for the mob he incited are pathetic

Sigh. ‘We now get Home Office press releases about immigration nearly every day’ Cf how the HO seems to have completely disengaged with the sector at the same time, per @sonial77.bsky.social’s comment earlier today

It’s a mad, bad policy. Creates a class of disadvantaged families and children for no conceivable policy outcome aside from that disadvantage. Although I suppose it helps to fund the Home Office through fees, which are charged at well above cost of processing.

Extraordinary WSJ reporting today that unveils the extent to which Trump, Witkoff, Kushner and US business executives are salivating over business deals with Russia while Putin’s forces kidnap Ukranian children and bomb civilians in their apartments. 🎁 www.wsj.com/world/russia...

There is so much that is wrong, awful and not thought through with these plans. I think all of us who know anything about this stuff must try and do some serious lobbying of our MPs. If anyone has any materials on how to do this most effectively I would be most grateful to see them.

This started pretty much immediately, I have already heard several examples, as well as people looking to withdraw change of conditions applications and decideling not to apply. Families will be left destitute

I see the Indy is also going with asylum seekers being “banned” from doing something they were being forced to do unwillingly in the first place, so presumably this is how the Home Office‘s press release is framing its own admissions of incompetence and waste

The markets are staying afloat right now on the hope that AI will destroy American workers. What a bleak thing. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/b...

Textbook war crime/extrajudicial killing "Two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck. The Special Operations commander overseeing the Sept. 2 attack ... ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions." Report by @alexhorton.bsky.social @ellenwapo.bsky.social o.bsky.social

Revised net migration projection based on yesterday’s data, the new ILR policy and an expected gradual decline in dependant numbers (Currently dependant applications are double main applicant applications for work visas but this won’t last). Yes it is negative in 2026. Roughly -110,000 to -10,000.

This is how the Mail has covered a 70% fall in net migration. The Government should stop kidding itself it will ever get credit for being anti-migration. They could cut numbers to zero and there would still be front pages blasting them for making the UK a socialist wasteland no one wants to come to

‘Remigration’ is a term that comes out of the European far right. Its use by the DHS account is a sign of democratic and epistemic collapse