My free advice to this couple? Instead of paying £47k a year in school fees and scraping by, stick 15k a year in each kid's bank account so that they each have around £100k at age 18 to spend on a house, business or uni. You then have £17k/year leftover to spend on luxuries. Better life all round

BREAKING: Nigel Farage has been reported to police by a former member of his campaign team over claims of falsified election expenses. Given the serious nature of the allegations the Met’s specialist crime group will assess the documents that have been submitted.

I could really do without the new trend of 'Starmer breaks his Trappist silence on the alarming deterioration in race relations' being greeted not by people going 'what kept you so long?' or the hotdog meme, or but 'what are you talking about?'

oh my god the headline is in print as well lmao

This sort of carving up of the national population into discrete ethnic blocks based on familial origins is just so much more profoundly unBritish and antithetical to the Western tradition than *anything* happening in Hackney or Tower Hamlets or Birmingham etc

Here is the whole Trump, Brexit, Russia story neatly summed up for you The battle started about Ukraine, now it’s about big tech monopoly power

BREAKING: A new poll has found 74% of voters - rising to 85% in the red wall - would rather have a wank than pay more tax. Just 5% of voters would rather pay more tax than have a wank, all of whom are on Bluesky. President Lord Glasman told The Times this shows the woke left wants to tax wanking.

It's a good thing I've paid in all my life otherwise I'd worry about who'd be covering my healthcare and pension.

Fucking finally, we're going to get some superhero movies

As for Farage’s use of racist slurs being confined to his childhood - well, that's not what Alan Sked, the founder of UKIP, claimed in this 2014 interview. He says here that Farage was using the "n" word as late as 1997. Farage would have been about 33 at time. www.theguardian.com/politics/201...

It is evident in the rise of podcasts and longer-form new media that people are interested in ideas. Even outside of politics and "ideas" content people's demands for deeper, longer-form media is there - the average TV box set series is longer than ever and viewing numbers have never been higher

The new US National Security Strategy says explicitly, that the US should intervene in European domestic policy. It is difficult to interpret "Cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations." otherwise in the context of everything else this government says and does.

The Trump National Security Strategy is bonkers in many ways but this objective stood out: "Cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations" Making their strategy of supporting radical right and extremist parties explicit.

Yet another occasion where the USA explicitly betrays it's allies and all the former US Presidents remain silent. All were Commanders in Chief when those same allies armed forces fought and died alongside US armed forces.

If you love movies and watching them in cinemas, this is disastrous news. Whatever Netflix says, this will erode a long tradition and have massive repercussions across the entire entertainment landscape.

There are Reform voters who are enthusiastic about mass deportations but will recoil if you say the P-word. That seems bad and inconsistent but it does explain why this story is so damaging to someone so adept (as an adult politician) at maintaining the veil

It sure looks like Russian intelligence attempted to use military drones to assassinate the President of Ukraine inside an EU country. Looking forward to more thoughts from Belgium on why freezing Russian assets is an escalatory move that might compromise the peace process.

Fascinating interview if you're in the book world or even just like books. on bbc sounds: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... One man who holds the fate of so many authors in his hands on both sides of the atlantic.

It wasn't his three year old son, it was his son who is three years old. Got him! Quote me, Times.

Yeah - I just think as a starting point, let's start by 'why aren't people with certain diagnoses working' not 'is the increased rate of diagnoses the problem?'

This.... isn't so good. 😬

I just can't get over the fact that the guy who gave this quote is 45. It would be embarrassing for all involved if this quote came from the *current* under-14 chess champion, but from an adult...I worry I've ruptured something from cringing so hard.

This is the point where the anti-Reeves stories tip into madness. Criticise her performance all you like but what the hell is this?

It's like the incredibly tedious "Rachel from accounts" thing. Misogyny in politics remains a powerful force.

Truly shocking that Rachel Reeves had the audacity to call herself the U14 girls chess champions when she won the U14 girls chess championship but some bloke thought she was talking about something else.

I feel like this might be one of the most male things to have ever happened.

I think this is a mistake and it sums up what's wrong with accountability in the British state. Why does he take 'full responsibility'? Surely the person who actually *manages the OBR's website* should take some responsibility:

Hey! We're 'major'!

Honestly the completely weird Budget coverage is mostly a sign of how pretty much any attack can stick when you’re unpopular enough. Of course Rachel Reeves didn’t brief the full Cabinet on Budget details weeks in advance! No chancellor ever does! It would immediately leak!

This story is starting to make me feel I’m going slightly mad - maybe RR overdid the gloom, but the tax rises are paying for a) the welfare U-turns b) the £10bn-plus increase in headroom c) scrapping the two child limit d) bits of other spending eg higher local gov costs 🤷🏻‍♀️

GB News say what contributors say on social media doesn't reflect on them It was on their channel that she said that any Muslim that wants to practice their faith should leave this country. The editorial director defended it to me as part of a "fair and balanced" debate! It really wasn't

Not coming soon to UK politics, any home truths.

Well, I gather from a perusal of the media that everyone is unhappy that they are paying too much and not getting enough as a result of the Budget

Soon small businesses won’t have to wait for Small Business Saturday to get attention from their Mayor. Some changes that they can look forward to:

It also goes to just how much Hegseth is loathed in the middle and upper officer ranks and senior civil service of the armed forces. They wouldn't have leaked something like this if they didn't outright hate him.

When the data are so beautiful it hurts 💔

To put a finer point on this whole thing: "Two people with direct knowledge of the operation" — presumably uniformed military leaders — are accusing the U.S. Secretary of Defense of personally ordering specific war crimes. That's a historic accusation.

Sorry but anyone who gives an interview slandering a family member in front line politics is what we used to call a rum cove, if not a blackguard or a knave. Doesn’t deserve attention, deserves a horsewhipping.

The UK, where the day after a decision to take half a million children out of poverty, the media & political world has been full of sneering at those same children & their families, labelling them as ‘Benefits Street’, while the same people are moaning about a tax on £2m mansions. Shameful stuff.

Grok: can you show me the most divorced man video out there?

This week’s column👇

I honestly don't know why anyone goes in to politics, especially at a senior level. Almost none of the commentary is in good faith or focused on the substance; it's all soapy drama and sniping.

A small but significant step: Dutch national broadcaster NOS is leaving X. “The volume of hateful comments and disinformation on X is enormous and flows freely. This also applies under our own posts, meaning we unintentionally contribute to their spread” over.nos.nl/nieuws/nos-p...

today's round of online-radicalised racist rent-a-mentals www.thetimes.com/uk/education...

To illustrate how disingenuous this campaign is “85% have made payments to get better cars” does *not* mean “85% have bought Beamers”. Most people don’t lease Beamers with the scheme. The extra payments are adaptations to allow disabled people to use the cars, wheelchair hoists for eg

Sometimes wonder if what the UK needs is a thinktank that doesn't do any new research, it just repeats obviously true statements that people try to ignore because they're inconvenient. International students cross-subsidise home students. Your pension is paid for out of general taxation.

Toby Young, self-appointed king of free speech, is speaking in Hungary tomorrow about UK “censorship”. He’ll be addressing a group funded by Viktor Orbán’s autocratic regime, which has seized control of the country’s media, judiciary, and routinely harasses its critics

Indeed. Yeah, maybe your parents really are toxic and you should cut them out of your life. But everyone hates their parents at some point, how confident are we in the ability of that Reddit thread to give you good advice on this exactly