Another proud day for America.

Good morning. A regular reminder: a tiny few hoard staggering wealth and own much of the media, while millions struggle to survive. That’s not an accident. It’s a choice made by those in power. Tax wealth. Fund public services. Build an economy for everyone - not the 1%.

another robot highlight for 2025: man wearing humanoid mocap suit kicks himself in the balls

Went to Belfast for a weekend away with my wife. Saw a parade going past and assumed it would a great Gay Pride event. It turns out I know very little about Northern Ireland and the orange people don't want to be joined by lesbians. That said, we had a lovely weekend.

Right

Rachel Reeves says there’s a “hole” in the public finances. A new decade-long Brexit study explains it: a 6–8% hit to GDP – that's £180bn-£240bn a year – means less tax, less investment and less money for everything else. Brexit made Britain poorer. Much poorer.

In a way, I find the authoritarian takeover of our media system even more disturbing than the authoritarian takeover of our political system. Our political system has been failing basically my entire adult life. But, the media system provided accountability and sort of worked. Now it’s collapsing.

When we say “No Kings” this should include the nasty billionaires who use their money to control all media and the government.

Peaceful assembly isn’t an insurrection. Storming the Capitol to hang your own vice-president and end democracy is.

If eating scotch eggs in an Austin Allegro had a face.

Dad’s books are full of empathy, common sense, and a healthy suspicion of the powerful. But at its heart his work is also about how systems keep people poor while pretending it’s their own fault. So I hope Kemi’s taking notes as well as reading the jokes.

In the month of the 100th birthday of Margaret Thatcher, let us pause to reflect on what a cruel, heartless twat she was.

Macron remarks are notable- some quotes: "We have been incredibly naive in entrusting our democratic space to social networks that are controlled either by large American entrepreneurs or large Chinese companies, whose interests are not at all the survival or proper functioning of our democracies."

"And let us enforce the same rules. When you have a newspaper, you are responsible for what is published in it. When you have a social network, you must be responsible for what is published on it."

Today people went around my neighborhood in north east London spray painting St George’s crosses onto people’s homes. Many of these houses have non British people living in them. This is getting very dark, very quick.

Google Maps has alerted me that your mum is walking towards me.

In a previous life, Keir Starmer was in some '70s sitcom playing the role of a dithering, indecisive vicar faffing about on a bicycle.

“Superman is too woke!” Literally the first page of the first ever appearance of Superman:

52% voted for Brexit. "It's the will of the people!" - Farage. But 60% of Brits now want a closer relationship with Europe. Times and attitudes have changed. So should our relationship with Europe. The only people standing in opposition to the "will of the people" today are the Tories & Reform.

Sample sentence: "This yearning to “reset” Britain doesn’t stem from a plan to build something better – it stems from a refusal to imagine anything new." Indeed. A great article.

"But of course, the sudden bout of whatever-the-f*ck is not the only reason I’m not in a good place. Another is that the place I am in is Britain, where the governing party seems to have convinced itself that, “the far right is correct. Vote Labour” is in any way a winning strategy."

A hateful thing to say. People whose approach to life is not faith-based have done enormous good, majority non-religious societies have been some of the strongest proponents of human dignity and solidarity. Why is the BBC just printed this unchallenged? If it's "news", it should be balanced.

Also, I have been avoiding pope coverage because I find it annoys me when people (popes) who think gay people are disordered, abortion is murder, humanity is intrinsically broken, and a bit of child abuse is something to be covered up are described as ‘liberal’.

New Pope Leo blasts non-religious people, saying (quite shockingly) that 'lack of faith' comes from 'the loss of meaning in life, the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity' We'll remain composed in the face of such abject nastiness, but it's untrue to say the least

Happy 80th anniversary of Hitler killing himself in his bunker to all who celebrate, which, as I now understand it, is not everybody

Doctor Who really needs to take a deep look at Star Trek Strange new Worlds to learn how to balance camp episodes, with experimental episodes, with serious episodes…oh and how to structure episodes

Absolutely damning. Seems that the British government made not attempt to find out if the Russians had interfered in the EU Brexit referendum.

Starmer needs to realise that we're in 2025 not 2017

I used to be afraid of ghosts but then I found out they're not real so now I guess I'm afraid of the living Victorian child that stands at the foot of my bed screaming every night.

@georgemonbiot.bsky.social raises an important question about the corruption of the justice system. Why was not one farmer arrested for blocking roads & bringing the whole country to a standstill? Climate protesters are in prison, farmers aren’t, why? What happened to equality under the law?

Nation Could Have Sworn Russell Brand Was Already Convicted Sex Offender

Forgot I was on a phone call about council tax Them: What band are you in Me: Erm, The Charlatans Them: Your council tax band? 😬

Gordon Ramsey: what's the special, sweetheart? Waitress: blackbird pie Gordon Ramsey: blackbird pie? Waitress: yes, four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie Gordon Ramsey: four and twenty, wow, fuck me, blackbird pie, jesus. what happened to your nose?

He does this every Friday.

Lady Gaga looks like she's about to tell her men to decloak and fire on the USS Enterprise

I’m giving up Swiss chocolate for Lindt.

These are dark days. But for Starmer, the collapse of the old order is a moment of political promise. He can use it to remake his premiership and the continent: new political space has unfolded before him in every direction. Will he seize it? New writing from me. open.substack.com/pub/goodalla...

Really good piece from Lewis. Starmer has been given the opportunity to become one of our great, game changing PMs - let's hope he doesn't blow it.

Are we all clear on why Musk is out to gut the government?

As I’ve said before: it’s fine for him to be in charge of his fake “DOGE” department, as long as he resigns and divests himself completely from Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink and X

bad news everybody, now only a 1 in 26,000 chance of the space rock putting us out of our misery www.iflscience.com/asteroid-202...

19 yr old DOGE engineer Edward Coristine alleged to be the grandson of former KGB spy Valery Martynov, an officer in the technical espionage division sent to the US as an undercover agent at the Soviet Embassy. THAT is who is hacking the treasury without clearance. gizmodo.com/doge-staffer...

Well what do you know. Reform UK's former leader in Wales has just been accused in court of accepting bribes in exchange for making statements in the European Parliament that would benefit Russia. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

FFS get a grip. You don't need to get into a fight every day, but you shouldn't be encouraging his pro-Kremlin position, or excusing it, or saying things which no right-minded person would think and no-one imagines you actually believe.

Having to do this in a reply to Elon bullshitting about the latest update to his anti-woke chatbot… bleak

I must admit when I set myself the challenge tonight of drawing all the British prime ministers since 1995 I’d forgotten quite how many of them there’d been and therefore wildly underestimated how long it was going to take me…