Updated Scotland poll tracker, accounting for recent polling. SNP 1 short of a majority. Pro-independence majority of 23. Seats (+/- 2021) SNP: 64 (nc) Lab: 17 (-5) Ref: 16 (+16) Grn: 12 (+4) LD: 10 (+6) Con: 10 (-21) 1/2

Oh. Yeah.

Still remarkable to me that half the world is doing 'unrestricted social media usage is bad for kids' and 'we need to put chatbots that tell you to kill your family in every classroom and every toy' at the same time

I see we've reached the stage of a scandal where a PM says something that is completely, obviously untrue.

The entire Labour frontbench looks like it has had all political authority drained from it. They look like a funeral procession: Rachel Reeves in particular. And they are attending a funeral: the end days of Starmer's administration. The only question is how long can he hang on? #PMQs

Gregor is lying again and as you can see the high streets with the highest vacancy rates are all in England and Wales so I’m not sure how that’s the fault of the SNP🤔 #VoteSNP

If you want to know what a Scottish Labour government would look like, just look at Labour at Westminster. In serious times, we’ll focus on what matters: the cost of living, our NHS, our economy, and Scotland’s future with independence. On May 7, make it Both Votes SNP.

When people face sky-high food costs, energy bills and petrol prices, they need a government that is focused on supporting them. While Westminster is engulfed in chaos, the SNP will act on the cost of living - capping bus and essential food prices, and expanding childcare.

It’s also the end of the Brexit Shenanigans era (2018-2026) when our leaders, faced with a choice between reordering affairs to improve the lot of the public or just unifying with backroom ghouls like Cummings and McSweeney to prop up the status quo for a few years more, chose the latter. Done.

It’s worth putting this in its broader historical context, I think. This is the end of the Starmer Is Great era (late 2021-2026) when everyone agreed to pretend Sir Keir et al were very intelligent, principled people with smart plans, whom the public would like and want. That stuff is dead, now.

Sure, but I don’t see much here that doesn’t apply in spades to all of the lads who - from the late 2010s - thought “let’s get Peter and his mates in to mutilate the Labour Party and turn it back into a bung-taking powerhouse of unpleasant right wing reactionaries” was a very, very good idea.

For the avoidance of doubt. But but but Boris "waaaaaaaaah" and/or but but but Liz Truss "waaaaaah" aren't cogent or relevant arguments against Keir Starmer being a useless dishonest waste of skin who must resign.

Consistent theme: Me and my mates can do whatever the fuck we like, behave as horrendously as we want, and if people object to any of it then that is a kind of terrifying ideological derangement

Bookends for a low, dishonest decade here: from cranky auntie Margaret on ITV saying that getting a letter for publicly roaring abuse at her boss reminded her of her relatives under the Third Reich, to Margaret explaining that Jobs For The Lads are fine actually, for the correct type of Lads.

And yes, there’s something very wrong with friends saying to you ‘are there any jobs around’ if you’re in government.

As I said: your crank Facebook auntie, a ridiculous and self-serving bullshit artist

The husband of the current foreign secretary opining on revelations that number ten told the now sacked head of the foreign office to get a job for one of them but don't tell the then foreign secretary

You'll only drive it underground.

Iran’s decision to not be in Pakistan on Wednesday is final.-Tasnim

Labour’s share of the vote in today’s YouGov: England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 17% Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 14% Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 12% On 8 May we’ll see how well Labour’s ”fuck off” strategy has worked.

I will vote for the political party that puts it into its manifesto that they will upon winning the election will abolish the Home Office

she has to resign this is not funny, *especially* if you are the fucking Home Secretary, with the actual fucking power to unilaterally deprive *anyone* of citizenship

"Come into government, work, and be thrown under the bus when it's politically convenient." @fdagensec.bsky.social tells @skynewsrss.bsky.social what message the treatment of Sir Olly Robbins sends to other public servants.

My sense here is that all of the lads thought it’d be best to just tut and head shake their way through this one until the elections take care of Sir Keir in a final way, but all of them are absolutely astonished at the sheer slapstick incompetence on display this week.

Mahmood seems to have gone nuts. Fire her now.

I mean

On reflection, I think post the Robbins appearance, KS will have to resign — OR torpedoed the government’s line to the HoC in three crucial regards.

In serious times, I offer serious leadership. I will cap essential food prices because people are struggling and it is the right thing to do. And I will stand firm against Nigel Farage and the far right. Vote SNP to lock Reform out of government in Scotland.

Morgan McSweeney: resigned for telling the Prime Minister to make Peter Mandelson US ambassador. Olly Robbins: fired for not telling the Prime Minister not to hire Peter Mandelson. Keir Starmer: completely blameless and apparently without responsibility for anything.

"Please don't vote for us (and fuck off while you're at it)."

Entirely consistent with e.g. “this was Peter’s project”, “Sir Keir has only ever been a bonnet ornament on a car driven by McSweeney, with Peter shouting directions” and “this has never been explained to the public”. As well as “Peter approved himself for the job because what he wants, he gets”.

I appreciate that some lads would like us to focus on “did Sir Keir say yay or nay” but the implications of Peter shitehousing his own party, the press and then the public raise urgent questions about minor matters such as “is Britain a democratic country, in any meaningful sense of the phrase”.

And I mean, this is before we get to the part where the party-within-a-party appears to have illegally stitched up at least one internal election. That’s a new one that I haven’t previously touched on. Do we think this was the only piece of comical criminality involved?

Where else on Earth would a secret party-within-a-party collaborate with hostile media outlets on destroying its own electoral prospects; impose its leadership candidate via fraud; win national power, then explode in a welter of corruption allegations involving Russian oligarchs and sex traffickers

Does Keir Starmer know why he is Prime Minister & what the point of a Starmer Premiership is? As Marina Hyde writes: "Cleaning up after himself has become a full-time job." Can't wait to have it all explained in the Tom Baldwin revised biography. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

This is precisely what Priti Patel and Kemi Badenoch did too, for exactly the same reason (they’re horrible people who behave horrendously, and this usually manifests itself as seething contempt for liberalism in general)

This is more than just a story about local corruption in Croydon It highlights just how easy it was to rig the system that was used to select many Labour candidates for the 2024 election In Croydon they got caught but, given all the complaints about Anonyvoter, did some get away with it elsewhere?

it should be lost on nobody that - but for the US not giving a damn about burning the British ambassador - Peter would still be glad-handing senators, Morgan would still be shouting at underlings and everyone would still be pretending nothing is fucked, and the plane hasn’t crashed into the mountain

What does it mean, if you can’t lift a stone anywhere near politics, media or the cops without something hideous and hairy scuttering out from underneath it

I think we can see the reason for this is the same as any number of abysmal scandals at all kinds of major British institutions: Nobody wants to go lifting rocks because of the very high risk that moving one of them will send a geyser of scalding hot corruption leaping two hundred feet into the air.

Harriet Williamson on #NovaraLive: "the stench of Labour Together is all over this.. that's what was so important about what John McDonnell said.. Labour Together was the most hollow project from the get go & it was filled with some of the most unscrupulous & mendacious people in British politics"🎯

It is preposterous and honestly rather shameful for Starmer to act so upset over the Mandelson affair. He is basically attacking Robbins for doing precisely what he wanted him to do inews.co.uk/opinion/unbe...

The thing about Starmer and Mandelson @mrjamesob.bsky.social isn't so much the mistake of the appointment, as Ed Miliband rightly observed this am, even prime ministers make mistakes It's about setting standards then applying them fairly, which is what Labour suggested they would do after 14 years

You can tell it was Peter Mandelson’s project because it isn’t a political operation that dabbles in bungs and influence peddling. It’s a bungs and influence peddling operation that dabbles in politics.

This but Baron PishyPants himself, George Foulkes edition.

Starmer created this crisis by sacking a qualified and competent woman. And when he sacked career diplomat Karen Pierce to give Mandelson her job, SIX other senior women diplomats left FCDO as their careers were doomed under his government. He's done far worse, but I'm fine if this does for him.

Sending Doyle and Mandelson to the US because of their track record of befriending pedophiles is a bold move. I'd have chosen someone who was into golf, personally.

A member-led, left wing party could set its own policy, so it had no use for zillionaire bungs. A member-led party didn’t need post-politics gigs with Drax or PWC, it didn’t need contracts with Palantir. And Morgan was very, very clear with the journos that this was unacceptable to him.