I really wanted this Burnham speech to leave me hopeful and was actively rooting for it. I found it deflating - to put it mildly. Where it needed to be brave and expansive, it was small and meek. Let me give one example that I found quite instructive, since Andy used it as a framing device. 1/

BBC News - Farage facing new questions over home purchase funding www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... This massive scandal should be near the top of the BBC's news page, not buried ⅔ of the way down. I support the BBC but they do make it difficult.

BBC News - World's only full-scale Jaws boat replica to open www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... I'd like to think he made the Orca II just 1cm bigger

Ukraine is holding back Russia and thus fulfilling the entire traditional mission of NATO without any soldiers or sailors from other countries. Trump is meanwhile demanding NATO allies leave the continent they are supposed to be defending to join him in a doomed adventure he chose in the Middle East

It's not even him any more. It's the legion of minions. Those snivelling, squirming, faceless, loose-shoed head nodders in back of shot. Every ounce of self-respect squeezed out of them by the school bully till they can't even take a dump unless he gives his blessing.

We are Christopher Isherwood, watching the violent racist authoritarian lawless scenes in the Berlin street below from our apartment window above.

Keep watching - Trump and his circle almost have their precious goal: invoking the Insurrection Act. As per said before: a great deal of what is being done is simply Trump and his circle working backwards from this objective.

"Every ICE agent will be held to account" This photo from September feels even more relevant after the murder in Minneapolis

It's New Year, so time to look back and forward. These are 10 things I think we need to recognise in 2026. It’s a response to what I think are profoundly damaging mistaken assumptions I’ve heard and read from practitioners, journalists, and analysts in 2025. Warning: very long🧵

The fact is no presenter has ever had to leave the BBC for expressing conservative views, or even explicitly endorsing a right-wing party. Was never a problem for Jeremy Clarkson. Was never a problem for Andrew Neil. Was never a problem for Alan Sugar

Very sad that I felt I had no choice but to resign from The Infinite Monkey Cage - a victory for the transphobes and other bigots - I did it because so much of the media has chosen to believe the kind and empathetic people are a fiction - they are real and so often unrepresented.

🇪🇺 "Donald Trump is forcefully making the case for a more unified Europe. Labour’s potential voters want to reverse Brexit, this policy could solidify its fraying support. Finally it would allow a line of attack on Nigel Farage, Britain’s Mr Brexit." https://on.ft.com/48KXplR

It's NOT about the drugs. Watch to the end for the additional links between Venezuela, Canada and Russia. Ed Conway doesn't miss.

Three more British MEPs in Nigel Farage’s bloc now alleged to have “followed the script” given to Nathan Gill by an alleged Russian asset, according to prosecutors. At least eight UKIP and Brexit Party MPs were focus of efforts by Nathan Gill www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

This is how Chris Mason, like a child filled with wonder, described "the choreography and theatre that surrounds a Budget" in Feb 2024, when a male Tory Chancellor was in post. "Plans, or even just options, can be floated... Reaction to them can be tested. Opponents can be teased or wrongfooted." 👀

Takes a few seconds and this is definitely needed so please do your bit. petition.parliament.uk/petitions/74...

Trump IS the most corrupt American President in history. The BBC are cowardly for taking this decision, for not defending democracy. It undermines them.

In 2025 alone, The Telegraph was forced to publish over 100 corrections, clarifications, and formal regulatory apologies, significantly more than the 33 corrections the BBC was forced to make, despite the BBC's larger output. Who's getting fired at the Telegraph then?

To allow the BBC to be defunded, decayed & ultimately destroyed by right wing ideologues is to finally submit to a society based on callousness & selfishness, and an end to what we have claimed for generations to be true British values. We must fight for it.

If there is a national institution that reflects, represents, and encompasses the shared social and cultural values of the UK, it is not the royal family, it is the BBC. Ultimately that's why the Tories hate it, because it is a bulwark against selfish individualism.

It is also a near-unmatched internationally recognised and trusted (perhaps more so than in the UK) brand, the UK’s largest cultural export, and a driver of investment in the UK. But, yeah, the patriots with their little flags want it gone.

The BBC employ roughly twice as many people as the UK fishing industry. You'd think people would question Farage's patriotism and intentions wanting it shut down.

The BBC News website now have a live, minute-by-minute blog on this. Then, when 100k+ people turn up for Yaxley-Lennon's riot, everyone rings their hands and wails: "HOW COULD THIS HAVE HAPPENED?"

Remember all the media attention when 50-70 prisoners a year were released in error under the Tories? Yeah, me neither. This is not new so why is it only making headlines now? *From 2010 through roughly 2023, the number of prisoners released in error was around 50 to 70 per year*

I often wondered how this photo could happen. How did they find so many seemingly 'regular' people willing to sign up to be concentration camp guards and commit atrocities (and apparently enjoy their job). Now I know.

And yet - nothing about this is on the BBC main app. It’s hidden under Welsh news. Nothing in the Daily Mail, Express, The Sun, The Times. Seems like Farage’s opinions on everything make front page news EXCEPT when one of his guys admits to taking Russian bribes….🤷🏼‍♀️ 13/14

Here is my best guidance, rendered beautifully by the great John Lithgow. I first published these lessons nearly nine years ago, in late 2016. They open the twenty chapters of "On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century." snyder.substack.com/p/twenty-les...

Something has gone terribly wrong when you know that if he were alive today Hitler would be receiving state visits and unfettered media coverage. If you don’t take a stand when it counts then don’t you dare claim you’re outraged when they come for you.

www.theguardian.com/society/2025... It's never been a level playing field.

BBC News - Jimmy Kimmel taken off air over Charlie Kirk comments www.bbc.com/news/article... First Colbert, now Kimmel. This is Fascism 101.

I feel nothing but shame and disgust at my nation's flag being turned into a weapon and a threat.

An increasingly dictatorial president is deploying the military and police against their enemies, and is using ‘emergency’ powers across the board. This is a common phenomenon, the world over. If you think it is somehow different because it is the US, then you have fallen for exceptionalism.

The real 'two tier' divide in British politics is between the wife of a Conservative councillor calling for refugees to be burnt alive, being treated as a brave 'political prisoner', and the protestors calling for the end of mass starvation and genocide, being treated as domestic terrorists

Be brilliant if a few guys lead Trump into a house promising him the Nobel Peace Prize only for him to enter an empty room “Oh no…”

532 arrested. Was this not true then? Did they tell fibs?: The Met Police had said about 500 to 600 people were in Parliament Square when the protest began, but that "many were onlookers, media or people not holding placards in support of Palestine Action" www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Farage is an absent MP, earning a fortune from side grifts. His ‘party’ is in hock to fossil fuel donors. He’s pro Trump, pro austerity (DOGE) and his ‘policies’ are nothing more than ugly populist hogwash that have done real damage to our country. Would that be so hard to point out #bbclaurak?

Having just watched a report on the increasing number of people turning to AI agents for relationship advice, we can't be far away (if not already there) from a significant slice of voters asking ChatGPT/Grok/Siri/Whatever to tell them for whom they should vote. Take a moment to think about that.

Reform mayor Andrea Jenkyns tells Times Radio that she doesn’t believe climate change exists, and that it’s just a “racket” for some people to make money. If Reform win the next election, the UK could become a very different place quite quickly.

If politics is shaped by social media, rather than the other way around… we are heading for an undemocratic, populist, disinformation hellscape. Which is why it is baffling that govts, serious politicians, commentators and organisations would stay on X or, at the very least, not set up elsewhere.

I don't use Twitter. Its algorithms are exploited by foreign interests to push divisive groups, suppress genuine debate, and undermine democracy. It's about algorithmic control and bot networks shaping public opinion, But honestly, it's mostly the Nazis.

🚨 🇫🇷 Macron: "Even though it is not part of the European Union, the United Kingdom cannot stay on the sidelines because defence and security, competitiveness, democracy, the very core of our identity are connected across Europe"

Our jury trial system is democracy in action and something to be proud of. It's "us" delivering justice. This right could be under threat, potentially disappearing without a vote. This explains why it matters: open.substack.com/pub/counselo...

Someone tell me how this is in any way different to a bog-standard authoritarian dictator.

"Between 2006–08 and 2018–20, the median wealth for individuals in their 30s decreased by 34% in real terms... In contrast, during the same period, those in their 60s experienced a 55% increase in median wealth. Yet wealth taxation remains beyond the political pale" open.substack.com/pub/goodalla...

Oldie but Goldie. Ever more relevant.

This article exposes how BBC News is shifting its editorial agenda to appease Reform UK and Nigel Farage. I'm a big supporter of the BBC but this is a must-read for anyone concerned about media independence: open.substack.com/pub/brokenbo...