🔴 Nigel Farage’s Reform is more reliant on super-rich backers than any major party in modern British political history 75% of *all* Reform donations *ever* have come from just three rich men Is this what democracy looks like? New on Democracy for Sale democracyforsale.substack.com/p/75-of-refo...

5 December 1920 | A Norwegian Jew, Mendel Jaffe, was born in Horten. Photography apprentice. On 26 November 1942 he was deported to #Auschwitz. He did not survive.

Dance into the Weekend! Another photo of Viola dancing in the spotlight at Baker Street station. The dramatic lighting & architecture at Baker St station naturally encourages commuters to wait in the spotlight. I always think it looks like people are ready to perform on stage.

"Israel has not been held accountable.. there are war crimes in Gaza.. if Netanyahu & other[s].. are never going to be held accountable this will just continue. Isn't the argument, at least in Russia's case there are serious sanctions.." @adilray.bsky.social on Israel & Eurovision #GMB

Peter will be joining me on air at 11.45.

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

“In 2017 there was not a single asylum seeker who arrived on a boat. Today we have 46,000 a year and do you know why? It was because of the botched Brexit deal pushed through by Boris Johnson and championed by Nigel Farage. Nigel Farage should be here apologising” Daisy Cooper

5 December 1932 | Dutch Jewish girl, Rachel van Gelder, was born in Groningen. She was deported from #Westerbork to #Theresienstadt ghetto on 26 February 1944 and from there, on 4 October 1944, to Auschwitz. She was murdered in a gas chamber after the arrival selection.

New in PN: Costco demands a refund from Trump "One of the biggest importers in the country has entered the fray, at the risk of finding itself crosswise with the Trump administration. This is what happens when you let the president break the law for a little while."

“I realise now that my view on mental health overdiagnosis was divisive. We all need better evidence” Wes Streeting www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Get a grip 👇🏽

Capitalism is a system which gives the richest people who have the least need for money, the greatest power to demand it. It literally enforces inequality.

Lammy’s jury trial plans are ‘massive mistake’, say Labour MPs and peers www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

“If I were falsely accused of stealing an iPhone from Curry's this afternoon, with my whole life and career on the line, I would 100% want a jury trial” Chris Daw KC

The Gibb machine in overdrive mode.

Nigel Farage made 90 times more Cameo videos than speeches in Parliament, records show

Trump on Somalis: "We're gonna go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country. Ilhan Omar is garbage. She's garbage. Her friends are garbage."

Farage’s ‘racism & anti-semitism’, as remembered by over 20 fellow alumni of Dulwich College, & a proper look at his ‘denials’. tinyurl.com/4rrn2mkx

If you were hoping to see some #FestiveLights in 1998, you could have driven past this house in Riddings and marvelled at the illuminated Santa's! #ArchiveAdventCalendar #EYASparkle #1990s

Painfully accurate @bjennings90.bsky.social.

Court Staff dropped 30% between 2011-2017. While the population increased by 3m, nearly 5%.

“Okay, I know what vinyl is, and a record player – but what’s a shop?” From the new Private Eye, out now.

This is extraordinary.

In 1968 Finland banned for profit education, the few private schools that exist in Finland have to reinvest any profit they make or pay it back to parents. It has been in the Top 3 in education for the last 20 years. There should be no profit in education or healthcare.

Benidorm the greatest example of immigrants refusing to learn the language, adopt the culture or integrate into society., adopt the culture or integrate into society.

#OtD 2 Dec 1980 four US Catholic nuns were kidnapped, raped and murdered by government-backed and US-trained right-wing ‘death squads' during the El Salvadorian civil war. The US later sheltered the killers stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9174...

Michelle Mone who got paid nearly triple the cost of her useless PPE, is still jetting and sailing around the world in her megayacht with her £232m. Crime pays when you are rich, because they never send you to jail.

One of my abiding impressions of Brexit is the way it slammed doors of opportunity in the faces of young people several rungs below Boris Johnson’s countless children on the ladders of privilege & advantage.

Pink-footed Goose this morning on the Mill Pool at Hill Hook NR was a probably a site first (certainly a first for me); also added to house list. Also 2 Cormorant, 2 Shoveler (m+f) & an impressive 115 BHG; 2 Little Egret + 3 Cormorant present yesterday @ecorecord.bsky.social @ruthnewby.bsky.social

This tired, deeply-damaged man is so needy. He has to have references to him being president on his hat, on his shirt, and on a golf-framed placard next to his overcooked cheeseburger he's almost too-out-of-it to eat.

6 years ago, on the 1st of December 2019, a cluster of mysterious pneumonia cases broke out in Wuhan, China. The outbreak would later be linked to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market through unverified leaked documents. On January 8, the cases were linked to a new coronavirus. #otd #history 🗃️

Cc @jaketapper.bsky.social

I love that, while admitting Brexit was a failure, the Telegraph simultaneously warns of a "Labour plot to reverse it". Because "it was never about the economy", you see, but "about sovereignty, immigration and taking back control". How are those aspects going, Telegraph? ~AA

Oh wow, that's awkward. #Gullis

The background track from John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War is Over)”used in this post promoting a patriotic celebration of this “#christainholiday” stops just before the song mentions that Xmas is also “for black and for white [and] for the yellow and red ones.”‬

#OtD 1 Dec 1991 Anti-Fascist Action successfully stopped the neo-Nazi British National Party from holding a march in Glasgow. Fascists were confronted in the streets while BNP leadership were trapped inside a bar and forced to escape via the sewers stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8059...

“I will level with you…low productivity the result of an economy scarred by austerity, Brexit and by consistently failing to unlock the nations potential” Prime Minister Keir Starmer

this is very good, and includes @lewisgoodall.com arguing that the current rot set in when Davie arrived in 2020 and installed a definition of 'impartiality' that is wholly perspectival, i.e. measured in levels and distribution of outrage www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and...

Feel like I'm going mad. The Budget's 'headroom' is based on frankly irresponsible and wildly optimistic claims about what Labour will do in the final year of the forecast, and on ignoring a bunch of upward pressures on spending, and the claim is that she was being exaggeratedly *pessimistic*?

I'm at a Kemi Badenoch event where *yet again* the Guardian has not got a question. Aside from broadcasters it was Mail, Sun and FT (the latter presumably only because we're at an accountancy body in the City). I've probably been to seven or eight such events with no question.

#OtD 30 Nov 1975 UK NHS junior doctors were taking industrial action over new, inferior contracts which began earlier in the month. They worked strictly to a 40-hour week and dealt with emergencies only until getting an improved deal in December stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1032...

David Gentile, who scammed thousands of “hardworking, everyday people,” had served less than two weeks of a seven-year sentence.

Who Brings a Gun to a Birthday Party? Children are among fatalities in a mass shooting at a child's birthday party in Stockton, California - 4 dead, 10 wounded 380 mass shootings in the US so far this year news.sky.com/story/childr...

Richard Ayoade made this joke about his brother-in-law Laurence Fox. "It’s nice not seeing him at family events, not seeing him on TV and not seeing him in politics."

30 November 1936 | A Belgian Jewish girl, Anna van Kreveld, was born in Borgerhout. She emigrated to The Netherlands. In November 1942 she was deported to #Auschwitz and murdered in a gas chamber after the selection. --- Ggas chambers & crematoria of Auschwitz: https://youtu.be/-A05i25j9Ck

30 November 1898 | A Polish woman, Łucja Smerańska, was born in Stary Sącz. A teacher. In #Auschwitz from 29 January 1943. No. 32442 She perished in the camp on 12 March 1943. --- Women at Auschwitz Lesson: https://lekcja.auschwitz.org/2022_kobiety_en/ Podcast: https://youtu.be/ijTxtbNlJO8

This is a great explanation of the difference between 1 million and 1 billion, and how huge the wealth gap has become.