We welcome the Government giving extra days to debate the #AssistedDyingBill. It's time for peers who've been filibustering to stop doing so. Attempts to talk it out will only serve to undermine the legitimacy of the Lords and the constructive scrutiny it can offer. humanists.uk/2025/11/26/1...

It’s not juries that are causing the decay in court buildings, the delay in court cases, the low pay of criminal lawyers, the shambles in court IT. Juries are the citizens’ protection against judicial and legislative over-reach.

Really pleased to see a new commitment to place-based budgets today. Further progress towards the implementation of 'Total Place' principles as urged with @jesstud.bsky.social a couple of years ago. www.newlocal.org.uk/publications....

🚨 BREXIT BUDGET🚨 "And Finally, Madam Deputy speaker, we are ramping up sanctions on Russia and we are freezing known Russian assets." "But let me be clear. I don't actually mean the Honourable Member for Clacton."

I have sat on two juries, rape and drugs, we found both not guilty after long trials and serious discussion. My gut says a case-hardened judge would have found both (innocent) defendants guilty and led to long prison terms.

The abolition of the two-child benefit cap, which punishes children for their parents' circumstances, is the best part of the budget, potentially lifting almost half a million children out of poverty. It may also be the part that comes under fiercest attack. So it needs celebrating and defending.

I think at this point if you're including Diane Abbott - a woman who has never held government office, has been a backbencher since 2020, and is scarcely a government ally - on your list of political wrongdoers, we all know exactly what your real concerns are

Just yesterday, when covering a story regarding sugar in milkshake drinks, the BBC platformed the Institute of Economic Affairs, unsurprisingly without asking who funds them. It's absolutely woeful journalism.

"We are freezing known Russian assets" says Rachel Reeves "But let me be clear, I don't actually mean the member for Clacton"

It’s not juries that are causing the decay in court buildings, the delay in court cases, the low pay of criminal lawyers, the shambles in court IT. Juries are the citizens’ protection against judicial and legislative over-reach.

🔥 Highly recommended that you all sign and share. Link to the petition—> petition.parliament.uk/petitions/74...

A handful of shiny £100k tractors being a nuisance in central London, taking time off from polluting rivers with chicken shit, spraying poisonous chemicals on the fields and voting for brexit. Apparently they don’t want to pay tax like the rest of us.

Three more school contemporaries who claim to have witnessed Nigel Farage’s alleged teenage racism have rejected the Reform UK leader’s suggestion that it was “banter”, describing it as targeted, persistent and nasty. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

New: Three new ex-pupils come forward, on the record, to say Farage's racism as a teenager was targeted, persistent and nasty. Farage has denied targeting any individuals - but two of the men tell us they recall Farage abusing Peter Ettedgui. w/ Dan Boffey, @drblacklock.bsky.social

Peter Etedgui, a Jewish former classmate of Nigel Farage, says he is angered by Reform leader claiming his recollection of racist bullying is untrue. Two former classmates bsck Etedgui's challenge to Farage's (partial) denial among 20 who recalled Farage's conduct then www.bbc.com/news/article...

And anyone who has watched magistrates nod-along with prosecution evidence in the mags courts will know exactly what I mean.

Juries are not perfect. Many of the worst miscarriages of justice have followed jury trials. But the merit of juries is not so much the power they have, but the power they prevent others from having. They mean a judge cannot just nod-along with prosecution evidence and give a guilty verdict.

Farage was a bully, over years, using his position of power to be cruel.

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

Still can't quite believe that "I only said 'gas the Jews' in a non-hurtful way" was the strategy Nigel Farage opted to go for

Gibb; “ I had no editorial role whatsoever at the Jewish Chronicle”. Lee Harpin, reporter at the paper; “RG made a habit of calling into the office on print days to check up on what stories were topping the news list, and offering a view’”

"Have I ever tried to take it out on any individual on the basis of where they're from? No. I have never directly really tried to go and hurt anybody". If the press is giving Farage such a platform it must, as ITV News has done, scrutinise. That this isn't being reported prominently is astonishing.

This is £600m from the same university sector that is pretty close to collapse in a growing number of major institutions? Many of them universities that are among the biggest employers in the very ‘left behind’ towns and cities that Labour talks so much about…

@enversol.bsky.social great interview in the Guardian, well done

Michael Prescott tells the DCMS committee his memo on the BBC was "edited highlights [of alleged bias] to get action". Former editorial adviser Caroline Daniel, sitting next to him, says it was Prescott's "personal" perspective of alleged bias at the BBC.

Interesting criticism from @nesrinemalik.bsky.social about Shabana Mahmood: using her identity for a terrible policy francescrook.substack.com/p/criticisin...

“The elected chamber has approved assisted dying and it has the support of most voters. It will be disgraceful if it fails to become law because it is “talked out” by a clique of unelected peers.” Great piece by @andrewrawnsley.bsky.social

This Labour government’s talent for punishing its own natural supporters without gaining any new ones is something I don’t think I’ve ever seen in politics. What on earth are they smoking

Reform 2025 Ltd having to suspend yet another councillor, this time in Lancashire, is a symptom of a wider problem | Peter Sagar

They can't all be wrong 🤷🏽‍♂️

Does Reeves want to destroy universities?

Labour MPs are going to have to traipse through the voting lobby alongside Reform and Conservatives to enact vicious laws francescrook.substack.com/p/criticisin...

MPs, peers, civil servants and journalists read our Parliament Matters Bulletin — but it’s designed for anyone who wants clear, non-partisan explanations of what’s happening at Westminster. Subscribe and get the latest every Sunday morning 👇 buff.ly/G7utcC6

Perhaps next time there is a national emergency we should get an historian as part of the oversight and advisory team www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

This focuses on politics. But we should also care about *outcomes*. In the UK, migrants (both from EU and elsewhere) are more likely to have a job than the UK born. In Denmark, there's a gap of 15-20%. Similarly for education outcomes. Why would we want to copy that?

Four top Labour figures could beat Starmer in a leadership race, poll finds

BREAKING: Israel has killed 20 Palestinians, including four children, and injured 83 others in the past 24 hours across the Gaza Strip, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry. 🔴 LIVE updates: aje.io/73c1bj

ICYMI: my report on how these penguins became the centre of a political storm Featuring Gilbert www.newstatesman.com/culture/natu...

Good point by @carolinelucas.bsky.social. Why ask Reform to investigate itself? Surely a government led investigation is needed into foreign money and influence in our politics. Get @petergeoghegan.bsky.social involved.

Well, this is pretty terrifying. The Daily Mail is buying the Telegraph. One massive consolidated right-wing media empire controlled by off-shore interests at a critical moment in global politics. What could go wrong? www.theguardian.com/media/2025/n...

When the #spycops public inquiry was announced, Home Secretary Michael Howard met Doreen Lawrence & eagerly told her he had no idea her family had been spied on. She told the inquiry yesterday she believes he was lying. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Teenager prosecuted over £1.67 in unpaid tax on a car. A criminal conviction for an offence that happened before she knew she even owned a car. Infuriating that this kind of thing is still happening Labour has failed to fix the #SingleJusticeProcedure www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/t...

And that’s a third of state primary schools in England! The CofE has elbowed into school management in a big way too - forming diocesan multi-academy-trusts. This way lies theocracy…

Every procedural delay, every stalling tactic, traps people in a system that denies them agency and compassion at the moment they need it most. Write to peers right now and let them know how you feel. We've made that easy, use our toolkit. #AssistedDyingBill. humanists.uk/action/ask-t...

Gill-ty as charged. I wonder if Nigel Farage will be giving a press conference on this one?

You can read our reaction @transparencyuk.bsky.social in full here: www.transparency.org.uk/news/105-yea...

BREAKING: Nathan Gill is sentenced to 10 & a half years in prison after pleading guilty to eight charges of bribery from a Russian agent. The "ultimate source" of the funds came from "a close friend of Vladimir Putin," said Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb.

Mahmood says people to get settled status must have no debt, that means a woman would not be allowed to jointly get a mortgage to own a house, but would have to be dependent on her partner.

Social Democrats lose control of Copenhagen after 100 year doesn’t look like hard line racist immigration laws work after all www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

She’s getting worse and worse. Today she says skilled workers will have to wait ten years to settle. Why would a nurse want to come here! francescrook.substack.com/p/criticisin...