Public Service Announcement: time to save the NT from astroturfing reactionary nutters, AGAIN.

Exactly. Politics in the US is no longer a debate about which policies to adopt within a liberal framework of accepted rules. It's now a blood sport and one side playing it like it's still cricket won't work

Private Eye

Here's one factor English commentators will miss: on the left is a map of Welsh speakers, on the right is voting intention

It's incredible how close the Red Arrows fly together, must take nerves of steel

If only.

His makeup artist used to work as an undertaker.

Controlling the narrative.

This is a great read. Parliament working, for once. hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2025....

Powerful argument. Expected impact: somewhere between zero & utterly negligible. Alas.

There is a vast domestic terror unit in the USA right now. Unfortunately it’s the Trump Administration.

Pro tip to Laura Loomer who deleted this: The Internet is written in indelible ink.

Good for Giles Coren, for a change.

Oops!

Lying was always the key strategy in confirmation hearings.

There is a vacuum of law at the heart of America right now. The rest of us chug along assuming we won’t ever slip in the hole they have made, but it’s there. Just one wrong step, and law… disappears.

Too much to expect.

[The 'Spoons next door] was also an excellent vantage point to see those who were leaving early… a senior editor from a national paper who dashed back to London less than half an hour into the conference… the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg and her producer… intense discussion about how long they could stay.

This is EXACTLY the sort of post we need on another bloody Friday night. This is the sort of gentle wit that would even appeal to an old-fashioned vicar. Canon Awdry, for example.

I've said it once and I'll say it again: it's not Peace but Literature he wants. He has altered the 'American' language beyond recognition, reducing a vocabulary of thousands of words to under 300. Now English can be written by a toddler. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Case against Powell's Rivers of Blood speech was one of principle - that it was "racialist in tone and liable to exacerbate racial tensions" as the Conservative Party leader said in sacking him - rather than one of politics and popularity of "taking people with you" as Jenrick thinks. Times leader

For Melvyn Bragg fans you need this Explore the In Our Time archive | Braggoscope share.google/JE8LsIw2CmXF... (thank you @billt.bsky.social )

This was really helpful, especially 'sort by proportion'

Newspaper seller, Manchester, March 1939. Ominous headlines (Mirrorpix/@manchestereveningnews.co.uk).

Also: asbestos for your house and thalidomide to help you sleep… www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

And that stupid Badenoch only wants to make this worse.

Shire Horse Sale, Denby Dale, west Yorkshire, 1989, photo by Don McPhee.

What a fine bunch of rams on the South Tyne, just north of Alston, yesterday! @herdyshepherd.bsky.social

This is a very worthwhile read on Starmer’s failure of leadership & his government’s overall trajectory (dismal, administering stagnation). Not just Starmer, there’s weakness in depth, no plausible better candidate. Look down through Cabinet ranks, & what do you find? Mediocrity & worse.

This is an extraordinary photo, but I think I’ll continue to make do with an iPhone and leave the 600 mm lenses to the pros.

A Durham History alumnus writes — very well, too.

Can anyone work out why the Reform website had a story on the Taylor Swift engagement today? Odd one.

Good from @bearlypolitics.co.uk - but is the Overton Window moving, towards tolerance of the intolerable? ~ Reform’s Big Immigration Reveal: All Pyrotechnics, No Policy https://www.bearlypolitics.co.uk/p/reforms-big-immigration-reveal-all ~

This is what a real political speaker (& leader) ought to sound like. Harold Wilson was excellent with hecklers, too. Such a smart guy.

I wrote this with the aim that it would be a durable piece, relevant every time there's a flare-up of far right violence or as far right ideas make further advances into the mainstream. Hope people find it useful.

Terrific essay by @trillingual.bsky.social. "The far-right ... thrives on failures in the existing system, yet offers remedies that would make everything much worse. It is difficult, but necessary, to give both parts of the equation due attention."

I became a teacher for three reasons: to set up course management systems, worry about AI dissolving my profession, and be broke in my 40s.

A very original turn of phrase.

Not many farmers would tell you that we need to eat less meat; that wealthy landowners shouldn’t moan about inheritance tax but should “pay the whole fucking lot”; & that Reform UK are “a load of rich rightwing toffs” 😂 But Devon farmer Guy Singh-Watson does: www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Probably as close to Australia as I am ever going to get.

An excellent listen. This Orthodox rabbi does hasbara (explanation) rather than Hasbara (lies & propaganda).

Europe: Stop Being Shocked by Trump. Start Stopping Russia. open.substack.com/pub/berlinbr...

Much the largest UK protest on Friday was a Palestine solidarity protest in London at the Embassy of Israel, with a small pro-Israel protest. That isn't being covered as newsworthy by UK mainstream print/broadcast outlets who are following the smaller asylum protests www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/pr...

A clear proof that immigration salience has little direct connection to overall numbers Net migration did not fall when salience fell from 56% to 5% from 2016-19 Net migration tripled between 2019-22: salience stayed low As net migration halved/fell by two-thirds, 2022-25, salience tripled

We do things differently here — just chronic underfunding.

Interesting.

1/ Michael Gove reshaped English education more than any minister since 1944. His reforms continue to structure the present despite many changes of Government. A thread.

This really is a magnificent thing.