This portrait is what happens when Cleggy put up student loans so the artist could only do the foundation course.

The GOP is a party of hardcore, unrepentant racists who are pushing for voter ID by claiming it is needed in order to prevent voter fraud--which is a decades-long lie that was always intended to lay the groundwork for disenfranchising non-white citizens. There is no nuance; that is all this is.

I have wondered this myself.

Today, on the 58th anniversary of the My Lai Massacre, people will post about Calley or Thompson or draw frivolous comparisons that illuminate nothing. No-one will get the number of dead right, and no-one will name any of the victims. My Lai has been reduced to an empty metaphor...

USAF Fairford, north of Swindon, fenced off for the shame of our rulers

“Strictly defensive” massacres, according to Starmer & Cooper. I’m sure the US gets us to agree its target lists — sends a blank sheet of paper with the instruction “sign here”.

I can't believe how many photographs there are of Peter Mandelson in a bathrobe. He's like a depressed 80s mum.

good night, sewers. good night, streams. good night, operations and maintenance teams. good night, settling tanks. good night, stream banks. good night, engineers, scientists, crews, managers, inspectors, analysts too. a good night for us means serving with care. good night, sewers, everywhere.

Today was a special day. As I walked through My Lai, just after sunrise, an old man called out and invited me inside his house. It turned out to be Do Ba - the small child that Hugh Thompson, Larry Colburn and Glen Andreotta saved on March 16, 1968.

Nominative determinism at its very best.

This is what education is for.

"Netanyahu, just as in Gaza, has no real plan other than destruction and death. He wants war for as long as possible to keep the opposition at bay and ensure his political survival.No wonder official messaging has been that Israel is in it for “as long as it takes” www.aljazeera.com/opinions/202...

NEW ANALYSIS: UK emissions fell 2.4% in 2025 as coal fell to a 400-year low. Incredibly, we used less coal last year than than in 1600, when Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne and Shakespeare was writing Hamlet. All the details in our article: www.carbonbrief.org/...

One of the most unpopular prime ministers ever, Labour's base totally split and decimated, being pushed into third by the Greens, multiple high profile u-turns despite a massive majority. But sure Morgan McSweeney is "one of the best political strategists in the world". Bonkers stuff.

This is a hot mess of outright lies and misinformation from the Home Secretary, designed to try and persuade people that a government which is implementing some of the most hostile anti-immigration/asylum policies, in practice, for decades is progressive. 1/ www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

A US submarine sinking a lonely, dinky Iranian surface ship an ocean away from the theater of the main conflict—and 9000 miles from North America—makes it pretty clear the US is fighting a general war, without the declaration required by the Constitution. www.reuters.com/world/asia-p...

Starmer might not float everyone's boat but thank God he's Prime Minister not Kemi Badenoch. Badenoch as PM would be catastrophic for the country. Overwhelming self confidence is irrelevant if you have the judgement of a house brick. #PMQs

Let me sum up the core tenet of international law according to multiple sources in European capitals: "Hey, don't even think of touching Greenland, but feel free to bomb away in Iran."

Corruption in England's water industry and its regulation 2,778 serious pollution incidents reported in 2024. Officials downgraded 2,735 (98%) to minor incidents. Only 496 attended before downgrading; the rest were deemed minor. Regulators collude with industry, inflicting harms to people.

Farage was of course very happy to court Commonwealth voters during the Brexit referendum, whereas affected EU citz could not vote at all Now he wants to remove the Commonwealth franchise (I think CW franchise is anachronistic but Farage’s hypocrisy and opportunism is revolting)

Reasonable effort. Trump gives green light to Xi on Taiwan and Putin on Ukraine. We'll be lucky to survive at all [remembering all those American guys with soft collar check shirts in bars voting Trump to avoid foreign wars of choice] news.sky.com/story/the-us...

Sartorial emulation: "I find your lack of faith disturbing".

Labour Right refuses to offer hope, change or contrition. They'd rather be the Opposition than adopt centre-left policies.

Looks like it must be a policy.

Some say that if there’s an anti-democratic criminal regime that sponsors terrorism in other countries and which is opposed by much of its own population, one should bomb that country hoping the people take over. This is utterly wrong and I will always be opposed to missile strikes on Washington.

Anyone who was still wondering whether the US military will follow manifestly illegal orders has their answer

This is a great new name for it. New to me, anyway. Somebody pass the word to Shabana Mahmood.

Quite so. Where are the _positive_ reasons to vote Labour? They seem to be too devoted to curbing our enthusiasm.

People in Britain don’t deserve care, when our collective xenophobia sabotages the creaking systems we rely on so much.

From the outside the US looks like a patient with Necrotizing Fasciitis (flesh-eating disease) and the attending medical staff are doing everything they can to remove the patient’s sources of natural resistance.

It’s not tempting, tho I have US family & friends and was a regular visitor from 1974 onwards, with quite long periods (up to a year at a time) living and studying there. Once it felt like a second home, and I made a good career studying and teaching its history. All gone now. Too many ****s.

It's not a ceasefire if one side is still demolishing homes and killing people.

a lot of you are probably too young to remember this but there was a time when the married dhs secretary using taxpayer money for a custom built fuck palace in the sky for her to bang coworkers wouldve been a big deal

Self-promotion time -- 2-parter about a mining disaster 182 years ago, 40 lives (the youngest 4 years old) snuffed out in an instant. nation.cymru/feature/a-st... for Part 1, nation.cymru/feature/the-... for Part 2. Both about 3,000 words. Quite readable. @leightonandrews.bsky.social

Southcom strikes which illegally kill people on boats in the Carribean that three months ago elicited shocked headlines in US news media are now being reported in low priority spaces buried deep in news outlet websites. Normalisation of what are in effect US military death squads.

We've been hiking in the Lakes for over 25 years and today was one of our very best days. Feel very lucky.

Sitting Hare - by Charles Tunnicliffe (1901 - 1979) If you are not already aware of Charles Tunnicliffe, do look him up. His paintings of British birds and wildlife truly are exceptional... Possibly my all-time favourite #hare painting 🧡

And so it came to pass.

Oliver Kornetzke on Donald Trump

This is really, really dark. www.wsj.com/world/middle...

I am giving away some signed copies from friends right now, and I’ve checked. They’re almost all dead, so it’s OK.

Not just Scotland. There was an old Welsh joke (punchline sounds better in a proper Valleys voice). “Ah, your Gwyneth is getting married! How nice for you!” “And she’s not even pregnant.” “Oh, there’s posh!”

Second thoughts, and you’re dead.

Aren’t they all “The University of Greater Manager” nowadays?

What a bastard administration this is! Scorched earth, despoiled seas.

Tweet of the Day. Was very good of McSweeney to “resign from government.” And there was me, thinking he was just an unelected apparatchik. A hired hand.

Crawling so far up Musk's backside that he'll likely meet the team from GB news coming the other way.

Democracy dies in oligarchness

We gotta come up with a better system than “everything rests on whether these twelve billionnaires are nice”

going through some old photos and found this from years ago that i took in richmond. what a building!