People are saying this will be Starmer's Poll Tax moment, maybe that's s. But expect to see more of these big-tech boondoggles down the pike, as politicians sell themselves to special interests to feather their nests after a one-term govt.

At this point, it's obvious that members of a one-term government are desperately trying to secure their post-politics careers by hocking *your data* to big tech plutogarchs. It must be resisted at all costs.

WTF

Who, this Steph Driver?

A truly anomalous event here, where someone in the political class is facing the consequences of their actions. An absolute impossibility in the UK or USA.

Levelling up was a bullshit lie when Cummings and Johnson came up with it, and it is a bullshit lie now it's being recycled by McSweeney and Starmer. The Monoparty consensus has never been so obvious.

Starmer & McSweeney went for option 2 here, despite it now being obvious that Mandelson was a close advisor to the former & mentor to the latter—a Plantagenet-level betrayal. While Mandelson continues to suffer setbacks in his professional life, those boobs will keep on reaping the FAFO whirlwind.

My conjecture: King Charles, a man who Trump respects because of ancient, hereditary billions, castles & get-out-of-jail-free shit like sovereign immunity, told Trump that Putin was making him look like a pussy. So he'll be pissed off about that for a few weeks, act out, & then go back to normal.

Oh double fucking LOL. Keir Starmer called this guy "my friend" last week.

Yes, 100%. Whatever it is, there will always be some late boomer or Gen X I'm-alright-jackal, who got a free university education and bought their house for the price of 21st century cross-country rail ticket, telling you you can feed a family of four on 10 quid a week.

Isn't this the same type of accusation that got Nicola Sturgeon the CSI-tent-on-your-lawn treatment?

*Tapping the warning sign and making loud klaxon noises*

Exhibit A, which was also the same problem that Labour had with the Tories' Rwanda Plan—it just wasn't efficient enough. Saying things like this is *a choice*

Reform UK have a win-win formula every time they make a policy statement: 1) Say the most extreme thing possible 2) The moribund Tories & Labour will either match you or adopt a slightly less Draconian position In that way, they constantly shift the framing rightwards & take the battleground.

A reminder that Starmer framed recognition of Palestinian statehood as a threat to genocidaires to stop committing genocide. Instead they turbocharged their efforts. Then the British govt published findings that genocide was not happening. So, pretty hard to see this as anything but hollow BS.

Compare live television announcements of unwavering support on 7/10/23 and after Iran's response to Israel's preëmptive strikes in October 2024, versus a statement on recognising Palestinian statehood, just pre-recorded and shat out on Twitter. The optics are blatant.

There's a computer in a police station in Fallout 4, with a report on it that talks about arresting someone for having a pamphlet about unions and workers' rights. And it made me think how close to the world of Fallout we are in right now.

Wait a minute, cyber attacks at European airports a few days before a bunch of European countries are going to do something that enrages one of the world's cyber superpowers, and the culprit is immediately fingered as....Russia. RIGHTO.

Soon, the incipient fascist party in the UK will have better polling numbers than the two legacy parties combined. Failing to provide a Left Alternative when the opportunity & the need has never been greater, will be a historical disaster. 2025 will be the year we lost the future.

This is why I have been saying not to rule out this moribund Monoparty system turning to proportional representation. It would save the Tories & Labour from an extinction-level event, & also allow them to redistribute their most beloved & treasured partisans to safer seats. Don't discount it!

The Green Party is part of the answer to stopping fascism in the UK, but it's not the whole answer. The Left Alternative need to get their house in order because 2025 is the whole ball game and there's no room to miss open goals. History will not be kind. bsky.app/profile/avde...

Labour have voluntarily dived into the toilet & are poised with their hands on the flush. Yet with 100s of 1000s waiting for a Left Alternative to get their shit together, the people with their hands on the tiller are just busy bitch slapping each other bloody. Unserious people in dire times.

The hacks chuckle at how extraordinary it is that Trump can just lie baldfacedly at any stage and get away with it. Any journalist in the press room could've said "that's not true" when he said he didn't know Peter Mandelson. But they didn't. Because that's not how journalism works at this level.

I think that Trump just said Azerbaijan vs. Albania was one of the seven wars he solved. They are about 3000 km away and have never been at war.

Well done to the Your Party team for rising to meet the challenge at this most important juncture in British politics. Fix up, honestly. The UK needs a genuine Left Alternative as a bulwark to the fascism we are staring down the barrel at as a nation. Get your shit together, quick time.

British journalist here saying, in euphemistic terms, that the press conspire to fuck people over 🤷.

Hacks across a couple of channels making sure to say that everything so far has been absolutely peachy in the Trump ass-kissing operation, but things might get spicy in the press conference coming up soon. We'll see. If they are worth their salt it should be wall to wall Gaza & Epstein but 🤷.

Do we think that putting on a double layer of chapstick and clamping his lips on the gelatinous ass of The Donald, like a barnacle to the hull of some creaking orange trawler, is going to make Starmer more or less popular with the British public?

Starmer here referring to Donald Trump as "my friend, your friend." A reminder that Donald Trump is wildly unpopular in the UK, but not as unpopular as Starmer himself.

I can't tell you how personally, piss-in-pants exciting this Trump ass-kissing circus is for the hacks on the ground today. It's like Mum saying you're going to Thorpe Park, Legoland and Euro Disney back to back. Incredible shit.

The press coverage of this whole Trump ass-kissing extravganza is so breathlessly excited you know this is an absolute highlight of the hacks' careers: *this* is the kind of Hollywood shit they signed up for. They're also incredibly proud of the Britain's kowtowing, real world-beating genuflection.

• 3.8 million Britons living in conditions defined as "destitution" • 6.6 million people in England described as having "very poor literacy skills" • 27 year gap between the life expectancy of the poorest and richest in society Enjoy your meal.

The wheel spins as it should.

Worth everyone reflecting that it's completely abnormal that a prime minister who's just won a generational landslide is so unpopular he might not outlast a bunch of people from the Powdered Wig Era.

Robert Redford: All the President's Men - yes Butch and Sundance - yes The Sting - yes! But also, this. Massively.

Starmer is done. It's just a matter of time before the bar closes & it's time to grab his briefcase & fuck off into that good night. Only 2 questions remain: 1) Has he ingratiated himself enough with monied interests to make his retirement work out? 2) Will he outlast the Marquess of Rockingham?

The Pincher comparison here is blatant, and it turned out to be the last in a string of scandals that finished off Big Dog Johnson. There were only eight days between the Pincher groping story breaking and Johnson's eventual resignation.

Trump will arrive in the UK on Tuesday night. During his stay he will enjoy a huge amount of special treatment. This also includes a broadcast on Channel 4: they dedicate their Wednesday night schedule to unpicking all the falsehoods expressed by Trump since taking office. This takes several hours.

Now that we know the Corbyn antisemitism campaign was strategised and coordinated by Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘best pal’, would any journalists like to explain why Corbyn’s pronunciation of his surname was more concerning than the fact that the guy briefing them up to that point had stayed in his house?

Just pure coincidence that Diane Abbott was on ITV the day that ITV were planning on airing a damaging-for-the-PM scoop about a scandal featuring Diane Abbot, the same day as Pippa "The Hammer of Big Dog" Crerar is set to debut on ITV's flagship politics programme.

This is following much the same pattern as the crescendo that ended Johnson: the prime minister speaking live to the press to answer for one scandal, while another emerges on the same day. Critical mass of scandal building up to the inevitable fission event.

Isn't it strange that when the press decide it's time for you to go, your only option is which door to take?

I see Starmer is doing a sit down interview about the Mandelson Epstein affair. I'm not watching, but I guarantee you that this will be more damaging for the current prime minister as a matter of course. They have learned *nothing* from Johnson.

The Acorn here, decrying our media climate. A man who shaped British rightism for decades, & whose final act of relevancy was setting up GB News—a soil pipe that shat nativist effluent, antivaxism & other US culture wars trash into the mainstream as "news". A culprit, an enabler, a dissembler.

With the news that nativist Tory MP Danny Krueger has defected to Reform UK, I vigorously tap the sign and remind everyone that this desiccation of the Conservative Party has been on the cards *for years*, the shitness of Badenoch is just an accelerant.

History looks most dimly upon the appeasers—those who wilfully, or through fecklessness, refused to confront the conditions that foreshadowed catastrophe. Starmer is fast becoming a culprit on the level of a Buchanan or Chamberlain.

Congrats to the Keir Unit for finally coming out and reframing the rise of the far right as who deserves to sexually rub themselves up against a Union Jack the most.

To those level-headed commentators out there saying that yesterday's fascist march was just a tiny minority acting out, & that the rise of bile-on-your-sleeve & flag-in-your-hand nativism is just bed-wetting, for every marcher who showed up in person in the rain, there were 100s at home applauding.

I can't tell you just how feeble, artificial and embarrassing the foundations of modern British far rightism are. It is literally just copy paste internet Americana with fish and chips and football shirts.

If the assassin of Charlie Kirk does indeed turn out to be a groyper, it will be because a man who said black people were better off under slavery, Palestinians didn't exist, and who'd have made his own raped child carry the assailant's baby, was not right wing enough.