Another one: www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

New post just out: "The Reality Trap" On Reform's struggles running councils. What it tells us about how they'd fare if they won a general elections. And about how broken our system of local government is. (£/free trial) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/t...

This does seem to be a relevant question. Reading the Sun and Guardina pieces side by side it is hard to believe they are describing the same policy. That kind of spin might have worked in 1990s but in a social media ecosystem where anger goes viral is is likely to generate own goals

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025... If this happens. I will never vote Labour again. This has chilled me to the bone.

Yes, some asylum seekers are fake. But punishing all refugees because some try it on is like treating all of us as criminals because some are. Just such low politics & it won’t work anyway. Reform want all brown faces gone, whether they came here legally/illegally or their grandparents did years ago

When you consider that Boris Johnson had Covid to... well, fail to deal with, for a government to so spectacularly piss away a huge majority (which Boris didn't actually have) with such speed is surely unprecedented in this country

Both the Budget and the asylum bill are disintegrating before they've even been formally announced. Absolutely dead government.

“Helsinki hasn’t registered a single traffic-related fatality in the past year…Citing data that shows the risk of pedestrian fatality is cut in half by reducing a car’s speed from 40 to 30km/hr, city officials imposed the lower limit in most of Helsinki’s residential areas & city center in 2021.”

If this really is what is being proposed, I think adding the jewellery confiscation policy + the 20 year policy could kick off the kind of PLP revolt that (without rapid u-turn) could entirely destabilise a struggling government that risks falling over on every front www.thesun.co.uk/news/3734007...

Hate to say it, but those "dark forces" are you, rn. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

jaw dropping stuff. also every lickspittle labour MP jumping on the incredibly offensive "golden ticket" nonsense is not gonna come out of this looking good. congrats, you can regurgitate a comms catchphrase but have you considered that you have no soul

"Small boat migrants to have jewellery & assets seized to pay for accommodation as part of Home Sec’s arrivals crackdown" i can't believe i went to bed and somehow they made it worse (i will also not link to the sun)

this really is an unsurpassed unpopularity speed run like no other

Let communities own rivers, woods & moors! Excellent to see @simonforstroud.bsky.social has tabled amendments 107 & 108 to the Devolution Bill to strengthen Community Right to Buy laws in this way. We need more Labour MPs to support this - email yours: www.reclaimourmoors.uk/write-to-you... 1/

I mean, taking migrants' property is bad enough, but there is something particularly egregious about focusing on jewellery. Something that suggests the advocates either have not read a book about 20th century Europe, or have read too many.

The former prime minister said the corporation needs "put out of its misery".

Briljant!

A new meditation app that embraces climate breakdown. Breathe in profit. Breathe out responsibility. If you’ve ever had problems with anxiety from being a fossil fuel executive, this is the app for you. Brought to you by @olifro.st

I rather like being treated like a human. Reform voters don’t seem to realise that having Human Rights laws protect them as well.

The UK’s political right wants to quit another European institution.  But battle-scarred Remainers are leaving nothing to chance this time.

Two-thirds of English councils have not prosecuted a single rogue landlord in past three years despite 300,000 separate complaints. Less than 2% of complaints led to any action. 2010-2020 Austerity: 41% cut in enforcement funding, staff cut by a third. Law without enforcement is a cruel hoax.

Here is how Home Sec Shabana Mahmood wants to try to persuade Guardian readers of her policy "My goal is to ensure there are legal routes into this country for those who are truly fleeing peril, and for whom this is the first safe country they have encountered" www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The government's own routes for returns deal with France (which - at scale - could stop the boats) does not contain that condition: UK only wants refugees "for whom this is the first safe country they have encountered" A condition which many Ukranians did not meet,coming here from eg Poland/Germany

They may U turn, but in fertilising this, they are showing who they are and they can’t undo that. Ugly people. Some policies I disagree with strongly…but some are emotionally repellent, offends our souls, and that is what will sink them just as the Covid parties are what really sunk Johnson.

I have written to my MP, who is Shabana Mahmood, and let her know that although I did give her my vote in 2024 to stop the very rotten Akhmed Yakoob getting in, I am thoroughly ashamed of her words and actions towards asylum seekers as Home Secretary and will not be voting for her again.

My guess is they will end up u-turning on the jewellery thing (you can already see it being softening in interviews) and possibly the 20 years (which is way longer than Denmark).

Agree, but the fact that they proposed it in the first place makes them morally unfit to be in charge, and the fact that they will end up overturning it also makes them too incompetent to be in charge

The Home Secretary can't fathom that the UK is not in the same position as the US regarding a "visa ban". "Accept returns or your students will have to pay exorbitant international fees to any one of dozens of other countries" is not the threat she thinks it is... share.google/B8txNQCRNZHh...

Tbf, taking valuables off foreigners is something Brits do well

What about any gold they might have in their teeth?

What the hell is this Labour Govt doing. Where is the process to offer quick, safe immigration?

The government won’t achieve ‘decency’ over ‘division’ by trying to be Reform Lite and please remember this - the ECHR is much more than a treaty. It’s a quiet promise - a shield against abuse of power, a lifeline for the vulnerable, a declaration of who we are as a nation

Every. Word. Of. This. ⤵️⤵️⤵️⤵️⤵️⤵️⤵️⤵️

The only Legitimate Concerns about asylum seekers are concerns for their well being and safety. For a rich country like ours to incessantly whine about these people as if we are their victims is perhaps the single most pathetic spectacle in British politics over the past quarter century.

Risotto is not work. It is meditation, followed by self care.

"Britain has failed to base its economic strategy on what it’s good at - tradeable services, science and tech, universities, niches in advanced manufacturing. And since Brexit, it has been actively undermining its economic model, which is founded on openness to trade, ideas and people."

And a reminder that in 2024 jewelley stolen in similar historical policies was returned to families because it was wrong www.independent.co.uk/news/world/e...

Labour concocts more ugly measures to punish asylum seekers and the right immediately demands worse… howling to leave the ECHR. This scapegoating of migrants must stop. It is failure - morally and practically. “Either we all have human rights or none of us do.” app.independent.co.uk/edition/uk.c...

What a waste of vote! A very disappointed Labour supporter. ❤️🇪🇺

Channel 4 news: will a tougher stance fix the UK's asylum system? I think the question is what would work to gain control, maintain compassion & rebuild public confidence www.channel4.com/news/debate-...

I feel that over the last two years I have personally experienced the way social pressures to make conditions better for minorities in STEM have evaporated and while it’s understandable that people are distracted, it’s not acceptable that people are using that as an excuse

As a beekeeper, I've been thinking a lot about the terrifying collective power of honeybees. When you are in the colony and you piss off 40k or 100k divas who will move AS ONE against you...one cannot help but think of how we could look to the bee for wisdom on collective resistance.

I often get caned on social media for stating my beliefs, especially when they don’t align with the more traditional/conservative/bigoted amongst us. I refuse to be intimidated by those who are intent on curtailing the freedoms of folk who are anything other than the perceived norm.

I'm sorry to break every wonk's heart, but parties do not win elections on the basis of their policy platforms. It's a little more complex, but basically boils down to voters trusting them to pursue the *objectives* that matter to them. It's the outputs - and trust - that count, not the inputs.

Pardon my French here, but anybody who thinks that a pick 'n mix bag of policies that do well in support/oppose polling in isolation is a key to electoral success fundamentally doesn't know shit about electoral behaviour.

Always remember that a parliamentary majority can (purport to) render a country "safe" by an Act. The Conservatives sought to do that with Rwanda, regardless of the facts.

Drop some ANIMATION

Also, frankly, you need to stop rewarding this shrillness. I see plenty of people with whom I interact make similarly ludicrous grandiose statements, knowing they will get them the validation of "likes". That is the way to take a calm, friendly online space and make it a left mirror-image of X.

I feel similarly uneasy, but I also have a sense that my unease is being preyed on by RW media. The two things are not mutually exclusive. The "island of strangers" quote is a good example. I was swept along by headlines. It was two months after the uproar, that I happened to read the full passage.

I feel deeply uneasy with the direction of travel of this government. I wouldn't have expected it to come out with policies that have been announced by the Home Sec. I wouldn't have expected to hear Starmer talk of island of strangers. I want to see a much wider gap between Labour and Tories/Reform