Well said, that man.

Honestly the collective national level of disdain for Brits living in Dubai on all my social media platforms today really is bringing the UK together as one in a way that's hard to achieve in the modern era.

Haven't watched the Brits for about 20 years. Happened to turn it on last night just as this started. What a performance! What a spectacle! Am slowly getting into her album too. Wasn't convinced at first but it's a grower. So different and refreshing. youtube.com/watch?v=7fyu...

Terrific piece from Janice Turner. The Green's "Islamo-gauche" alliance comes at a price. www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

Usual lazy, predictable punditry: "Labour needs to move to the Left/Right/Centre etc..." No, Labour needs to govern well. It needs to have a record it can defend. It needs achievements it can boast about. Ask most people and they'll struggle to point out a single good thing they've done so far.

Interesting analysis from Lizzie

The former plumber has said that she'll arrive at Parliament on Monday, some time between 8 and 5.

The Greens are playing a dangerous game: www.edwest.co.uk/p/playing-wi...

And for Labour, what goes around comes around. Bloc voting, sectarian political campaigning, they've been doing it themselves for decades. It pits groups against one another, minority against minority. It's awful, toxic politics. There's nothing liberal or progressive about modern day lefties.

The Palestinians have been let down by their leadership for generations. But their external supporters now rival them in the damage done to their cause.

Make the Churchill vandals clean it off themselves. With toothbrushes. Held in their teeth.

Close(ish). Labour actually polled better (25.4%) than they have been in the last few months of nationwide polls. Although this in a once safe seat. Think we can now consign the 'safe seat' thing to history. Not actually a bad thing.

The Greens are playing a dangerous game: www.edwest.co.uk/p/playing-wi...

Once upon a time, the wretched Greens used to be about the environment. Now it takes a back seat to identity and sectarianism. "Queers for Palestine" best sums them up.

I absolutely loathe the Greens and Reform in equal measure and for very different reasons. Just can't see any way Labour win this. I'm expecting the Greens to win narrowly over Reform, with Labour a very distant third.

This Green use of Starmer-Modi resembles a leaflet that Labour put out in Batley in 2021 about Boris Johnson + Modi. The party was heavily criticised for that. I think the lesson is not to pitch to voters from one background with messages you can't show + defend to voters of every background.

Yep. Successive Governments should have stepped in long ago when it was obvious The Royal Family were going to do sweet fa. Good piece.

Even if the founders were still involved, targeting Israeli businesses or targeting anyone Israeli full stop, or anyone who believes in Israel's right to exist, are deeply anti-Semitic acts. But this is all par for the course for the Palestinian Solidarity Movement.

It's the kind of immensely cynical operation that just absolutely destroys trust in politics, but also in the state. Deeply shameful stuff, but also stupid and self-destructive. People high on their own supply from political thrillers. Whose future probably now lies in consultancy for the same.

It was proper dark arts of PR stuff. Commission your own report and make sure it includes a Russian hacking claim. Don't bother with evidence or any expert consultancy. Don't need them. Pass that report to GCHQ. Then you say GCHQ are looking into claims of Russian involvement. You made sure of it.

I recently read "Act of Oblivion" by Robert Harris. All about the hunt for the two men involved in his eventual execution. Terrific book.

First senior member of the royal family to be arrested since Charles I...

About bloody time. To think that taxpayers' money has been funding that grotesque individual's lifestyle. I'm not a Republican (don't care enough either way) but (Not Prince) Andrew's the best advert for getting rid of the lot of them. (Still, The Crown series 1 and 2 was great!).

"5 Pillars" runs a Podcast called "Blood Brothers", which has hosted some of Britain's most notorious neo-Nazis & far right activists, like Nick Griffin (BNP), Mark Collett (Patriotic Alternative) & Jayda Fransen (ex-Britain First), to rant about Jews. Now the Greens are cosying up to them.

On top of this, it really risks tipping Reform into a US oriented, Christian nationalist, socially conservative party in a way that is uncomfortable for a lot of UK voters. The question is if those voters notice or care.

Assuming I can count, if Sheff Wed lose their next game...away to Sheff Utd, they'll be relegated with 13 games still to play. Must be some sort of record. Although they have been deduced 18 pts so probably pointless to compare with others.

These fuckwits make me rage. Naturally, the organiser's called Seymour. Privileged, sanctimonious, middle class twat. news.sky.com/story/the-en...

No shit. But this was always going to happen. Only solution is to get rid. Fans who go to games don't want it.

“This judgment makes absolutely clear that it is lawful for employers and service providers to provide straightforward separate-sex facilities, and that it may be unlawful indirect discrimination against women not to.” sex-matters.org/posts/update...

Winter Olympics not doing it for me. Never has. Unlike the summer ones which I absolutely love. Spectators wrapped up and standing in sub-zero temp. Just makes me feel cold. The setting is spectacular however.

He’s parted ways with an *awful* lot of people for things that he was – or easily could have been – aware of at the time he hired them.

If Jeremy Corbyn was Britain’s unluckiest anti-racist, then there is a good argument than Keir Starmer is Britain’s unluckiest hiring manager.

I am sick, absolutely sick, of the retreat of civic society, the media and the other political parties in the face of Reform UK - one of the most existential threats the state structures have faced for decades.

No student society is obliged to host anyone it doesn't wish to. There is a free speech issue if other students, the SU or uni authorities seek to *stop* students inviting speakers - by getting the event cancelled or via thugs' veto. TMK, neither of these occurred at Bangor.

The law on universities and free speech prevents speakers from being *disinvited after they have been invited*. It does not require universities to provide a platform to whoever demands one. Let's not mince words: the threat to cut funding to every university who disagrees with them is fascist.

It's like the chairman putting out the vote of confidence 20 times before he sacks you after the next inevitable defeat. Really rather cringeworthy.

There's such naivete about 'guardrails' and 'structures' in the UK. But in reality there aren't many, and there are no laws without politics and people that deploy them. Trump won fairly easily even though in the last two weeks he was barely able to speak or reason. He just puce-bellowed. (1/2)

Most politicians and advisers seem to way underestimate the stakes they're playing with. The fantasists, conspiracists and wreckers of Reform UK deeply sympathise with the dictators we face. Idea of them with executive power and access to the panoply of state functions dwarfs most else we've faced.

One of my longest held opinions is that non-Americans who watch the superbowl should be on some kind of register

Yes!!

You can't be a fan of VAR and then say it kills joy. That's exactly what it's been doing since day 1. So fed up with pundits who keep wanking on about how "VAR is here to stay. It just needs to be better." It never ever will. It remains the worst rule change in footballing history.

Still raining...

This is astounding.

Starmer forced to admit he knew of Mandelson's continued relationship with Epstein after the first convicton when he appointed him ambassador. Eek this is a shocker. Badenoch has nailed him on this.

Everything's about process with Starmer. Why he loves wasting time with consultations and reviews. His judgement as PM has consistently shown to be appalling. He hides behind various advisers. He's a coward. Had low expectations he'd be semi-decent. Never thought he'd be this bad.

But, of course, American politicians keep giving speeches where they declare it’s Europe’s values that are “under threat” and European politicians who have lost touch with their people.

Out of the ze park!

Wes Streeting saying on Today that Mandelson is ‘not the man we thought he was’ but the trouble is, he is exactly the man we thought, just on a much worse scale than almost anyone thought. And there is an alternative world where none of this is this govt’s problem, because they never gave him a job

Excellent stuff (i.e. I agree with all of it.) alexmassie.substack.com/p/turncoats-...