It's the Gulf of England now, I don't make the rules.

"The real question is no longer whether Britain could recover its old opt-outs and budget rebates, but whether it is prepared to join a union that is more fiscally integrated, more interventionist, more geopolitical and...markedly less British than the one it left." @mijrahman.bsky.social

Click bait racist bullshit from the Times/Chris Philp. 12 Cameroonians did not sponsor 15 dependants each. 12 new work visas were issued to Cameroonians. 180 visas were issued to dependants of the (many thousands of) Cameroonians *already here*. Etc. www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Things are starting to look very dark for Farage. He's stuck in a ferocious scandal where he cannot get his story straight and his excuses raise more questions than they answer inews.co.uk/opinion/nige...

Loved this LRB piece by @will-davies.bsky.social - much deeper, smarter and more thought provoking than most Burnham/UK/populism commentary. Affordability and fairness would be remarkable achievements...

An absolute banger of an exclusive from the Sunday Times. It's devastating. For the first time, I'm uncertain if Farage can actually survive this www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

new metaphor just dropped

"I could never lend myself to any transaction, however respectable, that would commercialize on the prestige and dignity of the office of the presidency. Show me a man that gets rich by being a politician, and I'll show you a crook." Harry Truman

It is seriously alarming how many of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful people are just screamingly mentally unwell in deeply toxic, dangerous ways.

He's always been this person. He's just got better at it. A shallow little man driven entirely by envy and greed.

This is politics working, isn’t it? 🤷‍♂️

Fox poll: Georgia registered voters Jon Ossoff (D) 56% Mike Collins (R) 43%

Really pleased that Morgan McSweeney has finally discovered that it's better to prepare for government. Thanks for that mate, nice one. Lucky there wasn't a lot riding on it, or you'd really have fucked up inews.co.uk/opinion/hard...

The Times (via Politico): "Christopher Harborne, who has given Reform £15 million and Nigel Farage personally £5 million, owns a jet fuel company that sources from refineries using large volumes of Russian crude oil."

This is America 👇 #USWorldCupTeam ✊

The Founders had a vision. It was that you could eat factory farmed deep fried food in your car.

Quite possible at this point to see a world where Farage, under pressure re £5m, 5 houses and who knows what else, decides to pack it in. Then a three way war between Tice, Jenrick, and Yusuf for leadership. Those predictions of a Reform majority could well prove very overblown

Lisa Nandy has announced she and her department are leaving X. After many MPs such as me, then the Attorney General a couple of weeks ago, perhaps this is the snowball starting to roll?

UK Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy quits TwitterX. This should be the first of many.

Fantastic thread @jeremycliffe.bsky.social - fuelling regional growth, addressing inequality. Would be good to have more progressive immigration as part of this. Ditto inclusivity of growth, role of housing and fiscal implications.

So it turns out the massive scandal here is that Bridget Phillipson's mum bought a council house for £9k in 1990 and then sold it *33 years* later for £99k. That's the entire story

I hereby declare that Rudy Giuliani be stripped of the title "America's Mayor" for multiple reasons and nominate Zohan Mamdani

Britain is more than halfway towards reaching Net Zero. Most people don't realise this, not least as the fossil-fuel fanatics want us to think achieving it is impossible. Via YouGov

My instance trip to London this evening has taken me through the Harry Styles fans at Wembley and the Bad Bunny fans at Seven Sisters and huge crowds, hot weather, and the most absolutely London like chill about queues, delays, and discomfort. What a city.

And there it is… www.desmog.com/2026/04/30/r...

Doctor Trivago

Hugely unpopular policy. Khan could have reneged or bowed to pressure at any point over the last few years but he stuck to principles and pushed on. Politicians could learn a lot from the Mayor. Ignore the papers, and invest in long-term policies for public good.

Big fan of this pope

Haha, nice one @privateeyenews.bsky.social !

Climate emergency cancels Reform's "cancel the climate emergency" meeting - council members were due to vote on Thurs on a Reform motion to rescind the climate emergency.

I know fairness is an odd concept when it comes to apportionment of political opprobrium, but: the Coalition actually delivered a Granny tax in the 2012 Budget! They stuck to it! It raised billions! And the Conservatives then won a majority! Winter Fuel should not have been this significant.

I've had 2 journalists today asking if Miliband as Chancellor would be a "Liz Truss moment" and find it difficult not to just respond "are you on crack?".

You'll often hear that progressives need to "demonstrate they take immigration concerns seriously". I think that's a trap. As soon as you "take seriously" the concern of someone who thinks a brown tide is washing away Christiandom they expect you to act at a scale matching that threat perception!

My unified theory here is that after a decade of Tory government, people expected a Labor leader with a huge majority in Parliament to govern radically differently in action, tone and focus. Starmer did not. People may have differing reasons for feeling that way, but that's what it comes down to.

If anti-Ref votes coalesce behind strongest anti-Ref candidate as happened in Makerfield, Gorton, Caerphilly that Reform number comes down very fast. Reform 27% could mean 300 seats or 50. All depends on how the other 73% behave locally, which these projections can’t tell you.

The bad news: the UK's fiscal position means Burnham/any new Chancellor will have little/no room for manoeuvre on tax/spending/borrowing. The good news: there is a. progressive policy agenda that is pro-growth *and* fiscally credible. www.ft.com/content/7235...

If this happens and it’s all doomed anyway, please just make Ed Miliband PM and go on a glorious, two fingers up three year bender of nice things. You know deep down you want to. It might even help electorally.

EXCL: Nigel Farage has been trying to block Bank of England cryptocurrency plan that could be costly for billionaire bankrolling his party. Cracking tale from @tomburgis.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Thanks to all the good people who turned out against the far right in Belfast, Glasgow and Brighton who have cheered up my timeline.

A few of the placards seen today as the fash got chased off Buchanan Street. Never forget: the far right are indeed dangerous and wicked; and they are also weird and pathetic, and we should say so.

A wee group of angry balaclava and mask-wearing anti-immigration guys tried to stop the good people of Glasgow showing solidarity with migrants and standing up to racism and fascism. Well, the far right are far outnumbered... #RefugeesWelcome #MigrantsWelcome #NeighboursNotStrangers #Glasgow

Aerial PARTIAL view of the anti racist, anti fascist crowd in Belfast right now. City Hall to the left for scale. This - this is the real Belfast. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Absolutely huge crowds in Belfast to reject the far-right, paramilitarism, racism and border violence. A loud message to the politicians who pandered to violent paramilitary groups this week

"I've no idea whether Musk is an engineering genius, or just a savvy and lucky venture capitalist. The scientific world is divided on that question. I do know that he's a monstrous human being."  My Swamp Notes with @robertshrimsley.bsky.social as.ft.com/r/6b1d09da-4...

Fascists in Belfast set fire to buildings with people inside them. People of colour left work early to stay indoors. This is being actively encouraged by the world’s richest man whose openly pro-white nationalist platform X is still used by the UK government www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

This from @lordashcroft.bsky.social is really rather good on the pros and cons. TL;DR "If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly."

This has nothing to do with stopping crime. It is to do with a global far-right movement, coordinated on X, organised by some of the most powerful men in the world from Silicon Valley to the White House inews.co.uk/opinion/fara...

A few people campaigning / focus grouping in Makerfield have told me that even Reform supporters have brought up that Farage going against the wishes of Nowak's family made them uneasy. So these statements are both brave and important.

The family of the Belfast stabbing victim have released a statement saying - like the family of Henry Nowak last week - that the attack should not be used to "divide people or fuel hostility" They condemned disorder and praised the "valuable contribution" by migrants inews.co.uk/news/politic...