The problem with the strategy of expecting Labou and all decent voters to accept things they don’t like is that we’ve been doing this since 2020. There’s a moment where you can no longer bite your lips. Seeing a Labour gov trying to outbid Reform is no reward www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

The last election showed that Britain has a 5 party system, and this guy talks of the ‘median voter’??? Please, go and read Anthony Downs on median voter strategies in multiparty systems and learn a few important things about voting behaviour.

These 👇🏼 are really good news!

Some good news. London is meeting legal limits for toxic NO2 pollution for the first time – almost 200 years earlier than predicted – following the Mayor’s "world leading air pollution policies," City Hall announces. The Ultra Low Emissions Zone - and similar policies - really do work.

So far - at 14.41 - Starmer’s speech is very Milibandite: apprenticeships, investment, higher minimum wage, stronger labour protections, fighting child poverty.,,

Like Trump, Shabana Mahmood likes to use X to shout at people. Somebody should tell her that it’s rude to write in capital letters. On top of that, her policies and ideas are shouty enough.

Keir Starmer must raise his game in the number of times he will use the word ‘racism’ in his conference otherwise the game ‘good cop, bad cop’ he plays with Shabana Mahmood will not work. The xenophobic fumes coming from the Labour conference are becoming toxic.

International students already subsidise the studies of domestic students (not to mention the NHS), so this levy is just exploitative and will backfire. But the narrative of ‘let’s squeeze migrants as much as we can’ is sounding very exploitative. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

@lewisgoodall.com is one of the most incisive commentator of mainstream Westminster media out there but, boy, this episode is ‘’mediamacro’ on repeat (haven’t we learned where MM takes us?) There are so many ways to tackle debt without making the poor poorer. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

Silly me, I was expecting something different but it’s obvious that Labour’s so-called ‘progressive reset’ includes more ‘we’ll beat and squeeze migrants’ a bit more. I rest my case. www.thesun.co.uk/news/politic...

Let’s hope that Starmer’s fight speech has a bit more substance than the snippets reported in the media. It’s a jumble of stale platitudes that essentially point to an unchanged policy course and just a few more general attacks against Farage and Corbyn www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

A story that’s attracted surprisingly little attention in our media: Ex-Reform politician admits Russia-linked bribery charges www.bbc.com/news/article...

If Labour’s fight with Reform is a fight for the souls of the nation why does Keir Starmer accommodates so much to Reform’s languages and priorities? Voters will be asking this…

I hope Keir Starmer shows some backbone or he risks being seen as Farage-light. It’s already quite noticeable the way he avoids saying the word racism for fear of offending racist voters.

The Tories allowed record legal migration and the establishment of small boats as a migrant route. Why say this was Labour’s fault?

But this justification is ridiculous because we already have to show a passport to prove our right to work in the UK and that requirement also applies to British citizens

UK and EU reportedly negotiating British return to Erasmus programme inews.co.uk/news/politic...

Andy Burnham clearly knows best, but I have no idea how talking endlessly about a leadership challenge that might not happen because he has no Commons seat, will improve the popularity of the Labour Party. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

This is a move in the right direction but let’s be bolder, please! www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Eye-opening thread

After relying on him for so many stories about Labour under Starmer (the left, the soft left, Ed Miliband, Bridget Phillipsob, etc) it is clear that the right-wing media will not rest until Morgan McSwinney is sacked. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Monarchs can ocasionally be useful. Taking the role of a moral conscience is more dignified that hosting deranged dictators www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

Hopefully Starmer will follow Macron on this. It’s the bare minimum. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

Per John Stuart Mill in his Chapters on Socialism, the three main sources of wealth are luck, vices like "hard-hearted, cold-fisted selfishness" and sycophancy, and "downright knavery."

The word unhinged is too soft to describe Trump’s latest diatribe. I can’t believe American voters inflicted this man on the world. I want to hear apologies and see penance. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Finally, a gesture in the right direction, which I hope will be followed by all members of government. Yesterday there were far too many government voices attacking Farage’s plans on technocratic grounds. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

It’s quite shocking that Labour ministers and Keir Starmer are unable to attack Reform’s immoral plans to put an end to ILR on ethical and moral grounds and insist on technocratic objections.

Once again for everyone in the back: The appropriate response to fascist or fascist-adjacent policy is not “that’s unworkable and here’s why it won’t work”. It’s “that’s monstrous and here’s a strong statement of our values and vision”

I think scepticism is warranted when it comes to whether Keir Starmer's team will ever fully realise that every attempt to outflank Farage on the Right will just lead to Farage escalating demands further.

Absolutely this.👇🏼 Hopefully this will be a wake-up call to the Labour government. This is where is the talk about ‘legitimate concerns’ with immigration leads us. Most so-called ‘legitimate concerns’ are illegitimate because they are baseless and only promote xenophobia and racism.

💯. Progressives have to stop franchising out their consciences to the courts. Politics is about moral choices. The problem with Reform's proposal isn't that "the courts won't allow it". It's that it's grotesque and inhuman. If we're democrats, we must believe that this argument can be won.

I’m not at all surprised with this move. It was the constant change of goal posts in the UK immigration policy that led me to the path of naturalisation. I suspect that the HO will be making a lot of money from thousands of naturalisation applications www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

@nytimes.com’s journalists are so addicted to ‘both-sideism’ that they will not be able to identify autocracy when it will stare them in the face. Maga people will never read you but in the meantime you’re losing the audience who is ready to pay 4 good journalism. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

It’s time to question the environmental credentials of the Labour government: you’re either committed to NetZero or to the ‘AI revolution’. There’s no third way on this, I’m afraid.

Far more worrying than rolling the red carpet to Donald Trump’s is the UK government’s lack of condemnation of Israel’s attempt to remove Gazans from Gaza (just the latest instalment on series of war crimes,ethnic cleaning and potentially genocide committed by the state of Israel).

Has Melania joined witness protection?

cato institute analysis of murders by political ideology since 1975, excluding 9/11

Detained people without lawyers are only given a few days' notice of the intention to send them to France. In this time they need to find a lawyer, who will then need to gather evidence and consider whether there is a claim. Of course court applications are being made only shortly before removal.

Love the way BBC broadcasters try to convince viewers that no one does pageantry and pomp like Britain…because, of course, other countries don’t have hundreds of years of diplomatic traditions or stunning castles, tiaras and military parades.

Great piece on the ‘free speech wars’. www.bostonreview.net/forum/the-ri...

Great piece by @sachahilhorst.bsky.social on how Reform has been wooing voters from former mining constituencies and on the concerns of those voters. There are some important lessons for Labour on how to woo these voters without recurring to xenophobic tropes. renewal.org.uk/articles/ref...

Finally the EU is starting to so the right thing. More please! www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...

Fabulous episode of PastPresentFuture where @dmk1793.bsky.social explains with great clarity the historical debates around electoral systems (mostly about plurality systems like FPTP and PR) and electoral reform. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/p...

Still recovering from the shock that daughter paid only 222 euros for the fees of her Master’s programme at Sorbonne-Nouvelle. This is the cost of higher ed in countries that treat education as an asset to all.

Peter Kyle’s shockingly amoral response is the type of answer ChatGPT would give. As we know, Kyle is fanatic about AI. www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

Belfast Telegraph: 'Former loyalist terror chief Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair was among thousands of protesters on the streets of London yesterday at a “freedom of speech” festival led by far-right activist Tommy Robinson.' www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/norther...?

My colleague @thejohnsimpson.bsky.social has done a terrific deep dive into the financial links between US tech billionaires and Tommy Robinson Well worth a read observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

This is a really worrying development. It’s about time the British Prime Minister makes a statement about unacceptable racism and threats of violence against migrants and ethnic minorities.

Prophetic words by @roberthutton.co.uk about Lord Mandelson: ‘Truly, we shall not see his like again. For at least six months. And then we probably will’. But my favourite line is: (..)he pulls his phone and tries to remember which of his mates is currently out of prison and not using their yacht’.