If you missed this question to Nigel Farage from The Critic's Rob Hutton – and it was over an hour into the press conference – then it was a particularly good one. The answer was... vague.

Nigel Farage confirms that Reform UK will vote *against* the bill to lift the two child cap, keeping hundreds of thousands of children in poverty.

Your honour, I did not mug him, I merely asked for money after implying there might be violence www.wsj.com/politics/nat...

Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa has died. Marjorie Taylor Greene resigned from Congress last night. A special election in Texas on Jan. 31 will put in another Democrat in office. Mike Johnson's House majority is almost non-existent. Next month, he can only lose one vote.

There we go. That there’s a headline.

A great story from Mike Reader, Labour MP for Northampton South. It's part of the debate on the Cyber Security & Reslience Bill. What would you do if this happened to you at work? Has your work even told you about this sort of risk? We've had emails attempting this sort of thing! Be aware!

Joint European statement on Greenland. They moved quickly after Miller’s comments about annexation last night.

Misrepresented images of deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro have spread widely on social media since his capture. President Trump shared clips he falsely claimed showed celebrations in Venezuela: One was from a UCLA student event, another from a 2024 Caracas protest was also falsely labeled.

I have a hunch that if you or I were running a website doing this the "urgent contact" would involve door rams and handcuffs so I struggle to see why it can't be slightly more pugnacious than this.

In addition to the Ofcom inquiry as to what the platform is doing to prevent its own production of the unlawful material, there should be a dedicated team making arrrests + charges + a comms campaign about that being unlawful, arrestable and chargeable

OMG - Amplify this. This young woman was just arrested for publicly stating her opinion. Things are ramping up fast.

BBC pol ed Chris Mason: the Danes are saying very clearly to President Trump hands off Greenland, will you say the same? Starmer: Yes. Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark must decide the future of Greenland, and only Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark.

Someone should tell Polanski about this. Maybe his party are playing a prank on him telling him the government aren’t doing this and hiding it. Would be the only explanation for his ‘wealth tax now’ ramblings.

Once more for this. V interesting

The Washington Post reports that Donald Trump withheld support for María Corina Machado because she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize. Trump’s explanation, per the report: “If she had turned it down and said, ‘I can’t accept it because it’s Donald Trump’s,’ she’d be the president of Venezuela today.”

The only thing any of the western allies can do is quietly de-risk from America by unlinking our economy/institutions - but this is a slow process that takes years (and should have started in 2016). Saying something true that will upset Trump now needs to have a function beyond catharsis.

Just in case I have any booksellers and book Shops in the UK and or Ireland following me, please tell me about your shop.

In case you missed this. Revealing - to me, anyway

Nobody could have predicted this.

A very long and important THREAD - The real reason the US is invading Venezuela goes back to a deal Henry Kissinger made with Saudi Arabia in 1974. And I'm going to explain why this is actually about the SURVIVAL of the US dollar itself. Not drugs. Not terrorism. Not "democracy." 1/

The New York Times has just confirmed that 40 civilians died in President Trump's invasion. This is the aftermath in one area

Mamdani called Trump and chewed him out! Did any other Democrat have the integrity and guts to do that? https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/03/world/americas/mamdani-trump-venezuela-maduro.html?smid=url-share

Full moon rising over gritstone on Bleaklow, Peak District

This person went on a buying spree over the past 24 hours. Fresh wallet. Only existed since Dec 27th and has only bet on Venezuela-related markets. polymarket.com/@0x31a56e9E6...

The Putinization of US foreign policy continues apace.

Cancel the LA Olympics, scrap the World Cup, the United States cannot be a trusted part of the international community so long as the White House operates this violently and with impunity.

As usual @aliceolilly.bsky.social is spot on about constitutional matters. There are always potential Trumps: the difference is whether gatekeepers do their jobs. And here Congress has long abdicated its proper constitutional role.

You have to go through Congress for anything resembling this type of war. Round up Massie and Paul types and have him removed. The people in this administration are on actual drugs and have insatiable bloodlust and bespoke mental illnesses. He has to go, and everybody with him.

Here is the full transcript on the investigation on Donald Trump from Jack Smith: d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2025/...

Tax breaks for foreign millionaires but mass deportations for the rest. Huge austerity and NHS cuts, replacing NHS with insurance model, scrapping NetZero, workers’ rights and online safety act. And a trade war with the EU. Reform: Corrupt. Ruinous. Racist. Moronic. www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...

The view from Pret #Reigate

House hunters!

Today we watched The Sound of Music, for the 1000th time. It's always moving, but now the anschluss feels more relevant than it has ever been since 1938, when I was 2 years old. There is now a real danger of fascism taking over again. I'm too old to do much about it. Good luck to next generation.

Seems VAT on private school fees delivers £1.4bn considerably more than estimated. IPaper reports today. That’s great news. Thanks Rachel. More money for the 93% of kids attending State Schools.

My main takeaway from the Jack Smith testimony: we should push our presidential candidate to make him Attorney General in 2029.

Waiting … waiting … #TheArchers 👀

Good morning and happy new year from the dog walk #Reigate

As the year draws to a close, I’m signing off 2025 with a magical find! An ancient amber bear. Carved some 10,000 years ago, it washed up on a beach at Fanø, Denmark, from a submerged Mesolithic settlement in the North Sea. ✨ Happy New Year all! ✨ National Museum of Denmark 📷 by me #Archaeology

“My friends will get hurt”. What Trump said to MTG about why he wouldn’t reveal the truth about Epstein www.nytimes.com/2025/12/29/m...

BREAKING: A Russian newspaper today — “America no longer sees our country as a threat… The US leader’s philosophy is closer to the values of Russia’s president, not the politicians of the Old World… he sees Europe as a liberal stronghold that must be destroyed…” Read that again.

Unsolicited writing advice, no. 187: Small details often speak loudest. Don't focus on the car crash: look for the child's shoe in the road.

Dinner with Mr Brexit: Bannon’s European Revolution – Planned with Farage, Backed by Epstein

The 72-year-old filmmaker is on a mission to strip the story of American independence of mythology and nostalgia with his new six-part docu-series. ft.trib.al/FmJn8gO

I'm sure the BBC's US lawyers are keeping track. www.ibtimes.com/trump-turmoi...

Daily Fail Headline Fartrage: "l'Il strip pensions from civil servants who let in foreign rapists" In other news ...

Trump's DOJ was monitoring all the movements of the Miami Herald reporter who was covering the Epstein case.

On this day 29th December 1975 “Radical new legislation” introducing a woman's right to equal pay and status came into force in the UK (Picture: A Second Picture Dictionary, artist: Eric Winter)

In my experience, the best way to help a country succeed is to not invade it.

With all this talk of how to end Russias war against Ukraine, and a cease fire, keep this in mind: If Ukraine ceases firing, Ukraine will cease to exist. If Russia ceases firing. the war will cease to exist. Pretty clear

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