Good cheer in grey times

There is no reason the Home Office could not apply the same humanity to other refugees and migrants - instead we get this pointless, performative cruelty. Not to late to stop this - the consultation closes Friday and the govt still has the opportunity to reverse www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Of course, part of Starmer's error sprang from the ruling faction's corrosive hatred of the Left. "The Left abhor Mandelson, Mandelson abhors the Left, ergo Mandelson can do no wrong". Relatedly, the New Labour fascination with wealth and America distancing them from sordid reality. Eyes full of $$.

Jacqui Smith on #Today repeating the falsehood that "the British people chose Starmer to lead them". No they didn't! We don't elect Prime Ministers. Labour won in a system where a third of people who turned out, voted for the party led by Starmer, not all of him will have preferred him as leader.

What happens now though? Does McSweeney get a peerage?

Mandelson and McSweeney both fallen in February, the month whose last week includes my birthday. And there is still time for more presents to arrive ...

Tsitsi Ella Jaji

My infants school 1964-66: called Margaret Road then

Why Spain is breaking the mold in Europe - choosing regularisation instead of MAGA mass deportations!! Two reasons: morality & pragmatism. 🙏Spain showing us another, better way is possible www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/o...

Ooh I just heard a Labour MP pronounce it EpsTINE instead of EpsTEEN and I'm sure I remember that being a capital offence of antisemitism when Jeremy Corbyn did it in 2019

In the interests of stopping Reform, Labour should withdraw from the forthcoming by-election

Kemi Badenoch's mouse scurrying past live on TV

This is quite funny because the jury may well have been influenced by the Government's misconceived and peremptory ban www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Suddenly I seem to have been back in Twitterland, having real arguments with people who make all sorts of assumptions about me, but basically want me to believe in the Government. Think I prefer the warm bubble on the whole!

Look at me now

Bedtime at 9pm when you're fifty? This must be where I went wrong, and still am going wrong.

These are things that Government Ministers should be saying, but they are weasels.

I've been listening in the car on BBC Radio 3 to a rather gripping (live, recorded) performance of Shostakovich 10 by the BBC Welsh Orchestra under Ryan Bancroft. Two things struck me. First, the key role of the wind - woodwind especially - in marking a change of mood, especially when bringing >>

A poem I like very much, both for itself and because it celebrates another poet I revere, begins: All day it has rained ... which for some reason has come into my mind allpoetry.com/All-Day-It-H...

Someone needs to ask why it took this long to uncover Mandelson's dodgy deals with Epstein. I guess the sheer focus on the sex stuff has meant less curiosity about the naked corruption side?

If Gorton puts paid to McSweeney, that'd be two deserved humiliations in the same month, light in the Winter dark

Just to save you some time, step one for any recipe is to fry some onions

Ah, so when Mandelson boasted of undermining his party leader every single day, he didn't just mean Jeremy Corbyn. I am so much appreciating his downfall. May the humiliation be long drawn out.

Grace Williams really is terrific open.spotify.com/track/6DppwR...

Hoping Matt Goodwin loses Gorton and Denton for many reasons, not least because we can deploy the headline, and resulting nickname, Matt Badloss

Settlement is a right that should not take decades. Please read our full statement and sign on in solidarity to raise your voice against these racist and classist "proposals". jcwi.org.uk/updates/stat...

Interesting deep dive here

Lol

Wait, Philip Glass is on his *fifteenth* symphony? I don't know about highly anticipated - I can't help thinking it might be possible to imagine it without hearing it, if you know what I mean ... ... but hey look, respect to him for (not) doing this

How long before people learn that "private messaging" and "platform" don't go together if you are a holder of public office?

A bit surprised tbh that Reform are right wing enough for Goodwin

The combined Green, LD and Workers Party vote in Gorton and Denton at GE2024 was 27.3%. Reform had 14.1% and Labour 50.8.

Strange, I can only see 30% progressive in this poll result

Help us make hope normal again. Join the Green Party now.

A United States of Europe doesn't sound so alarming now, does it? (Won't happen but it's a tempting fantasy.)

Why is PM interviewing Lord Glasman of all people on current world events??

Not sure this Lord with the social media amendment quite realises what he's getting into ("if new companies spring up ... just ban them too) #Today

It's a popular view, I know, and I understand the argument. But I'm not sure people do vote for party over person, especially in this age of tactical voting. And what of the MP who has the whip withdrawn, or who leaves their party to sit independently? Or whose party effectively leaves them?

A song that is very special to me has the line "and the world's alright with me" and this is also how I feel about this genius creation of the wonderful Manuel de Falla open.spotify.com/track/3mG7Ux...

I don't read threads, or articles, that begin "Here's why". My immediate reaction is "here probably isn't why" and "if you deign to lecture me like this, I'm out".

Done 👍

A useful take, from a Dutch perspective, on the Maccabi gospel. whispering.media/the-maccabi-...

The 2024 election was generally a rather downbeat experience for me, but perhaps the greatest disappointment was Nick Timothy managing to get elected amid the general laying waste of his awful party. He has a comfortable but far from unassailable majority of 3247 in West Suffolk; Labour came second.

Toying with starting, for fun, a new conspiracy theory in which Greenland actually *is* the size of Africa (have *you* traversed it end to end?) and is moving south not from warming but because an uncontacted indigenous people in the Far North have magic powers and are set to conquer America ...

I assume this applies equally to classical tracks on Spotify, many of which have no hope of reaching 1k views I imagine? Or maybe I'm underestimating how small 1k is in the scheme of things? I now subscribe to @prestomusic.bsky.social but still use Spotify eg to post links on here

Praise be! It is the 277th anniversary of the ‘appearance’ of the Bottle Conjuror at London’s Haymarket. He promised to insert himself into a quart (two pint) bottle, and didn’t turn up, leading to a riot in which the theatre’s fixtures and fittings were torn out and thrown on a bonfire 🧵

A draft speech left lying around, you say? More to this that encounters the eye, mon cher Inspector Jupp ... 👀

Of course the answer constitutionally is that Ministers decide these cases. In practice they get involved where a case is politically sensitive, or has (or could have) a high profile. Where the politics meets the law head on, the only option may be delay, but that too is subject to challenge.