Everyone saying PM shd condemn far right violence in London yday (Shabana Mahmood already has)/ leave X is right. But same for Kemi Badenoch. No Conservative Party can condone thugs attacking police horses & calls for violent uprising. Even Farage has gone up against Yaxley-Lennon ffs.

Given the context and the crowd, despite Musk’s weasel words, this was a call for violence against the British state, from a foreign national who controls a major propaganda engine, and has engineered it to monetise hate

Foreign billionaires don’t get to incite violence against Britain. We cannot stay silent. 1/5 www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

Me on why the latest Mandelson resignation is the one that unquestionably made people the maddest; it’s not about the workings of no 10 anynore, it’s about sheer instinct www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

It seems madly heavy handed to ban Labour politicians outright from being landlords, but my god they don’t exactly help their own case inews.co.uk/news/labour-...

Fully accept Tube strikes are hell etc but the upside of having to walk from Downing Street to the Elizabeth Line at Bond St tonight was giving directions to a lost American tourist wildly excited at being able to take a shortcut through Green Park. ‘YOUR PARKS ARE OPEN AFTER DARK? tHIS IS AMAZING!’

Rumour was of a big ‘out with the dead wood’ reshuffle this month even before Raynergate & frankly things are so bad now PM has nothing to lose, so stand by your beds I guess

UK has never obliged all party leaders to publish their tax returns but would be an interesting time to start www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

today i have both exchanged on our house move & written a legally complex column about Angela Rayner's stamp duty issues and the two are absolutely going to merge tonight in the kind of anxiety dream that makes you wake up at 4am convinced you should refer yourself to some kind of watchdog

day earlier than usual but definitely not an emergency podcast (yet)

any US congressman who is fully across a row between the Nottingham Post and Nottinghamshire council is welcome to holiday in the Cotswolds AT ANY TIME, and we will not refuse to serve him in our farm shops

The one thing saving Keir Starmer from an extremely uncomfortable mauling over this at PMQs right now is Kemi Badenoch noting the open goal, and deciding to carry on with her planned attack on high govt borrowing www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

This was interesting, on surprising ways of turning 'good' AI bad very quickly www.ft.com/content/7f14...

Is it very bad that my main thought (after wtf) is about where she got those trousers

this is in current circs a really interesting job for someone

Reform will have to reselect in Croydon, as their initial candidate for Mayor had been dead for 6 months when they selected her, Inside Croydon report Being dead is one way to pass the social media vetting but was likely to get noticed eventually insidecroydon.com/2025/08/27/f...

This, but also: 'well it won't work' instantly concedes the moral ground - it's treating 'mass deportation & scrap/ignore any law in the way' like a normal, conventional policy, where the main Q is do the £/logistics stack up' This is not a normal, conventional policy.

I’m at a music festival where an older woman is on her daughter’s shoulders in the mosh pit and honestly this is what the suffragettes tied themselves to railings for

really not sure about this new remake of Friends

Happy Alevel results morning to all the parents currently getting their heads bitten off for breathing

Tiny thing but weirdly nice to hear Radio 4’s PM prog for (in the inevitable ‘keeping cool in the heatwave’ segment) interviewing two random dads, rather than mums, doing the school holiday shift at some God forsaken water park rambling on about sun cream

If America is now at war with science (& mRNA isn't just about vaccines, it's potentially a platform for all sorts of drugs) then I bloody hope Europe (ideally the UK! but frankly anyone) scoops up the scientists losing grants & gives the work a home www.hhs.gov/press-room/h...

i'm allergic to wasps so biased, but 'radioactive wasps' is possibly the best/worst horror movie plot i've ever heard

guessing the same startups currently claiming AI tools will free up our working time by doing all the grunt stuff more efficiently, leaving us free to enjoy our leisure etc

This is a real and significant achievement for Europe – and I'm surprised that European leaders don't make more of it publicly. (That's not to say it's sufficient to meet what Ukraine needs, especially given where the conflict stands right now)

I wrote about this a while ago, as @samfreedman.bsky.social kindly acknowledges, and it's great to see a bit more detail unpacked here: still struck that nobody's got all the answers samf.substack.com/p/why-are-yo...

If Badenoch is bringing back James Cleverly, John Glen, promoting Stuart Andrew etc, this reshuffle is slightly more interesting than expected (JG has been doing some interesting work on defeating populism) www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Thames Water imposing a hosepipe ban today, at the height of anger at Thames Water, is the most Thames Water thing ever

paper from @danneidle on the limitations of wealth taxes, which probably won't be popular on here but anyway taxpolicy.org.uk/2025/07/22/u... (NB 'wealth taxes aren't a magic wand' does not='no wealth taxes'; more 'don't pretend that that you won't also need mid to high earner taxes')

huuuuuge excitement in oxfordshire at the prospect of a summer spent waving sarcastic placards at JD Vance/snubbing him in farm shops www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Extraordinary piece of writing by Sophie Elmhirst about an extraordinary case www.theguardian.com/news/2025/ju... (bit late to this but it’s so good)

once again gen z upending civilisation as we know it etc

useful corrective to the 'it's easy, Rachel Reeves just has to (fill in name of my preferred solution)' brigade, which means it won't be very popular but stil. (it doesn't mean she can't also tax the rich/scrap the fiscal rules/be bolder/etc! It just means: jesus, if only that was all it took)

v interesting test of the 'what if we just...actually made the argument for what we want' theory of politics whose success o failure is gong to have ramifications beyond climate, I think www.theguardian.com/environment/...

This is the most extraordinary piece of testimony; a remarkable mother by the sound of it and a remarkable child, describing an incredibly complex mix of emotions with such clarity

‘Other people probably like you more than you think’ is possibly the single most helpful message you can get across to a self conscious teenager, so this piece from Women’s Health mag is worth shoving under the nose of any teens you have around the house (sorry, no link, but current print issue)

Sort of grateful to Musk & his Hitlerbot for so consistently proving, on a platform still inexplicably used by govt, exactly why barely bothering to regulate AI &leaving its development up to people like him is such a monumentally dumb idea www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Morning. Deceptively simple restating of two key truths; most of our current broken politics is really broken economics, and if you’re over 40 you can remember/imagine a much more benign world that the under-40s just can’t www.ft.com/content/8a49...

This is Zelda's law. For over 5 years she has tirelessly campaigned. She is my hero and it's been an honour to work with her. www.theguardian.com/la w/2025/jul/07/uk-bosses-to-be-banned-using-ndas-cover-up-misconduct-work?CMP=share_btn_url

ok hiking/rambling people (I feel like Bluesky has hiking/rambling people) - views on tackling Striding Edge route up Helvellyn for two reasonably fit/competent but middle aged people (me and my sister) plus four teenagers (younger, less tired, but more foolhardy)? in ideal summer conditions, obvs.

If you’re anywhere near Sheffield tomorrow, come see a live version of Guardian Politics Weekly and watch me interview @jonashworth.bsky.social and @marietidball.bsky.social on stage. FREE TICKETS crossedwires.live/podcast/guar...

Oh sorry hang on the new left splinter party may have… already splintered again?

rough night for the Green Party, who are now no longer cornering the left-of-Labour market news.sky.com/story/mp-zar...

Fascinating piece on (another) unseen health timebomb, which also helps explain a lot about both pressures on A&E and arguably on sickness benefits www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

I'm currently at a housing conference & it's a slightly out of body experience politically, given the vibe here is thrilled with getting £39bn + basically all they asked for in spending review. Not that govt isn't in deep trouble elsewhere but it's a striking eg of how easily the popular stuff...

Resurfacing after a very lovely off grid week’s holiday to find I’ve apparently missed an entire war in the Middle East AND yet another Matt Goodwin diatribe about London. Well I won’t be doing that again

Either a typo or a big career pivot here for the Home Secretary

this is going to end with a 150% tariff on tweeting, isn't it.

if you're ever going to drop back in on Twitter then tonight's the night, is all I'm saying for legal reasons