I see the logic of “leaving the EU has made the EU less favourable to the UK’s areas of competitive advantage, therefore ‘just rejoin’ is not a simple solution”, but think if anything the reverse is true: every day we are out the cost of rejoining gets higher, should be trying to do so ASAP.

Class A idiot: www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

I think HIGNFY should use that headline in their Missing Words round

There go those experts again, explaining how Farage is talking nonsense. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

50 years ago today, Enoch Powell was predicting racial violence with guns and bombs, and claiming that parts of Britain were so dangerous that people wouldn't go out in daylight. We stood up to the far-right lies and scaremongering then. As we see the same today, we must do the same.

Liberal Democrats know our future is at the heart of Europe, and we have a credible plan to get there. It starts with a UK-EU Customs Union.

“… Miliband continued, adding that the “what” matters more than the “who”.” This is obviously true as Milliband himself demonstrated back in 2010. Quote from: www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Chef’s kiss piss-take: www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

This is very thoughtful: “You reach a certain point in life and suddenly know a lot of dead people, and I’ve noticed you don’t stop getting to know people who are dead. Those relationships continue and I like that.” www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

A speaker at last Saturday's far-right rally pointed at Parliament and demanded Islam be removed from this building. Lib Dem peer Shaffaq Mohammed brought that moment to the Lords and what it meant for his sons who serve this country.

“UK government sources, however, denied that the EU had definitively rejected a single market for goods” How very 2019. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Alfrick, Leigh & Rushwick (Malvern Hills) Council By-Election Result: 🔶 LDM: 25.8% (+10.6) 🌳 CON: 22.3% (+3.2) ➡️ RFM: 19.4% (New) 🙋 Ind: 16.9% (New) 🌍 GRN: 10.8% (New) 🙋 Ind: 4.7% (New) No MHI (-65.6) as previous. Liberal Democrat GAIN from Localist. Changes w/ 2023.

This result sees the Liberal Democrats REGAIN their majority on Dorset Council.

The immigration minister couldn't say how tall the London Eye is — yet it's a question migrants must answer to settle in Britain. Don Foster, Lib Dem peer and chair of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, challenged him on it.

Politicians endlessly blame immigration for their own failures. So, when immigration is reduced, their ‘success’ isn’t recognised. No one’s life has particularly improved. Because no one’s life was ever going to improve by reducing immigration. Because our problems were never caused by immigration.

This is unworkable and a huge step backwards for human rights. I will be calling on the Government to urgently rethink this before it's too late.

Just think May is basically treated like an unfortunate victim rather than the PM who inherited a difficult situation and turned it into a completely unmanageable mess. But hey - opinions differ, recollections vary and all that.

It was kind of Robert Jenrick to set me up for an obvious joke at his expense.

So Aunty Beeb has scheduled Eurovision up against Darkest Hour. What message could they possibly trying to send? “Sing sing, not war war” I suppose.

@timfarron.bsky.social: A Blairite, Brownite, Corbynite and a Starmerite went into a bar. The barman said "So, what are you drinking Andy?"

According to the BBC’s own pre-determined metric, Lab had a “disappointing” day on Thursday (by only winning 900+ council seats) and Reform a “disastrous” one (by only winning 1400+ seats). Is that the narrative they are sticking with, given Reform only won ~1400 seats and came 3rd in Councils won?

As a retired police officer I am totally baffled why @westmidlandspolice.bsky.social are not instructing officers to obtain details & report for process the summary offences against the Highways Act 1980. If they had done that months ago we might not have had the violent escalation seen last night.

“I am a good European! I believe in the European ideal. Never again shall we repeat the bloodshed of the 2 world wars! Europe is here to stay.” “We are a sovereign nation and still. We are British and proud of it.” Jim Hacker, Party Games.

“The Liberal Democrats cannot afford to be a party that wins in leafy suburbs and waves sympathetically at the North” Very good from @kamhussain.bsky.social www.libdemvoice.org/we-are-not-g...

Lady in pink top, "In the last ten years we've had all these Prime Ministers" "The elephant in the room is surely Brexit 10 years ago" "And we're still living through the change in political allegiances that Brexit brought about" "And also the damage it has done to the growth prospects of the UK"

In a democracy, the right to govern must flow from the people. It can do so directly, as in a presidential system; or indirectly, through the votes of elected representatives, as in a parliamentary system. It cannot come from an unelected body of people, given the power to remove or reinstate PMs.

BREAKING - Parliamentary Standards Commissioner will launch an investigation into Farage's £5m donation.

BREAKING: Nigel Farage is facing a formal investigation by the parliamentary standards watchdog over a £5m gift from the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, which he did not declare.

Which channel will Tudor be on? www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Rugby Council Election Result #LE2026: LDM: 6 (+3) CON: 4 (-3) RFM: 3 (+3) LAB: 3 (-3) Council Now: CON 15, LDM 12, LAB 12, RFM 3. No Overall Control. Changes w/ 2022.

Frustrated with the election pundits talking as if votes only 'swing' from one party to another. I did some analysis of the results, and my modelling (based on votes only, not polls) suggests that the largest movement since 2024 local elections (by a long way) is from 'Did Not Vote' -> Reform

It’s a Brexit issue. This won’t be fixed until we fix that.

A thought has just occurred to me: Reform elect so many rogue / dodgy Cllrs because in most areas they have very little control over which seats they win. They ran a national campaign with very little local involvement, so any targeting has negligible effect. Ergo they end up with random Cllrs.

Lib Dems GAIN 3 councillors in Rugby 🗳️

And finally (finally), in news we already knew: first past the post is a bin fire in a five (or six/seven) party system. If Keir Starmer wanted a *big* relaunch next week he could offer a quick change eg AV votes in constituencies.

🗳️ People haven't always voted FOR politicians; in 5th century BCE Athens, men (citizenship was restricted to adult male Athenians), could also vote AGAINST politicians or other noteworthy people.

I actually can't believe that Farage and his party of xenophobic shitbags are running and polling so high and that the media are just treating it like it's normal. It's nightmarish to watch.

I believe I said during the Brexit years that a logical conclusion of the far-right swing of British politics was some British people being classified as not British enough. And here we are.

The UK needs to stop doing individual projects and just doing continuous rail upgrades, because we (as a matter of policy design!) shed expertise pointlessly every time!

American scholars are (mostly) not taking well that there is absolutely nothing of substance to this Trump administration, still hanging onto the hope there may be some rationale somewhere, but of course the UK had the same with hapless Brexit handling, and Farage is the same vacuum.

Not even sure where to start with this. As well as totally deranged and obscene, it is just bizarre. These people are not just grim and menacing, but they are proper weirdos aren't they?

An absolutely poisonous party run by absolutely poisonous people.

Forgot to post this on Fri, in case anyone wants some Sunday reading as.ft.com/r/9d1a0148-f...

In my neck of the woods it’s either LibDems or Reform. I vote tactically !!

Fascists have always been with us, but they used to have to hide, and now they're just brazen. Can we go back to that? Please?

👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾 www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...

The BBC is too cowardly to make the key point in it’s headline. Immigration has gone sharply down. Our problem going forward is too little immigration, not too much. As some of us have been saying for some time.

Does Reform want mass deportations of immigrants and to retrospectively remove refugees’ asylum status? Is Reform led by a man with a track record of racist bullying and slurs against ethnic minorities? Is the party crawling with racist lunatics? Yes. Reform is racist. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

It all sounds like during the humble address information assemblage process they found a document that said ‘denied’, then did virtually no further investigation before sacking Robbins.

First chick 🐣 www.warwickshirewildlifetrust.org.uk/peregrine