“We’ve got to get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets,” Burnham told the New Statesman. One ally of Starmer said: “It’s like telling someone on a ledge not to worry about gravity.” www.ft.com/content/c18f...

📚💙 bigger and better than ever. Northern Publishers' Fair going from strength to strength. See you Saturday.

Burnham was once an arch-Blairite. He now sees opportunity attacking the government from the left. But whoever succeeds Starmer will immediately have to govern. “Cut taxes on working people, tax the rich, deficit be damned” is great for a party of opposition. It’s not workable for government.

Burnham hasn’t actually offered a plan for what paying less attention to the bond markets would look like. He’s just lobbed a grenade into a small room, while he’s inside it himself. If he won a leadership contest now, he’d be facing an immediate spike in borrowing costs.

Nigel Farage swans around peddling hate on Nick Ferrari’s phone-in | John Crace www.theguardian.com/politics/202... Vintage @mrjohncrace.bsky.social

Ok, FBI saying “engraved with anti-ICE messages and someone writes “Anti-ICE” on a shell in sharpie is some keystone cops business.

Excellent report by @channel4news.bsky.social rn into behaviour of far right 'content creators' making £££ out of filming anti migrant protests/actions at hotels etc. Gobsmacking to see ads by household name companies running alongside the films. Anti migrant hatred as a lucrative bus. opportunity.

They're eating the swans! They're eating the geese! 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🦢

Some shifts in this week's voting intention as Reform’s lead over Labour narrows again: now down to just 3pts. With both Labour and Tories up ➡️ REF UK 28% (-3) 🌹 LAB 25% (+3) 🌳 CON 20% (+2) 🔶 LIB DEM 13% (-1) 🌍 GREEN 8% (nc) 🟡 SNP 3% (nc) N=2055 |19-22/9|Change w 15/9

A good idea. www.gov.uk/government/n...

Big step up in the type of comms here from the government. "Action, not words." "Promises made. Promises delivered." "Delivering for working people." www.instagram.com/reel/DO82B_c...

Every so often, like a stuck clock, he says something accurate.

Join us at Lichfield Waterstones to launch 'Witchborne' by @rgrosvenorauthor.bsky.social ! Sunday 5th October 2025 16:00 - 17:30! www.waterstones.com/events/in-co... #books📚💙

💙📚 #BookSky

I haven't heard any discussion of this programme on the radio shows this morning. Is that because ITV put it on ridiculously late? Or because they're all too busy giving endless coverage to Farage's latest brain fart?

Any journalist quoting this absurd, invented £234 billion number cited by Farage/Reform should make absolutely clear that it has been withdrawn by *its own authors* (the Centre for Policy Studies) after they admitted it contained several major errors (1/3)

Over to you @darrenpjones.bsky.social . Time to seize the initiative back. Monday announcements.

Seriously. A one-hour Party Political Broadcast. Followed at the top of the next hour with top story billing and a highlights package. Exactly how will this be "balanced" across their coverage? Where is Ofcom? Where is Nandy?

A celebration of journalists' outsourcing critical thinking to whatever presentation politicians serve up. It's NOT inevitable, Sam. You COULD apply some judgment, instead of pretending you are an infant looking at different things dangling from a mobile above your crib. Or is that too much work?

Remind me never to try cooking a pilaf when hungry. Why does the rice take three times as long to cook as the instructions say? 🙄

Excuse me while I clutch my pearls at the beautiful edges of the second print run of Witchborne…(it’s okay to own two copies you know 😉) @flyonthewallpress.bsky.social #witchborne #witchyfiction #historicalfantasy #witch #witchcraft #sprayededges #spredges

A shame this is on so late at night. 10.15pm.

He must be in a bad mood today. That's Venezuela and Afghanistan in the cross hours in the space of a few hours. Jet lag maybe?

Oh man. I was searching for this as a recent article thinking it was something about the Goebbels film. The past and present are doing some merging. (This was 1939.)

Video: Spitting Image returns - the second episode of The Rest is Bullshit http://dlvr.it/TNBGB3

And on it goes, the relentless descent into fascism.

Reform suspends councillor who allegedly posted comments about killing the prime minister www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Do come along and meet all the lovely publishers, including us, @flyonthewallpress.bsky.social all the way from Manchester to London for two days. It's FREE and there are lots of books. What more could you want? Please SHARE! 📚💙 #BookSky

Add this to the racially aggravated sexual assault against a young Sikh woman in broad daylight last week. We are witnessing the results of violent and racist rhetoric which is being dressed up as free speech.

Here’s how Jimmy Fallon responded to Jimmy Kimmel being pulled off air:

Do come along and meet all the lovely publishers, including us, @flyonthewallpress.bsky.social all the way from Manchester to London for two days. It's FREE and there are lots of books. What more could you want? Please SHARE! 📚💙 #BookSky

TWO WEEKS until The Water That May Come bobs up to the surface, arrives on a publishing wave, makes its splashy entrance, ALL the water metaphores! 🌊I'm a bit nervous, I must admit... (That's normal, right?) 💙📚 www.flyonthewallpress.co.uk/product-page...

Me: 'Fairy Godmother, I'd like to have afternoon tea on the 12th October at 3pm.' FG: 'Well that sounds simple enough...' Me: 'Could it be in a bookshop?' FG: 'Absolutely!' Me: 'Oo, and can you throw in a cat?' FG: 🪄✨️ Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo!' ✨️ thecuriouscatbookshop.co.uk/product/amy-...

Feel like we should bring back the old twitter follow friday to boost good people on here who maybe didn't get an initial boost from the starter packs. So follow @psurridge.bsky.social and @profjanegreen.bsky.social - two excellent and thoughtful political scientists.

Cli-fi and sci-fi and worldbuilding today with novelist @amylilwall.bsky.social! open.substack.com/pub/flyonthe... #books💙📚

This is nuts. And the Americans have the gall to lecture us about free speech in the UK, while arresting lawmakers for doing their jobs.

Desperate British newspaper editors prepared set of front pages for tomorrow bearing little to no resemblance to the Trump/Starmer press conference reality. Good to see Sky press previewers calling them out tonight. They must be so disappointed they didn't get what they wanted. To see PM humiliated.

This is one of the most important posts of the day.

It would take a heart of stone not to laugh: Your Party schisms before it even launches. Again. Looks like Jeremy Corbyn’s faction didn’t know about the membership launch today. Zarah Sultana notably not a signatory here.

South East organiser Adam Wordsworth said Kent councillors are “all wankers” who “hate each other”. Wordsworth also called Kent “the bane of my existence”. ⬇️ hopenothate.org.uk/2025/09/18/r...

🔴 GB News Ramps Up Migrant ‘Invasion’ Rhetoric as Channel Veers Far Right Exclusive: Analysis reveals surging use of rhetoric about migrants and refugees being of “fighting age”, “scavengers”, “dirty foreigners” and part of an “invasion”, as campaigners warn of channel’s radicalising effect

www.localauthority.news/p/farage-foo... Wow. So much for not using your position to spread political propaganda in schools. @hugorifkind.bsky.social @mrjamesob.bsky.social

Yesterday, the Education Secretary (along with the Chancellor) visited one of 300 of Labour's new school-based nurseries, to see how it is helping young children. She also tells us that Phase 2 is about to launch - more schools can apply to set up 300+ more nurseries from next week! 1/2

See you there! Come say hello!

Love this! The Energy Secretary just having a phone call with a civil engineer apprentice, teaching us about apprenticeships and the importance of the energy sector!

UK’s first hydrogen trial to cut peak gas plant emissions a success www.energylivenews.com/2025/09/16/u...

In case you missed this last night. Words fail me. @hugorifkind.bsky.social

In London, hate will never win.

The most heartbreakingly powerful piece I’ve ever read on Substack. Please, please read and share. And look after your family, friends, neighbours and colleagues for whom England is becoming frightening. @sturdyalex.bsky.social 👇 open.substack.com/pub/bestforb...

Sewage surging twice as fast into what should be the protected rivers of our National Parks compared with areas outside the parks. 🧵 1/5 www.theguardian.com/environment/...