Karen Carney Karen Carney KAREN CARNEY 👏👏👏

More Daniel Sturridge on the telly please.

I mean this time we won, but still.

Even by my low expectations for Kemi Badenoch ‘violence against women and girls is something done by immigrants and nobody else’ has shocked me.

Jess Phillips says the government is treating violence and women and girls as a ‘national emergency’ as she launches strategy - UK politics live

Please do go out and buy a copy of the @bigissue.com from your local vendor this Christmas. It’s a great paper and every issue sold supports your local vendor directly🎄

‘Conservative MP Andrew Snowden attempted to channel Dickens as he described the awful scenes taking place across the country. Unfortunately, the second one he chose was “children hugging each other as their independent school closes.”‘

The value of money is debated openly as well as dramatised in Austen’s novels—she rarely introduces a major character without also enumerating their finances

Some of England’s most-deprived councils to receive funding boost in new deal

Please someone anyone write some better Christmas jokes for parliamentarians

NEW - The Employment Rights bill has finally passed, after a tortured time in the Lords. Christmas cheer for ministers and trade unions

My kids woke up so excited this morning for the first night of Hannukah and now yet again we have a festival where I’m very conflicted about whether it’s safe to take them to synagogue to celebrate. Communities shouldn’t have to live like this.

Australian PM Anthony Albanese: “an attack on a jewish Australian, is an attack on every Australian, there is no place for this hate in our nation- let me be clear, we will eradicate it.”

Thank you @bigissue.com for all they do, week in, week out to help people earn, no matter what. Glad to write for you on last week's child poverty strategy... www.bigissue.com/opinion/home...

Good from @jeevunsandher.bsky.social renewal.org.uk/blog/a-unite...

On reading with my toddler, and proportionate universalism - my column for the @newstatesman1913.bsky.social's books special issue:

Devastating news. His unique viewpoint changed the world of photography for good. That the Wirral was a central part of the story he told made me proud, even if that story was a difficult one. No one like him. Martin Parr. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Young unemployed to be offered work in construction and hospitality in UK

The most important people in politics are the ones that can't vote: open.substack.com/pub/keirstar...

From bricklayer to mayor: Steve Rotheram is quietly building a Liverpool success story

Argh

Imagine if Liverpool women hadn't sold 2 of their best players (to Arsenal) 😕

Child poverty politics: ten years later, Tories still looking down their nose at people... labourlist.org/2025/12/tori...

Thanks to everyone who helped with this, all over the country. A team effort for our children. Now to get it all done. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6931e2...

The UK right: ‘Why are we supporting so many foreigners, we should be supporting our own in this country’ Government announces plans to lift hundreds of thousands of kids out of poverty and to help struggling parents afford baby formula The UK right: ‘No we didn’t mean them’

It's not because I'm in hock to the bond markets...it's because @katie0martin.ft.com is from the wirral ♡

Hillsborough disaster report live: bereaved and survivors angered as ‘no one will be held to account’

Growing our economy needs a focus on our cities and towns... medium.com/@Alison_McGo...

Scrapping the two-child cap is both anti-poverty & pro-learning. Children don’t come to school ready to learn if they live in poverty. Teachers can’t focus on teaching if they’re plugging gaps elsewhere. What goes on outside the school gates makes a big difference inside them.

Yeah baby

Rightly lots of debates about growth this weekend - rightly because it was low productivity growth that saw wages entirely flatline during the 2010s.

Becoming Tom Stoppard, and becoming English, and the ambiguity of having 'a pass, a press ticket' on belonging

More of this today. Give me strength. As if the issue of children growing up with the stress of knowing their parents can't make ends meet must always be reduced to tea room chatter and irritating backbenchers. Not real.

Overall, the combination of tax rises and giveaways since last year’s Budget is progressive. Incomes for households in the bottom half of the distribution have increased by 1.0 per cent and incomes for households in the top half fell by 0.7 per cent.

Having watch child poverty rise like a slow-motion car crash since the two-child limit was introduced, sat in meetings up and down the country, in foodbanks, in schools, to work out how to get child poverty down, the idea that this undoing this policy is 'PLP management' is a joke.

Not well understood that 6 in 10 families impacted by the two-child limit are in work, and that the vast majority have 3 or 4 children.

Today is a huge day for all of us who have fought to make sure no child grows up poor. This budget puts our children first.

Yes, I've seen this film before too. And also they are grieving and it makes every decision that bit harder. Nothing seems important and everything seems more important, all at once.

I grant you this is not hugely surprising. But still.

It's been a long time coming...today we are reconnecting council funding with deprivation -> www.gov.uk/government/n...

Another Russian attack in Ukraine, one of the deadliest in the west of the country. At least 25 people have been killed, including 3 children. Another 73 wounded, including 15 children. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Still Life Vase with Twelve Sunflowers - 1889 https://botfrens.com/collections/46/contents/14655

Didn't realise they are on here...hello @cpaguk.bsky.social and happy birthday

Was honoured to speak at the 60th anniversary of the Child Poverty Action Group last week: open.substack.com/pub/alisonmc...

When 5 mins extra time feels like 5 hours Played Liverpool 👏

www.gov.uk/government/p... Second reading in the House of Commons today. A very poignant moment. A chance for all of us to build, not just a legacy for the 97 & all who suffered, but a country more equal and with a stronger relationship between citizen and state.

Thinking of all affected by terrible events on the east coast mainline, those hurt, and all in the railway family working hard to respond.

Some important insights here in this data from DWP colleagues... www.gov.uk/government/s...

Government has published one of those quiet but important documents that might get overlooked as it is not 'newsy'. The headline finding is that £1 of public R&D investment generates £8 in net economic benefits for the UK over the long term www.gov.uk/government/p...