Rob Reiner: “Silence in the face of authoritarianism is complicity. Speaking out is a patriotic act. Democracy doesn’t defend itself. It requires participation, vigilance, and courage from ordinary people."

Martin Parr, photographer acclaimed for observations of British life, dies aged 73. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Turns out taking bribes to spout Russian propaganda WILL come back to bite you. To the tune of ten and a half years in prison. There must be a few nerves jangling today.

Michael Gove's reflections on the Covid crisis this morning were absolutely triggering. Cosy, slippery, patronising - the kind of excusatory word salad which became his sorry, science-denying brand.

On the Sutton train just now A pale stylish girl A sad beauty, maybe 25 Peered silently at her phone As if it contained some revelation. Betrayal maybe. Then a fat tear drifted down her left cheek. She didn't move but her tongue reached out to catch it.

You don't play Queensbury rules in a fist fight. www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-e...

Russia lost 1,157,400 troops in Ukraine since Feb 2022, reported on Nov. 15. Including 1,000 casualties in the past day. Also 11,350 tanks, 23,588 armoured vehicles, 67,396 vehicles-fuel tanks, 34,443 artillery, 1,541 rocket systems, 1,244 air defense, 428 planes, kyivindependent.com/general-staf...

Just remembered with a stab of shame the comments of one of my Oxford philosophy tutors on my homework: "jejune arguments". I had to look up jejune. Ouch.

"What we need is a bit of compassion in it politics." ‐ Lord Alf Dubs, this morning.

Fella given unprecedented repeat royal red carpet state hullabaloo is hardly back on the plane before he threatens to smash same state's cultural crown jewels.

That renowned and respected lover of truth and journalistic integrity.... THE KREMLIN.... has stepped up to defend Trump in his battle against the BBC. SO that's Farage, Netanyahu, Putin, and Boris Johnson...

Crazy few days. First the BBC eats its own legs, then the Government eats its own legs.

Conservative Shadow Culture Secretary Nigel Huddleston tells GB News that the BBC should "grovel" to Trump. Amazing how many British 'patriots' are spending their time telling our national broadcaster to prostrate itself before a hostile foreign leader

Great piece. Just has "Tim Davie has legitimised the critique which has toppled him," so the BBC has appeased the very forces now ranged against it.

Trump's White House & fawning hacks here don't really care about the 0.001% that the BBC gets wrong. They care about all the stuff it gets right.

The improvement in the employment rate of non-EU migrants to the UK over the past 15 years is remarkable, especially since the pandemic. www.ons.gov.uk/employmentan...

If we're talking about bias, why do BBC politics programmes, from Politics Live to the Laura Kuennsberg Show, still always begin with a look at the newspaper front pages, which are overwhelmingly biased in one direction. Helps frame the entire news agenda and debate in their favour

Newsagents’ deep dive into BBC situ is v level headed and wide ranging. Two things clear: Gibb should be nowhere near the BBC, and BBC general policy for bringing in people like that in a never ending charade to prove themselves not too lefty is weak, and clearly pointless.

Then and now. My Dad, Edward Minghella, during the War at Aldershot Barracks, and the other day in Ryde. (Army photo enhanced by Jim Sheridan.)

What do you call it when a British MP takes direct calls from a foreign leader to conspire against the BBC, our national broadcaster?

After Eurythmics, Annie Lennox worried that she wouldn't be able to write songs on her own. She sat down to try, and produced Why in ten minutes. I don't know why I spends weeks, months, years trying to create stuff. It turns me inside f88king out.

It took just 8 minutes for thieves to steal the Napoleonic-era crown jewels from the Louvre. There weren't enough cameras and the ones there were there were facing the wrong way. Could a 50-year-old maths problem have foiled the heist? 🧵 www.bbc.com/news/art... 1/9

I heard once about some young folk who went to hear John Martyn at the Fairfield Halls. Driving home after the gig they saw someone at the bus stop with a guitar case. It was John. They offered him a lift, and he ended up going back to theirs and smoking and playing half the night.

“A neighbour told this newspaper that he shouted the word ‘n*****’ at her repeatedly, said he would set the far-right English Defence League on her and told her there’d be ‘black body bags’ So not “just” racial slurs - death threats too.

Tinderbox Britain: How conservatives ended up praying for violence iandunt.substack.com/p/tinderbox-...

Three years since the luminous Edana Minghella left us, and it might as well be three minutes, for the shock we are still reeling in.

Nobody brings car history to life like Peter Grimsdale. Here he is in 'launch mode' last night with his latest literary model, Superveloce: how a country with no industrial revolution, hampered by poverty, took the 20th Century automotive world by storm. Great Father's Day present!

Is this an apology?

Talk of an 'island of strangers' only serves to promote an island of xenophobes.

Not much point having power if you use it to further the agenda of your opponents… The Brexit mindset is a dull-witted and dangerous dead end. Beyond time to make the case for a more grown up, prosperous and cooperative relationship with our European neighbours. (Letter, Times)

Welcome to Brexitland, US, in which waywardness is described as "strategic uncertainty", restrictions on trade boost performance and self harm is lauded.... Spoiler, it does not end happily www.ft.com/content/342d...

Wait. Tariffs are beautiful. But it's 'hostile' to itemise them?

What a legacy, eh? Created the grim conditions in which this toxic, insidious parasite could thrive and grow. A canker on the body politic.

Raskin: So on the logic of this arrest of Judge Dugan, all of the people in the trump administration who participated in defying that order by Judge Boasberg themselves, could be arrested for interfering with a legal proceeding and perhaps other criminal charges like kidnaping..

We've reached the "as long as Jesus came here legally" part of the evangelical's descent into darkness. This is both hilarious and disturbing.

Excellent thread.

The financing and transparency of "think tanks" & lobby groups in the UK is an absolute disgrace. It needs root-and-branch reform, starting with full disclosure of donors and an immediate ban on foreign funding. Having broken their own democracy, MAGA plutocrats should not be able to buy up ours.

Forgot the extraordinary PSH was in Scent of a Woman.

"Nice little law firm you got there..." These extorted "settlements" (really just protection money) continue to be the most sinister thing Trump/MAGA are doing. The law firms must know they are only inviting more bullying...for themselves and others. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/b...

Who holds US Treasury debt (Dec 2024 figures) Japan, the UK, the EU and Canada hold 3.5 trillion between them www.visualcapitalist.com/which-countr...

Trump blinks again: smart phones, laptops and at least some chips now exempt from the reciprocal tariffs, including (as I understand it) from China.

Some personal news: the Department of Homeland Security has given me, an immigration lawyer born in Newton, Massachusetts, seven days to leave the U.S. Does anyone know if you can get Italian citizenship through great-grandparents?

The Internal Revenue Service's acting commissioner is resigning after reaching a controversial agreement to release immigrants' tax data to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This is the thirds IRS commissioner THIS YEAR to resign. www.axios.com/2025/04/09/i...

Trump says that tariffs are bringing in $2billion a day. That's how much extra TAX US businesses and individual are paying every day. Other countries are not paying that money. US citizens are paying it.

Trump said if America elected the wrong president, the market would crash. Well...

Another day in Donald Trump’s economy.

"The government can't keep doing these little things and calling them big things. The public will see through that. It's not a political strategy." -Anne McElvoy/Newsnight

In what world have Trump's tariffs not 'changed the calculation'?

An important moment for Rassemblement National. By rallying around Marine Le Pen, the party has demonstrated that it remains as much of an authoritarian personality cult as it was under her father Jean-Marie - another criminal convicted of racial incitement, public order crimes & Holocaust denial.