Most troubling of all: this is all very coordinated, backed (indeed often led) by the State, and these outcomes are exactly what is sought. 👇🏻

Doesn't seem likely given the prospect of association membership is what led to the 2013 revolution and the seizure of Crimea in the first place.

This story is a follow-up from our recent undercover investigation with Led By Donkeys We posed as an advisor to a Chinese AI company. The whole thing was fake but for £5,000, Howlett introduced us to more than 10 Labour MPs and ministers. democracyforsale.substack.com/p/breaking-o...

🚨 SCOOP: “I’m a Labour donor” Ben Howlett is an ex-Tory MP, owner of influential PoliticsUK account, and the fixer we exposed selling access to Westminster Turns out he's also involved in Labour fundraising, and discussing donations with Labour MPs democracyforsale.substack.com/p/im-a-labou...

Guys I'm getting the impression Trump’s lawyers are struggling

New post just out: "The Overshoot" Net migration is collapsing, and will fall further over the coming years. We could even have net emigration. What does that mean for the country and the political narrative as we head towards the next election? (£/free trial) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/t...

When trade deals were getting rushed through laden with impossible commitments and major issues to be negotiated later, I wrote about why they made me nervous. Womp womp, as the kids say. My full article: www.explaintrade.com/resources/im...

His warning takes on even greater urgency today.

Good job we set fire to our frictionless training relationship with the EU and are now more reliant on the orange man. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

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."

Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said Hungary has formally put forward a proposal urging the European Union to designate Antifa as a terrorist organization. Nutters everywhere.

Labour's policy of denying citizenship to refugees based on manner of entry is arguably in breach of both Articles 31 and 34 of the Refugee Convention, fundamentally underming the very principle of international refugee protection. It needs scrapping entirely. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Just because you’re a professor and you hold the opinion that masks don’t work doesn’t make you a “top scientist”.

The exclusion of trans people from public and academic spaces, removal of protections by human rights institutions, dehumanising language used by state news media, judicial tolerance of trans directed hate crime, withdrawal of medical care: all of this is very familiar to genocide scholars.

WHITE HOUSE REFUSES TO RULE OUT SUMMARY EXECUTIONS OF PEOPLE ON ITS SECRET DOMESTIC TERRORIST LIST The Trump administration ignored questions about whether it would order the killings of those on its NSPM-7 list — even while answering our other queries. theintercept.com/2025/12/12/t...

Those opposed to the ECHR will never be satisfied by tinkering, just as Brexiters were never satisfied by the many opt-outs and rebates the UK received, writes @davidallengreen.bsky.social.

"Nigel Farage Recommends" www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/6822673...

A notoriously prickly and defensive colleague.

One of the potential consequences of banning kids from social media could be that parents have more control over their kids' consumption of news. If you think that's an unalloyed 'good', you don't know enough kids or enough parents.

Have the BBC commented on the Ince business? Can't see anything. Would love to understand *exactly* which of his personal views they deemed incompatible with BBC standards. Or indeed with the Reform voters they're skewing towards, who will abolish the BBC anyway if they get in. Fucktastrophe, again.

New on my blog: "Repeal, reform, rewrite?" #OnlineSafetyAct www.cyberleagle.com/2025/12/repe...

"..the Lord said I was hungry and you told me I could make a meal for 30p, I was a stranger and you said 'fuck off back where you came from', I was sick and you said we should replace the NHS with private health insurance..."

It's almost word for word the briefing that Johnson's team were putting out in spring 2022.

Time to admit they don't have a case. This is just embarrassing for the “Justice” Department under Pam Bondi.

The regime has unleashed its goons on anyone with brown or black skin. It's morally repugnant, un-American and must end.

A little signal that Trump's powers to control his party through bullying are waning.

A split between the US and Europe will have to come: Der Spiegel: “Two villains, one goal. “How Trump and Putin are attacking Europe.”

ICYMI — “I identified myself as a U.S. citizen and a veteran, but that didn't matter. ICE Agents smashed my window, sprayed tear gas and pepper spray into my car, dragged me out… this experience violated the very principles I fought to defend.”

This is the same group that seems to have an open invitation to appear on every single BBC political programme going, without ever declaring their funding

In praise of Seattle, which set up a huge Pride programming connected to the World Cup match it’s hosting - before anyone knew which teams would be taking the field. Turns out it was Iran v Egypt, two countries where homosexuality is illegal. Egypt wants Pride banned. Seattle isn’t backing down.

People keep wondering why they're going after Venezuela. It's because they want to do regime change and control its oil, then use a big tract of land there to keep a tax free "network state" that looks like Dubai but operates like Rhodesia. They are saying this out loud! Believe them!

“If you were a member of the public, you would think that grooming gangs is the biggest threat to children in our country,” says the director of Britain's Child Sexual Exploitation Taskforce “But in the overall statistics, that represents just over 0.5% of offending” www.nytimes.com/2025/12/10/w...

So Nigel Farage, who claims to be standing up for ordinary working people, has taken hundreds of thousands of pounds so far this year for a handful of hours as a "brand ambassador" for a gold bullion company, while facilitating a £9m donation from a crypto millionaire bylinetimes.com/2025/12/11/n...

Possibly controversial opinion, but wearing a mask when out in public, and especially in crowded areas and on pubic transport, is actually a good thing for many people in general.

Farage says, "I didn't wear them (masks) last time, and I won't wear them this time" and dismisses mask mandates as "rubbish". Here's Farage in 2020. Man's a dangerous idiot.

It would appear that Baroness Falkner is somewhat flexible with her opinion of when it is or is not acceptable to question the judiciary. It could almost appear that she chooses depending on whether they align with her own gender critical beliefs.

🔴 REVEALED 🔴 The Institute of Economic Affairs – the anti-state, anti-climate pressure group that "incubated" Liz Truss – was bankrolled by oil giants and Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. 📝 Exclusive findings from @desmog.com 👇

This is what you don't hear every time this junktank appears on the BBC. *Why not?* Great exposure by Sam and @desmog.com

OTD in 1994 the First Chechen War began. After incompetent initial assault that failed, Russian army turned to barbarism & crimes against humanity. It stopped when we signed a peace deal we would later violate. None of this should sound familiar to you

Simon Heffer's most famous work is a fairly gushing biography of Enoch Powell. I'm opposed to the House of Lords on principle but don't understand how any of these people qualify

The first paragraph of Judge Breyer‘s opinion granting an injunction in the California National Guard case is a banger.

I hope CCHQ drafted that question for Evans, in order to echo Badenoch's shallow line of attack today, at the end of the session. He looks positively - and rightly - embarrassed for having asked it. Good response by Starmer. #PMQs

Or, indeed, his success at taking on a radical right party whose support has more than doubled in his 15 months in charge and now leads in the polls.

This is obscene. That others in politics can’t or won’t say that this is obscene hits at the heart of the problems we face. We are the 99.999%. Tax the super rich. Join.greenparty.org.uk

Hey Nottinghamshire. This is how your Reform council is spending your money. Funded by your 4.84% council tax rise.

How many times do we need to point this out? By appeasing the far right, you do not weaken it. You strengthen it. While weakening your own position. There's a vast amount of academic research showing this. But Labour will not listen. www.theguardian.com/law/2025/dec...

That's right! We should destroy human rights so that Keir Starmer can win* the next general election! *Make it even more likely he'll lose by mainstreaming the far right politics he pretends to oppose

Starmer: we’re the economically serious party, the grown-ups in the room Also Starmer: we’re happy to hit the economy by up to £10 billion to appease racists.

I can’t help thinking that when, in future, people ask what UK political leaders said as it became undeniable that US saw European liberal democracy as its no1 strategic foe, Starmer and others will regret that the answer is “not much, shuffled awkwardly, looked at their feet”.