Yinke Bankola says he was 9 when the sixth form Dulwich school prefect Nigel Farage, aged 17, asked him where he was from, then told him "that's the way back to Africa". www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

💯

US Military Priorities: 1. Killing survivors of boat strikes 2. Wondering if senior military staff are too fat 3. Banning beards Not US Military Priorities: 1. Russia seizing territory in Europe by force of arms.

Not for the first time, I’m being told that attacking Farage for his boyhood racism is futile. The opposite is the case, as you can see from how rattled he is by it. And no, it’s not about persuading Farage fans anything, it’s about mobilising the non-voters and encouraging tactical voting.

A key question to Nigel Farage is this You have said your schooldays were 40+ years ago. Can you say categorically that you never used the most offensive racial slurs - words like the n-word, p-word and wog - as an adult?

Oh dear lord

An essential thread

So tell me again how Nigel Farage, who just took the largest ever political donation, from a Tory mega-donor, and another donation from the Viscountess wife of the non-dom owner of the Daily Mail, is planning to "take on the establishment"

www.economist.com/britain/2025... new guy just dropped

Misha Glenny has big shoes to fill but is an inspired choice for #InOurTime. A fabulous communicator and writer who demonstrates the innate inquisitiveness that is so essential for the role. His one-volume history on the Fall of Yugoslavia is a must-read. Best of luck to him!

Oh, this is such an EXCELLENT choice! Misha Glenny is the new host of BBC Radio 4's flagship show In Our Time, replacing the retiring Melvyn Bragg www.bbc.com/mediacentre/...

The Green party: We should tax wealth! Also the Green Party: No! Not like that! The eternal story

Thinking a lot about this moment from literally the first chapter of "1984."

The idea that I would ever work with Tories is absurd. If you don't believe me just ask Lee Anderson, Nadine Dorries, Danny Kruger, Andrea Jenkyns, Jonathan Gullis, Sarah Pochin, Jake Berry, Marco Longhi, Peter Bone...

Polanski. Come for the condescension of the working class; stay for the economic theory based solely on vibes . Progressives can surely do better than this

Richard Hughes resigned in recognition that public servants must take accountability for institutional failings regardless of personal culpability. All eyes on Chris Mason to see whether he shows a scintilla of the same integrity following *personal* misjudgement

Chris Mason seems to be taking his time doing the BBC News blog about how we weren't misled by the Chancellor after all? Surely this is his time for a huge splash.

What a letter. If there is a better example of how the arts and sciences are mutually reinforcing (and not mutually exclusive) I am yet to find it.

Here is a list of reasons why some of my hearings and trials this year have been delayed and kicked off into the long grass, stuck in our record court backlog. Serious allegations which will now be tried *years* after the event. 🧵👇

www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/d... A beautiful tribute to a giant

There used to be a sort of alternation between BBC political editors: John Cole old-style Labour, Robin Oakley a bit of a Tory, Andrew Marr a Lib-Lab. we could usefully bring it back. But importantly they were all highly professional and you could trust their commentary; they didn’t have agendas.

No that's not *your* on *our behalf*. Your job is to report the story, presenting all sides fairly and then *we* call it. What Mason is saying here is fundamentally not what the bbc is for! www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Arcadia. Rosencratz. Brazil. Parade’s End. Stage and screen will feel intellectually poorer with his passing #Stoppard

😢 Saw him talk once. The intellect, the wit, the charisma, the voice…Rest in Peace Sir Tom

No Stephen Pollard. Farage is not “a bulwark against extremism.” He is a bullock charging through the Overton window

I don’t think this is a “politicians have got dumber” issue for the most part. If you look at the *actual CVs* of previous cohorts of MPs, their background is not radically different when you account for, you know, the fact the economy is different! It is primarily a media and ecosystem issue.

As political scandals go, a grubby backroom deal to, errrr, lift 450,000 children out of poverty is at least a novel one.

Looking forward to the 2029 general election campaign, when the incumbent government will run on "Public services haven't improved, those tax rises we announced years ago just kicked in, and now we have to increase immigration because it went too low and we are skint again."

The government figuring this out slowly over the coming two years is going to be quite something to behold.

Abysmal, mindless, utterly zombified. You can't even call it policymaking because that implies a degree of thought which simply isn't present. Pretty soon they might actually hit Cameron's 'tens of thousands' target and then they'll shit themselves with horror at the consequences.

I know who Nus Ghani MP is - not because we always agree - but because she’s been serving her constituency (as well as lewks) since 2015. Who the hell is Lucy White?! Ah, a quick google search reveals her as a rentagob for GB ‘news.’ I know which one is qualified to chair the budget debate.

Starmer and Reeves run probably the most economically left-wing government of past five decades and yet bleeding support to its left thanks to dumb strategy www.economist.com/britain/2025...

A good day for Ed Miliband: mansion tax introduced, green levies moved off bills to taxation, ban on new North Sea oil and gas licences confirmed.

The problem encapsulated in a skeet

Plus sides to today: Two-child benefit scrapped. Largely progressive tax implications. Good market reaction. No big spending cuts. Nightmare prospect of cutting funding to net zero etc avoided. It's a left-wing budget. Those who say there's no difference between Labour and Tories are bananas.

A wise man once said that ‘jury trials are a fundamental part of our democratic settlement’. That man was David Lammy. Me for @unherd.com unherd.com/newsroom/scr...

Budget quite literally taxes the rich and even contains a actual wealth tax (with a lower threshold than Zack's fantasy one) but, you know, facts arent that important to him

Why the two-child limit has to go, in a chart.

Two theses on this: 1.Historians cut religion out of political history too early. Well into the 80s, UK politics is still saturated in the stories, referents & norms of Christianity (irrespective of belief). 2.The collapse of that common culture is the most neglected factor in more recent politics

lol

Idiocy

Gibb; “ I had no editorial role whatsoever at the Jewish Chronicle”. Lee Harpin, reporter at the paper; “RG made a habit of calling into the office on print days to check up on what stories were topping the news list, and offering a view’”

As I noted last month, Britain has become a country of high taxes for the few and low taxes for the many. www.newstatesman.com/politics/mor...

BREAKING: Comey case dismissed without prejudice. Halligan invalidly appointed, judge rules. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Jimmy Cliff… youtu.be/kGeCeK85sUg?...