Hamburg's Olympic bid scuppered again as lost referendum eliminates city from Germany's plans

Sat with some mates of 20ish years last night and this came up in a round about away, in the sense of what we did vs the world today. We all basically met online flying pretend planes for made up airlines on Microsoft Flight Sim. We were 13, 15, 17, etc. others were 20s, 50s even

Starmer tonight writes (on Substack lol) “On growth, defence, Europe, energy and opportunity, we do now need a bigger response than we anticipated in 2024. In a world that has become even more volatile, that is what our ‘change’ mandate demands.” And like, ok, but what? He just leaves it hanging?

One mildly interesting thing: Blair's recent essay is a total repudiation of Blairism. It doesn't at all resemble what he did as PM, especially on tax and spend. And yet 'Blairites' are largely applauding it as a serious document (it isn't). Maybe it really is just vibes all the way down.

There is a lot of chat about how Tony Blair’s intervention is somehow such a groundbreaking moment for ideas (although they aren’t really there) and vision. But there’s been absolutely no real effort to engage and discuss things like the recent Labour Growth Group piece that’s got actual solutions.

..& half of cabinet going well what ARE you going to do about climate then. . Moral of the story: all leaders need some friction, or friendly pushback from people willing to challenge their assumptions. No matter how many elections they've won, nobody's that good all by themselves.

..the stuff about Iran, net zero, AI etc reads like a real marker of having moved out of everyday politics into pure policy. If he'd said that in no 10 he'd have had Philip Gould saying all the focus groups hate Trump, Anji Hunter saying parents in Haywards Heath are worried about Ai chatbots, etc

Jill Biden thought her husband was having a "stroke" on the debate stage in 2024 and then spent the next month doing everything she could to keep him in the race and attacking anyone who rightly said he needed to drop out immediately

Only half way through this but Forde’s stand up at the top is hilarious but almost emotional at the failings of the Labour Party to be remotely normal and connect with people. The rest, a de facto impromptu obituary of the Starmer government with Goodall, is 10/10 podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/m...

Have some longer thoughts on the Blair intervention, but big challenge for him is, fairly or not, the public aren't particularly inclined to want govt to listen. When we asked about which ex-PMs (and podcasting MPs) govt should listen to he got lowest 'worth listening to' of any ex PM bar Truss.

If he gets in Andy Burnham should 100% use security as the argument for any renationalisation. It’s an open goal and the current government let the ball loose completely. Didn’t do one single real pivot apart from scrapping aid 🌚

Net Zero in the short term is an unrealistic fantasy and anyway *checks notes* AI will solve nuclear fusion

Quite scathing!

This is sharp from James Meadway in his interview with Arguably on the “hard truths” that any left project must face. www.arguably.uk/p/what-do-th...

"If you are not rooting your analysis in the fact that people are unable to live and that things that were taken for granted are no longer affordable, then you are not understanding what’s going on.” observer.co.uk/news/politic...

For once, the hype is valid. If Burnham wins in Makerfield, he probably becomes PM. If he loses, a Reform government looms large, writes Andrew Adonis

"Blair used 5,700 words to tell the ultra-rich donors upon whom both his think tank and his gilded social life rely exactly what they want to hear…much of it grossly unpopular with the British public, but none of it even slightly challenging to Blair’s own constituency."

Blair's ideas are either vacuous, or commercially suspect, or irrelevant to the modern period. What a sad end to the most talented politician of his generation inews.co.uk/opinion/tony...

Yes the Labour Party needs to stand and fight for something. No, it doesn’t need to be the Conservative Party manifesto.

When Gordon Brown pens a note on child poverty, the press say he is a troublemaker causing problems for the Labour government. When it’s Blair with a load of nonsense from another era, apparently he’s a political wizard!

Except it isn't what he did in government! He raised spending massively, raised taxes, increased welfare spending, increased immigration and was pro-EU integration. Now he's against all those things.

Above all it says we should be led by policy not ideology - anr critiques Starmer for lacking a wider ideology - while failing to acknowledge the ideology behind Blairs own assumptions and policy preferances. In that its a deeply dishonest bit of work

You have millions and millions of quid available to you to do policy work and the answer to stopping the boats is apparently……. “do whatever is necessary” (no actual specifics given)

Tony Blair tells Radio 4 that the £257 million his institute has received from a billionaire AI investor has absolutely nothing to with his lobbying for the AI industry

Starmer's failure is opening the ground for a whole lot of "something must be done, this is something, therefore it must be done" arguments, of which Blair's is the most egregious example.

The reactions to this are mainly focused on the move to the right, but what's really striking in reading Blair's essay in full, is how little Labour's most electorally successful politician understands the current electorate. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

All variations on "let's not be political about this" are shorthand for "you should all just agree with me".

I’m just surprised TBI aren’t even harsher on Starmer given he made their main (originally popular) policy of Digital ID the most unpopular thing since the Iraq War.

Tony Blair, a lobbyist with close ties to the Trump administration and fossil fuel industries, says the UK should drill more oil and get closer to the Trump administration

Just Tories wall to wall gushing over the Blair piece over on X which doesn’t surprise me one bit. It’s written like something Badenoch will pick up and run with - the idea of an unfiltered, unregulated, untethered Britain from a bygone age that will magically deliver growth cos AI.

The real giveaway line in that Blair piece is "whatever it takes" to stop the boats. Leave ECHR? Shoot them out of the water? He doesn't want to actually engage with the trade-offs. Same with welfare. Who's benefits is he going to cut? How? Against what criteria.

Incidentally, Blair is actually correct in his core point: Good governments "start with an idea, a project, a governing purpose, an analysis of what is wrong and a plan to put it right". It's a shame that the rest of his piece is so weak that no-one will ever pay attention to it.

“The Fletcher Memorial Home For Incurable Tyrants and Kings. They could appear to themselves every day on closed circuit TV, to make sure they're still real - it’s the only connection they feel.”

We should be a US vassal state with unadulterated AI? 🤷‍♂️ With the very greatest of respect; Tony Blair’s totally lost the plot.

Nobody looks at 400+ seats and goes oh I’ll just swap that for a minority government for the sake of my own “mandate”. Unless you’re a grade A top tier moron. In which case you shouldn’t be Prime Minister.

No! It! Wouldn't!

There is no safe age to be exposed to unending footage of atrocities, pro-anorexia content, or images of child sexual abuse:

No there will not be an early election. A man with 400 seats will not risk half of them three years early to satisfy columnists’ belief in mandate fairies.

What do we want? Change! When do we want it? Every 5-8 months! www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

This is an absolutely unworkable mess. It's going to end up having to be withdrawn, *probably* over cis people being 'wrongly' challenged over facilities. Given how easy it is to see that shitstorm coming…how's it been issued in this form?

1. Number of stories about Trump buying and selling hundreds of millions of dollars in stocks in the first three months of 2026: CBS: 0 CNN: 0 Fox News: 0 NPR: 0 PBS: 0 Politico: 0 Semafor: 0 Business Insider: 0

BREAKING: The Trump Justice Department has expanded the just-announced settlement of Trump's IRS lawsuit to include a pledge that the IRS will no longer pursue *any* claims it may have against Trump, his family members, and his companies over unpaid taxes.

Not Chancellor Merz saying Bangaranga to the Bulgarian Prime Minister 💀 what is life.

If your reaction to this is not immediate disgust, revulsion and unequivocal sympathy for the entirely innocent victim, then you are part of the problem.

The word “your” is doing a lot of work in this headline

Hello, good morning, and BANGARAMA

Bulgaria wins 70th Eurovision contest with Dara and Bangaranga

If it wasn’t for the change in the #Eurovision rules this year, bringing the juries back into the semifinals, Sweden would have been out. Scored just 17 points in their semifinal from the public - and would have been their first NQ since 2010.

At least we know where Eurovision will be next year; Bulgaria only has one suitable arena. See you in Sofia!

BANGARANGA!