For 56 minutes Sky News and BBC News interrupted everything else and carried a Reform UK feed live, uninterrupted, unchallenged. The stream spluttered, froze, pixelated - dozens of times - still they stuck with it. FOR ONE HOUR. This is an editorial choice. No other party gets this coverage. ~AA

a big hamburger

Breaking: Jimmy Kimmel to return Tuesday.

There should be a high bar for politicians attacking the media, but maybe Ed Davey has half a point here? For example, the first three paragraphs of this BBC story repeat Reform's £243bn figure without saying that the thinktank behind the estimate now disowns it. (This is mentioned in paragraph 35)

"We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy." Translation: "We have spent the last days watching millions of customers cancel their subscription and our stock price plummet." BOOM. ~AA

Cravenly obeying the US on a batshit crypto hallucination, because Brexit made us desperate.

This is courage. open.substack.com/pub/treason/...

This is entirely right from Tony. You do not lead an argument against morally repugnant policy on the basis that it's impractical (even if it is: you save that for after the 'besides ...'). Unless you combat their values, you let them dictate what is acceptable.

Keir Starmer’s spokesperson asked for the PM's response to Nigel Farage’s plan to deport hundreds of thousands of people living and working completely legally in the UK, replies that he thinks it is “unworkable” and “unfunded”. So his objection is that they’ve got their sums wrong

Good reporting here by @annasophiegross.bsky.social of Farage's nonsense numbers. www.ft.com/content/4e16...

The curious dropped prosecution for Chinese spying What late "evidential" change could explain this sudden decision? Substack: emptycity.substack.com/p/the-curiou... Personal blog: davidallengreen.com/2025/09/the-...

I'll have more to say on Reform's proposals to scrap ILR at some point but for now I'll just note this - anyone telling you this is a popular idea doesn't know the polling. Overwhelming majority of public back giving people who work and pay taxes most or all rights after 5 years or less

Putting all this together, @lgilbert.co find the following. It's not that Farage is (just) exaggerating/overstating - he is simply lying about migrants, jobs, wages and benefits. Media should be very clear about this. www.laurenpolicy.com/p/are-recent...

Seriously. A one-hour Party Political Broadcast. Followed at the top of the next hour with top story billing and a highlights package. Exactly how will this be "balanced" across their coverage? Where is Ofcom? Where is Nandy?

Complete nonsense. A hallucination of an event that hasn't even taken yet. And yet, Google faces no sanction for this sort of disinformation, neither of the financial, nor of the regulatory kind.

I have defended the BBC again and again. No more.

Reform's plans to end indefinite leave to remain go to the post I wrote last week on their slide towards chaotic authoritarianism. The British constitution would allow them to do it if they had a majority but at vast cost to our society and way of life. samf.substack.com/p/the-route-...

Sam is right to say that the correct argument is that a Reform government CAN & probably would attempt things that are ethically reprehensible + currently unlawful + broadly unpopular if they commit to using majority power in the UK political system to repeal all judicial limits on govt + parliament

The idea of mass deportation of people who had legally migrated into a country used to be a clear indicator for not only far-right, but far-right extremist policies. This says a lot on both how far Reform has radicalised, and how these kind of ideas are becoming normalised in Western democracies.

If the Reform Party plan to abolish indefinite leave to remain also abolishes settled status for EU citizens, that would be a breach of the withdrawal agreement, liable to lead to the EU retaliating by removing trade preferences.

Never, ever underestimate the short-term damage that fascists are capable of. When Idi Amin told thousands of Asians that they had just 90 days to leave Uganda, lots of people laughed. “He could never do that! That’s ridiculous.” But then the violence started. www.bbc.com/news/world-a...

Thousands of Londoners have indefinite leave to remain. They have legal rights and are our friends, neighbours and colleagues, contributing hugely to our city. Threatening to deport people living and working here legally is unacceptable.

Everyone in this country is descended from immigrants. Every single last one of us. And many, like Mr Farage, will have very recent migrant ancestors indeed and not even know about it.

In the late 19th century, millions of migrants left Germany as a result of religious persecution, economic hardship, and political uncertainty. Among them was Nikolaus Schrod, a cabinet maker from Frankfurt who - along with his wife Bina - moved to London to start a new life in the 1850s. 1/3

Retrospective removal of Indefinite Leave to Remain from "hundreds of thousands of people" in the Reform plans is obscene. They talk about "preventing disruption to businesses" but have no regard for what this means for the people themselves, their families and communities which will be torn apart.

It would be good if the only political pushback against Nigel Farage's plans to mass deport hundreds of thousands of our neighbours, friends, family and colleagues didn't just come from a handful of backbench MPs and one regional mayor

It is genuinely absolutely bonkers that one year into a massive new government majority, all the discourse is about what will happen under the allegedly inevitable majority by another party. Much of it is the govt’s fault but not all - this very much has not happened under past unpopular govts!

Some very obvious cases that Farage and Yusuf need to be hammered on: 1. 78 year old pensioner on ILR for last 30 years who obviously cannot get work visa 2. 35 year old born in UK to non-nationals, never got UK citizenship because of cost, loses job and has to move to country they've never lived in

This should be an opportunity for the other parties - Reform's proposal is extreme, violates basic fairness norms, and would threaten millions of people who have made their lives here and played by the rules. This approach should be condemned as nasty, unworkable and contrary to British fair play.

If Labour and other parties can't find a way to scrutinise, criticise and condemn a policy like this, they give Reform a free ride and make the future less safe & certain for those who come here, work hard and contribute.

The core logic is stark - taxes are too low for services, there isn't growth. Yet with large numbers of people already only just managing, and a limit to how much can be squeezed out of the top, there aren't very easy answers. A political conundrum across Europe.

It’s quite do-able from a legal perspective. I don’t think dismissing Reform in this way is wise. Voters need to understand that this stuff can happen if they vote for it - and that it would be morally, socially, culturally, economically disastrous. So they shouldn’t vote for it.

The true question right now is whether you believe in the moral character of the British public. If you do, you'll want to have the fight with Reform. You'll believe that the public will hate the idea of breaking up families, spying on & deporting people who've worked here for years.

Any journalist quoting this absurd, invented £234 billion number cited by Farage/Reform should make absolutely clear that it has been withdrawn by *its own authors* (the Centre for Policy Studies) after they admitted it contained several major errors (1/3)

Wikipedia is what the internet was meant to be and one of the few online places that hasn’t got worse. It’s a miracle

I’m watching and it’s astounding. We all knew something like this was going on - but the extent of it! While so many were suffering, dying, sunk into loneliness - a few were absolutely RAKING IT IN. The COVID health crisis was a very, very lucrative opportunity for some.

Get all the Lib Dems off X first.

Yet the Lib Dems won Henley and Tunbridge Wells at the last election...

on.ft.com/3IuTXTr EU to block Big Tech from new financial data sharing system

“Reform was found to be ‘the protagonist’ in almost 40% they featured in. However, despite their numerical Parliamentary advantage, that metric revealed that fewer than 10% were led in the same way by the Lib Dems.” 👆This is how Tommy Robinson brought out the crowds.

Farage has his own TV channel (the BBC) and an excellent campaign manager (Morgan McSweeney) so perhaps best deal with those first

Time for a popular front? The only way we can stop a fascist takeover of the country.

This is the economy being developed globally, one where small companies and consumers are systemically disadvantaged. Hard to see how that changes any time soon. www.ft.com/content/52d2...

British media pumps out daily propaganda pieces for Farage, fails to offer *any scrutiny* and basically legitimises rampant racism, then puts on its ‘innocent face’ and clutches its pearls at the rise of the far right… What a grim betrayal of our democracy. www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/how...

George Osborne was absolutely right that one problem is the corporation has “imperial” ambitions and this leads to it doing things that it just shouldn’t be doing, treating things as competitors which shouldn’t be.

I mean they should really just have a blanket ban on “comment” as a public service broadcaster, but they try and spin it as “analysis” instead and we end up with this drivel. They should just write this stuff up like a match report,- what happened, interview with the manager, Ed Davey passing stats.

I’m only surprised this headline didn’t finish with ‘and why this is all good for Nigel Farage’

The annual festival of “stop hitting yourself!“ aka the BBC’s commentary on Lib Dem conference.

Giving a bully your lunch money is only a temporary downpayment for future bullying. We ALL need to step up for the first amendment. By-the-way, for the record, this ex-Disney employee finds Jimmy Kimmel very talented and funny. mh

In terms of getting more media coverage the main problem for the Lib Dems is that they are not Nigel Farage.