That Times headline is a testament to how we got here All the focus on who theoretically has access to benefits they might not even be claiming, when the real story is legal migrants facing being stripped of their residence

Mass deportations are incompatible with an immigration system that is fair, moral and legal Mass deportation means mass transfer of power to a police state, mass violation of the rule of law and mass destruction of innocent lives

High immigration and the UK-EU trade deal softened the damage of Brexit Farage would expose Britain to the full cost of his ideological follies

This would strike directly against any British notion of fairness People who would have followed all the rules having those rules switched up on them overnight and then being punished - in spite of not doing anything wrong

I'm not sure Washington can make the message much clearer Whether European politicians will respond fast enough is another matter

Our response to the drone attack in Poland was in no way adequate, so this is what we get now

The Wild West of Europe

"The EU is also considering restrictions on several firms in India and China for handling Russian oil" Worth doing, although I certainly hope no one imagined it as a) particularly effective or b) able to convince Trump to sanction Russia www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

"We should assume Russia is going to try this every couple of weeks, until we make them pay a price that makes them decide not to" www.dw.com/en/is-nato-r...

As clear a summary of the US position on Ukraine as you could ask for - containing the conflict to our region takes priority over defeating Russia

As clear a summary of the US position on Ukraine as you could ask for - containing the conflict to our region takes priority over defeating Russia

⚡️Ukraine liberates 160 km square in 'counteroffensive operation' in Donetsk Oblast, Zelensky says. Seven settlements have been liberated in the Dobropillia and Pokrovsk sectors during the operation, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

Close, but wrong from Politico The Commission's job is to advance the European interest, which is not the same as just an average of national interests (especially when some are explicitly anti-European) If any institution is 'synthesising' in this way, it's the Council

Democrats declare they are now the real best friends of the 'first amendment', as if that broken law wasn't one reason they've ended up in this place It's an example of their lack of vision for actually fixing the US and why Europe can't rely on one good election result to bring back old America

Fresh from blaming the left for political violence, here is an unabashed celebration of random extra-judicial killing

Last week Russia launched a drone attack against NATO It was a test, and one that NATO failed pascallth.substack.com/p/nato-did-n...

🚨 EU Commission proposes to suspend some trade parts of EU/Israel association agreement (needs qualified majority of Member States), sanction violent settlers and extremist ministers, Hamas leaders (needs unanimity of Member States) - ec.europa.eu/commission/p...

So much for Trump pivoting on Ukraine

[me, a journalist who spends all day every day on a social media app where the discovery algorithm is personally controlled by its owner, captain birdseye] you know, a lot of people are talking about fish fingers, we should probably cover that

Last week Russia launched a drone attack against NATO It was a test, and one that NATO failed pascallth.substack.com/p/nato-did-n...

In case people thought things were going well - the Czechs are going to join Russia in about a month

I have heard this view many times and interestingly, I am hearing it more now than in the past. Often it is little more than a convenient excuse to sit back and do nothing. Even when it isn't, the distance from here to complacency is short. "Kyiv in 3 days" is history but Russia might as well win

Washington is setting multiple conditions before imposing sanctions on Russia In just a few days, they've said Europe needs to impose sky high tariffs on India+China and end all RU energy The conclusion is the US won't sanction Russia this year, or maybe next either www.bbc.com/news/article...

We should still ban algorithmic feeds on social media sites All the other moderation and checks are just fighting the symptoms rather than the cause

No prizes for guessing who the unreliable and threatening partner is here

Romanian Air Force intercepted a Russian drone over national airspace, - Antena 3 CNN Two F-16 jets scrambled from Fetești Air Base at 18:05 to respond to the threat.

I doubt it will feature much in American discourse now, but the most likely source of his radicalisation will have been Twitter

The US has repeatedly threatened to take land from Denmark so this seems like the only realistic choice for Copenhagen

An attack against an American in America fully buried the news of an arson attack against a Labour MP's office Total failure of UK media to extract themselves from the US and actually serve their own country

"[Sir Richard Barrons] also argued that preventing missile and drone attacks over western airspace “amounted to defending on the goal line” and that effective deterrence would require shooting down Russian jets launching attacks into western airspace." www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

These efforts by various European government ministers, occuring on an almost weekly basis, to convince Trump that actually he should be offended by Putin's aggression, continue despite the absence of any evidence that it actually works

English language social media still lives in America's world

NEW: Keir Starmer has asked Peter Mandelson asked to withdraw as UK Ambassador to the US with immediate effect.

Switzerland, gfs.bern poll: Swiss–EU new agreements Support: 61% Oppose: 30% Fieldwork: 21 July-3 August 2025 Sample size: 1,030 ➤ europeelects.eu/switzerland #SwitzerlandEUrelations #SwitzerlandEU

The drone attack on Poland shows the futility of a nation-first approach to European defence Attacks are going to keep crossing each other's borders - we should use all of Europe's resources to collectively defend the entire Eastern air space

You may not be interested in conflict with Russia, but Russia is interested in conflict with you

Russia is testing the limits as it prepares to bring the war to the rest of Europe

Trump still doesn't want to apply pressure on Russia But he would love to use Russia as cover to bulldoze the EU into aligning with US trade policy towards China and India So transparent

Sébastien Lecornu, until now Armed Forces ministre, appointed as new French PM www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

As expected, defeat for Bayrou and by a large margin France once again is without a proper government

Okay but EU governments and MEPs are literally negotiating legislation to ban these imports, so what's the US follow up?

Decentralised renewables are an effective route to energy security

Whenever we see such stories, people often describe the chatbot as 'lying' to you That's wrong and just feeds into misunderstanding what it does or can do If your toaster is on a medium setting but burns the bread, it hasn't lied to you, it's just broken Sometimes ChatGPT is a broken toaster

Just as Singapore’s fall revealed the bankruptcy of wishful thinking disguised as strategy, Europe’s approach risks repeating history by allowing political convenience and incremental commitments to drive what should be comprehensive strategic imperatives.

It's the opposite of other right wing and far right parties who have built up a youth vote while moderating their position on the EU

To add to this, one of the foundational aspects of the West's victory in WW2, what distinguished 'us' from 'them', was that we put the Nazis on trial for their crimes, with their own defence lawyers and the right to plead their case It was the ultimate demonstration of civilisation over barbarism