This is so important

The remarkable success of the "Ghosts" - Ukraine's Defence Intelligence continues in occupied Crimea. Two more Russian aircraft - AN-26 transporters - and radar stations have been hit according to the latest statement & video. Again, it's not stated when, but likely overnight.

The original story Farage claptrapped about on air this morning was from the Sun more than 20 years ago (they subsequently had to retract and apologise). They’ve now run it again, off the back of Farage’s comments. It’s a self perpetuating circle of xenophobic gubbins.

They're eating the swans, they're eating the pets! It's not difficult to find an isolated case, and then use the word "they" to imply that a whole social group is inclined to do the same. So be warned if you live in Suffolk. White British men are eating your pets. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-engl...

It’s gone so quickly from ‘boat people’ to all immigrants. So quickly from ‘I don’t mind if they come here legally and pay taxes’ to ‘actually it’s anyone foreign’. We are living in the ‘first they came for’ poem. All to give the population a scapegoat so the super rich can hoard yet more wealth.

A Spanish naval vessel will join the Global Sumud Flotilla to provide assistance and, if necessary, conduct rescues, says Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez. Italy earlier announced it was dispatching a frigate after a night of drone attacks on the flotilla opposed by the Israeli gov't.

Nigel Farage claims his mass deportation plan would save the UK hundreds of billions of pounds over the coming decades. New analysis of official statistics, forecasts and Reform's own figures suggests it would actually *cost* the UK hundreds of billions over the same period

Badenoch has finally found a hard line between the Conservatives and Farage.

Oh ffs

- you ever seen a really big drum? - yeah - no I mean REALLY big - ok - now imagine that drum - yep - but a thousand times larger - whoah - I know right - that's a big f'in drum - it is, but it's nowhere near as big as the Vote Farage Get Trump drum that Ed Davey's going to bang at the next election

This is very exciting! A small clinical trial using gene therapy for Huntington's disease has been successful. microRNAs were used to edit the Huntington mRNA, stopping it making mutant protein that can damage neurons. Huge hopes now for treating such a devastating condition

What amazingly brilliant news

Trump is a real danger for Farage. He used to be very canny about staying within the bounds of acceptable opinion. But his refusal to allow clear blue water with Trump means he's chained to an out-of-control individual, adopting extremely unpopular policies on a whim.

Liberal Democrat Health Spokesperson Helen Morgan: "Nigel Farage wants to impose Trump's dangerous anti-science agenda here in the UK. Peddling this kind of nonsense is irresponsible and wrong. "It seems Farage would rather see pregnant women suffer in pain than stand up to his idol Donald Trump."

Pregnant women deserve so much better than Trump’s theatre of scaremongering and shame | Kate Womersley

For the people that missed this.

What a grifting crank. Deeply unserious.

Corporations holding Govts to ransom. CEO of Eli Lilly, $114m pay packet last year, says the UK is “probably the worst country in Europe” for drug prices. Big Pharma cartel wants the NHS to pay more for drugs, make bigger profits. Govt must manufacture generic drugs, end profiteering.

Exactly this

"The question you have to ask Farage is, why is he deliberately lying about the facts?" x.com/GBNEWS/statu...

A lot of sensible people get squeamish at labelling Nigel Farage “far-right”, but his policy of cancelling the legal status of tens of thousands of settled immigrants can not be politically described as anything else. Reform are campaigning on a policy of cruelty & xenophobia.

This should be the line

Farage's proposal here would crash the economy. An economy already struggling as a result of Brexit. Not only are the numbers false but it takes rights away from migrants who have lived and worked in the UK for years. Many who have British partners and children born in the UK.

I see Captain Binjuice is at it again. Here's his secret: www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...

I'm old enough to remembered when the BBC based their coverage on who won relative numbers of seats at the General Election. That's the official democratic mandate. Opinion polling is unofficial. Their guesstimates are based on a handful of voters when they know that elections are years away. 😒

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)

The Reform Party policy of abolition of indefinite leave to remain is supported by 3% of the public

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

They've actually openly said they want an immigration system like the UAE, they want a human rights regime like Russia & Belarus, they want to send people fleeing for their lives back to the Taliban. You'd have thought not difficult to make a case against all this.

Appalling editorial judgement

as for wages, we see reasonably rapid wage growth among recent arrivals (as migrants progress, and low-earning students return home). Nothing here at all to back up Farage's claims

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...

The @washingtonpost.com story on Tylenol & autism leaves out a MAJOR 2.5M sibling-controlled study of children in Denmark, which "found no evidence that acetaminophen use during pregnancy was associated with children’s risk of autism, ADHD or intellectual disability." jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

It's a racist lie, all of it, every word. The claims it is based on are false in fact, and repellent in morality. Merely having said it out loud without being unanimously howled down marks another moment of shameful descent for us as a nation.

It's often the case politicos, including me, will explain away growing support for Reform due to people facing deprivation and struggling. Maybe that was the case, but now? If you support Reform with policies like this you have zero "legitimate concerns". You're a far right ethno-nationalist racist.

Nigel Farage claim: "We are not the world's food bank, it is not for us to provide welfare to people coming in from all over the world" Reality: The average migrant on the Skilled Worker visa had a net fiscal impact of +£16,300 in 2022/23. In contrast, the average UK-born adult had about +£800

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.

As well as the fantasy £234 bn, journalists should also be clear Farage's claims most new migrants don't work, and those who do are on low wages, are entirely false. In fact, 1.8 million recent migrants are on payrolls (others will be self employed). migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/co...

Reform hold a press conference every Monday, for which they trail a policy announcement in that morning’s papers. Given Monday is a slow news day, that often means they lead the papers – and so the breakfast shows, and so they set the agenda for the week. It’s a good trick, but easy to counter!

And this is exactly how the Government should have responded to the poison from Farage.

100% right

A perfect example of how Farage operates. He creates the problem, exploits it for his own benefit then his backers cash in through the British population being left with the highest energy costs on the continent. But you know, we need Re-form…

Farage made a pledge to remove 600,000 people without legal status [having said a year ago he wouldn't pledge that because he knows it is impossible] Elon Musk and Rupert Lowe said that was too weak & they wanted "proper deportations" and Farage has shifted further now

Reform's ban on dual citizenship is going to require a rapid u-turn over Ireland. It would be pretty mad to apply it to call existing dual nationals, but maybe they will fancy & welcome the row in the cases beyond Ireland, like Israel, USA, Canada, Australia,Nigeria, India, and Pakistan

This xenophobic nonsense illustrates why the government's proposals to restrict settlement rights is not only wrong but politically self-defeating. Has just encouraged Reform to become even more extreme.

The ITV exposé on COVID now turns its sights on testing. I was stunned in 2020 when Sir Paul Nurse - Director of the Francis Crick Institute - told me he’d written to the government to offer the services of the Crick (the biggest biomeolecular lab in the country) - and never got a reply…

We know who made this number up - it was the Centre for Policy Studies. However, after I pointed out two major errors, they have admitted it is completely wrong and have withdrawn it - see note on their webpage here. cps.org.uk/research/her...

Please let there be some actual scrutiny of this by the press

Reform are now coming after people with permanent residency. It'll be citizens next. No one is safe from authoritarian governments.