Maybe Keir should demand the heads of major US news networks any time they imply Britain is on the brink of civil war or that we live under sharia law. Or does it not work both ways?

not only was Prescott’s former employer Hanover Communications a Tory outfit, it also represented Sky News for many years….

Hilarious www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

An important article to read today www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/media/... Sadly, the BBC’s quality standards have been in free-fall for years.

This holds up. www.healthpolicyinsight.com/cowpers-cut-...

Glad that someone has finally taken responsibility for the appalling assault on democracy that was the Jan. 6 insurrection. Slightly confused that it's the Director-General of the BBC, but what do I know?

#leadership #cat #catleadership #disguised #disguisedcat #disguisedcatleadership #leadership #cat #meow

‘What do you mean, disguising myself as a pint of Guinness didn’t work?’

Having reluctantly glanced at those AI-generated summaries at the top of internet searches, and seen easily-demonstrable factual errors in many of them, I wonder when people will start to realise just how much of the hype around AI is complete and obvious bullshit.

Gig pricing has gone truly stupid. The Hives are not a £55 act.

Late period Osborne: interest rates at zero and 50-80bn of headroom: and his priority was “don’t invest”.

Grok is (falsely)hallucinating it quickly retracted its widespread false claim. It did not: it carried on claiming there were several independent sources + later falsely claimed these (imagined) eye-witness accounts had been reported in broadcast news segments

It’s possible that @roberthutton.co.uk is now the most insightful writer about Westminster politics. thecritic.co.uk/sharkbait/?u...

The east wing of science is being demolished by the new administration. Read my Substack about a new documentary I’ve made with Sandra Kanthal about the impact on biomedical scientists at Harvard. open.substack.com/pub/overmatt...

Ah, Gorgeous George. The man who never met a mass-murdering dictator he didn't revere. Though he might only have met their decoy doubles, to be fair.

Who knew all the NHS needed to boost productivity was ICB staff spending half their week job hunting on Indeed?

“Officials said slashing back office staff, such as managers, and reinvesting the savings in front-line doctors and nurses had helped fuel the improvement.” 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

Hannan's lurch to far-right ethnonationalism began at least as far back as 2018, when he was palling around with neo-Nazi lunatic (and fellow Roger Scruton disciple!) Thierry Baudet...

This is absolutely hilarious from Young Master Wesley: the NHS middle managers in question haven’t been sacked yet, because there’s no redundancy budget www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/202...

The sheer greasy desperation from these bastards that any violent crime is committed by an immigrant so they can continue their grift. Even when they know it isn't true. Foul.

We're now at "black people aren't British". Open sewer racism. Look forward to seeing him on QT again soon.

One in twenty Reform councillors elected in May 2025 has left by the Autumn - half expelled/suspended - a quarter resigned from council - some defected An "unusual rate" of attrition in 6 months, says Tony Travers www.politicshome.com/news/article...

Fascinating www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

First half of England vs Australia a proper comedy of errors.

After a week of faffing around the @dailymail.co.uk have agreed to apologise. Here it is. Fingers crossed for fewer lies/smears dressed up as news in future

“They can see no reasons 'Cause there are no reasons What reasons do you need, oh oh oh oh? (Tell me why) I don't Matt Hancock (Tell me why) I don't Matt Hancock (Tell me why) I don't Matt Hancock I wanna knock their cricket balls away.” news.sky.com/story/matt-h...

Phenomenal obituary of a phenomenal man: www.economist.com/obituary/202...

"...it seems unsustainable for those who care about British democracy to remain on a platform whose owner is fixated on its very destruction."

“Reform is fascist. We must stop Nigel Farage.” Michael Heseltine is on a mission to stop Reform UK. Superb interview by @alicettimes.bsky.social, with ”share token”. www.thetimes.com/article/9048...

Another year of public inquiry financials and still total cost less than Post Office send on inquiry legal support. no worries taxpayers got that www.computerweekly.com/news/3666335...

I’m actually a form of contract. www.hsj.co.uk/integrated-c...

Full report here. There's a lot of it that will be no surprise to anyone who's read my book. (Or spent anytime around Government...) committees.parliament.uk/publications...

The private sector is supposed to be better value for money because it has a profit incentive. But if not regulated properly - and often it's impossible to regulate properly - the profit incentive makes it less efficient to the state.

Also highlights a point I spend a lot of time on in my book - the government is woefully bad at managing private contractors who endlessly rip us off. This is not more efficient.

When the likes of Weatherspoons' Tim Martin rail against increases in the living wage what they really mean is that they want the state to subsidise their profits by paying higher benefits to their underpaid employees.....and then they they complain welfare spending is too high....

Note how, when the government’s condemnation is timely, the rest of the Westminster ecosystem does in fact, react differently!

"Unfortunately it's not in our strategic interests to say the racist part out loud" is quite the advice.

I’m set to be on @lbc.co.uk with Nick Ferrari just after 8 am, talking about BMA resident doctors’ leaders announcing new strikes. yougov.co.uk/topics/healt...

Plus they cherry pick the low risk, lower cost cases. Cholecystectomy tariff applies to otherwise healthy 25 Yr old with normal BMI and to 70 Yr old obese with co-morbidity. Which one gets their NHS op in the private hospital?

It shows the value of “get a better communicator” in that Katie Lam is a better communicator than Kemi Badenoch. But it is also a problem if what you are communicating is bonkers.

Breaking - Five grooming gang survivors tell PM they will stay on panel only if Jess Phillips REMAINS in post. They say Phillips has “devoted her life to hearing and amplifying the voices of women and girls who would have otherwise been unheard”. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Hadn’t, in truth, really absorbed the scale of what the Conservatives are proposing on ILR and immigration more broadly until this week’s Sunday Times interviews. Some thoughts on that in today’s note:

Well, this made me cry. Amadou and Mariam’s music is magnificent www.theguardian.com/music/2025/o...

It's also what makes the whole "let's go to an insurance model!" so dishonest. If you were to price in the urgent and emergency care into insurance then it would rocket to US levels. Same with all the chronic illnesses that get exempted out of common British policies.

Look, we can criticise the speed of Labour's response on this, but it's difficult to be any faster when you send all your press releases by carrier pigeon.

Am I wrong, at this point, to wonder if they are being this bad just to spite everyone who voted for them?

One must have a heart of stone not to laugh, given knowledge of Wormald’s tenure at DHSC.