Money “invested” in land by people like Dyson who arent farmers & just want to avoid paying taxes, caused an increase in agricultural land price way above what most farmers could afford. inheritance tax for farms was the right thing to do. Talking to them 1st to get the limit right wdv been sensible

Anyway, if you think it's vaguely fucked up that Nigel Farage could well become Prime Minister on just 30%-or-so of the vote Join the campaign for a fair & porportional voting system, before it's too late! 👇😱

Tough on homelessness- good! But we need the government to be tougher on the causes of homelessness too.

Labour can be proud that the policies announced today will ensure that animals are protected for generations to come says Minister for Biosecurity, Borders and Animals, Sue Hayman.

The @smcommission.bsky.social report last week is important reading as we endeavour to work collaboratively to improve outcomes across the UK. The mission continues. socialmobility.independent-commission.uk/extreme-regi...

Fascinating review - this is open access but it’s well worth subscribing - my question for Rob for 2026 - after May’s local elections, would a National Commission on electoral reform be able to produce a clear commitment to PR before the next general election? @labour4pr.bsky.social

We’ll never convince Trump of anything. But his backers - the tech bros and the oil executives and the media magnates- need to be aware that it will be their grandchildren who have to struggle in a world suffering from near-heat-death, not just everyone else’s

Whereas Docklands Light Rail has no problem at all

So what’s Reform UK’s take on the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha whose ancestry is mostly a mix of German and Scottish? Or is that ok because they are “white”? The whole conceptual universe behind racism and xenophobia is both ignorant and inconsistent.

In February, #AssemblyEnvironment is holding a forum to take stock of how the Mayor has been hitting his targets for London. We want to know what Londoners’ priorities are for the city’s environment. Comment your main priority (a, b, c, d, e or f) below!

The story of Farage and Putin, told by British-Ukrainian soldier Shaun Pinner on a destroyed apartment block in Kyiv.

Keep on top of what’s happening in UK democracy with our round-up blog. Includes @electoralreform.bsky.social commentary on @yougov.co.uk poll, the Elections Bill & how voting reform is moving to the top of @cwunews.bsky.social agenda. #TimeForPR politicsforthemany.co.uk/december-rou...

NEW: @joannegsusdaw.bsky.social video on the passing of the Employment Rights Bill. "This is the Labour-Union link at its very best. It would not have happened without the collective voice of working people that unions bring to the heart of the Labour Party."

I can’t help thinking this has more to do with Venezuela’s oil deal with China than with drugs (if Trump was genuinely trying to close down drug imports why has he just pardoned one of the most notorious importers?). It’s a reiteration of the Munroe Doctrine - they see Latin America as “theirs”.

The details of the announcement reveal that Britain is not just rejoining Erasmus, but also the EU internal energy market, a first small step to reversing the economic damage of Brexit: ec.europa.eu/commission/p...

Andrea Egan defeats Christina McAnea in Unison general secretary election labourlist.org/2025/12/andr... - A slightly bizarre coincidence with the passing of the Employment Rights Bill - surely a message to the General Secretary and her staff that you can't just keep expelling people you don't like

The chief lesson of World War I- you can’t just march into someone else’s country and take it over. The chief lesson of World War II- we can’t live with a politics that’s based on hate. Farage and his minions fail on both these lessons. If we want freedom we have to be willing to defend it.

Including all those people who now won’t be going to Orlando on the grounds that they don’t want to queue for 5 hours to have their social media scrutinised

BREAKING: Labour's landmark Employment Rights Bill has PASSED both Houses of Parliament. Its new rights will be transformational. This is a massive step forward in delivering Labour's New Deal for Working People - passed by a Labour Government, delivered with the labour movement. Let's celebrate 🎉

The issues are: 1) How can the BBC secure enough funding to maintain its range and quality of services 2) How can that funding be fair to the users (and non-users) 3) How can the BBC defend its independence from the government (or regain it, depending on your views) 1/-

The Employment Rights Bill is back in the Commons again tonight for its next round of ping pong. Our MPs will send it back to the Lords to tell them to pass the Bill. This has gone on long enough. It’s time to get the Bill passed - no delays, no games, no blocking the Government's mandate any more.

MPs have PASSED the Employment Rights Bill AGAIN. Now its over to the Lords to do the right thing - pass the Bill and deliver the new rights that working people are crying out for.

Here you can listen to @psurridge.bsky.social and myself discussing "The British General Election of 2024" (available for pre-order now, for delivery early in the New Year!) with Mark. Was a lot of fun, thanks for having us on Mark.

Jonathan Freedland has been consistently right about so many issues. In this he is spot-on. Left-wing antisemitism is intolerable. Right-wing antisemitism should be equally intolerable but the Jewish Chronicle and others have not shown the same level of outrage- there is clear and unhelpful bias.

There has been a strong reaction to the antisemitism allegations levelled at Nigel Farage - except from those you might have expected to condemn it most loudly. My piece for @jewishnews.bsky.social on a strange silence www.jewishnews.co.uk/jonathan-fre...

Tory Hereditary Peers turned out en masse to vote down a Manifesto commitment to strengthen workplace rights. 33 voted in a division lost by 24. Time for the unelected Lords to get out of the way and pass the Employment Rights Bill #stoptheblock 🛑 www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

See my full statement and complete the consultation: www.alexsobel.co.uk/post/immigra...

I want to reiterate my belief that we should view people seeking asylum & other migrants as human beings. We need to move away from rhetoric that pits communities against one another. Refugees & asylum seekers do not make Britain weaker. They enrich it, economically, culturally & socially.

The Ping Pong Cats are back! The House of Lords is now debating the Employment Rights Bill AGAIN. It's time for opposition Lords to do the right thing - get out of the way and pass the Bill so working people can feel the benefit.

An electoral system that awards power in such an arbitrary way is not just unfair, it’s deeply dangerous. The Labour government needs to wake up and smell the coffee. Without a proportional system we could gift the government to the far right.

Once more for the haters...

Bank of England expects budget will cut inflation by up to half a percentage point

#London this evening. I do wish people wouldn’t tell lies about my city.

Absolutely right. Too many multinationals view fines as an inconvenient operating expense- or just fail to pay. I don’t believe Musk’s X has any intention of abiding by any EU rules or making any attempt to prevent disinformation, slander or abuse or any other harmful posts.

My preference, over significant fines which might be paid or ignored, is an intervention to secure compliance, with a clear deadline for having a legally compliant complaints system. The licence to operate should be in doubt if the action plan is not sufficient.

Excellent article by Emma Harrison, CEO of Make Votes Matter - www.opendemocracy.net/en/uk-needs-...

And beyond that we need a proportional electoral system which does not force voters to guess which party might be best placed to defeat the candidate they most fear and despise, but allows them to vote for who they really believe in and have that vote count. @labour4pr.bsky.social

Farage's base is around 30%. The issue, under FPTP, is how the other 70% is distributed. The leaders won't do deals but the voters will need to follow the example of Caerphilly if we are to avoid a Reform government.

The only principled stance is to punish Russia into retreat: militarily, economically, diplomatically. Let the future imperialists see what becomes of invaders.

***There should be a £100,000 cap on individual donations to political parties*** We should all be concerned that wealthy individuals are accounting for a growing share of party funding 🧵

Christopher Harborne’s £9m donation to Reform is record-breaking, but comes in the context of more millionaires donating to political parties than ever before. The only real solution is for the government to introduce a cap on how much any one individual can donate in a given year.

Welcome to slot-machine Britain! Our cover this week is on First Past the Post, the voting system that turns multi-party politics into a lottery. Featuring our new modelling of British elections: www.economist.com/interactive/...

Telling that she couldn’t even get a GB News show.

X is every bit as dangerous for UK democracy now as Goebbels’s propaganda was in the 1930s

X is clearly in systemic breach of its UK legal obligations too, if the issue were looked into by those with the legal responsibility to scrutinise & secure compliance

Labour launch ambitious Child Poverty Strategy, promising around 550,000 children will be lifted out of poverty by 2030 and deliver Labour's 'moral mission'.

🎰 “When First Past the Post collides with multiparty competition, the electoral slot machine spins into operation” ⚠️ A stark warning from the @economist.com that the “unfairness of FPTP could undermine the legitimacy of the governments it produces”

This is vile and so so wrong. GB News is the TV version of X. Extreme racism like this should not be platformed as ‘news.’ It is absolutely disgusting and another attempt to drag ‘debate’ to the right and destabilise our democracy.

left platforms Ischenko (and fine, he deserves to be heard) while ignoring the leftists who disagree with the STW line. Don't ignore them. This isn't about me pushing my article, but about ensuring Ukrainian left wing voices are listened to, not spoken over. www.opendemocracy.net/en/from-fron...