Yet another man who dresses like a German spy caught within minutes of landing by parachute here in 1940.

*Farage removes all his clothes in public and takes a dump on the floor* Chris Mason: "some might say this is not the act of a PM in waiting but others note in today's politics the public appreciate authenticity."

No rush 😐

Your regular reminder that cryptocurrency does in fact have a use case and that use case is crime

This seems an interesting question. I think I know, you think you know, but it would be nice to see it investigated by the proper authorities…

Culture secretary Lisa Nandy says she and the DCMS as a department are leaving X, adding: "It isn't healthy for our democracy or our communities and I don’t want to support it." No Bluesky account yet though...

PS oh and despite the best efforts of Parliament we still have no idea who proposed getting rid of the UK Ambassador to the US, whom proposed Mandelson, who drew up the shortlist or who signed off on his appointment pre vetting? I am a bad person so I am much more suspicious of WhatsApp use ;)

I am genuinely excited about a PM who will be serious about devolution. If done right it could give people more sense of control about their locality; free up Whitehall to focus on big strategic issues; and make it harder for a future national govt to burn everything down.

There's nothing particularly pernicious about him. He's not biased or exploitative. He's just utterly mediocre. His success is evidence of a corporate culture that has completely lost its way.

been furious with Starmer for long enough that this is genuinely coming as a surprise to me, but I'm feeling a bit.......sad this morning? not really about him per se but about the waste of time, I guess, and the end of yet another political failure when Britain really couldn't afford another one

On the referendum day my reasons for voting remain were the opportunity cost of figuring out a deal and the economic hit. Both those things happened and were bad.

Broadly speaking: reality tv is bad for democracy, influencers are bad for democracy, streamers are bad for democracy, YouTubers are bad for democracy. Exceptions to all categories exist, but it’s astonishing how absolutely clogged our political and media ecosystems are with low-info narcissists

We have somehow built a society which treats people without capital as children into their 30s, but then as unemployably past it by their late 40s. The whole thing is completely fucking borked.

Time for me to repeat one of my ‘sayings’. If you try to solve a problem by passing a law, but people don’t obey the law, you now have two problems where you used to have one.

Guys, Starmer is in his Monkey Tennis era now, just throwing out unworkable proposals in the hope of catching the Labour party selectorate’s fancy. Best to just ignore him till he goes away.

Flashing back to saying before the election "at least Labour will actually try to govern and not just obsess over immigration gimmicks like Rwanda" and feeling that same sense of shame as when you call the teacher Mum.

A society where Government thinks it is powerful enough to parent from the centre but not powerful enough to properly regulate social media companies is really heading for the buffers.

Grant Naylor: In my tv series I invented the Talkie Toaster as a cautionary tale. Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Talkie Toaster from classic sci-fi TV episode Don't Create The Talkie Toaster.

content creation and image/video-based social media has melted people’s brains and everyone looks and sounds the same and it’s gross and boring

Instead we've got a government that still uses a site run by a foreign inciter of pogroms as its main communication channel.

We should build the defence strategy on the UK’s most successful military guide. Warhammer 40k. Reform voters are obviously the Death Korps of Krieg from the irradiated ruins of Clacton. Kyle and the rest of the AI monorail gang the Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarii.

John Healey is right. The UK is spending too little & failing to learn from Ukraine’s experience of modern war. And the Treasury shows no sign of interest in whether the UK can defend itself or not. A PM's priority should be to ensure the country's national security.

Yes to all of this, but also let's not forget Jeremy Hunt, laying a trap (that Labour shouldn't have walked into) that basically salted the earth and has left the country weaker and less able to defend itself as an electoral gimmick

The issue at the BBC is twofold: First a default to "reporting the controversy" where they just repeat the arguments without commentary. This often means, with the right, just uncritically repeating bigotry. The other is an overuse of the passive voice, meaning it's never clear who said/did what.

If your main concern is not upsetting a single South African billionaire rather than the safety and security of the country you're supposed to lead, then you're unfit for the job. Shameful weakness

The kind of incitement Musk is engaging in is classified as a threat to UK national security when it is operationalised by state actors like Russia or Iran. That should lead to the same kind of deterrent action from intelligence services and police but under Labour it won't.

It's bizarre that not more is being made of Tommy Robinson inciting murder on British streets from Putin's Russia.

Not to be all "what are you doing" but is there going to be any actual practical changes arising from a series of far right riots leaving people afraid and trapped in their own homes?

Russia is openly waging a form of hybrid warfare against us and this is part of it.

In the course of today, His Majesty’s Government will do both of the following things: - moan loudly about X and blame it for the grotesque scenes in Belfast; - create huge amounts of content for X to monetise To govern is to choose.

What are the Government, police and security services doing about the people who are quite clearly in the pay of a hostile foreign state, and using their platforms to whip up actual pogroms on our streets? This is a major national security issue and absolutely nothing seems to be happening about it

I genuinely believe that no society can survive if only hatred is seen as authentic and empathy in some way a performance.

Everyone on X and elsewhere who called for a violent response should be charged with incitement. Everyone involved in the pogrom should be locked up with exemplary sentences. Govt should make it clear that will be the response in future anywhere else. Enough.

would be nice if my concerns about racists, fascists, and a white supremacist, who’s called for the government to be overthrown, using his far-right skewed social media platform to spread hatred were seen as legitimate as racists’ concerns

Crucially, remaining on X is against the government's own interests! This has been palpably clear for nearly two years now...

This is actually ridiculously cute

Starmer project in a nutshell, that. Duck every actually hard choice by making bad choices instead, assuming that the electorate will reward you for cowardice in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

And yes, it was posted on X. Presumably to "take them on". A couple of dozen likes. In parallel, the PM has also found his voice. But it's all just running commentary. Musk, Palantir, the US NSS, Vance, Trump etc. No action. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Labour defending Twitter is a good example of why they are so ineffective in government: utterly unwilling to take decisions which have any controversy attached.

At this point it's basically pathlogical. The site is once again being used to whip up race riots and people with responsibility for national security are on it merrily whistling away.

Saw Richard Moore (ex Mi6) describing the late Sir Alex Younger (MI6) as 'high intelligence, low ego, driven' & thinking 1. exactly what you want in public life 2. how often in politics do you get it 3. do the people in politics who have it, too often end up losing out to the high ego guys

A reminder that crypto is an almost entirely parasitic industry, enabling crime, wasting the money of retail investors, energy and resources. We definitely do not need a national crypto reserve, the effect of which will be to tranfser taxpayers' £ to those already heavily invested in crypto.

Not sure why the news right now isn't full of the people obviously identifiable from riot footage getting door knocked and dragged out in their keks.

Regulation of social media is increasingly a public safety issue.

What an absolutely horrible day in the UK. A new low.

A reminder that the UK government can't even stop using X so there is no chance that they will confront the racists and far right.

Nothing is more important than ensuring the defeat of the far-right. Nothing.

EXCL: UK govt could force Britain’s crown dependencies and overseas territories to introduce greater transparency over the beneficial ownership of companies if progress continues to stall, PM’s anti-corruption champion Bns Margaret Hodge has warned

Fundamentally, we really should emphasise that Westminster has gone weird in a way that is utterly disconnected from the rest of the country.

Ok so don't borrow from them then, that's fine. Do it all with taxes, knock yerself out