🚨Major conference🚨 We're publishing a new book – combining analysis and policy work with in-depth conversations to understand the needs of lower income families – and hosting a major conference to discuss, with keynote speeches from Andy Burnham and Ken Murphy. Register now➡️ buff.ly/2tG8LsY

Just returned from a very cold weekend in Ukraine. During this time Russia targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as temperatures plummeted. Russia also bombed houses and ambulance staff responding.

We've done a Quiet Riot starter pack for all those (finally!) heading over from the other place. bsky.app/starter-pack...

More appalling news from dystopia central www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Your irregular reminder that Donald Trump does not 'control' or 'run' Venezuela (yet). It is still run by the same government as before, minus their leader. Trump may be focussed on threatening Greenland, Cuba, Colombia etc, but he still hasn't done anything except an abduction in Venezuela.

The actions of the Trump administration are so electorally suicidal in the context of the mid-terms and his efforts at messing with systems so cackhanded you have to wonder whether his circle actually wants a confrontation between executive and legislative branches in the style of early 1990s Russia

Trump is ready to grab Greenland. The EU should move first – and offer it membership | Robert Habeck and Andreas Raspotnik

Feels too like there’s a serious danger for Reform in accepting too many Tory defections. Hard to accuse the Conservatives of being the same old faces who screwed everything up in the first place when half of those faces are on your team now.

Breaking: Ofcom launches probe into Elon Musk's X over Grok deepfake images www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...

Major incident declared as 30,000 homes left without water in Kent and Sussex

I don't disagree with any of the charges of opportunism, but it is quite a moment in terms of 'making Nigel Farage less scary' that someone who wrote they would be scared to live in a country run by him is now saying he should be prime minister. Our cordon sanitaire is a bad way.

There seems to be an inverse correlation between the amount of time someone holds one of the great offices of state and their brazen lack of shame afterwards.

Farage gets all defensive and flappy when Zahawi is asked about vaccines. - "We believe in free speech." - "I was asking Mr Zahawi." - "He wouldn't know the answer." Ah yes. The sort of 'free speech' that Trump's White House believes in. ~AA

Millions of Americans Are Expected To Drop Their Affordable Care Act Plans. They’re Looking for a Plan B kffhealthnews.org/news/article...

'Doctors, scientists, and public health experts have urged the World Health Organization, @who.int, to recommend that healthcare workers wear respirators in every encounter in all healthcare settings.' @trishgreenhalgh.bsky.social @martinmckee.bsky.social @bmj.com www.bmj.com/content/392/...

Though there will still be some night frost this week, daytime temperatures will be higher than of late They will hover near average in the north, whilst often being above average further south

‘Fear of the next deluge’: flood-scarred Britons join forces to demand help

Children’s services in Newham are judged outstanding (continuing strong performance by boroughs across London) reports.ofsted.gov.uk/provider/44/...

One of the few things that might actually get some kind of reaction from Musk would be the government and all MPs simply leaving X. This doesn't require regulatory or legal action. There are no barriers. They could *and should* just do it.

Translation: "I would like a job please"

"More and more, Reform UK looks simply as if the Tories ran off stage, then came back on two minutes lates, wearing a comedy moustache-and-glasses disguise." A rebranding exercise of the most established party masquerading as anti-establishment that shows total contempt for voters. ~AA

Liz Kendall to give a Commons statement today on online regulation. She wrote this Telegraph piece, calling this a tipping point. I'd like to hear govt + the regulator show that they are taking the full range of unlawful content seriously - not just one strand www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01...

Question for public opinion researchers/pollsters on here - is the link between actually observed crime and perceptions of crime weaker now than it used to be? Or are we just seeing and hearing more from those who believe crime is rising regardless of what's actually happening?

The narrative about London crime is truly so BORING to Londoners. Those of us who walk & travel around our city safely every day, every night. The likeliest daily risk to Londoners is of being ripped off by our landlord or somewhere charging us £4.50 for a coffee. #r4today

Follow the people that help shape the work of Britain's leading cross-party think tank - with a mission to enable markets and government to work together to benefit society. 👉 Check out our starter pack of SMF researchers & associated Senior Fellows: go.bsky.app/Kpjs1G7

Falls in the number of pupils have been hitting schools in London for a number of years - but now the problem is reaching beyond the capital. It's a story of birthrates, housing, funding and disruption. By me, for @schoolsweek.bsky.social schoolsweek.co.uk/how-falling-...

Why are a persistent proportion of NHS hospital beds being occupied by patients who have already completed their treatment? Our researcher Emma Dodsworth told the BBC that factors include the complexity of individual cases, the lack of NHS and social care integration, and the ageing UK population.

Three-fifths of employers pay statutory sick pay or less to care workers if they are off due to sickness. SSP should be raised across the board. This would help all workers - including those in adult social care who receive SSP or less. ➡️ buff.ly/veEOJFN

Whilst the government were crowing about making the UK 'the safest place in the world to go online' and the media were accepting all kinds of claims about the Online Safety Act, those of us who know the field were warning you...

UK threatens action against X over sexualised AI images of women and children www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

ICE's Killing Of Renee Good Mirrors 2 Similar Instances In Illinois, Gov. Pritzker Says

Little noticed point - but an important one. 👏 @morganj0nes.bsky.social

The risk now is that Trump will sell out the Iranian protesters for a financial deal. He said last night Tehran had reached out for talks and today Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said lines to Trump envoy Steve Witkoff were open. Witkoff has already done his best to sell out Ukraine for a cash deal

Kemi, this is just a population density map

Extremely unusual that the Bluesky team is working late on a Sunday night to verify Canadian political parties and elected officials who are rumored to be mulling over a coordinated X ban with Australia and the UK. When there's smoke, there's fire.

Reform told you reducing council tax was easy. They just had to slash Woke policies, and a billion or two would be saved. They wouldn't even need to close care services. They promise you that. And then every single Reform-led council cut care services and increased council tax.

Quelle surprise... All 12 of Farage's Reform UK Ltd councils are increasing council tax Worcestershire has asked special permission to increase their tax by 10% Derbyshire, North Northamptonshire, West Northamptonshire and Leicestershire to the maximum 4.99% Kent and Staffordshire to 3.99%

The Fed and markets have a very serious problem ft.com/content/21b5...

So... I've created a starter pack of UK government organisations currently on Bluesky: go.bsky.app/JHsY1Wz (Currently includes all those listed under ministerial and non-ministerial departments here www.gov.uk/government/o... - let me know any I've missed, or got wrong)

Reading through the FT at the moment is a strange experience: revolution, war, disaster, brutal autocratic oppression, mad dictator shit....and then "markets continue to thrive"; "record profits".

British Tech Secretary Liz Kendall is expected to give a Commons statement after ministers voiced their disgust at sexualized deepfakes by X’s AI bot Grok. But will the strong words be followed up with action from the government? London Playbook has more 👇

'Khan said addressing the causes of serious violent crime, such as the effects of poverty and lack of opportunities, had been key, as had the work of the Violence Reduction Unit covering London that was set up in 2019, which took a longer term approach.'

All Reform councils to raise taxes despite campaign pledges Who would have guessed www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Labour Party friends: I cannot in good conscience vote for this agenda and nor should you

If you ever get the chance…visit ‘The museum of terror’ in Berlin…it charts the rise of the Nazi party in Germany 🇩🇪 during the early 20th century…relate that to the world today…there are many similarities!

Donald Trump's vision of Venezuela feeding an American empire of oil is a wager that years of talk about a global clean energy transition will come to nothing.

This is the sort of statement that was expected from every university president and law firm partner over the last year. That those statements weren’t made played a huge part in where we are now and people will remember.

NEW: The Palantirisation of the UK military is a national security disaster. Peter Thiel is now the third wheel in the US-UK ‘special relationship’. 1/ open.substack.com/pub/broligar...

The Khamenei regime can't use mass murder to bring inflation under control. If it's unable to quiet public anger through economic prosperity then each cycle of public revolt will become more violent until Iran goes down the path Syria went in 2011.

Worried about someone? Trust your instincts. Reach out. Asking about suicide can save a life. It’s okay to start the conversation. For tips on how, visit lpoolcouncil.info/ReachOutSP