🔥 Top opportunity for a brilliant comms person with our good friends at Spotlight on Corruption.

on the off chance any followers have done London to Turkey by train along the seat61 route, what's it like?

sickosyes.jpg youtu.be/u5ozNRUW7Kw?...

FWIW one prediction I have is the 2024 general election's gambling stories will return to the UK through polymarket etc.

‘Not so clever after all’: how Robert Jenrick was ejected before he defected Our read on extraordinary day for the right of British politics: ☎️ Kemi Badenoch’s last one-on-one conversation with her former justice sec 🕵️‍♂️ How the Tory leader first heard of his defection - and what happened next

The single biggest thing (in cost terms) I’ve changed my mind about is UK tuition fees. Dreadful system, need to scrap it.

Top reporting on Jenrick’s defection from Guardian lobby team www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

A Reform staffer grabbed ITV News journalist Peter Smith when he asked questions its new Scottish leader didn’t appreciate. You can watch the footage here: www.itv.com/news/2026-01...

Would be very funny if Jenrick was plotting to defect but not to Reform as everyone has supposed, given that Badenoch has not explicitly said to which party it would be… ed davey must come clean about his secret talks

William Morris, chair of @uni-greatermcr.bsky.social’s board – the most influential person at the university - has resigned It comes after we reported a curious arrangement in which his wife Baroness Morris runs a company that has charged the university millions manchestermill.co.uk/first-the-vi...

Jed Mercurio surely rewriting a Line of Duty script as we speak

Shocking investigation from my colleague @maevemcclenaghan.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

‘Outside Venezuela, many of the millions who have left the country were gladdened by Maduro’s downfall. But it’s not clear that his overthrow will benefit them either. If anything, it may make their predicament worse.’ Tony Wood in the next issue, online early. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

20 years behind but the BBC’s State of Play… brilliant.

🔴Tony Blair Institute talks lots about democracy But his week I contacted them for comment on this story The response? "You are an organisation with a long-standing and partisan anti-TBI agenda and we will not engage with your disingenuous questions." democracyforsale.substack.com/p/blair-bids...

Exclusive: 34 school contemporaries of Nigel Farage have now come forward to claim they saw him behave in a racist or antisemitic manner, raising fresh questions over the Reform leader’s evolving denials.

THE GUARDIAN: 'Go back home': now 34 ex-pupils accuse Farage of racist behaviour #TomorrowsPapersToday

Another eight pupils at Nigel Farage's school accuse him of racism. One says he was called a "Paki" and told to "go back home" by Farage, who was three years older than him. New names say they spoke up after being angered by Farage's denials www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Exclusive: 34 school contemporaries of Nigel Farage have now come forward to claim they saw him behave in a racist or antisemitic manner, raising fresh questions over the Reform leader’s evolving denials.

The New York Times states it plainly in display type: Videos Contradict Trump Administration Account of ICE Shooting in Minneapolis

Updated again: www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

🎯

If the UK government had a Culture Secretary, that person would be in a position to take a view about whether child porn on demand was a good thing, or a bad thing. thecritic.co.uk/brin...

Nigel Farage calls the accusations of racism and antisemitism against him when he was at school "complete made-up fantasy", saying his accusers have political motivations, and he will not apologise. This is yet another shift in his position.

numbercrunching: E is the most frequent letter in morgan mcswEEnEy and there are three of those

Revealed: oil industry lobbyist working inside UK’s climate department: open.substack.com/pub/abolishw... <- by me

Found this book on the Iranian revolution very interesting - www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

Amid all the Venezuela fallout, spare a thought for the poor Barclays analyst who downgraded Venezuelan debt a mere 14 hours before Maduro was ousted, citing the low likelihood of a political transition. full alphaville here: www.ft.com/content/bbc4... with help from @robinwigglesworth.ft.com

"incontinent patronage" 👌

Just a few more days left to apply for the Paul McLean graduate trainee programme at the FT. This is an amazing opportunity for any aspiring journalist job-boards.greenhouse.io/financialtim...

Thousands of surveillance reports compiled by #spycops undercover police officers who spied on political campaigners were routinely passed to MI5 www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Set out six months ago to investigative some dubious evictions. Ended up writing a sprawling story spread over 450 years about London property deals, the ethics of money lending, Tommy Robinson, Barbary pirates, Jacobean earls, and wealth in the capital. www.londoncentric.media/p/henry-smit...

Fantastic piece this on one of the most painful things that has ever happened to me (yes, I know I've had a charmed life):

‘Of course he abused pupils’: ex-Dulwich teacher speaks out about Farage racism claims www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...

mesmerising video

Only issue with Midnight Mass is that having sung “word of the father” the rest of the day can only go downhill - merry Christmas

properly published now but congratulations to the NAO employee for so quickly getting a job with the FBI in charge of file uploads

‘As for the “open” bit, forget it – that aspect of Open AI’s mission was quietly forgotten. Any discoveries the company might make were now proprietary.’ John Lanchester on the AI bubble. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Onions (in four parts)

Ideal listening into the weekend and the Christmas break - youtu.be/6sHbetTA7qA

Some people might say she couldn't sink any lower but I have faith in her - you go Liz, plumb those depths www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

In the future the British state will consist solely of public inquiries funded by corporation tax on Games Workshop, Rolls Royce and OnlyFans

The Trump trail has taken me to Gibraltar. To answer a question: Why did the son of the most powerful man on the planet show up at a law firm in a tiny British outpost one Friday this November looking for money? @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

A major Tory donor has been sanctioned in the UK and EU for his alleged role in the Russian oil trade. The oil magnate Murtaza Lakhani was hit with a UK asset freeze and travel ban on the grounds that his activities were assisting Russia. www.thetimes.com/uk/law/artic...

Downing Street have unilaterally announced they are cancelling one of the two daily No 10 "lobby" media briefings and will at times replace the other with a ministerial press conference. The lobby system has its drawbacks but it very much holds No 10 to account, so this will reduce scrutiny a lot.

Quite a few days behind but this is really a brilliant piece of storytelling. You can feel the tension especially towards the end. www.ft.com/content/cd59...