Suspect this has a lot to do with him being de-selected by his local party in favour of an Asian woman.

“You cannot respond to illegality with more illegality, because that is how humanity’s great disasters begin". Sanchez has a point.....

Genius

*Representation of the People Bill update* Steve Reed has just announced: 'We will repeal in full the power for government to impose a strategy and policy statement on the Electoral Commission'. A very welcome change. I set out last week why it was needed. constitution-unit.com/2026/02/26/t...

Trump threatens to halt trade with Spain because its govt refused military base access. The felon demands obedience and has tantrums when sovereign govts refuse to be part of his illegal war. Tariff/Military wars are part of his delusions of world domination. More need to resist.

And another thing, why is Radio 4 continuing to give Matthew Syed a series (Sideways)? Cod philosophy, cod psychology, airwave grifting. Shite.

'And you're no FDR, so you can F off President'...

This

Tonight's episode is particularly shit.

Bloody hell, Silent Witness is a bit shit these days, isn't it?

Very good piece on why (most) politicians are unimpressive these days without falling into the 'they were so much better in my day' trope (although they probably were!).

Among the many, many reasons this is nuts: the bulk of British Muslims are Sunni, while Iran is a Shia theocracy. Sunni-Shia rivalry and mutual hostility goes back roughly a thousand years and has played as large a role (if not larger) as Protestant-Catholic rivalry/conflict in Europe

Good overview of Hayek fivebooks.com/best-books/f...

Said it before and I'll say it again. The world was lucky between 2016 and 2020. Crises, bar the pandemic, were containable and there was at least some adult supervision. This time, no guardrails, no grown-ups. Just Trump.

You cannot talk like this about any other minority in America. And if it was any other president’s adviser who said something like this about any other minority, it’d be the instant end of their presidency.

Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez: “Today more than ever, it is essential to remember that one can be against a hateful regime as is the case with the Iranian regime…and at the same time be against an unjustified, dangerous military intervention outside of international law.”

I do struggle to understand Shabana Mahmood: if this was what she came into politics to do, why was it the Labour Party that attracted her? Throughout most of the last 20 years, the Conservatives would've been a much more obvious fit. If it's not, why's she doing it so zealously?

There’s no crime against the law or morality so gross that it doesn’t have an honoured place within the US administration.

Trump is now saying that he is ready to restart negotiations with the Iranian regime and is walking back support for a popular uprising. www.theatlantic.com/national-sec...

Trump is accelerating the world’s slow drift from dollar dominance | Heather Stewart

Great compilation. Get it while you can.

This is important - Ref got almost exactly what you'd expect a Conservative replacement party to get, in a seat they would never need or expect to win.

My experience of the upper echelons of the Labour Party involved being condescended to by the incredibly thick & unpleasant, & thinking that in any other walk of life you would get punched in the mouth for treating people like that. Impossible to overstate how high on their own fumes they are.

A good overview. Also includes sound advice for Labour should it wish to revive its fortunes. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...

They might as well call it Operation Tiny Penis. Pathetic.

Two deeply unpopular political leaders are bombing a deeply unpopular regime… none of them care about their citizens.

"Labour has to abandon its current strategy or else face total wipeout at the next election. Trying to compete with Reform on immigration six days a week, then half-heartedly condemning them on the seventh and hoping that’ll do has just pissed off anyone voting for either of the alternatives."

They preach sovereignty then demand vassalage

There is always a tweet.

The Board of Peace is bored of peace.

Greens targeting certain parts of a constituency is 'sectarian' but others using the phrase and targeting the 'white working class' are not? Do me a favour.

Uncomfortable moment for European populists - especially if US intervention drags the country into a quagmire or otherwise goes wrong. The longer the second Trump presidency goes on, the bigger a liability he is posing to likeminded parties in Europe.

This is the crux of it, looking at both Tory and Labour reactions to the by-election. The reactions might be ethically wrong (that’s politics) but they’re also tactically stupid. And to see tactically stupid behaviours over and over… you’re left wondering about a basic lack of political ability.

The irony is Reform's leader literally cosplays as a man of the people with his pint and fag but faced with a genuine working class politician they lose their shit

Sunder is right. By applying the label “extremist” to a young woman plumber who talks about how we should all be neighbours & be able to afford food & holidays, Starmer is taking all the power out of the term, benefitting only Reform. At this point Starmer’s incompetence is becoming (more) dangerous

Really getting very dangerously close to "rightwing forces refuse to acccept result of election" here. Really very close.

So far I've come up with one rational explanation for Labour's response, which is that maybe Reeves has placed a significant amount of Treasury funds on a very specific accumulator about this May's elections, including Labour losing all their London councils and finishing fifth on projected vote.

Anyone who thinks this is going to go down like the Maduro raid is either smoking crack or would improve themselves by picking up the habit

Private Eye very good this week on Fleet St hindsight

'Like other conservatives over the centuries, rightwing populists offer a way for people to object to shifts in the status quo while erasing any uncomfortable thoughts about their complicity'. Andy Beckett in the Guardian.

Btw this is the real one today, impossible to parody

The current argument of the British right is that Muslims turned out in "blocs" with "family voting" to cast their ballots for a party led by a gay Jewish man, and this shows that multiculturalism has failed, voting is "sectarian" and we are in a crisis. Hmmmmmm.

One of the oddities of British politics today is how both major parties have come to misunderstand what their potential voters actually want

Astounding statement on *so* many levels

I can’t believe the people one candidate doesn’t consider British voted tactically against him

Reads like the electorate have let the Conservative Party down very badly.

Starmer doubling down on the ridiculous anti-Green line is not a good look.

turns out McSweeney and the Blue Labour gang were wrong and the out of touch woke liberal elite Bluesky echo chamber bubble was right

There are going to be a lot of over-confident claims made about the realignment of British politics. The reality is far messier and the processes have been underway for a long-time.

In more worrying news...