As Labour announce they’ll ban trail hunting, man in Barbour jacket and mustard trousers accuses them of being out of touch with public: www.bbc.com/news/article...

This could also be defined as the nerd/jock theory of Prime Ministers.

Labour Together is so bad for Labour. It's run like the worst Tory think tanks and ends up proposing policies that wouldn't be out of place from them. They've also developed a routine of being seemingly deliberately contrarian and so are believed to be 'clever' enough to be worth listening to.

Absolutely shocking. We're offering an overall award of £10k for information that leads to a conviction in these cases. We need to make raptor persecution a thing of the past.

In yet more evidence that No 10 doesn't do The Grid very well, today we've had: -UK-South Korea trade deal -Rejoining Erasmus -Launching BBC Charter Renewal -Employment Rights Bill passed -Biggest planning reforms for a decade -Independent inquiry into foreign interference in elections

Love a visualisation stat, but "a combined area across England the size of Windsor forest" surely won't mean much to anyone who lives more than an hour from Windsor.

In this map of greenhouse gas emissions per hectare of peat, the Fens in the UK stand out as an angry red blob. The Fens are a carbon bomb. To defuse it, we need to pressure its landowners, like the Church Commissioners. (Via @annieleymarie.bsky.social) Study: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The scale of the alienation being doled out by Starmer and his dismal little crew is creating an ever more unbridgeable gulf with progressive voters. We are being lost to the Labour Party forever and all time, living on completely different moral continents thousands of miles apart

Who better to talk about the civil service than a man who’s never had a proper job and has zero idea what government workers actually do? Everything is easy when you don’t know what the fuck you are talking about.

Tells you a lot about so many decisions by Labour at the moment. How can Starmer not see the logical inconsistency between 'decisions for the long term and scrapping regulations that protect nature? Which is the definition of a problem that needs long-term solutions.

this is one of those observations that's clarifying and also makes me want to cry

Reeves’s planning overhaul stalls as senior adviser quits after four months

The kind of money that could be funding transformational big ideas like the Tropical Forests Forever Facility.

Storks and beavers are being re-introduced to London! 💚 A brilliant step towards more green spaces. We agree with @london.gov.uk, we all need a daily dose of nature on our doorstep, great to see London taking the lead. 👏 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

You're the government. Change the broken law. www.bbc.com/news/article...

When JK Rowling says jump, every court and craven politician in the UK says "how high?" We're now at a point where JK Rowling gets to decide which children get to live their childhoods. Not the kids or their parents, just this monstrous, billionaire bigot, a bloated tick on our body politic.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... performative cruelty.

Wait. Has Mamdani hired people with actual expertise in the subject rather than just someone who happened to work for an aligned think tank? Labour could learn a thing or two.

"We got everything we wanted and it's terrible"

It's such a bizarre framing. Labour MPs think taking 450k kids out of poverty is putting the country first! That's why they wanted it to happen! It's not because they personally benefit.

The food system doesn't need reform, it needs revolution.

Forgetting the very recent lessons of Rishi Sunak proposing a more daft version of this, I can totally imagine No 10 copying it within the next 12 months on the basis of focus group support for reintroducing national service. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

HMT are so committed to the future of ODA they both got the name wrong *and* couldn't even be bothered to spellcheck that bit of the budget document.

Since 2011 fuel duty freeze has cost the Treasury a whopping £133bn and added to yet more climate emissions. Freezing it yet again is reckless & irresponsible #budget2025

Also looks like ECO is to be axed from April. Big question as to what fills the gap. Some analysts said cutting it would take energy efficiency funding back to levels seen under Tory government.

Shabana Mahmood's proposal to stop being told to "go back home" is to send people "home". Her proposal to stop black and brown people from feeling like they don't belong, is to bake in to the immigration system that they will never belong.

There isn't a speaking element of the English A-Level, so literally what does it mean to "speak English to A-level standard"? Not to mention the millions of British citizens who would fail all four of these criteria. It's nonsense.

From @philipjcowley.bsky.social - thanks to a happy coincidence we have a much more rigorous than usual understanding of the impact of Keir Starmer's "Island of Strangers" speech. As Cowley puts it "It is not obvious this was the intended outcome"

Nature isn’t a “blocker” – it makes our lives better. Our coast, countryside, heritage and wildlife underpin our food, water and health and put millions of pounds into the economy. The Government must not weaken the laws that protect them.

Strange interaction this. Seemingly the Tory position is that #COP30 exists for Ed Miliband's self-promotion but multilateral initiatives like TFFF are good.

Should have done it ages ago, partly stayed to save money on a conference pass. But I've left the Labour Party. They had the chance to change a broken economic model for good for climate, nature, and the most vulnerable people in society. They have failed too often in too short a time.

Only middle class professionals think about how to use tax incentives to minimise their tax bill!

Q: Why can’t the UK do more rail electrification? A: because it is too expensive Q: why is rail electrification so expensive in the UK? A: because we do so little of it 🤪 Welcome to the treasury logic that prevents sensible rail electrification investment, with your guide @noeldolphin.bsky.social

Starmer said: “The greater our collective ambition, the more progress we make in tackling the climate crisis, and the greater the opportunities we create.” Then he did nothing to raise collective ambition.

How could No 10 let something like this happen? They will have had sign off on William's speech. They could have found the money to invest in the fund.

PM at COP truly giving one of his worst performances.

Important thread here on the possibility of scrapping ECO. I would add that when ECO was cut in 2013, 10,000 people lost their jobs. That's more than 3 times as many than Scunthorpe steel works and a whopping 20 times more than Grangemouth oil refinery

If I was advising Reeves I'd say have a whole transport section to the budget where you also reintroduce the fuel duty escalator, tax short haul and frequent fliers, and set out how all this extra revenue will support cheaper bus and train fares, active travel and new/bigger EV grants for businesses

"We want to save you £170 a year off your bills by cutting the thing that could save you £300 a year off your bills". Same as every government policy decision of the last 15 years, cutting the investment today that would provide a long-term fix your problems. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Can't believe UK PM would fly all way to the #COP30 #climate summit in Amazon to tell Lula he's not backing his flagship forest protection plan. Diplomacy 101... must be something in cooker... (apart from planet)

We must urgently pass the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill. Without it, the UK risks losing a seat at the table in key discussions affecting British wildlife. Our seabirds and other species are in decline—let’s pass this Bill and fight to protect them.

This government should stop just doing everything big businesses want every time they're asked and start doing things that are actually in the interests of society.

The Global Tipping Points Report is clear: without urgent climate action, damage to nature could be irreversible. 🚨 But it's not too late to stop the destruction. Tell your MP we need action at #COP30 - for the Amazon, for nature, for our world. 🌎👉 https://ow.ly/C9nB50X9Fjg#COP30

Rosebank forced to admit its climate impact would be 50x greater than it initially claimed. Clear evidence that this climate-wrecking oil field must never be developed www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Email your MP (again) to ask them to tell the government (again) that they need to pull their finger our and protect forests at COP30. I've been at WWF 5.5 years and I can't believe I've had to run basically the same e-action every year. Help me make it the last time! www.wwf.org.uk/act/living-p...

Just re-reading Kemi Badenoch's Conference speech, and isn't this bit just a bit funny? It's really not clear what the policy is on climate action - do they want to scrap the CCC? Carbon budgeting in general? or just Net Zero in particular? These lines are just slogans with no actions attached.

Captain it's Wednesday

Reform polling falls back when Reform (and their priority issues) don't get wall-to-wall coverage all summer shock! I am once again asking Labour to stop talking about immigration as being a bad thing.

We're putting more money into destroying forests than protecting them. We are losing our precious ecosystems for short-term financial gains. This needs to stop. It's time our world leaders step up, and what better time to do it than #COP30 in Brazil.

ONLY migrants though, no one else is to study English because it's a rip off and a waste of time, am I getting this right.