Another scorching day. The Climate Change Committee's ratings on how ready the UK is for climate change. 🟥 Red: Insufficient 🟧 Orange: Limited 🟨 Yellow: Partial 🟩 Green: Good Delivery: 0 good. Policies/plans: just 3. We're sleepwalking into this... but hard to sleep in the heat. 🧵 1/2

Today has been the hottest day in May on record with Kew Gardens provisionally reaching 34.8°C - exceeding the previous highest May temperature in the UK by a full 2 degrees Celsius🌡️ This heat would be exceptional in the UK even in mid summer, let alone in May📈

London has committed to eliminating all road deaths and serious injuries by 2041 - but #carspreading is putting that at risk 🚗 ⬆️ Around a third of cars on London’s roads are now larger SUVs, making streets more dangerous, especially for children.

Nice to come across the RASF in London this week: rasf.eu

Corker of a story this, great photos, and a clear solution www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Know a UK-based campaigner who could use £20k of support? Voila: www.tenaciousawards.org/about-the-ca... (the funder is particularly keen on campaigns around corporate accountability, preventable deaths, and Scottish issues)

🔴 14 Government Reforms the Media Has Largely Ignored Over Recent Weeks You probably won’t have read much about these announcements. Some of that is understandable. But not all of it. bylinetimes.com/2026/04/10/1...

Loads of stuff going on in the UK Democracy Bulletin this month: ukdemocracynetwork.medium.com/uk-democracy.... A personal fave — someone looking at the elections to the board of (the 16m-member-strong!) Nationwide building society: james4nationwide.co.uk

Remember to be wary, as today is the only day of the year that incorrect or misleading information is posted on the internet.

“An offence to speak out against a genocidal state that we are aiding and abetting. When people speak out against it they get labelled as terrorists”. “That’s the British state. That’s the situation we’re in.” The first of eighteen arrests today outside New Scotland Yard.

🚨Gov announces a moratorium on crypto donations and donation caps on overseas voters These are two positive steps for our democracy. But as Steve Goodrich highlights, "big money from a UK-based mega-donor poses the same risk to the integrity of our politics as from one based overseas". More ⤵️

Good to see campaigns for compulsory voting catch on globally

Three excellent things have just happened: 1) the Rycroft Review of pol finance has been published 2) govt is implementing key changes with immediate effect 3) those changes got cross-party support in the Commons. Careful scrutiny of the detail will now be essential. www.gov.uk/government/p...

What is Emmanuel Grégoire, the new Paris mayor, planning for the city over his new term in office? —60,000 new social housing units —15 express bus routes —Completion of city's full bike network —Transformation of ring highway into a boulevard —1000 new pedestrian streets —300 new hectares of parks

who could have predicted this

The Government must immediately ban political donations made through cryptocurrency until firm rules can be developed, to keep UK politics safe from illicit finance, cross-party Committee finds committees.parliament.uk/committee/11...

VICTORY! Government to open up the Land Registry - bringing to an end a thousand years of secrecy shrouding who owns England. I’ve been campaigning for this for ten years: the new Land Use Framework, published later today, makes it government policy. 1/ www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Very belatedly, I've made my 2025 annual donation(s!). I blog about it mostly to keep me accountable, but also to see if you might be tempted to join me... joe-mitchell.com/2026/03/13/w...

Never realised why lots of newspapers were called the Post… great piece: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

It's time for a UK local news fund. Happy to have played a small part in this superb report on what the UK's fund should learn from successful such funds around the world: www.publicinterestnews.org.uk/blog/whats-t...

MASHED POTATO!

Disagree Ed. Maybe need to adjust your sett

It’s time to end Britain’s first-past-the-post election lottery ft.trib.al/ba3mQJ6 | opinion

I'd missed this from last year, but it's great — the economic case for compulsory voting: samf.substack.com/p/is-low-tur...

@electheruk.bsky.social Hiya! Do you have any resources on how to be a useful ally? How to best ask someone to stand for example? Or do I just send them your way!?

The workload facing MPs and their staff is growing, in ways that aren't visible to the public: casework and the inbox. For @thehousemag.bsky.social, I delved into what the workload looks like, why it's growing, and what this means for how MPs can balance the different aspects of their role

Want to do something about corruption in politics, while making it harder for corrupt criminals to launder their stolen wealth? I have great news: 📢 We're hiring! 🎉 @transparencyuk.bsky.social is looking for a new Advocacy Officer to join our team. Apply now www.transparency.org.uk/who-we-are/w...

Still reckon they're terrorists, Mr Starmer? www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

If the disease is susceptibility to wealth and power perhaps the treatment is limits on wealth and power. Or are we going to carry on being intensely relaxed about all this?

I think I might take one of these "under 20 minutes" AI skills courses the UK Govt. seems very keen on everyone doing and live-post it here... Maybe we can all learn something together! The press release sends me to aiskillshub.org.uk/aiskillsboost/ - let's go and see!

"The next time you go to Las Vegas, you’ll notice that there are no 13-year-olds in the casinos. The reason is not because a series of longitudinal studies proved to the satisfaction of the gaming industry that gambling causes anxiety and depression." www.platformer.news/social-media...

The @nationaltrust.org.uk has received the biggest cash donation in its 131-year history as philanthropist Humphrey Battcock has pledged £10m in unrestricted funding to the charity

Join us as we launch our latest report, identifying the points where crucial data on election donations gets lost in the system. This is a free, online event, part of our WhoFundsThem project looking into money in politics. Reserve your spot: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/mysociety-... #democracy #anticor

I love that “family” is the unit of measurement given here, as though we all gather around the small screen to read the Twitters of an evening

Just listened to Ruby Tandoh (from Bake Off back in the day) explain why bubble tea is a thing! I always wondered... www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Swiss public service, 1945:“What do we city dwellers really know about the work performance of a rural mail carrier,who does not know the 8-hour workday,who,all year round, in any weather,heat&cold,often heavily loaded, has to cover 30+km & is paid significantly less for it than his urban colleague”

NEW: Without USAID funding to help buy food for refugees, the World Food Program rushed to prioritize families based on need, determining that only half the population would get food. Refugees learned which half they were in from a number stamped on the back of their ration card.

Yes, *that* Jose Gonzalez! 🔴🔵🐸 🟡🟢⚫️🌁🌇 🎸📺

Good morning! Good news if you were thinking of applying for a Tenacious Journalist Award, but were worried it was going to interfere with your mince pie consumption rate — the deadline is now Friday 9 January 2026! 📆 www.tenaciousawards.org/about-the-jo...

Working from London this Weds, Thurs, and next Mon if anyone wants to offer free desk space / lunch recommendations / Lizzie Line vouchers.

Around two thirds of Reform's money has come from overseas | me with @catneilan.bsky.social 📰 observer.co.uk/news/politic...

Yesterday @pippacrerar.bsky.social reported in @theguardian.com that Keir Starmer is about to appoint another set of peers, including 25 Labour. Later Aubrey Allegretti in @thetimes.com suggested there would be 33 new peers in total. Three problems with this 🧵⤵️ www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

This fetid landmark, this historical stain on humanity is primarily due to the stunningly reckless obliteration of America's foreign assistance agency earlier this year. Led by the richest man on earth. In secret, on a weekend. With zero analysis or discussion of its catastrophic impacts.

Here's an excellent bit of arts/cultural spending mapping (try, e.g. Arts Council England funding per head... pretty stark!) culture.localinsight.org#/

I don’t want to get all conspiracy theorist, but it’s pretty suspicious that the @fairphone.com website consistently doesn’t work on an iPhone…

Last time I was at London City Hall it was in an armadillo nr HMS Belfast. Life comes at you fast. Here for the GLA25 event - to talk about role of local news in keeping mayors on their toes. Can’t find a hashtag..

Net migration fell sharply agaim to 204,000 in the year to June 2025, having been 344k in 2024 and 848k in 2023. But falling immigration has been the biggest secret - and it is time for the media and political debate to catch up with this change www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cn...

For any budding journalists in the south west, here's your chance! www.theprsd.co.uk/2025/10/29/r... (via @theprsd.bsky.social and @totnespulse.bsky.social and @westcountryvoices.bsky.social)

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

Happy 30th birthday to Shetland News! 🎂 👏 🎉