My only Ann Widdecombe story..many moons ago,in a hurry in the House of Commons, I was sprinting along the corridor behind the Speaker's chair and the Commons chamber. I was going at full pelt to return to the Leader of the Opposition's office where I worked. 1/

Farage complains to the electrol committee that local residents in #Clacton are being intimidated by @countbinface.bsky.social activists

Restore Britain's Rupert Lowe has been heavily criticised after referring to the 1996 Dunblane massacre as "one murder" during a conversation about gun control on Joe Rogan's podcast www.holyrood.com/news/view,ru...

How The New York Times sees it....

Mitch McConnell recovery. First footage.

'...it is authentic anger', this lad's a mind-reader now

Calling a by-election over the sovereign right of every MP to take secret gifts from a convicted criminal. What a time to be alive.

Live to Nigel Farage announcement...

Tim Montgomery is a loon. #wato

Hang it in the Musée Magritte.

Belgium there....doing the rest of the world a favour.

USA 1. Belgium 4.

The Trump non-Midas effect strikes again..this time on a football pitch in Seattle. Everything the Mango Mussolini touches , turns to shit.

"We’re still fighting for this title and he’s got to go to Middlesbrough and get something. And I’ll tell you, honestly, I will love it if we beat them. Love it.”

I presume Paraguay will win the inaugural World Cup 'shithousery' award and that Infantino and Donald J Trump will personally present the award to the squad and the Uzbek referee Ilgiz Tantashev.

Same Uzbek ref that denied Scotland a pen in the Morocco game. Shocking. Paraguay v France.

'Zoinks.'

Man of the People.

Listening to the Morgan McSweeney interview on Nick Robinson's Political Thinking leaves me thinking, who was in charge of Starmer's Downing Street for most of his tenure.

Morgan 'needs to move on to a new chapter...'. Oh FFS.

Whose fucking fault do you think that was Morgan

Prediction...Nigel Farage won't be fronting up Reform UK at the next General Election..the 5m and other money/house portfolio questions aren't going away.

Watched I am Cuba (Soy Cuba)Mikhail Kalatozov's 1964 portmanteau film about Cuba on the cusp of revolution. Genuinely jaw dropping visuals. One..a martyred student's body being carried thru a Havana street filmed from above in a tracking shot, is astonishing. Can see film's influence on Scorcese.

I just hope that ITV World Cup pundit Lee Dixon doesn't do any late night phone bank sessions for The Samaritans.

No Cape Verde...No Party.

Erm... #WorldCup2026

No words...

Politics as a proxy of a debating competition is what has fucked us. No thought for the day after. No sense of right and wrong. These people just pick a position, as if out of a hat. They write two articles, then go 'ip-dip'. Winning is the only aim - and it attracts kudos divorced from consequence.

A leader of the opposition comparing a cabinet minister to a member of the Gestapo is, frankly beyond the pale. She should be ashamed of herself.

Kemi lost her head at PMQs - and afterwards too. It's not the first time. She's compared me to a Gestapo officer. I wonder what it is about a working class woman driving record investment in state schools by ending private schools' tax breaks that the Tories hate so much.

most people focus on Burnham’s eight years in Manchester but what was he like for the previous 16 years as an MP? www.ft.com/content/b3ab...

Personally, I find this unedifying..

Whoever succeeds Starmer, the elephant in the room is the vitriol spewed forth on social media platforms by bad actors at home and abroad. I have no doubt that it skewed perceptions of Starmer, compounding his government's mistakes in office. It will be used again to undermine his successor.

Presumably only a matter of hours before the Telegraph or Mail run a column saying 'does Burnham understand the south?'..

So Streeting won't stand against Burnham. A deal has been done. Streeting presumably the next Chancellor.

She was a class act and it was a privilege to work with and have known her. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

'Trump unveils new Air Force One, a converted Qatari 747'..... only a matter of time before it's covered in green slime.

Laura Kuenssberg after a bad night for Reform.

Corrour bothy frog.

The walk into Corrour bothy in the Cairngorms ..The Devil's Point wet slabs shining in the sun on Sunday..

Sadly..when the hawthorn blossoms next Spring..David Hockney won't be around to see it, marvel at it and paint it. When nature does it work though and the hawthorn blooms next year, we can remember Hockney, his artistic eye and his art.

Losing Hockney, is like losing Stoppard or Bowie...a little bit of sunlight that made the world a better place has left us. We are poorer for it..

Dan Jarvis could effectively end Starmer's Prime Ministership by studying the Defence Investment Plan and deciding without further cash it's unworkable...and resign.