Imagine if I ran this poll: "Should Labour be allowed to run in the next General Election?" A) If they stop stealing bicycles. B) If they agree to follow the law. C) If they admit they stole the last chocolate digestive. D) Without pre-conditions. What result would you expect?

Trump has just announced that he is going to damage his tech industry by introducing a $100,000 fee for skilled workers to come to the US, especially from India. Britain has a great opportunity to attract these workers, boost our tech industry, and gather taxes. docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Millions of people are still trapped in England’s broken leasehold system - overcharged and powerless. And nearly a decade after Grenfell, the cladding crisis continues, rogue developers exploit loopholes, and government reforms have failed to deliver real change.

We must keep standing up for Hong Kongers in the UK. I was so proud to summate this motion and even prouder to see it pass with huge support from our members. The Lib Dems are the party that always has stood, and always will stand, alongside Hong Kongers. www.libdems.org.uk/news/article...

Incredibly solar is now so cheap that it's being used as fencing in some countries.

Liberal Democrats stand firmly with Hong Kongers. Our new policy would protect pro-democracy activists and make clear that Beijing’s intimidation has no place in the UK. Read more from @LukeTaylorLD.bsky.social www.libdems.org.uk/news/article...

Labour cowardice on immigration is pathetic. Why are they too scared to say that immigrants are our friends, colleagues, neighbours and family, and it's great that they are here?

While Nigel Farage talks down our country, Liberal Democrats want to build on the best of Britain.

Any journalist quoting this absurd, invented £234 billion number cited by Farage/Reform should make absolutely clear that it has been withdrawn by *its own authors* (the Centre for Policy Studies) after they admitted it contained several major errors (1/3)

Scrapping people's right to remain in the UK - after you've told them they can is outrageous. Farage is messing with people's lives - people who have been through our bureaucratic system at huge cost. I'm proud that we Lib Dems are fighting Farage - but... www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Reform are now coming after people with permanent residency. It'll be citizens next. No one is safe from authoritarian governments.

Thank you very much to all the very generous people who sponsored our team in the Cancer Research UK Shine Night Walk yesterday - the final score is £4,071 raised!

Keep seeing the meme (in response to @timharford.ft.com) that White British Londoners are no less anti-immigration than the rest of the country, they are just "outnumbered". It's not true:

Former LibDem leader Tim Farron says "let us reclaim our flags for those who would reunite and rebuild, not divide and destroy, because we will not yield our identity, our flag, or our country, to the nationalists" to the LibDem conference www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Funny chat with a Lib Dem MP tonight. They got a message from a local group warning that England flags were going up in a very posh village. "The far right are organising here" It was a village fete. This is the problem MPs and councils are grappling with: it's hard to tell the meaning of flags...

Well done to the girls for finishing while still singing!

We're off on our walk for Cancer Research UK. Thank you to all the very generous people who have sponsored us - assuming we make it we should raise almost £4,000. You can make a last minute donation here: fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/page/roberts...

One of the great ironies of the immigration problem is that the people trying to come here think Britain is brilliant, the people most furious about them trying to come here pretend they think it's a crime ridden dump www.economist.com/britain/2025... From The Economist

Dutch late night TV has its take

This is quite an embarrassment for government. Their favoured British success story isn't really British.

My team are startlingly close to raising £3,000 for cancer research. Could you motivate us by closing the gap with a donation? fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/team/team-bl...

So the Royal College of Psychiatrists has quietly endorsed ketamine therapy hoping journalists wouldn't notice. #fail open.substack.com/pub/overmatt...

Katalin Karikó on the status economy of academia. She’s the hero we don’t deserve. Source: josephnoelwalker.com/147-katalin-...

It's massively insulting to British students to say they lack the drive of their American peers. If the Business Secretary is so sure, perhaps he could provide us with some evidence. www.lbc.co.uk/article/brit...

Public finances are a bit knackered due to low VAT receipts. Could I suggest a Treasury official and an HMRC official pop out of their Whitehall offices on their lunch break and carry out a few symbolic spot checks on long-trading gift shops not charging it? www.londoncentric.media/p/asf-aziz-l...

AI will only be successful if it can truly learn - which LLMs can't. Perceptive article from @johnthornhill.bsky.social in the FT today, featuring my colleagues at Verses AI. www.ft.com/content/8192...

@youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com you seem to have invented the opposite of clickbait... Click repellent?

Sign of the times: this is my walk though the West End this morning looking for a newspaper. Russell News is the place to go!

Tonight I learnt at the @parkinsons.org.uk research lecture that: A) constipation is strongly linked to developing Parkinson's. B) the leading candidate to treat Parkinson's is partly derived from cough medicine. Utterly fascinating scientists and crucial work.

The turn to censorship/cancel culture is actually an opportunity for liberalism. A chance to get back to its philosophical roots, having been too censorious for too long, and a chance to be subversive again, too long ceded to the populist right.

Arron Banks of Reform is recurringly determined to turn racism into a joke, and bring back the "banter" defence of the 1990s Well done Kevin Hollinrake, the Cons MP, for his attempt to maintain the most basic foundations of decency and against racism in public life. Which Banks finds hilarious

The ONS has now found that housing is unaffordable for even the richest 10% of people in London, let alone everybody else. This is a major crisis - and the only way out of it is to build housing much faster than we are. It's a scandal that house building in London is at record lows.

I thought that British select committees were bad, but this Congressional committee I'm watching had 40 minutes of grandstanding by the members, and admin, before any witnesses were heard. Out of a 120 minute session. Though a hearing on AI now has a speech about Jimmy Kimmel...

Journalists at press conferences seem to love asking compound questions. But politicians love them even more – the second a reporter asks a compound question (when they’ve got no follow up) you just address whichever bit of it you like best and ignore the rest.

Three years ago I was diagnosed with cancer. The reason that I'm alive today is probably a drug called Keytruda. It took decades of research to produce it - and now it's the world's top cancer fighting drug. fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/page/roberts...

8 in 10 top businesses worldwide plan to increase green investments, according to a major new report from Capgemini, surveying 2,150 execs.

To even allow the appearance of this — Starmer’s No 10 adopting Trumpian media management policies — seems extraordinary to me. Very depressing.

New from us: India's power sector emissions fell for only the 2nd time in half a century, due to both economic and weather factors and record clean energy growth. The current drop is unlikely to be sustained but clean energy projects in the pipeline can peak power sector emissions well before 2030.

Yesterday, we received an email from a Daily Mail journalist asking us to comment on the attempt by a trans-exclusionary group to change our party's rules. For the avoidance of doubt, or misrepresentation of our position, we reproduce our response in full here... 1/4

Conservative media has always had a bit of a blind spot to sexual offences. But The Spectator is now promoting people who are accused of rape, human trafficking of children for sex and are currently charged with 21 crimes in the UK alone. This is disgusting.

20 years of low income growth for Brits - so it's understandable people have low faith in politicians. What's incomprehensible is how sluggish the government is on growth. Better trade links with Europe, keeping immigration at reasonable levels, and making it easy to build all boost growth and tax

The drift of Conservative politicians towards outright racism is quite extraordinary. Susan Hall has always had some unusual views - but this is still radicalisation compared to last year.

Imagine all cars were electric, and then one Volkswagen engineer comes up with another idea … #EMobility

This is lovely.

What's the fastest way to save money on asylum? Allow asylum seekers to work. Many have incredible skills - and can be earning money and paying taxes. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This is a direct result of EU's carbon tariffs. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

It is unlawful to send the abuse to the MP, footballer, me or anyone else. Its unlawful on the bus, at the match, and it is unlawful online. We police it on the bus & at the football match. It lacks impunity there. The police lack the capacity or culture to police it online: it has impunity here

UK CPI inflation was 3.8% in August, in line with market and BoE expectations. Below the top line there was some good news on underlying inflation but food price inflation accelerated to 5.1%, increasing pressure on struggling families. Short thread to follow...

Given growing discussion around wealth taxes in the UK it’s interesting to see how such taxes have become significantly less popular across the OECD over the last 30 years on.ft.com/47N84Ob