Permission has now been granted by Southwark Councjl for Tower Bridge to fly the Pride flag during June. Elsewhere, the council has closed a planning enforcement complaint about the Maudsley Hospital’s use of the Pride flag

#WeekOforOld #AlphabetChallenge #photography #classicmono #blackandwhite #blackandwhitephotography

Book publishers in France are in an uproar, after one of them (Grasset - very big name) has been taken over by a media group own by a right-wing billionnaire. Earlier this week, about 100 authors walk en masse from that publisher.

He told ChatGPT he was a nazі іncel who wanted to dіe, then asked how many people you’d have to shoot at his school to get on the news. ChatGPT helped him pick his ammo, pick his target, pick the best time for the massacre, and then told him how to use the gun. Then he did. youtu.be/IbG-JGdGniY

I've lived in Northern Ireland all my life and I have heard stupid shit you wouldn't believe about religion. The dumbest stuff from people who think dinosaurs lived 6,000 years ago. Never heard anyone say 'the Pope doesn't represent the Catholic Church'

As Bluesky was down so much yesterday, am resharing in case people would like to read this piece.

I've always found the framing around men and women's dating choices re political "opponents" really telling. Men are supposedly more tolerant - but for the most part they're not being asked to date people who literally view them as second-class citizens undeserving of bank accounts and voting rights

"It baffles me why women might struggle to feel comfortable around someone who supports a politician subject to a number of credible claims of sexual assault, including some already proven to the civil standard of proof".

Full text in alt-text :)

Wes streeting admits what he is doing is "humilating and cruel". But only for trans men (that look and sound man enough). Perfectly happy to inflict cruelty and humiliation on trans women. Source. LBC

There certainly is a sizeable cohort of voters who "passionately dislike this country and the society they live in" but I'm pretty sure they aren't young female Green voters

All the stuff about vetting, advisers and process misses the point that everyone knew who Peter Mandelson was, what he had done and who he had associated with for literally years before Keir Starmer made him ambassador and lots of people pointed it out at the time. He appointed him anyway

[foreign office 2025] CIVIL SERVANT: Prime Minister we have news on Mandelson's vetting, it turns out- STARMER: no don't tell me, I want it to be a surprise when the scandal comes out in 8 months' time CIVIL SERVANT: I really insis- STARMER: god forbid we have any MYSTERY in our lives any more

Did Foster just say A Street Car Named Desire is by Arthur Miller?! #r4today

Our team received a report of intermittent app outages at about 11:40pm PDT on April 15, 2026. They worked through the night to mitigate a sophisticated Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack, which intensified throughout the day.

To be fair "full due process was followed during this appointment" doesn't mean that Mandelson passed the vetting process. It only implies it if that's what you want to hear. That is a lawyer's response #r4today

No10’s account is incredible. I held Developed Vetting for nearly ten years and spent three years at the heart of the Cabinet Office. I have never heard of a Developed Vetting denial being overruled. Here’s why…🧵 www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Why would civil servants overrule their own processes to wave through a political appointee, unless they were told to do so by politicians? #r4today

Reviews of that fellas scaffolding company tell quite the story. Are REFORM doing any due diligence on their candidates at all?

Reform's Ricky Hodges urged "veterans" to put the city's mayor, Sadiq Khan, "in a coma for a long time". Previously said he wanted to shoot people "in the face", and that he would "love to come up against" a group of Labour activists to "take their... limbs off". www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Some Restore Britain loon posted this on FB... No imagination, whatsover. Whinge about sovereignty and national pride while imitating everything US morons do... At least the flag is the right way around for once (even if its floating in the air)

‘Offline Day’: Emmanuel Macron promotes books and theatre as alternatives to screens

Conservative MP Esther McVey claimed last week that knife crime in London “is up 72% in a year”. That figure’s not correct, according to police statistics on knife-enabled crime, and we’ve not found any data to support it.

#WeekOforOld #AlphabetChallenge #photography

Pete Hegseth quoted a fake Bible verse from the Tarantino movie Pulp Fiction yesterday during a Pentagon prayer service

Participants who used AI to solve basic math and reading comprehension questions did worse than their peers who did not rely on the technology, a new study found.

New Epstein-linked revelations show how neo-Nazi operative Andrew Auernheimer aka “Weev” became a crucial link between Peter Thiel and the online far-right subcultures waging “memetic warfare” against their enemies. By @barrettbrownlol.bsky.social

👉 NEW -- Strong pro-Israel bias among BBC bosses, new data indicates by Dania Akkad BBC executives met nine times with pro-Israel Jewish groups and just once with pro-Palestinians in 14 months of genocide, Freedom of Information shows www.declassifieduk.org/strong-pro-i...

EXCL: Peter Mandelson failed his security vetting clearance but the decision was overruled by Foreign Office to ensure he could take up his post as ambassador to US - a Guardian investigation by Paul Lewis @direthoughts.com & me www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

#WeekOforOld #AlphabetChallenge #photography

Orban was funding the Reform support network.

Fucking hell, though.

BBC impartiality... #r4today

Of course, #r4today has to go to Reform for a reaction on their overblown migration story... FFS!

Pretty terrible that heavily-indebted Sotheby's has donated to Reform UK. Via Private Eye

The #r4today hashtag appears to be done again (the last post I can see using it was 30 min ago). That seems to be a daily occurence :(

How is the variety of foods available being affected not food shortage?! #r4today

Reform Essex activist who hosted Nigel Farage at his tanning salon is also a Nazi superfan who believes that "Hitler was right." Excellent work from @hopenothate.org.uk hopenothate.org.uk/2026/04/14/n...

This much trumpeted investigation on asylum fraud boils down to one (groundbreaking!) thing: some people are willing to lie and break the rules to get what they want. It's significant the BBC is careful not to give figures on the scale of the problem #r4today

When you want to know how deep our current crisis is, understand that it's literally cutting millions of people's lives short, and reversing several centuries of gains.

Being gay is not a belief, Mr Webb #r4today

Revealing that the Guardian apparently couldn't actually find any examples of the ruling having "changed lives" positively. Those quoted in support simply express political agreement with it rather than being able to point to any tangible life benefit, in contrast to those quoted in opposition.

Let's hope this is not just a flash in the pan but the start of a real trend #r4today

“Extreme heat is already creating ‘nonsurvivable’ conditions for humans in heatwaves that have killed thousands and likely many more, according to new research that warns people are more susceptible to rising temperatures than first thought.” Via @motherjones.com #ClimateCrisis #UrbanHeat

For the second day, the BBC are running a story that presents itself as providing evidence of endemic abuse of the asylum system based on seemingly a single encounter with someone who is neither a lawyer nor a registered immigration adviser. Words fail. This is reprehensibly irresponsible.

This is linked to the mayor's long-term plan to turn the Paris ringroad into an urban park . . . which does sound kind of nuts. But then swimming in the Seine and pedestrianising the riverbanks also sounded nuts once upon a time. Keep dreaming big, Paris!

The BBC "often tells migration stories through a narrow political lens"... #r4today