It would be one of history's great ironies if it turns out that the side that opted to stay loyal to the Crown ends up establishing the democratic nation that is more able to protect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

On a related note, if Shetland tunnels could be funded through a mixture of private investment, public subsidy and borrowing, so could a West Yorkshire metro system (for example).

This is a good idea, particularly (but not only) if the UK is serious about Saxavord as a spaceport. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This is a quote to cut out and keep.

Keir Starmer will shortly unveil the Defence Investment Plan. @drbenpaxton.bsky.social recently commented on defence spending, arguing that the cobbling together of capital cuts to fund defence would be a failure of fiscal policy making www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/slic...

This is an ugly policy. If an asylum seeker has a legitimate case then they shouldn't have to pay for being held, particularly when they're not allowed to work. If they don't have a case then they won't be able to pay and should be deported. The Home Office has a very serious culture problem.

Theresa May never mentally moved on from being Home Secretary after entering No 10. Boris Johnson was always a magazine columnist. Keir Starmer was a barrister waiting for a brief. Andy Burnham is going to be Manchester Mayor forever, isn't he.

There is nothing special about reaching the 'knock-out stage' of the world cup. It's completely inconsistent. In 1934 the entire finals was knock-out; 1950 was all-group stage. In 1982, knock-outs didn't start until the SFs; this year it's the last 32. Instead, talk about reaching (eg) the QFs.

Lionel Messi absurdly strong favourite for the golden boot now. Argentina's quarter of the draw is the easiest by a good distance.

Before 2003, 37.3C would not just have been a June UK temperature record but would have set the highest temperature in the country *ever*.

Al Carns is not helping himself.

Britain has fairly comprehensive, accurate weather records going back about 175 years. Victorians loved to measure stuff. This is the breakdown of when the current hottest month records were set: 1800s: none 1900-1949: 2 1950-1999: 1 2000-present: 9 Of those this century 6 are 2019-present.

Yes, obviously it is suspended, but is it operating or not? Useless TfL app.

Quite a startling fact in an interesting thread of how the heatwave of 1976 would now not be anything unusual (although the drought that year still would be).

Farage can say it's not the public's business how he spent his £5m gift. The public are free to take a different view. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Until 2003, the highest *ever* temperature recorded in the UK was 37.1C Were it not for the escalations of recent years, we'd be talking about a potential *all-time* record high today. But the record's been broken three times since then and is now 3C higher.

1976 *was* exceptional, even on today's terms, for the length of the heatwave (over two weeks) and the fact that it came on top of 12 months' unusually dry weather so drought conditions were already in place. But. The temperatures then? Pretty normal now for a hot spell.

Andy Burnham (assuming it will be he - though it will), will be Charles III's fourth (British) prime minister in a reign that's not even four years old. It took 11 years and 8 months before Elizabeth II to reach the same point.

No Streeting = no contest. Which means Burnham will almost certainly be PM within a couple of weeks or so. I still can't help but feel both he and Labour would be better served facing the much sharper focus of a leadership election campaign. A PM only gets a first start once. Best to be prepared.

Burnham's team should be stamping out the media story that he doesn't have a plan and wanted a long campaign to develop one. He's had ages to write a plan: he wanted to stand in Gorton & Denton. To lay it out now would be disrespectful to Starmer but tomorrow is another day. That would be when.

The BBC needs much more money. Cuts like this should not be happening. But the current funding model is broken and a new one designed for the 21st century needs to be implemented quickly, before the corporation withers into extinction.

Complete nonsense from Case, and further proof as to his unfitness to have held the office he did. Interest rates reflect risk. Changes in rates reflect the change in risk. Uncertainty can increase rates, briefly, though that uncertainty is now already baked in. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Seems very likely that Trump rats on the deal and Iran responds by reimposing transit restrictions in two months - by which time there'll be fewer US forces in the area and it'll nearly be the mid-term campaign season.

This is what happens when: 1. The US doesn't involve Israel in the talks and generally treats its government like an irritating afterthought; 2. The Israeli govt is dominated by nationalist extremists who don't want peace. Netanyahu is playing with fire. I think this ends in a breach with Trump.

Very Anglocentric (Westminster-centric) reporting on media today. The Tories gaining a seat from the SNP is a big deal.

Simultaneously with the imminent Labour leadership election will now be a Greater Manchester mayoral by-election. Labour is likely to find that a tougher ask than Makerfield - if Reform field a candidate with at least superficial credibility. www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c3...

Impressive win for Andy Burnham. He, Streeting and possibly others will now* be searching for MP nominations. Natural dynamics will now run rapidly against Starmer and his zombie administration. I'd give it three weeks tops before he accepts reality. * This will have already been happening.

Grim. Plenty of research showing public service broadcasting delivers real benefits to health of democracy. Yet here we are, in these polarised times, slowly starving our public service broadcaster.

This is still the wrong way of looking at it. Labour should not be appealing to 'its people': it should be about 'its ideas' - from which flows a natural base. But that is the direction.

Interesting and important point in Rob Ford's latest article on Makerfield (and beyond). It's easy to talk too glibly of a Ref/Con block. There are still quite a lot of Tories who see Reform (never mind Restore) as an unacceptable option. swingometer.substack.com/p/by-electio...

If Trump thinks the deal to end the Iran War is so great, why hasn't the text been published? And - seems quite an important point - are Israel, Lebanon, Hamas and Hezbollah on board? Seems to me there's no lasting peace deal without all of them.

The incoherence from the government here is staggering. Adulthood comes with responsibility; childhood comes with protection. Obviously it's a sliding scale but there's no world where someone is competent to choose their government but not their YouTube feed.

FIFA's expansion of the tournament to 48 teams is going to be tested with matches like today's. So far, it's not standing up well.

Tomorrow is Trump's 80th birthday. The timing of the signing is not coincidental. One wonders what the US has conceded to give Trump a birthday present.

Iran still aiming at a deal that leaves it with more than the status quo ante. That'd fall within a usual definition of winning the war. Unsurprising that Trump's not happy. But either these were close to the terms he was going to agree, or the two sides are still miles apart.

Really poor, Westminster bubble, commentary from Chris Mason (which can't even get the Bubble aspect right: Starmer is finished). But more importantly, he addresses neither the reality of Britain's security challenges, nor *why* Starmer's premiership has fizzled out. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I agree. X has had more than enough warnings. I get that this would adversely impact some people for whom X is valuable. Trade with Russia was valuable to some people too. Other platforms exist. We cannot allow great evils to go unaddressed because of some inconveniences.

If Labour had not made its tax pledges, it would almost certainly have won a smaller majority. But it would have had more actual power to govern. It doesn't matter how many seats you hold, if you brick up the levers of power. You end up either breaking your promises or breaking public services.

As Lord Acton warned in 1887, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority". Power on this scale is dangerous, and fundamentally incompatible with democracy. edition.cnn.com/2026/06/06/b...

Any politically-savvy government would be blaming the poor growth figures directly and repeatedly on America (and, off the record, directly on Donald Trump). It wouldn't be entirely accurate but there'd be enough truth to make the claim credible. This is not a politically-savvy government.

Starmer doesn't lead. That's a fatal failing in a prime minister. Particularly so in a time of global turmoi, rapid change and increasing threats. Public confidence doesn't come just from the absence of mistakes. In any case, the absence of action doesn't mean an absence of mistakes.

Of course he has. Who knows what it means though. Maybe he really is about to cave and was trying to set up a narrative of forcing Iran. Or maybe it's all bluster, daydreams and delusion again. Or perhaps he's just playing the market. Impossible to say. www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...

Anyway, something else to keep an eye on over coming months. (Note - El Nino events don't automatically lead to more extreme weather but certainly trend in that direction)

Healey's resignation hasn't just stuck another nail in the coffin of Starmer's premiership; it's also fatally wounded Rachel Reeves's.

The absolute killer in the Healey letter ...

It was always about owning the oil and gas. See also Canada, Greenland, Venezuela, his Ukraine extortion etc. (As an aside, the United States will not be taking Kharg Island in the not too distant future given that they've not even opening the Strait of Hormuz after ten weeks)

I don't think I have ever been so unenthused about a major football tournament being about to start, even ones England didn't qualify for. Too many games, too many mediocre teams, an appalling host, unhelpful climate, unsavoury worship of money rather than sport. Wake me in two weeks.

A damning indictment of the current regime, in both No 10 and the Treasury. But I can't help feeling that this is more a message aimed at the next PM than to the current one (other than that he shouldn't contest the leadership election, when it comes).

The Waspi campaign has been a triumph of publicity over substance. Lots of people lose out by any number of govt decisions. That doesn't, of itself, make them entitled to compensation. Neither does not reading any of the copious amounts of information informing them of that change.

They are failing. Act. It would be very helpful if arms of the government, from the PM down, stopped issuing warnings about what they will (might) do in the circumstances that are not only here but have been here for more than long enough, and just bloody did it.