It's out! For weeks @poppybullard.bsky.social and I have been delving into the money - and money men - behind Reform Finally we can share the first episode - a tie up between @theobserveruk.bsky.social and @therestpolitics.bsky.social - more to come soon open.spotify.com/episode/2Vao...

Reading this bland and vague "local crime" story you'd never know that the guy charged with murder, Billy Allison, is the founder of flag-shagging Raise the Colours. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I'd partly forgotten this but if you present yourself as the radical political force able to solve deep rooted problems, then you encounter a deep rooted problem and say actually, this is too difficult, I wish we hadn't bothered...it ought to be a tell. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

🧵 4/5 Several also pointed to the responsibility of technology companies, arguing that children should not lose access because platforms have failed to make their spaces safer. #DRAGON #onlinesafety #onlineharm #childsafeguarding #safeguarding #digitalsafeguarding

They’re trying to girlbossify the pervert glasses, we’re maybe 6 months away from Reese Witherspoon arguing that more women should be covertly filming strangers, for feminism

This surprises me — said no one, ever Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose…

I shouted “wind your neck in, what the fuck is wrong with you” at someone who made a racist comment in my vicinity and now he’s playing the victim because I “embarrassed him”. These people need to be “embarrassed” more often. Stop being nice.

Don't hackers normally take money out of your account?

Every summer I repost this article on how to spot drowning. Please read it and pass on. In the last few years I’ve had SIX messages from people who saved a kid’s life after clicking on the link from my feed. slate.com/technology/2...

The fundamental (but often unspoken) idea underlying Reform, or the Front National, or the VVD, is that non-white immigrants can never be properly British, or French, or Dutch. No amount of "tough on migration" posturing is going to win the votes of people who find this idea attractive.

I profoundly object to phrases like “listen to women” in this context because we really do not all agree, nor necessarily have much in common at all. Inherently, this constant reduction of us to a bottom line of imagined biological cohesion is patronising and dehumanising.

What we are seeing, as the police chief responsible for hate crime says, is a “pyramid of hate” in which online vitriol and incitement generate an acceptance for real-world abuse There is growing evidence that longstanding anti-racist social norms are being eroded throughout the public sphere

This is gross and nuts in equal measure

Yep… the public perception of immigration has been warped and misconstrued by the likes of Johnson & Farage. Unsurprisingly.

I think people should make a big deal of the fact it is only 200k. The rhetoric is so bad on this, that my guess is if you did a poll, many people would guess much higher eg How many people do you think arrived by small boat since 2018? a) 200k b) 600k c) 1 million

Shoutout to the very senior professor in HCI who gave a talk last month about how AI can do qualitative data analysis better than people now.

Probably the same generation who told us when we were growing up “if you haven’t got anything nice to say, say nothing at all”

It was kind of Robert Jenrick to set me up for an obvious joke at his expense.

I shouldn't have to think about the President of the USA this much! Nobody should! Not even Americans!

These are the cultural references I’m here for

Really baffling how hard journalists find it to understand the concept that normal people don't want to hang out with people they think are arseholes

The idea anyone, no matter how wealthy, just gives away five million quid as a gift with no strings attached to a politician is absolutely for the birds, and the breezy way Farage speaks about it like it's a normal thing and a private matter is ludicrous.

The standards committee must decide if this gift could be related to political/public role. A defence could that a £5m gift was "purely private" + "wasn't political in any sense at all" (May 5th) www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... To say "reward for campaigning for Brexit for 27 years" disrupts that

Quite the story from Sky – Nigel Farage bought a £1.4m property *in cash* after getting the £5m gift supposedly intended for his security. Reform say, very specifically: "The offer and process for purchase of this property commenced before the gift". news.sky.com/story/nigel-...

crucial context: Peter Mandelson was sacked from the first New Labour government for having a £373,000 *loan* (not a gift) from a Labour colleague (Geoffrey Robinson) to buy a house

BREAKING: Reform UK leader Nigel Farage bought a £1.4 million property in cash shortly after receiving a £5m personal gift from billionaire donor Christopher Harborne, according to property records seen by Sky News.

Ben Habib alleges that Nigel Farage & Boris Johnson were paid £1m each by Christopher Harborne to essentially rig the election in favour of Johnson. He also claims the undeclared £5m "gift" Farage received in 2024 from Harborne was payment to take over as party leader of Reform UK + stand in Clacton

Green Party Green Party of England and Wales Donation count (since 2010): 770 Sum £5,798,813.46 Average: £7,530.93 Reform UK Donation count (since 2019): 333 Sum: £35,828,847.16 Average: £107,594.14 £30M more for Nigel Farage's latest political vehicle. donation.watch/en/unitedkin...

Important announcement: a staycation is where you have time off and stay at home. It is not a holiday away from home in the UK. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Peonies I bought from a bucket by the side of the road for a few quid. My photo’s inspired by the paintings of Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750):

The media will need to do better on this. He can't just be allowed to refuse to answer. He is possibly the next PM and is in hock to a billionaire

I fear Labour people risk falling into an ecological fallacy visible from space when reacting to these results. Here is what is very clear in results so far: Labour are losing *seats* to Reform, but... Labour are losing *votes* to the Greens Greens split the vote, Ref comes thru middle

1%. Yes ONE. Of current Reform voters would consider voting Labour. Yet Labour has spent a good chunk of its energy appealing to this void, this vacuum, this abyss. Enough to make you weep.

happy 9th anniversary to the day we watched Zendaya fall madly in love with Tom Holland in real-time

No one normal wants these things around them.

The day has finally arrived. You can now *officially* watch puffins live from the Farne Islands, 24 hours a day: bit.ly/4tRz72T Please enjoy these puffins kissing in celebration of this momentous event.

Times headline "Muslim voters rank Gaza over the economy in local election poll" is reporting a poll where the top issue for [some] Muslim voters was the cost of living (50%) ahead of Gaza on 25% and economy on 21% Anti-Muslim hostility on 22% Times headline gives an entirely misleading impression

For £200,000 Farage will promote your company and get his councils to buy your products. Just imagine what he’d do for you if you gave him £5,000,000. Because it wouldn’t be nothing. It’s never nothing. He’s in hock to his donors and if he took power, we’d all be. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

A horse struggles to exist #art #animation #indieanimationday #horse

Have the Green Party disowned these candidates yet? If not, why not?

And let’s be clear what ‘money laundering’ is, because it sounds a bit technical and ‘white collar’. It’s the financial underpinning of organised crime. It’s the basis for murders, for drug dealing, for people trafficking, for institutional sexual exploitation, and for terrorism.

It is also, as some in my replies have noted, a gateway drug into full health woo woo stuff, which is in turn often a pipeline into the far-right, as I wrote for the Guardian a few years back. www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

👍

"Can Shirley Bassey be Welsh?" is not a question for aspirants to govern Wales to struggle over

"Correction 21 April: This article has been amended to correct the number of small boat crossings in 2025 from 100,625 to 41,472" (BBC) www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I am still fuming over Jenrick fueling the chances of violence with misinformation aided by dishonest influencers and news providers. Over on twitter he posted this before facts were known. It seems that this wasn't a rape incident at all. Innocent people faced threats and aggression as a result.

Just seen on FB that someone has changed the opening times of Reform on Google: 1933 -1945. Hahaha

I am absolutely shite at recognising when someone is flirting with me. Like, comically bad at it. My mates would mock me about it. But something happened today that made me so happy. 1/?

I’ve been hearing so much anger and disappointment from frontline workers about the BBC investigation into fraudulent asylum claims. One of the most damning responses has come from one of the experts they interviewed, solicitor Ana Gonzalez. It’s really worth reading her response in full: