Amazing what a diet of Mail/Express and GB News does to the brains of the old. My baby boomer peers should stop living their lives tut tutting behind curtains and experience life outside their mortgage free homes.

Of course, this response is always an option to the President's threats.

What's this? The Guardian has published some letters from readers in SUPPORT of the Prime Minister! Are they finally realising the constant attacks are hurting both them and the country?

The government is rolling out a chickenpox vaccine which will mean healthier children! Great news!

Latest from Mocow.

The Reform pitch is increasingly “the last government was terrible, so we’ve hired everyone who was in it”.

BREAKING: NHS WAITING LISTs ARE DOWN BY A HUGE 86,000! It’s the second biggest drop in NHS waiting lists in 15 years Thanks to all the NHs staff who made this happen - and Labour’s record investment 🗳️ You voted to fix our NHS ✅ We are doing it

Lowest murder rate in London since records began.

If you'd said to me 10 years ago that the tory party was saying you can't ban a site providing a sexual gratification app for nonces because people also get their news from that site I would have said you were insane. That's still the case today.

I'm still waiting for someone of consequence on the British left to very politely say that hunger striking is not a viable tactic to get yourself released from prison or to change the UK's foreign policy, and that the activists doing it would be better off to stop rather than kill themselves.

Some legal context is clearly required. 1. 182 days is not the maximum, the period can be extended by the courts. There are clearly some cases where this is appropriate - you don’t let those accused of mass murder out if the investigation is taking time. /1

George Monbiot could have written a piece, an open letter, to the hunger strikers begging them to stop. Explaining why it's wrong, fruitless, will bring grief to their families. and do nothing to help their cause. But no, political points to be made. Nothing but contempt for people like this.

Labour justice minister destroys Robert Jenrick for the Tories complete and utter failure in our prisons across their 14 years in office. Very well said @alexdaviesjones.bsky.social - a brilliant Labour junior minister.

Does anyone know what the hell is going on in this ballet interlude from the Vienna New Year's Day concert?

I once signed the fish and chips wrapping papers of everyone in a Finchley Fish and Chip shop because they were all convinced I was John Peel. Telling them that I wasn't JP wasn't working and I wanted to go home. I signed them as John Peel.

Another health breakthrough. (h/t Gav)

I have regularly posted throughout 2025 that I honestly think Starmer has the best front bench of my lifetime. I especially love that most are State Educated and many have come from ‘normal’ backgrounds. Making them just like the majority of us. 🎉🥳🎉🥳

This is literally what the Telegraph campaigned for.

Wonder what John Major, David Cameron and Theresa May think of Badenoch's latest outburst. Maybe someone should ask them.

Reform supporters keep telling us we are lying when I repeat this. So let’s be clear. Here is the video of Nigel Farage himself saying the country will need to “have insurance based healthcare” - private healthcare. Those are his words. That is not a rumour and not spin. youtu.be/pxuQyTCHXyE?...

The BMA claims resident doctors’ pay is worth 21% less than in 2008/9. But this is based on some questionable assumptions. Our independently verified analysis, using a different inflation measure backed by the Royal Statistical Society, suggests the fall’s more like 6-7%.

The whole ecosystem around this Palestine Action hunger strike issue is troubling. We’ve already seen a spiral to ever greater manichaean extremism in this movement. Now they and their supporters have imbibed the martyrdom fetish that has been so destructive in other such groups.

Keir Starmer: "I have a Christmas message for Reform. If mysterious men from the east come bearing gifts...this time, report it to the police."

Another controversial view: resident doctors (rightly) got a 29% payrise 12 months ago. Who else has had 29%? The rest of us have had to contend with between 0 and 4% per year since 2010. They will not get popular support.

Being of a certain age, many of my family and friends require the services of the NHS - some serious, most routine. It's noticeable appointments and treatments are now made weeks, not months in advance. There's a good story here. Just wish Labour would tell it.

There are some in the media constantly advising Labour on how to win back voters and halt Reform. I've got some advice for the media, publish the positives Labour are doing as well as the negatives, and fgs hold Farage to account properly, stop giving him an easy ride because he's controversial.

Farage has been dismissing evidence of Russian ties to the Salisbury Novichok attack since 2018 🧐

It is alleged that Nigel Farage aged 16-18 (1980-82) vocally objected to the number of Patels at Dulwich College. A fellow pupil remembers him burning the booklet on these grounds. The Guardian shows that this witness testimony aligns with the names + stats in the 1980 yearbook

This is kind of why the boob hypnotism thing is important (beyond, well, ick). The sense Polanski has always been something of a chancer who has found a willing mark. His go to economists being 'thinkers' who got big online telling people what they want to hear does little to disabuse this.

Is there an intersection between people who are worked up about "Benefits Street" and people who got worked up about the withdrawal of the Winter Fuel Allowance benefit?

I am not wasting any more time on the media’s obsession with Reeves and their made up black hole scam. I am getting on with being happy we have a Labour government doing Labour things and helping ordinary people. Doesn’t mean I’m not pissed off. Just no more oxygen from me.

I had a long conversation with a junior resident last week in the pub. He was quite militant about the pay. To cut a long story short we straw polled the pub for public sympathy on pay - it’s not there. Their last pay deal is still fresh in quite a few people’s minds. BMA are barking up wrong tree

Chris Mason seems to be taking his time doing the BBC News blog about how we weren't misled by the Chancellor after all? Surely this is his time for a huge splash.

Yesterday, the UK PM gave a speech at the Lady Mayor's Banquet at the Guildhall, London, an annual event. And I say to him 'thank you' for what he said on Brexit. He said "how it was sold and delivered was wrong. Wild promises were made to the British people and not fulfilled." 1/5

How Johnson was allowed to become PM after this….

What we're seeing is exactly what we saw in the late 1940s, the late 1960s and the mid- to late 1970s: a concerted and hysterical campaign to delegitimise a Labour government, and indeed the very idea of Labour governments at all.

Farage: epic grifter

Just arrived at the Your Party conference. Buzzing!

This edition of #totp is nearer D Day than today.

A small number of Labour MPs appear completely uninterested in governing & the compromises that demands. It is frankly ridiculous to oppose a small sensible compromise that is backed by the TUC to get the historic Employment Rights Bill on the statute book.

In other shocking news, adjascent apples in same barrel also appear brownish. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... PS I know it shouldn't surprise me, but OF COURSE he lives in France.

It's time to be nice about the Budget. The council tax surcharge is a good policy. Very compromised/imperfect, but still good policy. This is why:

To any one still harking on about a generic (but unworkable) wealth tax and the £10-15bn it might raise (it won't btw)... ...while you've done that, in 2 Budgets Labour have found over £65bn of tax rises annually, heavily skewed towards the wealthiest in society. This is sensible, workable... 1/2

So, Farage has essentially admitted he's been casually racist in the past? That would probably end most people's careers, but cowards in the media give him a free pass.

I hope Kemi Badenoch kept the receipts for the advice she got from charm school. She'll need them for a refund. #Budget

I have read Zack Polanski's interview with Laura K. Good grief docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Zack Polanski is as politically naive as the fools at Your Party. In a world shared with Putin & Trump they all want to leave Nato; a move so dangerous & stupid it rivals Brexit for putting a smile on Putin's face. Voting Green, Your Party or Reform could be lethal. observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

I'm sorry but those on here doing "what Polanski actually said on NATO was…" are doing exactly what Corbynites were doing and it's getting pretty tedious. Just accept that on this he is deeply unserious and he will need to do something about it if he wants to get anywhere

Thank you Labour! For the first time in 30 years, rail fares are to be frozen and will NOT be increased in January. It will save some people hundreds of pounds a year compared to if prices had risen as usual. I know some people want fares to go down, but Ice said before having them... 1/2