just noticed a decent version of my talk on Dickens's London and tourism is available from last year's Tower Hamlets book festival ... www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcdQ...

What the funding for the Wes4Leader campaign that never happened tells us about Labour's Centrists- who haven't fought an election as themselves since 2015, but still dominate the party morningstaronline.co.uk/article/stre...

The lobbyists, gambling bosses and "Ultra High Net Worth Individuals " who funded the leadership bid Wes Streeting failed to run morningstaronline.co.uk/article/stre...

The text from the article for the record. The journalist to whom this was credited has accepted this is both garbled and wrong and said that it will be corrected. Let's see.

Click bait racist bullshit from the Times/Chris Philp. 12 Cameroonians did not sponsor 15 dependants each. 12 new work visas were issued to Cameroonians. 180 visas were issued to dependants of the (many thousands of) Cameroonians *already here*. Etc. www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

“The only realistic way of getting to 300,000 net additional dwellings a year, or 1.5 million over a parliament — the government’s target — is to build a lot more council houses”.

‘For all the eyewatering numbers, the defence plan actually imposes austerity on the armed forces, whilst showering defence firms with huge revenues, sacrificing soldiers’ pay and conditions to benefit our wasteful military industrial complex’ 👇

(1)Journalists freely using the v. Old fashioned ,snobby term "chippy" for Andy Burnham is a tell on how disconnected they are from the country. From "chip on his shoulder" it means anyone who 'complains' is unreasonably angry or bitter at the world 1st time i saw it was this from Gaby Hinsliff....

In @privateeyenews.bsky.social In the Money looks at the SpaceX float and deciphers the management speak to understand the very British efforts in the scale-up space. Chance to read online… www.private-eye.co.uk/columnists

(1)Cutting welfare, infrastructure etc to fund as-yet unmade "Tempest" warplanes does not make the country more "secure"- it makes everyone less secure to boost arms industry profits. "Security" comes from a healthy population with a strong economy....

I’m not sure on the chronology here but - Labour government elected with secretly agreed plan to scythe benefits - Fails to scythe benefits because doing so is comically unpopular - US Vice President calls Europe weaklings, demands they buy a zillion dollars of US arms company whizzbang…

The govts "National Housing Bank" is supposed to "Turn the Tide on the Housing Crisis" , so is it right to encourage "Build to Rent" by investing £100m govt money in a private fund known for letting properties at way above average rents? In current @privateeyenews.bsky.social

John Healey et al demanding billions more for "Defence", but 12 of the MOD's existing projects are rated "Red" by watchdogs, as the MOD wastes huge £££ with favoured firms (that recruit former 'Top Brass' ) for late, over-budget, faulty kit -in current @privateeyenews.bsky.social

Starmer claimed the King's Birthday Honours went to "community change makers" but top awards went to high earning bankers - including a US banker who gets $42m/year and is best mates with Trump (probably why they got the gong) -in current @privateeyenews.bsky.social

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the "how dare you care about gaza but not sudan" crowd (david lammy) didn't care about sudan either

(1)From this (v.useful) round up of Westminster opinions on what Andy Burnham's appointment of James Purnell means - the Labour Right pretty open about pretending to be leftish to get elected, then ditching any policies- even after this "lying" plan crumbled under Starmer .

(1)Labour's cabinet is so rotten that Shabana Mahmood wants to sack Mike Tapp for the one time he wasn't a right wing clown. Mahmood, supposedly a Labour Minister, wants to systematically reduce workers rights. Tapp says she should do it less www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Since Liz Kendall got 5.5% in 2015 , Labour's centrists wont stand 'as themselves', trying to rule through fake 'Soft Left' candidates instead -Owen Smith, then Keir Starmer. Wes Streeting + Darren Jones have both now backed off direct stands- but Does Burnham want to be their latest Trojan Horse?

This description in the Guardian (pic 1) and other papers, that James Purnell's Flint Global's clients can only be found in EU (not UK) registers I am fairly sure is borrowed from one I worked out in 2025 (pic 2) and before that 2020 (pic 2), so pleased I am still doing tomorrow's news today

What is it about Labour and bringing in corporate lobbyists?

Me from last year on Flint Global, run by Andy Burnham's new aide James Purnell - Inc clients and Labour links morningstaronline.co.uk/article/flin...

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I hear Wes Streeting has decided to back Andy Burnham and wants to join his government

Even in his resignation statement Starmer can't but lie about the Labour Party he inherited.

Another useful point in this chart is the "centrist" reasons to like Starmer, competency, stability, integrity, likeability, which the media claimed where prominent were negligible for voters

This is a useful summary of when/why Starmer became unpopular, and its all the lurches to the right - 'things will get worse', benefit cuts, free glasses, anti migrant "island of strangers". Only thing missing (as ever) from this list is Gaza, a key cause of fragmenting Labour coalition

(1) Andy Burnham is standing on "Change is coming" he will "Change British politics " but if he u-turns away from promises to "end trickle down economics" and becomes Starmer 2.0 the danger isn't just for Labour, its also boosting the extreme right

How do lobbyists Arden get meetings for their clients with Department for Business & Trade DBT) officials? By telling those officials they hire ex-DBT directors as lobbyists morningstaronline.co.uk/article/oppo...

Pivot from Mandelson: A consultant from Peter Mandelson’s lobbying firm Global Counsel said Business Secretary Peter Kyle was acting too like Peter Mandelson and should “pivot” away from being so Mandelson-y, in conversations with one of Kyle’s officials. morningstaronline.co.uk/article/oppo...

"Sky News has verified the identities of everyone from the school who was killed. 120 students, 73 boys & 47 girls, aged from 6 to 13, & 26 teachers, who were killed in the strike". Tom Cheshire reports on the primary school bombed by the US. 120 children & 26 teachers, all murdered.

(1)One good thing about Roy Hattersley is when he left the front bench he did not immediately join a privatised industry/lobbyist/set up a consultancy. He just stayed in politics via writing. He was among the last generation of Labour politicians who did not take this previously Tory route...

Review of Post Mortem in Socialist Lawyer magazine: “Brooks brilliantly exposes how the whole Post Office scandal was fed by commercial interests put above the lives of its employees…”

Even the more politics brained citizens of the UK would struggle to describe John Healey and Al Carns from memory. Case in point: the guardian has misspelt his name as Cairns.

(1)In 1904 poor health of volunteers for the Boer War shocked govt: This led to a govt inquiry into "Physical Deterioration" calling for free school meals, housing reform + more -they knew a country wasnt "strong" if its people were poor+unhealthy....

Can we decide once and for all whether a) There Is No Money Left For Anything, The Bond Markets Will Shit Plutonium or whether b) we need to spend eleventy quintillion pounds on missiles and new vibrating tanks, please. Work it out amongst yourselves then report back, if you like.

Healey + Carns quitting 1wk before the Makerfield by-election showing yet again that a significant slice of Centrist Labour would rather lose to Reform than see even the 'Soft Left' win Labour Leadership

Is Britain fighting in the Iran war, is it? Are British special forces being deployed in a combat role in Ukraine. That would certainly explain why all these people are so extremely antsy, and yet also highly evasive.

(1)The John Healey Brigade is marching steadily on Whitehall. Major Healey has called for calm and for people to stay inside their homes. Al Carns Commando Squads are engaged in mopping up operations . No recent messages have been heard from the Starmer bunker...

New aftershave in Lidl: gives you the precise aroma of a widowed policeman investigating the murder of his daughter, drawn into a wide-ranging political conspiracy involving nuclear weapons.

Remember in Catch-22 where Milo Minderbinder buys up the entire Egyptian cotton crop and can’t sell it, so he tries to sell it to the US Air Force as delicious chocolate-covered cotton

In @privateeyenews.bsky.social, chance to read online, how the Post Office and its dismal ‘partners’ WH Smith and now TGJones spoil government ambitions to revive the High Street… www.private-eye.co.uk/in-the-back

Quite a lot of stories around about the spooks trying to tap up politicians and celebs, isn’t there. And most of the pundit class grief-stricken at the passing of a previous head of MI6.

British newspaper headline, huge: IS THIS INSANE FAR RIGHT CONSPIRACY THEORY ACTUALLY TRUE? British newspaper subhead, in the smallest font possible: no, but we thought we’d discuss it at length anyway

It's strange to me that Matt Goodwin seems to be on the BBC more than Hannah Spencer when he lost an election to her

(1) Henry Nowak died suffering v.bad policing- mixing up the victim & killer, not calling ambulance. But he was not let down because he was white & his killer Asian. It was not "anti white racism ", just bad policing...

End of the day all the “it’s actually left wing people who are the most racist” was allowed and encouraged as a way of smearing any viable left wing alternative for years and now we have serious op-eds saying “what if white people are actually the most oppressed group?” in mainstream publications

The "Labour Growth Group" of Centrist MPs is winding down , but it was always a fake group anyway. In 2024, just before it was announced, @patrickmaguire.bsky.social reported this in the Times

The policies contained in the 2010 manifesto of the British National Party - once considered fringe and extreme - have now been mainstreamed by both Reform and the traditional British establishment argues @trillingual.bsky.social: