🔴NEW🔴 More than half of rape cases in England and Wales are closed by police with no further action, FOI data reveals @opendemocracy.net www.opendemocracy.net/en/police-ra...

They're using the confinement box, one of the most horrific methods of CIA torture in the post-9/11 black sites, against migrants now. This is the direct result of the lack of consequences for the architects of the torture program. Either there will be criminal penalties for this or it will expand.

As Stakeknife is in the news, can’t recommend this bbc radio series enough. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand...

Political satire in which the PM of the country is being Goodbye, Lenined by his own chief of staff

The scale of this horror is impossible to comprehend. Absolute terror.

The essence of Blue Labour thought is that somewhere in Downing Street there is a button marked “reindustrialise” that Tony Blair could have pressed, but instead he opted for the “more Woke Studies” button.

Ireland calling the UK out for being stupid enough to fall for this 'gender critical' bollocks.

Good grief

We're watching the wholesale burning of every scrap of dignity afforded to trans people in the UK, their rights, their medical services, their employment, their place within society, their bodily functions. It is a disgrace, and a disgusting stain on the government and media of this country.

Tell that to the heartbroken daughter of a friend who’s quit guides because of this shameful move, Joanne. She can’t bear to see trans girls excluded. Your Harry Potter money funds this shit. Don’t buy in.

Sevenfold increase in serious incidents at UK immigration detention centre, report finds

Trans women has been welcomed at the Women's Institute since the 1970s and one member is in her 80's and has been a member for decades. This is pure bigotry pushed by legal threats backed monetarily by JK Rowling. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Totally 1) devastated and 2) livid at this. I was a Brownie leader for ten years and a Brownie/Guide/Ranger and it’s such a valuable and underestimated safe space for young girls and women to develop confidence and find refuge, whatever their background or identity. This is so incredibly cruel.

Ofsted says says trend of children’s homes being registered in cheap areas, not where need is greatest, is ‘national scandal’ www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

I think this is an important next step in our discussions of inflation: It makes a difference *which* prices are rising.

This government really is a lot like the West Wing, in that the politics seem to change week to week in service of a good line.

Great culture can save lives. Literally. Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard

Given the rate at which this happens, I’m afraid it’s going to get tedious rather quickly if the justice sec has to comment every time

Reading the OBR investigation

Sunday night poem

‘According to a poll of executives by Deloitte, a consultancy, and the Centre for AI, Management and Organisation at Hong Kong University, 45% reported returns from AI initiatives that were below their expectations. Only 10% reported their expectations being exceeded.’ economist.com/finance-and-...

‘It was extremely pornographic’: Cara Hunter on the deepfake video that nearly ended her political career

"All of this falls apart if humans don't adopt the tech. This is why you've seen Meta cram its lame chatbots into WhatsApp and Instagram. This is why Notepad and Paint now have useless Copilot buttons on Windows. This is why Google Gemini wants to "help you" read and reply to your emails."

Latest from me: on the budget, Labour's troubles, & the government's increasingly tense & distant relationship with the UK's squeezed middle www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I / have grown tired of so much that used to entrance me Mark Strand

Is welfare spending ''out of control''? It's estimated to be 10.8 per cent of GDP this financial year. That's just 0.8 per cent of GDP higher than in 2007-08, and total welfare spending has actually fallen fallen by 1.2 per cent of GDP since 2012-13⤵️ buff.ly/s5mz97u

Horrifying story. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

This is a very timely discussion from John Mahon of @ukandeu.bsky.social. There are all sorts of claims about who these emigrants are & why they are leaving the UK (not least from Goodwin et al) & a lot of anecdotes. So, as Mahon says, we could really do with some proper research evidence.

Nick, 30, having a bad day factoid actualy just statistical error. average uk voter actually not like that at all Nicks Georg, 30, who lives in cave & posts 10 000 times a day on twitter about hating immigrants and welfare claimaints, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

“She is doing things that I think are letting this country down". Labour peer Alf Dubs, who arrived in the UK on the Kindertransport, tells @nicolakellywrites.bsky.social that he is deeply disappointed in Shabana Mahmood and Keir Starmer's betrayal of child refugees bylinetimes.com/2025/11/28/a...

Three weeks ago I marked nine years on Testosterone. I didn't celebrate it then because I was in the middle of a multi-month battle to be allowed to stay on it, despite not producing my own hormones and simply wanting to remain on the exact prescription I'd had for nine years without any problems.

Excellent stuff

Yes, but will you still think that when the gambling lobby has given you a £50 free bet, and maybe a trip to a football match.

I don’t want prebiotics in my drinks. I want CAFFEINE!!!!

god I hope Olivia Nuzzi never gets paid even one more cent by a single publication for the rest of her life

Labour grandee Lord Blunkett helpfully clarifying on Today that you can’t have experienced child poverty that’s not ‘relative’ if you’ve not had to eat bread and dripping. Sure many will be relieved to hear this.

I've come to this piece a little late but it's one of the most horrifying things I've ever read. Working in the justice system has been lesson after lesson of just how willing the state and those working for it are to neglect, abuse and inflict unthinkable cruelty on vulnerable people in its care.

Not well understood that 6 in 10 families impacted by the two-child limit are in work, and that the vast majority have 3 or 4 children.

From now on, when discussing the budget, please use “is this measure bigger than the cost to the exchequer of gen Z drinking less” as your metric for assessing whether something actually raises or costs a significant sum

This whole story has really affected me. People who, decades after their time with Farage at school, find themselves in late middle age still freezing when they hear his voice and who are still damaged by the fear and misery he inflicted on them.

an underrated part of the British crisis is that the justice system is under massive strain, not least because criminal barristers are often being paid *less for taking a case than their costs in doing so.*. www.theguardian.com/law/2022/aug... www.theguardian.com/law/2025/nov...

Don’t want to be too moralistic about this, but it is an active disgrace what people are doing to a profoundly liberational scheme that costs relatively piddling amounts on the basis of a couple of right wing shitposters misrepresenting it on Twitter.

“Once you've read Parallel Lives, you'll never stop wanting to beat John Ruskin to death with your bare hands.”

Influencers made millions pushing ‘wild’ births – now the Free Birth Society is linked to baby deaths around the world

“Can Labour speak for non-graduates of any gender? Worries about men are often worries about class with a Movember moustache.”

John Wieners

The UK isn’t a “soft touch” on asylum. UK asylum seeker benefits are similar to European neighbours No right to work before 12 months (it’s 6 months in France, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands) UK settlement after 5 years (it’s 3 or 4 in Germany) Let’s cut out the alarmist rhetoric.

Seems very timely over here too: “…those who wish to build a future under a single political roof – no matter how different their pasts – belong to the same political community and thus deserve the same political rights.”

Oh