Workshopping a take that the perception of Starmer's foreign policy is almost exactly the same as his policy on relations with devolved governments. Stopping the insane stuff the last guys were up to makes you look like a wizard and everybody writes puff pieces about how good you are at it.

For all the chest beating about Britain as a "first-amongst-equals" within European powers, it's amazing how much the powers that be are willing to burn their own assets

People are very reluctant to believe that a) living in a democracy is a huge responsibility and if you’re not engaged and informed, that is a failure by you and you should try harder b) how people vote is a profound expression of their values and how they see the world But it’s very obviously true

Something extremely funny could happen tomorrow

Susan Smith of For Women Scotland is quoted in this piece saying that Dr Upton leaving the NHS will be "a relief to female patients." The employment tribunal found that Upton had done nothing wrong! She was completely innocent of any kind of harassment! www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/1592555...

Thinking again about the missed narrative opportunity to have 1) Dooku as a non-Sith Lord force user 2) The trade federation etc not backing the CIS and it being an entirely grassroots movement

This echoes Douglas Alexander calling the SNP a national security threat and imo is a mistake from Labour in a wider strategic sense www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Labour MPs hoping to get back to business now the Mandelson scandal has calmed down

Southcom strikes which illegally kill people on boats in the Carribean that three months ago elicited shocked headlines in US news media are now being reported in low priority spaces buried deep in news outlet websites. Normalisation of what are in effect US military death squads.

Starmer's Britain is one in which an NHS Doctor is dragged through the courts and shamed in the press for no crime she has committed and is ultimately forced into self-exile due to harassment Labour on all levels of politics enthusiastically supported

This pales in comparison to the ultimate mistake the Jedi made in leading a slave army against a revolt on the periphery of the Republic

I love Dunk's himbo energy but I really hope season 2 and 3 show that he is actually reasonably clever at times, it's just a lack of confidence from being a peasant that colour his "dumbness" towards the nobility.

Lorna Slater denying the SNP a majority, some craic

Norstat 10-13 Feb seat projection (vs last poll / vs 2021 on new boundaries); AMS Ideal seats: SNP ~ 64 (+2 / +1); 45 RUK ~ 21 (+4 / +21); 26 Lab ~ 18 (nc / -3); 23 Grn ~ 11 (nc / +1); 14 Con ~10 (-2 / -21); 14 LD ~ 5 (-4 / +1); 7 (Projection caveats: ballotbox.scot/projections)

England, look upon the Fifa World Cup in fear

a̶h̶ ̶w̶e̶l̶l̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶l̶e̶a̶s̶t̶ ̶i̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶o̶n̶l̶y̶ ̶r̶u̶g̶b̶y̶ Margaret Thatcher, Isaac Newton, Keir Starmer, Henry VIII, Emma Thompson, Paul Weller, Phil Neville, your boys took one hell of a beating!

Journalists have a very important question to ask Lord Offord

It also almost certainly made pro Palestinian politics more mainstream in general. Likewise the Trump administration's attempts to kidnap and disappear Khalil and Ozturk for speech have only reinforced in many liberal minds that "pro Israel = anti free speech".

Genuinely thankful that we kept Scottish Water, look at this mess

Offord being a potential offset is something of a complication but I do wonder how much Reform's polling in Scotland will be impacted when voters remember they *hate* Nigel Farage

when you think about it there's a remarkably consistent through-line from the Plantation of Ulster to the American colonial project to the US-supported destruction of Gaza

Somehow, the Ulster Plantation returned

Being anti immigration is the ultimate luxury belief

Our government delights in bashing immigrants, and given I presume that they can read polling data showing that right-wing voters still loathe them, I can only presume this is for the love of the game.

Absoutley miserable take. I fundemntally don't understand people like this.

A fast lad this one

Yo check out this sick bird

if the Supreme Court agrees with the High Court that the proscription of Palestine Action is unlawful, I wonder if the government will maintain its line that it can’t change what the Supreme Court decides the law is

Unquestionably a massive win for civil liberty and a pushback against a massive overreach from the government. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Wow! Palestine Action win judicial review - Guardian report. This is a *big* legal win. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Sorry but this is just wildly regressive and trad

I do actually think we need some form of transition period for Parliament for us to basically train MPs/MSPs/MSs/AMs in what they can do. Some of them are great but imo the level of constitutional understanding is...subpar.

We need to make reading Dicey a mandatory qualification for MPs.

I'm not saying the commentariat don't care but we're four days on from Anas Sarwar calling for Keir Starmer to resign and we haven't seen a single hint of a Holyrood or Westminster poll for Scottish seats.

Checking in on the Labour government every day like:

This is something I hadn't considered but makes sense. Theres also the aspect of the US largely fighting wars far away from its home shores. There has never been a Blitz or equivalent that required a strong state.

It's quite annoying that predicting by-elections basically run on vibes because I feel like there will be some people properly shocked if the Greens do this

Terrific piece this. Something that Yvette Cooper said the government would do that seems to have fallen by the wayside is to release this data *themselves*, but instead they've seemingly quit the field leaving it only to bad actors (and now, thankfully, Anoosh)

The founding trauma of McSweeneyism is Liz Kendall getting 4.5 per cent in the Labour leadership contest. From which he took that if you at any point try and explain something, or have a honest conversation, or go 'you're wrong', you lose, and that has suffused much of the government.

It's from the Spectator so this kind of casual bigotry is probably seen as a positive, but this should be as disqualifying as casually throwing around any other slur

If the PM reckons Jim Ratcliffe should apologise for spreading this exact same lie, should the Home Office apologise too, or? 🤨

Look if I didn't want to have Polanski say this, I would not have made the same governing choices the Labour government has made for the last *18 months* whilst making it clear they think left-wing and liberal voters are freaks.

Watching these two politicians trade blows over who hates women less when both of them have catastrophically failed on VAWG in different ways actually make me feel a bit sick

Indeed. It is for hard to reconcile "this is a left-wing government!" with the UK Government's policies on private water companies, Grangemouth, Mossmorran and Harland & Wolff for example. An actual LW government would have jumped on these guys as easy targets for public ownership.