PG Tits

Yes, whatever happened to my fantasy Brexit where the all powerful UK simply swept away the superpowers, the global companies, anyone else's rules, geography, history, domestic politics, demographics, deindustrialisation, Trump, and things I don't like? Oh yes, reality. And bad Brexiter governments

What is happening in United States is what happens when coercive powers of the state - arrest, detention, charges - are used as ends in themselves, and not as means of serving justice. They know the arrests and charges will not stick, but they don’t care. Intimidation, like cruelty, is the point.

Council by-elections are all about getting out the vote. It doesn't surprise me at all that the Lib Dems are good at that. While other party conferences are consumed by internecine squabbles and posturing, the Lib Dems are in meeting rooms discussing the best way to get leaflets through doors.

New report: a serious unintended consequence of the Government’s tenancy reforms. Hundreds of thousands of ordinary tenants will be dragged into an annual stamp duty calculation and filing regime.

Rachel Reeves: "It is not right that people who don't go to university bear the cost for others to." I don't use local leisure centres and I don't drive, so will I be made exempt for taxation that pays for all that stuff? Or is it only education we'll be going after

Spoke to Shleagh Fogarty yesterday sbout why the Chancellor is wrong: our “student loan” system is not remotely fair. It’s regressive and embedding inter and intra generational wealth inequality. It’s not a loan system, it’s a bad grad tax in all but name. youtu.be/uOC6Arrf2us?...

Reform picks anti-migrant activist Matt Goodwin as its candidate for the Gorton and Denton by-election. A reminder that just a few months ago the BBC invited him onto Question Time as a supposedly independent "author and academic"

Auschwitz was at the end of a process. We must remember that it did not start from gas chambers. This hatred gradually developed: from ideas, words, stereotypes & prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanization & escalating violence... to systematic and industrial murder. Auschwitz took time.

Absolute nonsense. An unequal retirement age is unjustified and younger people deserve more of a slice of the pie than women born between 1950 and 1959. Disgusted to see Sarah Olney’s name here and no more support for @libdems.org.uk

Can't believe I forgot to celebrate Justin Webb Day yesterday. Must have been distracted by all that normality in America

Absolutely shameful to throw your employee under the bus when they’re murdered, but that’s what happens when you’re in the dumbest cult of personality in the history of the world

A reminder to the news media: “conflicting accounts” is what you say BEFORE the incontrovertible video evidence appears. After that, your job is to ask why one side is lying, not to repeat the lie and pretend no one knows the truth.

Walz: "To Americans who are watching this, I've got a question for you: What side do you want to be on? The side of an all powerful federal govt that can kill, injury, menace, & kidnap its citizens off the streets? Or on the side of a nurse at the VA hospital who died bearing witness to such govt?"

Daniel Hannan? The world's wrongest man. Should we belive him?

Dear BBC. Dear CNN. Dear New York Times. The Trump administration lies all the fucking time. Hope this helps.

The Washington Post published a clear video of federal agents removing Alex Pretti's handgun moments before he was fatally shot. There's nothing in the video to suggest Pretti even reached for his weapon. wapo.st/49Zqv1L

Written a short explainer on one of the most common and avoidable errors in election analysis at the moment: building conclusions on how voters are moving from vote change. Share it with anyone who needs to see it, which includes an alarming number of people in Westminster.

This is the most important thing to report. The cruelty of the American Government to this family is shocking.

He has his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down all while being pepper sprayed.    Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man. Thank you’

Alex Pretti was an ICU nurse serving veterans. He died trying to protect protestors being assaulted. A group of anonymous & masked men fired chemicals into his face, beat him, disarmed him, and shot him in broad daylight in front of witnesses. Then his government smeared him & defended his murder.

The BBC coverage is absolutely terrible. It leads on "sharply contested narratives" It has a dramatic skew to the US government It has posted the video but has failed to report on what it shows: it shows the US govt account is untrue

Someone should ask Kemi Badenoch (or whichever Tory is up for Sunday shows) if the Tories’ proposed “removals force” with “sweeping new powers” will be modelled on ICE www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Worth remembering when looking at the horrific scenes in the US right now that both Reform and the Tories have pledged to bring in ICE-style organisations to the UK if they win power

If you're living somewhere outside the USA, one thing you can do is pressure your leaders to boycott World Cup and Olympic events here.

Alex Pretti, the man killed by federal agents today in Minneapolis, appears to have been a registered nurse, an athlete, a son and a brother, with ties to Colorado and Wisconsin. Here is a photo he used for several accounts.

Here ya go. Enjoy Cats vs Bears😂😂😂

Nigel Farage attended Davos on a pass sponsored by the family office of Iranian billionaire Sasan Ghandehari, which told the World Economic Forum that the Reform UK leader had advised the company since 2018. ft.trib.al/V138xDu

This week, an X user created an AI video of me being chloroformed and prepared for rape. Victims are told it's not real and they're getting offended for no reason. But nudification tools are weapons of sexual assault, and the harm they cause is real 👇 jessasato.substack.com/p/ai-nudific...

Once again, these people aren't "patriots". They hate their own countries and have built an entire career out of attacking them, while cheering on any foreign leader who does the same

Today’s show provided a platform for military personnel & their families to respond to Donald Trump’s shameful comments about NATO forces in Afghanistan. (There is some tumbleweed where Nigel Farage’s condemnation should have been.) tinyurl.com/4rrn2mkx

they really are vile

1. Reforming (never mind abolishing) pensions is pretty much the most politically difficult thing any government does. Not even a dictatorship has really succeeded in doing it (Chile under Pinochet is only somewhat of a counter-example but that system is gone now too).

Shamelessly hopping on this very good thread to promote the column I wrote earlier this week on exactly this:

In an era of great power rivalry, Canada is choosing to be principled and pragmatic. To name reality, to act together, and to build what we claim to believe in.

Brooklyn Park police chief Mark Bruley: "We're hearing people being stopped with no cause & being demanded to show paperwork to determine if they're here legally. We started hearing from our police officers the same complaints. Every one of these individuals is a person of color... it has to stop"

coalition of the will you shut the fuck up

“The old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy.” As a piece of prose and geopolitical analysis Carney’s Davos speech feels history-making. paulwells.substack.com/p/the-carney...

Fairly sure it’s unintentional, but the end date on this mug being sold by the Smithsonian does make it sound a little like they’re saying America dies in 2026…

"It is tempting to say that the transatlantic alliance has hit rock bottom. Unfortunately, it could have a lot further to fall." @gideonrachman.bsky.social:

The way politics is being conducted by both the tories and Labour seems surreal to me. We have a lunatic in the WH who simply cannot be relied on to be an ally, indeed the opposite, we need to spend a ton of cash on defence and no-one seems to think voters might need to be, er, readied for all this

HEY, ICE! REMEMBER: If you are an Amefrican, your heritage is either Native American, slave, refugee or immigrant." WHICH ONE ARE YOU?

Two days ago it was Elissa Slotkin. Last week it was Jerome Powell. Before that, Mark Kelly. Weaponizing the justice system against your opponents is an authoritarian tactic. The only person not being investigated for the shooting of Renee Good is the federal agent who shot her.

Yet compare the hounding of Craig Guildford for being unaware an analysis by a subordinate included inappropriate use of AI (though much of the analysis was clearly accurate) with the treatment of Geoffrey Dear who was in post 4 years before disbanding the blatantly corrupt Serious Crimes Squad!

An exquisite detail from my @theguardian.com news colleagues on why Robert Jenrick was late to meet Nigel Farage onstage today.

Just in case @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com is too modest to repost it, the best portrait of Robert Jenrick you'll read is the one she wrote for @thenewworldmag.bsky.social back in October. Might be paywalled, but, hey, good journalism has to be financed somehow.

Keep watching - Trump and his circle almost have their precious goal: invoking the Insurrection Act. As per said before: a great deal of what is being done is simply Trump and his circle working backwards from this objective.

X is breaking the law: on fakes, nudification, misogyny + failing to stop racist abuse too While it is in the "sin bin" -maybe Lionesses, WSL stars & male counterparts should suggest a time out: suspend activity while govt & Ofcom try to bring it back within law. Try to build healthier spaces