So much, often contradictory, speculation about early Burnham decisions, that it feels like it is more what people would like him to do (whether or not there is an earthly that he would) than prediction!

(Ed: So fewer than 3 per cent. Why is this a story?) More than 100,000 households in social housing are in richest 20% www.thetimes.com/article/f670...

Every time I turn on the News, someone is discussing who *might* be Chancellor and what that *might* mean. These are good and important questions, but they are not "News". We need to find a way to shift the dial back to reporting on what *has* happened, rather than speculating on what *might*.

If only Daily Telegraph readers would give some kind of clue as to what it is about Sadiq Kkahn that they find so upsetting.

These are the kinds of radical environmental policies I'd like to see from the Green Party. Would be so much more helpful for opening up the debate on the pace and route to net zero, than just advocating for a wealth tax that can somehow pay for massively expanded spending.

Some speculation on here whether new PM means (at last) proper attempt to sort out centre of government. Since I was cog in it, I thought I'd wave the flag for the Commission for Smart Government! www.civilservant.org.uk/library/2021...

Unsurprisingly, a number of people asked me to look at this story doing the rounds on all the right-wing media 🧐 So let's take a look at who is exempt from the ban and why, and when this "two-tier" situation came about (spoiler - it's nothing new!) 1/20

“In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take.” Adlai E. Stevenson, who died on this day in 1965

Telling your followers to burn down hotels with asylum seekers in them is "hurty words". But Dan Hodges doing a few tweets is grounds to call the police.

Under a Binface government, anyone who doesn’t accept human-made climate change as fact will be sent back to school, from Year 1 right the way to A Levels, to see if anything goes in the second time round. #VoteBinface

Seen at village fete bookstall...

Careful study of the Bayeaux Tapestry has revealed this !

Great thread here about Coldrum - thank you @johnnythin.bsky.social!

Yes, saw her closely on action when she was a civil servant. Sorted out brilliantly a policy hot potato/nightmare with complex stakeholder landscape inside and outside government.

The Economist appears to be transcribing press releases from right-wing think tanks economist.com/leaders/2026...

"almost two-thirds (65%) of employed #SocialHousing residents work in key worker occupations, including health and social care, education, retail and transport. This compares with around 40% of London’s general workforce." #StopSocialHousingStigma www.housingtoday.co.uk/news/social-...

Pathetic that they now think they have to spill ink on hit-jobs directed at a joke candidate.

Utterly depressing: police seize and then crush completely legal e-cycle *even after owner supplied documentation*. Illegal e-motorcycles are a menace and need to be tackled but officers need to be properly trained. Not hard to distinguish legal from illegal www.cyclingelectric.com/news/police-...

In Japan he is ゴミ箱伯爵 - Gomibako Hakushaku - literally "Earl Trashcan". bsky.app/profile/that...

fascinatingly* the French news is translating "Count Binface" as « le Compte Tête-de-Poubelle » rather than « Visage-de-Poubelle) which is, in fairness, more accurate (his entire head is a bin, not just his face) typical British media not asking the important underlying questions * ta gueule

As ever, the proof will be in the pudding but lots of interesting stuff in here and good to see the (almost certain to be) new PM doing thinking about positively engaging with their own MPs as well as parliament more broadly

Coming from the States I've always struggled to understand UK politics. Apparently Farage has resigned from office in order to be elected to that office - but nobody will run against him except a talking trash can. And the BBC is actually interviewing the trash can.

New post: "Farage's Folly" Yesterday's gambit was a desperate move from a man in trouble. I look at the likelihood of him quitting or being thrown out after a standards investigation. And what that would mean for Reform and British politics. (£/free trial) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/f...

While the UK is, yet again, in the thralls of Farage's toxic politics and ego, immigrants all around the country continue to do what we always do: be your neighbours, colleagues, doctors, cleaners; be the carers of your parents and sick; your bin men. In short: help the UK tick every day.

Nothing says 'man of the people' quite like a politician calling a by-election at public expense on the issue of whether or not he should have the right to secretly take donations from Thai-based crypto billionaires and a convicted fraudster

It may stall the standards investigations, but it doesn't make them go away. If he were re-elected, they would presumably resume.

So much western news focus on other things that reach of Ukraine's attacks feels somewhat under-reported. Omsk is not far off 3,000 km from the nearest Ukrainian territory.

Note that the BBC a) leads with Farage's denial, and b) leaves the ally's criminal conviction out of the headline

Netherlands confirms it will host Nuremberg-style tribunal for Russia kyivindependent.com/netherlands-...

Not true. In their list of grievances, the Founding Fathers complained that King George III was blocking colonial laws that would promote immigration and make it easier for foreign settlers to become citizens.

The plagues of Egypt were divine providence too.

Announced during a historic heat wave. These guys are buffoons.

Tucked away in West Yorkshire is a hidden piece of transatlantic history perfect for the Fourth of July. The Triumphal Arch on the Parlington Estate in Aberford is Britain's only monument dedicated to American independence. Built in 1783 by the eccentric, whig-sympathising

Just let's be grateful that @nationaltrust.org.uk has so far, and long may it continue, succeeded in standing up to similar poisonous nonsense peddled by "Restore Trust". I visited Monticello over 30 years ago. It is right that visitors see both sides of Jefferson.

No school should be on X or oblige parents to get updates from it. A site that actively promotes porn, bullying, hate and fascism is not an appropriate place to post pictures of sports days.

Oh, hello.

feels like a Russian invasion is pretty much nailed on now

Imagine being mad that we live in a country in which a former refugee can rise to become Lord Mayor of their city. That makes me proud to be British, if anything.

So far as I can see, reported by FT *only*, no other paper or broadcaster. Any other politician, something like this would be wall-to-wall for days #twotier www.ft.com/content/9ae3...

Nigel Farage’s housing policy is a racist misrepresentation of what social housing is and who gets it peteapps.substack.com/p/nigel-fara...

Back in 2012 James Purnell wrote a paper for @instituteforgovernment.org.uk on how incoming ministers could have a successful transition in their first hundred days. No doubt his thinking has evolved, but it's interesting in the context of how Burnham is approaching the PM transition. 🧵

She wanted to be in this war and argued that the only reason Keir Starmer didn't want to is that he was in hoc to British Muslims. Not a serious person.

What? I guess some appeals hang purely on interpretation of facts but many will raise complex issues of law. Like lay magistrates, these panels will need legally-qualified advisers. Or there will be lots of unsupportable decisions and consequent JRs clogging up the administrative court.

Weird how the right both believe Thatcher's council house sale is the best policy in history and that anyone who benefitted from it is bad and wrong.

Ed Miliband is often portrayed as a dorky ideologue but sometimes you read something and he's like basically a fairly knowledgeable brownite operator....like when the x-men have a secondary mutation power that doesn't get used and then a writer remembers it

In the Great Hall of the Doges Palace in Venice are portraits of the Doges. One is just painted black. That is the one who tried to stage a coup and wreck the Venetian System. I think about that a lot when thinking about how history will view Trump.

There is no such rule, unwritten or otherwise. This is constitutionally and historically illiterate.

Did the colonists on The Mayflower assimilate?

I agree with this. There are fair arguments for thinking about then boundary between the Cabinet Office and HMT but, as the authors say, the priority is to turn the current ramshackle Cabinet Office into something effective.