Ofcom’s founding director of standards has said he is “astounded” by the regulator’s decision not to investigate 32 complaints about a GB News interview with President Trump, in which he claimed human-induced climate change is “a hoax” www.theguardian.com/media/2026/f...

Please, please, media outlets, remember the C word: context. You can’t discuss Trump’s apes post - or his ‘blame a staffer’ excuse - if you’re not also factoring in and reminding your viewers/readers about his birtherism, his ‘send her back’ remarks, him calling Somalis ‘low IQ’.

Trump posts racist video about the Obamas. Karoline Leavitt dismisses criticism as "fake outrage." Tim Scott calls it "the most racist thing I've seen out of this White House." White House deletes video. @ericalgj.bsky.social @bellakwai.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/u...

A plea to my fellow professionals in the media. Please put Trump’s racism on the top of your news agendas? Where is it? The leader of the “free world” is using his racism to make all of our lives worse instead of better. A racist is a threat to us all. Whatever else he is doing, holds no worth.

This should worry everyone.

Very much this 👇

A fair point well made by David Aaronovitch.

Nigel Farage once vehemently believed that defections should trigger by-elections… I challenged Reform’s Andrea Jenkyns on his now opposite stance And this was the state of her response…

Donald Trump threatens to sue Trevor Noah for telling jokes at the Grammy Awards. I'm sure the self-declared free speech absolutists will be rushing to Noah's defence at any moment.

Here's this week's topical clue for the @alexisconran.com show on Times Radio: "Communist Chinese leader embraced by Starmer, mingling with no sign of hesitation (7)" You can hear me give the answer and explanation about 3.45pm

I've known Matt nearly twenty years since we worked together at the University of Manchester, I never realised this claim wasn't true.

Can't see this happening on Question Time...

If you want to know what actual political academics think of Matt Goodwin you can read quite a lot of their thoughts in this profile of him I wrote in 2024 (free with registration) www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-m...

We can‘t even officially call them Conservatives 2.0 ... It’s the same people!

Arguably more significant than defections, internal party politics and the Beckhams… In 2024 there were around 3,600 suspected cases of measles. We need to challenge the nonsense spread by anti vaxxers and ensure children are protected. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... news.sky.com/story/uk-los...

TikTok’s new owners have eliminated a privacy rule protecting U.S. users’ precise location data from being collected. levernews.com/larry-elliso...

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

Very useful 👇

🤡

A thread of MAGA protesting with guns and not getting murdered for it... Arizona, November 2020

Burnham:

Putin pioneered this. No opposition is legitimate. Regular, decent, “ordinary” people cannot possibly be against us because only we represent “the real people.” Tell-tale sign of authoritarianism.

We’ve placed the available videos of the shooting of Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis today into the same synchronised timeline and are continuing to analyse further.

Incredible piece of journalism here … and a glimpse in to the scale and magnitude of misinformation bombarding a public that is slowly abandoning journalism for social media posts… very alarming.

Federal law enforcement agents shot and killed a man in Minneapolis on Jan. 24 according to local police officials. DHS told Fox News that the man was “armed with a gun”. A video of the shooting appears to show that a gun was taken from the man before the first shot was fired. x.com/BillMelugin_...

Man of the people latest. All of Farage’s history shows that far from “taking on the globalists” he’s a grifter who milks unsavoury parts of the global elite for all he can get

According to its new privacy policy, TikTok now collects more data on its users, including their precise location, after majority ownership officially switched to a group based in the US. www.wired.com/story/tiktok...

Exactly this.

‘Terrible things are happening outside… Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared. Women return… to find their families gone.’ Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Russia is invading Europe and the president of the United States is ranting about the danger that "windmills" pose to the Western World.

Don't know if this sort of rhetoric has caught up with the fact that Reform's base are the most dependent on welfare of any party's

“We’re in the midst of a rupture,” says Canadian prime minister Mark Carney, at the World Economic Forum in Davos 🇨🇭, as Trump plots the annexation of Greenland. “You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination.”

Mark Carney is a fantastic demonstration of why having a coherent political and economic worldview is so important for a politician. When you encounter something out of the scope of what you’ve previously experienced, you can derive your approach from first principles. Labour: take notes.

In January 2025 Silicon Valley's elite lined up behind Trump as he was sworn in for a second term. They've enjoyed a lucrative year since, underscoring Washington's alignment with Big Tech – and its transactional nature. An #FTEdit animated 🧵 on how tech titans have become even richer under Trump 👇

Just reflexively oppositional, YOU NEGOTIATED THIS DEAL! If you'd not held the election when you did, Rishi would have signed it. YOU WERE IN THE FOREIGN OFFICE AT THE TIME.

Bravo Greenland … bravo …

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is expected to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos next week, rubbing shoulders with top politicians and business figures from around the world despite criticising the conference in the past. www.ft.com/content/aed4...

Extraordinary… even for Trump’s standards.

It’s a real shame that Nigel Farage is too unwell to do interviews the morning after Donald Trump threatens us with sanctions. Here he is with “the bravest man he ever met”. He campaigned to make Trump President, and has spent the last year enjoying all the chaos he has caused.

But…but….but we gave you a second state visit! #NeverEverEVERSuckUpToABully

It will not surprise you to learn that Toby Youngs 'Free Speech Union' has obtained a High Court injunction banning the publication of a list of its donors open.substack.com/pub/democrac...

Friday’s @thetimes.com cartoon times.newsprints.co.uk/morten-morla...

Every defector Farage unveils, swears up-and-down that they made no deal. Farage cocked up today and pulled back that curtain. A huge unforced error. Incredibly, when - rightly - pressed about it, he pretended, to journalists' faces, that he had never said what he said TO THEM an hour earlier.

"Hand on heart" though ...

What's incredible is he said it only five months ago!

The Reform pitch is increasingly “the last government was terrible, so we’ve hired everyone who was in it”.

there’s always a tweet

This is the guy they treat as a political genius.

Worth every second