The Green victory in Denton is the result which will have the biggest effect on Labour, far more so than a Reform win. The blithe assumption progressives have nowhere else to go has been proved catastrophically wrong. Can’t help thinking of this quote from a Labour minister, a year ago…

As the analysis starts of the Gorton and Denton result, I wanted to flag some aspects that my experience yesterday suggests are being over or under-played (Caveats - I went to Longsight, Gorton and Denton town centres and spoke to as many people as I could, but it was mostly during the working day)

Little-known Rule 34 sub-sub-clause: I wrote a novel titled Rule 34 (and triggered a violent wikipedia edit war because they'd previously had a rule saying "no wikipedia articles titled Rule 34" and my book was notable enough to make the cut …)

At 9:18, 3rd period of the Finland-Switzerland women's ice hockey QF game, the ice crew came to clean the ice during a pause What follows is the funniest use of the slo-mo alternate angle tech I've seen them use during these Olympics of one of the crew members falling

I never really sign stuff. But this was different. It's not about trying to facilitate or block a particular party's route to power. It's about an electoral system that's unsuited to the political realities we face today and risks giving us government after government with no convincing mandate.

'Labour politicians urgently need to adopt the Conservative/Reform view of public opinion—that it’s movable, and it’s their job to move it.' Discuss.

I wrote for the Guardian about why Jim Ratcliffe's talk of Britain being "colonised" by immigrants crosses the line between legitimate debate and inflammatory rhetoric. It fuses echoes of Powellism with great replacement conspiracies of "civilisational erasure" www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

It’s not easy being PM in challenging geopolitical times, under 24 hr watch. But, that’s why mere tinkering, piecemeal reforms, or catchy slogan initiatives aren’t the answer. We need more profound, HONEST, review of our constitutional setup, national security posture, international relations. 🧵

If you are using the phrase "full speed ahead to uber-woke, net-zeroist, rejoinerism", especially if you are of the left, a loved one should take your phone off you and send you to Baden-Baden or somewhere for a month.

Yes, god help we risk a floundering government that feels like no one is in charge.

Three posts on phones and social media. 1. Instead of being 'pro' or 'anti', we should think of phones like cars - useful, but dangerous - and social media like alcohol - fun, but addictive. They have their place, but need age limits and precautions. www.edrith.co.uk/p/phones-are...

In honor of the recently held National Prayer Breakfast, tonight's Low Quality Ad is for this Gay the Pray Away shirt. Anyone who has actually read the Bible would know it explicitly states the key to getting into heaven is to be as gay as humanly possible. collabs.shop/d8avwb

The blunt truth is that if Karen Pierce had been a man, then she would still be US ambassador now and Keir Starmer's government would not be on the brink of death.

"In retrospect Prime Minister, was his nickname of The Prince of Darkness not a tiny bit of a red flag?"

Nowhere near as serious in the UK, but it is really interesting to see exactly the same dynamics in the UK anti-fascist movement. Deliberate attempts to narrow its support base as far as possible and to drive away normal people. Entirely counterproductive to their stated goal - and revealing.

You could make the same argument for Labour in the UK. Too much electoral strategy, not enough political vision and leadership.

it’s good night from me

Gordon Brown played a blinder during the financial crisis. Little wonder he's pissed off at the conduct of Mandelson at the time. Brown will be history's most unappreciated PM. He was, and is, terrific IMHO.

Well will you look at that 😁 "Door is open to customs union talks with UK, EU says" "he also said Britain and the EU could remove "most" food checks between the UK and the bloc" And we know it really happened! "Speaking after high-level talks with ministers" www.bbc.com/news/article...

"a Europe unified on trade but fragmented on defence will find its commercial power leveraged against its security dependence, as is happening now.”"

Interesting thought.

It's rare to see how lobbyists operate. But the Epstein-Mandelson correspondence shows us what happens all the time: plutocrats and government ministers conspiring against the public interest. This is why all lobbying should be in the public domain, but despite Labour and Con promises, it's not. 🧵

Ok, let’s do this🙄 We’ll start with an explainer covering: 🕒What is a 15-minute city 🏫What on Earth is going on with Oxford 👽Where the conspiracy theories have come from And then we’ll look at the Telegraph article 🧵 1/25

I'm late to this but what on earth were Question Time doing putting Konstantin Kisin on the show? These are not serious people. They're controversialists-for-cash. The whole business model is to say increasingly outrageous things for the coverage and clicks. Next week: Lucy White.

This gets us one step closer toward the final form of Tesla, where the only thing it sells is pieces of paper that say “we swear this isn’t a Ponzi scheme.”

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

On almost everything – fraud, polarisation, radicalisation, misinformation – evidence suggests that over 60s are in much more urgent need of online protection and education than teenagers. But that issue gets zero political attention, and is a total non-starter. Nothing good will come of it.

I don’t think people have been sold a positive vision of the future they can believe in, so they’re trying to resurrect the past.

Sorry to sound so grumpy but this has the same vibe as people moaning about the state of public services at the same time as not wanting to pay more in tax. What's any government (right or left) supposed to do when people don't go shopping or to pubs as much as they used to - and never will again?

At the risk of preaching not just to the choir but to the house of bishops, for my New Statesman column this week I have written about leaving Twitter a year ago, and how surreal it's been watching people make excuses for sharing a site with an AI sex pest tool www.newstatesman.com/culture/soci...

Tell me again how this BBC editorialising is just my cognitive bias... This isn't a quote from anywhere. It's just the BBC's description of this disgraced, divisive politician.

Poor Melanie. She is SO close to getting it. No, it's no coincidence. Because violence flows directly from ICE and Democrat-run cities are where ICE has been sent to cause it. It's like observing that surfing is not popular in landlocked states or that intellectual rigour is rare at the Telegraph.

We hear all the time about the damaging effect of social media. Less abt the radicalising & dehumanising effect of corporate right-wing media. An example: the increasingly deranged, dogmatic Melanie Phillips. How long can @thetimes.com continue to publish such rancid right-wing crap?

"In recent years he [Goodwin] has slightly moved away from studying the politics of the right to becoming an activist ..." "Slightly" is doing some heavy lifting in that sentence. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This. I'm not a BBC-basher but IMO Mason is a poor political journalist. It's not that he's 'biased' per se, it's that he reports politics as a kind of giggly spectator sport and as such is preoccupied with spectacle, talking up 'exciting' events rather than analysing them. 1/2

Huh - we've found the first situation in which I would vote Green if tactically necessary.

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.

Broke: Britain is a two party political system Woke: Britain is now a two bloc, multiparty system Bespoke: Britain is a one party system and that party is Nimbyism.

So basically we have a solid center left majority under PR, or a knife edge possibility of hard right government under FPTP. The country really can't afford the luxury of political parties' vanity when it comes to electoral pacts.

As public opinion turns, reports from within Mount Doom suggest Orc Lieutenant Gothmog is to be relieved of command and withdrawn from Gondor back to Minas Morgul where he is expected to soon retire. Sauron hopes this ends the matter and the Fellowship will now go home and stop blowing whistles.

The UK has lost its measles elimination status, the World Health Organization has announced. Vaccine disinformation is a worldwide pandemic that is killing us.

This reads like a breathless Reform press release. Not the slightest reflection that being seen as a dumping ground for failed Tories might not be entirely positive. Or that it might help Tories detoxify. Or that Reform is ticking down in all recent polls. Dismal stuff. www.bbc.com/news/article...

More members of Liz Truss's cabinet are in Reform than in Badenoch's shadow cabinet...

This is very silly on multiple levels. www.ft.com/content/e401...

Me: why does no one in this government have any ideas Peter Kyle: *speaks* Me: why does no one in this government have any *good* ideas

unlike all the strident leftists who were correct too early, i am correct at exactly the right time

New entry for the most divorced man in the UK

V vaguely formed thought/Q: has anyone done a social-justice hierarchy of needs? As in rather than assuming - as I think the very concept attempts - that everything is a fait accompli equal human right, fitting social-justice itself into a hierarchy of needs? (NB noting critiques of such!)