By militantly ignoring the OBR and causing market catastrophe, arrogant Liz Truss handed them total power. The OBR now run the show. The shock waves of her party electing that ridiculous person will follow the UK for many years yet. She can't be vilified enough. #Wato #SpringStatement #OBR

Is the 78 year old Trump in charge? It's becoming my increasingly settled view that he is not. JD Vance is.

When JD Vance complains about Demmark "not being a good ally", he's lying. In terms of casualties per population, Denmark gave more than any other ally while supporting America in Afghanistan. 🇩🇰🇬🇱🇪🇺

FFS Mason. It's obvious that no minister can make disobliging comments about the US administration on a news interview. #wato

JD Vance's resentment of Europe is visceral, personal, a raw inferiority-superiority complex arising from different histories that both Americans and Europeans display about each other when they're being ignorant, shallow and childish. But he's USA VP, not just some online pundit like me or you.

The one and only argument I accept for appeasing Trump is that it buys Europe time. I don't believe for a minute that Trump's prime motivation is a lasting peace. It's a lasting Trump. Trump and Putin are more than friends. They're a thing, and democracy as we knew it isn't part of their mindset.

White rabbits white rabbits white rabbits

Scotland voted 62% to remain in the EU. Instead of Westminster compromising on a tiny majority on the national vote, they committed to the hardest Brexit possible

It's the first day of spring. This isn't a weather forecast, it's an announcement about the changing season. Forget the meteorological and astronomical statements on this. Weather is correlated not causative. The astronomers pick the wrong labels. The Celts knew. The first day of spring is now.

Rule by executive order is fun isn't it? Especially when you have a weird old man in charge with his strings being pulled by tech billionaires who are so rich and powerful already they can only get their jollies from being full on fascistic and watching the mayhem and misery.

This nazi sympathizer has been pardoned by Trump. Musk gave a Nazi salute today on stage. We now have officially a Nazi regime…

If Musk REALLY thinks that what he did at the Capitol One rally yesterday was NOT a Nazi gesture, then I've a suggestion for him, he should come over to Tesla's Berlin Gigafactory and try repeating it, I dare him!

Jesus, the number of people saying you can't keep blaming the Tories for the state of the country. It's bloody ridiculous. We've at least ten years of hard graft before we can say what Britain is like now is down to our Labour government not a result of the hideous legacy of Tory destruction.

Can we please stop talking absurd Tory nonsense about about 'food poverty' or 'energy poverty' FFS. If you can't meet your basic needs, it's just 'poverty'. #UKpoverty

'Taking photos on Hove prom'

Louise Casey is formidable. Starmer always plays a long game because that's the only game he values. And personal popularity isn't his top concern, either. If any govt combo is to resolve the supremely long term issue of social care, this is it.

Hearing a lot about the fact that pensions are a benefit not directly 'paid for' by qualifying contributions? It isn't innocent observation. It's the deliberate undermining of the idea of workers accruing the right to one, by people who want to privatise them like they want to privatise the NHS.

Never forget with Brexit, the Tory govts DELIBERATELY: 1 Disenfranchised thousands of British citizens with most to lose 2 Refused to respect the close referendum result 3 Negotiated worse trade terms with the UK's biggest markets 4 Demanded British citizens be stripped of rights and freedoms

Though still keeping us outside the single market, Rachel Reeves' ambition to break down trade barriers with the EU is at least a normal one. The Tory govt was the only one ever in the world to deliberately negotiate much WORSE terms with its largest markets and declare the worse terms a success.

Private equity sharks cash in on foster care. Just three made £40m profit from the plight of vulnerable children. Foster carers paid £7.50 an hour, treated as self employed, denied workers' rights, rely on benefits. Privatisation delivers exploitation. www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/market...

What's the point of posting here if everyone agrees with each other? Where do you go when you're not here, to tackle the Right, the far Right and the absolutely mind-boggling lunatic Right? Is it enough to be among friends?

Watching Barnier screw things up snottily has confirmed to me something which might not go down well with my fellow Rejoin mates. We'll rejoin not only when the UK comes to its senses and admits something went horribly wrong in 2016 but also when the EU admits it failed to recognise the threat, too.

Looking for the purpose of the Nazca line images in Peru, interesting why Nico Georgiou is doing his Strava art - not a religious ritual or a rite, not to give astronomical information or to provide landing zones for aliens, but because he wants to and thinks it's fun 👀 #r4today

@BBCfileon4 is infuriating, going for foreign students again when the last scandal's never been resolved: the ETS 'cheating', in which thousands of lives were unjustly ruined. This is the forgotten scandal, just like Windrush and the Post Office - people cruelly treated like criminals en masse.

And yet, it is confidently linked to future tax changes and "fears" over the future state of the economy. Not 14 years of austerity and managed decline absolutely hammering all but the rich.

Rents up; food costs up; energy up; insurance up; wages have stagnated; and in 9 of the last 13 years, the government has held benefit rates below inflation. It's almost as if the working class - the biggest consumers in our economy - having less money, might actually be bad for everyone. Who knew!?

It's a mess, yeah, and easy to call it a mess of Macron's own making. Otoh, difficult to see how to counter the relentless march of the right.

I hope everyone is paying close attention to how the Hunter Biden pardon is being covered. If you wondered why Trump and his cronies can betray America and commit ceaseless crimes for years without consequences but Democrats can't right obviously partisan wrongs, the current media reaction is why.

Musing: if climate change caused the 2006-10 Syrian drought and crop failures which caused desperate poverty and discontent leading to protests, uprisings then complex civil war which turbocharged migration and the migraphobia which underpinned Brexit, then arguably, climate change caused Brexit.

I mean this obviously can't stand. You can't have a foreign extremist, who used social media to encourage & facilitate far-right violence, plough huge donations to his favoured British political party. www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/is-elo...

Just to say, rules on here (for me) will be, I'll of course follow you back if you're so nice as to follow me. I'm obviously not more interesting than you are, so obviously following you back is important to me. This means, therefore, that if I follow you and you don't follow me back....

The midwinter month begins with all the midwinter festivals. It doesn't look as if it will even get properly light today. Glad St Giles Cathedral Edinburgh know how to behave, giving us Christian atheists who like traditions something to work with, with Come O Come Emmanuel to start Advent.

Medicine doesn't allow the natural end of life any more in so many cases. Medicine makes the decisions. This isn't the 1820s or even the 1920s. Without assisted dying, someone still has to decide. It's just that that someone can never be you. You're ineligible to take part in the process.

It really doesn't matter how shit Kemi Badenoch is when His Majesty's opposition have got the BBC's political editor Chris Mason using his massive platform to vindictively destroy Labour and champion the Tories.

The biggest shock of the Haigh resignation is discovering that once upon a time the police actually investigated a stolen phone.

What the hell kind of nonsense is this. Even under the worst possible interpretation of events, I wouldn't give two fucks what she did when she was in her twenties.

I'm against coercion, which is why I think the assisted dying bill should pass. People scaremongering over the theoretical possibility of coercing people to die seem completely easy with all those in reality right now currently being coerced to live.

Terrible judgement of Starmer to throw Louise Haigh to the wolves over a minor, spent conviction he knew about. They will now come back for more, again and again.

It's my impression some MPs oppose the assisted dying bill for fundamental reasons but are using grounds of poor safeguards and palliative care to deflect. These MPs should be more honest about why suffering is less important to them than how they navigate an awkward voting situation. #AssistedDying

So the NFU is saying farmers are richer than the government thinks they are? They have far more in assets than the government thinks they do? OKaaay. And the NFU also say that they shouldn't pay any inheritance tax at all? Okaay. NOT OK. #farmillionaires

If your business, eg farming, makes no money, but is deemed vital to the country's interests, then you need help from the country to keep it afloat, not help to keep the country from having any stake in that business at all, not even partially rescinded IHT. You are not medieval lords of the manor.

Hi everyone - I'm a refugee from the X Bird Site. Now fledging. Trying to rebuild my base feels really daunting - and I want to find my tribe! If you followed me there - would be lovely if you'd follow me here. Or wave hello and I'll follow you! GSS xxx

King Charles charges this RNLI lifeboat station to launch its boat because he owns the beach. And they’re not the only charity he’s rinsing (Location: Sennen Cove, Cornwall) youtu.be/pocnThE3nHc

When will the media stop calling the government 'the Labour Government'? Or even 'Labour' on its own, as if they're somehow weird imposters? They did not talk about 'the Conservative government' all the time. Or just, the 'Conservatives'. They aren't happy I know. But we did have an election ffs.

After annoying people by accepting freebies, I'm now annoying people by not accepting freebies.

I've a lot of reservations over Starmer but nobody should underestimate him. He's grey caution personified but also paradoxically the biggest risk-taker since Thatcher. Playing for payoffs not now but in 10 to 20 yrs' time is insanely brave in the vicious short-termist world of Westminster politics.

They call it 'regulation' but it's really obligation: obligation to others, obligations to play fair, pay fair, etc In the UK, Thatcher undertook this pernicious rewiring of our brains- "the individual has no obligation to society only to themselves and their family". Re-rewiring is very difficult.

Google is not as good as it was. The AI generated answers taking the data and mashing it are not as good as the previous results were. We knew the algorithms worked to mess with our heads. The new Google just tries to bury that even deeper.