Just walked by a colleague's classroom after my class finished and he was talking about Elvis, getting blank stares and so he had to ask "Does anyone know who Elvis Presley is?" It's rough out here on these teaching streets.

my view on this is that publishers should stop it with the 80k wordcount obsession, so many contemporary non-fic books are obviously 40-50k pieces of work stretched to the extent that they become very boring to read - just let people write cheaper, shorter books! www.theguardian.com/books/2025/d...

Listen to the genesis of INK! From the Age of Empire to Black Power, the Journalists who transformed Britain - and why this history is so important. Thank you John Siddique, Colin Grant and WritersMosaic writersmosaic.org.uk/content/yvon...

A community failed. Voted against its own interests and now about to do it again. County Durham received £154m of EU funding between 2014 and 2020, about £22m a year. Since the UK left the EU, it receives about £12m annually, under the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The Green Party's Caroline Lucas humiliates Reform UK's Zia Yusuf on #Newsnight "Your position is utterly incoherent" "You have provided no evidence that it's the Equalities Act that discriminates against white working class boys"

Why didn't Farage just answer the question about Reform's education policy? Why did he seek to mock and ridicule the journalist asking a perfectly legitimate question and try to deligitimise the FT? Easy. That's who he is. An arrogant man who doesn't have any policies beyond pointing at the sea.

the loss of the World Service would be a tragedy and huge lost of soft power for Britain

Obviously zero reflection in any of this on how operating the largest empire in human history may have turned us into a multicultural nation. We are here because you were there. #Empireland www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Multimillionaire Brexiter, Tim Martin, urges pubs to back Reform. Just like he urged the country to vote for Brexit. Too bad if it makes you poorer. Too bad for the children he’ll push back into poverty. Tim wants more money. And he couldn’t give a shit about the cost for everybody else. (iPaper)

Good review of an excellent book by @carriegibson.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...

lovely piece...https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/01/cecilia-gimenez-monkey-christ-woman-restorer-spain

If you’re a woman wearing trousers jn a workplace right now, it’s because of the bravery and chutzpah of thousands of women who came before you. More MORE JAM TOMORROW coming soon - here’s the latest episode!

A doomed democracy? UK #Labour to take no action!! 👀 On Electoral Reform which will keep extremes out of power with less than 50% of the vite 👀 On Leveson or media propaganda such as GBN 👀 and Russian infiltration of Social media

On International Migrants Day, let’s celebrate the generations of migrants who’ve helped make London what it is today - the greatest city in the world.

Don't make this Photoshopping have been in vain

But it’s ok for racists go shout hate outside the homes of unaccompanied underage refugee children and abuse our national flags as happens in my town? It’s very sad to see how Labour has lost its way under Starmer. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

Food inflation is around 4.9%, inflation at 3.6% homelessness up, poverty up, 3.8m, including 1m children currently experiencing destitution. The economy is on its knees and yet Labour still refusing to explore a CU with the EU or tax the rich appropriately. No wonder they are tanking in the polls.

'This is one of those twilight-zone moments in British politics, where it seems something is going to “cut through” any minute now. For a moment it seems as if it absolutely will. And then, there’s a loss of momentum and a return to the status quo.'

I've written for Psyche about some of the extraordinary things institutional trust enables us to do, and why we have to live with the fact that big organisations screw up.

The most worrying thing about daily life in Britain now is that you hear overt racism all the time that would have been thought unacceptable in the 90s.

Not just ’fix’ Brexit, undo it. sussexbylines.co.uk/news/brexit/...

Reform is an overseas funded organisation. Foreign donations to political parties should be outlawed. observer.co.uk/news/politic...

Remind me again how America was founded and who was there first?

The cover for this week’s issue is “White House of Gold,” by Kenton Nelson. See what’s inside: www.newyorker.com/magazine

A couple of weeks after racist flag shaggers put up more flags they have all been removed by what I assume are our ninja de-flaggers. Well done and thanks guys…..it’s lifted the atmosphere in our town. 👍🙂

This is a shocking story...vulnerable people without water for days. Shame on South East Water...

Great culture can save lives. Literally. Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard

Nigel Farage’s Legacy — Brexit: the trillion pound ‘mistake’ The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)… confirms the Treasury’s 2016 analysis, claiming a relative fall in GDP of between 6% and 8%. yorkshirebylines.co.uk/opinion/brex...

If only the press had held Johnson and the Tory party to the same standards when he was PM. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

And all these judgments can be reached on the basis of published official tables. A Woodward & Bernstein expose is definitely not required!

Getting a book written is hard, published even harder and noticed even harder still. So I'm pretty bloody pleased to see that JESUS CHRIST KINSKI is No. 6 in The Independent's best books of 2025. @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social

This is explosive stuff. Evidence that Jeffrey Epstein not only ran a child sex trafficking operation for powerful men, he also seems to have advised & supported Farage’s far right political projects in Europe and the UK, including Brexit, via Steve Bannon. bylinetimes.com/2025/11/19/d...

This is a fantastic - though necessarily very truncated history (each episode deserved a whole series) but its brevity makes it an ideal resource for schools - I hope they use it. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

There are countless studies on the damage of Brexit (here’s one of the latest ones👇) and countless polls on the growing majority that want to rejoin. Free tip for struggling Labour…try doing something popular. @stellacreasy.bsky.social @labourlewis.bsky.social leftfootforward.org/2025/11/brex...

‘Act of folly?’………more like an absolutely country cracking fucking disaster. But I appreciate his sentiment. www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/former...

Here's how the real two-tier Britain works: 1. Whatever Nigel Farage says, however stupid, is looped and discussed by the media, while left-wing voices are treated as noises off. 2. Tiny far-right protests get massive airtime, while 10s of 000s gathering for Palestine or green causes are ignored.🧵

Brexit isolated the UK and resulted in us scrabbling around the world for scraps of deals. As time goes by our continually shrinking quality of life and opportunities will increase public discontent. Labour is not brave enough to tackle Brexit. Who will be? @libdems.org.uk ? @greenparty.org.uk ?

Once more without the typo; #Brexit has cost the UK way more than expected; Britain’s economy has declined by a massive 8%. Investment is down 12%+ No wonder we’re getting poorer. Farage’s fascism & Starmer’s timidity have been a disaster. We need politicians with the courage to say “rejoin”.

www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2... Read by Karl Queensborough and produced by Nicola Alexandrou... Well worth a weekend listen ...

Good work by Medway Council.

Every poll, survey, opinion piece, research and documentary confirms the disaster that is Brexit. Immeasurable damage, economically, socially, scientifically, security, politically. It is utter madness not to start reversing Brexit. @labourlewis.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l0G...

The right bangs on about mythical no-go zones in our towns and cities. There are now real no-go zones, and the right is responsible.. #Racism #UKPolitics #NHS www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Collapsing like a balloon full of hot toxic gas. www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/ref...

🔥 Coming up fast!! Can citizens and journalists unite to hold back authoritarianism and protect democracy? On 4th November at 7pm, join our live (free!) online event with: ▪️George Monbiot ▪️ Nafeez Ahmed ▪️ Yasmin Alibhai-Brown ▪️ Nick Lowles Book now: bit.ly/BylinesHope

Dutch liberals, together with the Dutch center-right, fight back www.nytimes.com/2025/10/29/w...