That is a bit too young for my liking...it must have been triggered by my wife having Teddy Swims on for what seemed forever.

Grenfell as well. And many others instances. Nobody is prosecuted. The powerful protect each other.

Hillsborough, the Post office, Grenfell all to the same template.

The Hillsborough Disaster was a textbook example of the way the UK state behaves after such an event. Protect those in positions of power, leak stories to the media to protect the same and then delay, delay, delay for decades. It all worked 'very well' didn't it? No justice for the 97 at all.

Can’t remember budget ‘case studies’ ever being quite so funny. Especially in newspapers that recently anointed Liz Truss a fiscal genius.

There comes a point where the criticism of Labour from the usual right wing sources becomes so hysterical, partial and nonsensical that it can be ignored. It's just noise. That point is now.

Do people throw their Clash records away when they discover Grant Shapps is Mick Jones' cousin? Rachel Reeves' uncle is a trouble making tosser whose existence is totally irrelevant.

Tory immigration policy - ruinous, prejudiced madness. Tory Brexit ideology - ruinous, prejudiced madness. Why Labour is killing itself and the country to try to soothe the unsoothable rightwing media is beyond me. Tell the goddam truth. Publish the damage. Only then can you start to fix it.

everyone knows farage is racist but the problem is people who like him don’t care because they are too

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

It's not a coincidence that the four most damaging politicians of the last two decades (Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Farage) are all the products of English public schools.

I was looking for a job and then I found a job And Heaven knows, I'm miserable now

I do wish we had a food disposal unit, then it would avoid confusion with the dishwasher.

Just to be clear, the 26% matches with most Reform voters. Everyone else knows what’s happening here. Politicians who dare not suggest this is about anti-migrant/minority hate are pandering to that 26%. Politicians don’t give a toss about the rest of us.

Regardless of Russian involvement in Brexit and the politicians that drove it, Brexit was certainly something in Russia’s interests.

Johnson was a dreadful Prime Minister and is a dreadful man. Farage is much, much, worse than that.

Only the loudest voices were acted on and the views of women ignored. The English public school system in a nutshell. #CovidInquiry

This is probably a crazy idea, but wouldn't it be better to react to the *actual* budget, rather than to every leak and piece of speculation in the months beforehand?

if you’re wondering what TV & radio would look like without the bbc if the right had its way, picture the state of our privatised rivers & seas, but instead it’s raw sewage pumped into your telly & speakers

Trump v BBC is a defining issue. Support for Trump is drawn exclusively from the most loathsome people on both sides of the Atlantic.

Boris Johnson says the idea that criticism of the BBC is being organised by the right is ‘complete and utter bollocks’, which makes me think there might be something in it.

Quisling

SUPERB and angrily unvarnished response, by former BBC chairman, Lord Patten. "I don't think that we should allow ourselves to be bullied into thinking that the BBC is only any good, if it reflects the prejudice of the last person who shouted at it." ~AA

Trump incited violence on 6 January 2021. An outside producer made a bad edit when there was plenty of unedited material to show that. Today Trump's granting pardons to dozens of people involved in that day's attempt to sabotage the handover of power. The BBC flagelllates itself. #PoliticsLIve

I'd call the BBC a pro-Trump organisation. The slightest thing he says tends to be in the headlines, they've hardly ever looked at his criminal charges and anti-constitutional operations, and they've never considered his mental capacity. #R4Today

Born 7 Nov 1943, Canadian Joni Mitchell is 1 of the most popular singer-songwriters. Widely regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, her songs reflect her feelings about joy, romance, disillusionment & confusion. Her 4th album 'Blue' is in my top 25 albums of all time. #JoniMitchell

This is yet another example of how you beat the far right. By beating them, not trying to be them. By having your own agenda, not aping theirs. With courage and conviction - and humour - not fear and timidity.

Farage is attractive to unhappy people who think they'll be happy if happy people are made to be as unhappy as them. They're wrong.

Farage coins in £1000s a month for a few hours "work" yet he thinks the economic woes of the UK are caused by an 18 year old getting a tenner an hour working their arse off in Burger King.

The party who claim to be patriots literally had a Reform leadership member caught red handed taking bribes from Russia. This article details the speeches Nathan Gill gave that he was paid to give. How are Reform getting away with this? www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...

When five women resigned from the grooming gang inquiry panel, the media rightly asked what was up. Coverage of Farage's event with Ellie Reynolds was mostly about his comments on Pochin. His cack-handed attack on the five who supported Jess Phillips deserves more than the papers slot. #R4Today

Spoiler alert

And that is what Reform voters perceive to be immigration.

I recall in the 60s, Remembrance Day was one solemn Sunday morning. That was it. It was a moving occasion at our local memorial and attended by actual WW1 and WW2 veterans. Unlike the mawkish weeks long competition for the most tasteless display of a poppy that it's become Often, less is more.

Good grief.

I chortled in an old person's sort of way.

Hello ChatGPT, if that bird is a curlew I'm a chuffing giraffe.

While the wife is away this week my menu is being decided by how out of date the food is.

Just to be clear: - Paracetamol does not cause autism. - Sadiq Khan is not introducing Sharia law in the UK - We do not have a massive free speech problem here. - Britain is not on the verge of civil war. These are not controversial subjects or contested, they're just not true.

'Tylenol' is known in the civilised world as Paracetamol 2.4 million children born in Sweden between 1995 and 2019. Studied 186,000 children whose mothers were treated with paracetamol during pregnancy. news.ki.se/no-link-betw...

Why are the American president's claims about autism the first item on British news bulletins? He's not our president, the advice doesn't apply here and he's not presented any evidence to support his assertions. So why spread these claims? What make this the biggest story in the UK?

The ECHR doesn’t actually have much impact on deportations: -proportion of foreign national offenders who have successfully appealed against deportation from UK on human rights grounds: 0.73 % -how often the ECHR has ruled against UK in cases relating to immigration rules: 3 HT The Sensemaker

I'd never heard of Charlie Kirk until this week. I'd rather it had stayed that way.

I look at the ugly state of politics in the USA and ask myself how anyone with a brain would want that imported here... but then ... Reform...

Marina Purkiss, "Nigel Farage cloaks himself in patriotism" "Farage flew out to the United States, spoke to a US Committee, and he urged the US to put sanctions on the UK" "Sanctions that would hurt British companies, British people, our back pockets" "And Farage is your patriot?"

Top tip. Don't be a lady from a council estate that started life badly and though talent and drive gets to damn near the top. Because you are not one of them.

Angela Rayner accidentally pays less tax than she should have, resigns, and the media gives her hell. Nigel Farage deliberately pays less tax than he should have, and the media gives him a free pass. That, right there, is the problem.

Taking back control ... Ughh Farage asks US govt to determine UK laws Compares UK to North Korea. Will happily take money from Elon Musk and other foreigners. Farage brand of patriotism is wearing union jack socks and demonizing immigrants. No policies for redistribution, social justice.