Don't use Gmail, or in fact any other free-of-charge US provider. Your privacy isn't a priority. I use @fastmail.com, and @proton.me as an alternative to that, but there are plenty of others.

George Monbiot shows how @teamlabouruk.bsky.social is playing the Gorton and Denton by-election, attempting to frighten the electorate away from voting @greenparty.org.uk ■ @zackpolanski.bsky.social #HannahSpencer #angelikistogia #mattgoodwin

The Phoenix that is Peter Mandelson

What does “Putin winning” actually mean? It does not require tanks rolling into Kyiv. It means: •Ukraine is pressured into territorial concessions. •russia keeps what it seized by force. •War crimes go largely unpunished. •The aggressor is rewarded with normalization, trade, and time to rearm.

If the USA is ever in the place where it can dismantle the Trump empire and divest it of its ill-gotten gains, it should use the funds to set up free universal healthcare. Double benefit: no more medical bill terror, and it would royally piss off the president.

If police are considering whether they should investigate Lord Mandelson then they should investigate Lord Mandelson. #PeterMandelson #Epstein

Stolen from @heptaglemious.bsky.social

South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust has told an expectant mother in the Cotswolds that she can’t give birth there, despite it being the closest maternity unit, because she is out of area. She faces a 1hr drive to Gloucester instead. Counties aren’t circles & hospitals aren’t central.

When you stop at a local farm's honesty box to buy half a dozen eggs. Luckily my Victoria sandwich recipe is "eggs, + weight of the eggs in SR flour, caster sugar & butter" (+ vanilla essence, jam & butter icing)

Had a bit of Tolkien fun on my canal-side (alias Withywindle) walk to Studley Grange Garden Centre. It was worth the muddy socks.

Definitely nowhere near the standard of my physical art, but definitely a fun way to spend an hour!

Watching a BBC slot (1 in 10 Brits have experienced lithium battery melt-downs) on how to spot a legitimate CE mark. Wouldn't a CE-validated QR code, linked directly to manufacturer's specs & what to look for in a genuine product, etc. be a better system?

Anyone who thinks Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is a reputational threat to the King and Royal Family has not paid enough attention to British History.

I'm told black heroic history is being erased in the USA along with women's achievements. I suggest they get mural artists onto it. For instance, Northern Ireland's.politics can be read on the end of every terrace. cabtoursbelfast.com/belfast-mura...

Mr G is happy with his team. The Guinness is mine. I need it. He's watching City now.

www.facebook.com/share/v/1Hw3... Man goes to extraordinary lengths to provide nesting for UK wild birds.

I hear, from those who can afford it, that insurance is the way to go for healthcare. Those who say this are fit and healthy, but that cam change. What then? Reform's 'contract' envisages the not-for-profit sector (charity) picking up the healthcare of those whose funds run out. @everydoctor.org.uk

Happy Imbolc!

Wow!!!! Trump loses the Senate!!! A “must listen to” as Rachel Maddow describes the day in detail! www.facebook.com/share/v/1B8W...

"That No 10 feels the need to criticise the Greens is a backhanded compliment that shows they matter. Under Zack Polanski, the party is making its presence felt in a way it simply hasn't before." Laura Kuenssberg, BBC Indepth. @zackpolanski.bsky.social

I'd think the Epstein file dump was an orchestrated move to unseat Trump if the most likely candidates weren't also in them.

I tend to get irritated by BlueSky launching a link - good or bad - every time I hit full-stop/period instead of the space bar; but when I wanted to type "we can" and accidentally typed we.cam I found a neat little app that doesn't take up phone space. #serendipity

This is good news for women who would like to join the armed forces; that the likelihood misogynists would be court-martialled for their behaviour or negligence makes said behaviour now too great a career risk (we hope).

www.facebook.com/share/r/19Tk... Fantasy/medieval.authors take note! #horse #racing

The sub-postmasters whose lives were destroyed by the Horizon scandal have found accessing agreed compensation is like getting blood out of a stone. Likewise the haemophilics whose lives were ruined by contaminated blood. Keep trying but, face it, WASPI women, they are very unlikely to pay up.

"The biggest direct beneficiaries of such a change would be the high-income taxpayers who currently pay substantially more in income tax than in the rest of the UK". Scotland will be more like England. Say goodbye to all that this buys. SCOTLAND, YOU NEED TO KEEP TAXING THE RICH & SUPER-RICH.

In order to smother coverage of its own human rights abuses, the Trump regime is manufacturing a conflict with another dodgy regime, half a world away. It will work. The news coverage will follow.

🧊orcs

First PM to go to China for 8 years should be a "So what!" moment, until you remember how many prime ministers we've had in the past 8 years! 🙄

Seems like a retrograde step.

It's not all doom and gloom. www.gov.uk/government/p...

A thread and series to help you get to know the key people who make up Reform UK…..🧵

Whem the adverts are as long as the #youtube video.😡 No I'm not paying. Youtube gets its content free, and sells the data it harvests.

List of High Ranking Conservatives who are now in #ReformUK. Copyable list in Alt text.

Suella Braverman has defected to Reform. 😂

Horrified to see and hear what's happening in the USA. Every nation suffers a despot at times. They always fall. How much their sycophants and enforcers are held to account depends on how diligently good citizens keep hold of evidence of wrongs, in order to put 🧊 &c behind ||||s when the time comes.

So, Andy Burnham is either too Left-wing for the Labour government, or too charismatic for Keir Starmer to risk having him around, or both.

The US government is flat ignoring their legal duty to release the Epstein files. Why does anyone think they will behave any better when it is their legal duty to hold an election?

Whatever doesn't turn a profit is cancelled, sold or has funding cut.

I’ve just started reading Perilous Times by @thomasdlee.bsky.social. Enjoying the premise/writing style; reminds me of Tom Holt. Set in (maybe) the near future, the planet is burning, cities are drowning and society is collapsing. It is England’s hour of need. Who you gonna call? Who’s interfering?

Sneaky (brilliant) nutritional science that reduces waste im canteens:

Everyone should read this: www.gov.uk/government/p...

My Dad was born 100 years ago today. He was 69 when he died and I still wonder what he would think of what’s happening in the world now; tech, politics, culture etc. He was a career soldier, recovered alcoholic and Scouse joker. He was excited when CDs were invented because he loved classical music.

Watching @zackpolanski.bsky.social on Channel 5 news right now, walking through the rain with Dan Walker. Him indoors is hearing Polanski speak for the first time (apart from last night's orchestrated broadcast) and he's impressed.

Facebook post from a friend, who has been watching the 1975 BBCTV series ‘Survivors’. Here’s his review of how well it has aged, 51 years later. Repeated in Alt text if writing is too small.

These dumps are not ‘hidden’. This is a small island and the failure to stop illegal waste dumping on this scale is dereliction of duty. The environment agency is clearing one at a cost of £10m (from our taxes). Get the #BritishArmy involved in detection and sealing off of sites; they’ll know how/2

In case anyone isn’t convinced that Nigel Farage STILL wants to break up the NHS, look whose mast he has pinned his colours to.

📝 Sign the petition for NHS theatre assistants in Leeds. We're calling on the Trust to pay staff for the work they do - and give back pay for the years they’ve worked above their pay band. They are there helping you while you're having surgery - they deserve proper pay.

@ukyouthfornature.bsky.social This PMQs response from Keir Starmer (who did NOT answer the question) sounds more like a Tory leader than the inheritor of the legacy of Keir Hardie. vm.tiktok.com/ZNRS1BFwU/