RIP Len Deighton. Iconic books and films. The Ipcress File is a solid-gold classic. And the TV version of SS-GB - despite being made on a threadbare shoestring - was wonderful. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Imagine how rich the country will be when everyone’s this good at avoiding tax

Tice said he complied with all relevant rules, and added: “Voters should be reassured to have a successful businessman who knows how to make money for shareholders running a business, trade and energy department, making money and growth for taxpayers.” www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Britain’s porous and permissive rules on political financing are ill equipped to deal with a darkening world www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Thinking about this passage from Winston Churchill’s Their Finest Hour, for some reason… “When the alarm sounded Ribbentrop led the way down many flights of stairs to a deep shelter sumptuously furnished. When he got inside, the raid had begun…

Celebrating the existence of Hong Kong heroine(s) Gwyneth Ho (and Chow Hang-tung) on International Women's Day. What a sad indictment of Hong Kong that they are political prisoners. At the same time, it is a tribute to (pre-NSL) Hong Kong that it produced women like them.

War with everyone everywhere all the time. But always the most embarrassing, pusillanimous, toadying response imaginable to the Kremlin. Russia, Russia, Russia.

A sunset in Hong Kong, 2021

“Only five directors of water companies have been prosecuted in the last 30 years… The system is more interested in prosecuting families that are struggling to pay their water bills than the company directors responsible for polluting our rivers and seas” www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Is a deal in the offing? www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

China prepares landmark law curtailing minority language rights www.ft.com/content/94be...

Russia needs higher oil prices

You see what happens, Larry, when a man doesn’t get the Nobel Peace Prize he deserves?

You can just say things.

Will’s live-blogging skills were an underrated element of his art

THIS.

Was the timing of this an accident? Were they getting ready to play with their AI war toys? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

"Assemble the Board of Peace - I'm starting a war".

Hello darkness my old friend...

The election was stolen! What should we say next, Mr Trump? www.standard.co.uk/news/politic...

Charming man Reform’s Matthew Goodwin: “I think the progressives were told how to vote and I think what you saw was a coalition of Islamists and woke progressives that came together to dominate the constituency.” www.ft.com/content/c7fe...

Reading this right after reading about Jimmy Lai “It is not so much about mental institutions as about what happens when institutions of any kind take up an attitude towards those over who they have power that is fundamentally insufferable.” www.theguardian.com/film/2026/fe...

Ah, BT. Sign a contract in September, watch the price rise in March. Beats me why this is remotely legal. Law of contract?

I found a pangram word but the NYT says it doesn’t exist 😥

This story is 🤯

Banning Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation was a classic case of state overreach. Reaching for the sledgehammer when other tools are available is a slippery slope toward erosion of free speech and illiberalism www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Of course he did www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

A giant of cinema. RIP www.theguardian.com/film/2026/fe...

That’s it then, right? Landslide defeat coming up

What a wonderful player he was. I’m sorry he didn’t get his second act at Madrid www.theguardian.com/football/202...

The US needs to change In Munich, Rubio Calls Europe a Friend but Says It Must Change www.nytimes.com/live/2026/02...

Farage's stinking personal ratings are massively overlooked

MAGA is determined to rescue Europe from its slide into dystopian darkness. Have they looked at their own house lately? www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

“Dikötter’s general argument is, as he puts it, that “Communism was never popular in China.” It was imposed on the Chinese through systemic, unrelenting violence.” If this is a controversial point of view, it really shouldn’t be. www.ft.com/content/e4b8...

A small crumb of good news on a grim day www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

“I think today we are living in a complicated world, where life is more like a shattered mirror,” he says. “It reflects the reality, but the reality can be a broken reality.” www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

The sky is darkening and the beast is close at hand #LordoftheFlies

“How, moreover, can you claim to have been duped by Mandelson but then expect us to believe you aren’t being duped by China?” www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

Bezos’s goal seems to be to convert what Donald Trump used to call the “Amazon Washington Post” into a harmless shell of its former self as a display of knee-bending www.ft.com/content/5ca3...

Hong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai will be sentenced following his conviction in a national security trial, according to the Chinese territory’s judiciary. www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/...

💯

Common decency is underrated. I love to read about people who were repulsed by Epstein and never went near him again

Vive la France!

Sounds like a bit of a Trumpian qualification “Starmer had said documents involving Mandelson, demanded by the Conservatives, would be released unless they breached national security or damaged Britain’s international relations.” www.ft.com/content/e4f5...

France’s Foreign Ministry owns Elon Musk in this response:

He’s such a mark www.nytimes.com/2026/01/28/w...

Labour risks an election wipeout unless it does a lot of things, frankly

Why do BBC radio journalists keep calling him Ji Jinping? How hard is it?

Bring him home: RSF calls for Sir Keir Starmer to demand release of British publisher Jimmy Lai during visit to China https://www.newsbeep.com/uk/391872/ Lai has been found guilty of offences under Hong Kong’s National Security Law, which has widely been condemned by…

They voted for it