Spineless and unsurprising. on.ft.com/48C1QB0 Pro-democracy activist Nathan Law is denied entry to Singapore

“a gloopy word soup of missions, steps, milestones and foundations” on.ft.com/48nmVzl ‘We need some vision’: Starmer’s search for clearer words

Nigel Farage’s use of a discredited number to support his anti-immigration message is a test of the UK’s willingness to head down the path of post-truth Trumpian politics www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

My only problem with the Alien finale is that Elon didn’t get eaten by the extraterrestrial octopus eye

Four alleged survivors of sexual abuse by Andrew Tate have complained to the press regulator about an interview with the self-proclaimed misogynist influencer and his brother in the Spectator magazine. www.theguardian.com/news/2025/se...

Farewell, Dickie. Lovely obituary www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/s...

Did someone switch him on and off again? www.theguardian.com/us-news/live...

Britain’s single-payer health system gives it the market power to keep drug prices and spending down. But at what costs to its world-class life sciences sector, a key engine of economic growth? www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

JD, the free speech guy, who comes to Europe to lecture us on how we’re not doing it right news.sky.com/story/jd-van...

“Trump told voters that they could indulge their resentments and still walk away richer and more prosperous. But they can’t” The Trump Fantasy Is Unraveling www.nytimes.com/2025/09/17/o...

What a nightmare half. Our only hope is that Man Utd are deeply and irredeemably rubbish, and will eventually show it

I remember paying £2 for a pint in London in 1990 and feeling I’d been pickpocketed. Just paid £7.15, which seems about average these days. The Bank of England’s inflation calculator says £2 in 1990 would be about £5 now

That’s not how you spell it on.ft.com/3K7XMyl Is America entering a new era of McCarthyism?

“There is only the trying. The rest is not our business.” The Way They Were www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/o...

The free speech people. There they go again

Charlie Kirk, Jimmy Kimmel and the Future of Free Speech in America www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/o...

When’s JD coming over to the UK to lecture us about free speech again?

It’s only cancel culture if it comes from the Cancelo region of California. Consequence culture is something completely different

Free speech for me, not for thee www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

FRANCIS: Whatever happened to the Popular Front, Reg? REG: He's over there. P.F.J.: Splitter!

Everyone concerned about free speech should be concerned about Jimmy Kimmel’s show being pulled from the air. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Release the… (ok ok)

Hong Kong migrants must not become collateral damage in the UK government’s attempts to appear tough on immigration and beat back the threat of the populist right

This is China’s NSL playbook in Hong Kong - claim it was a vast organised conspiracy and use it to justify doing what you wanted to do all along White House Plans Broad Crackdown on Liberal Groups www.nytimes.com/2025/09/15/u...

Woah on.ft.com/4ppdbKO MPs protest as UK drops charges against 2 men accused of spying for China

So unlike them. They always seemed like such lovely people

This story is mind-blowing in so many ways, none of them good on.ft.com/3IkgsKy American right vows vengeance after killing of Charlie Kirk

HS2 is a fiasco and perfect fodder for an insurgent populist party keen to paint the establishment that supported it as out of touch with ordinary voters. That doesn’t mean it would be right to walk away from the project, as Reform urges www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Starmer “shouldn’t have touched him with a barge pole” www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Always an inane idea

Not everyone is seething with frustration at the London Tube strike. In a gig economy of low pay, job insecurity and few rights, some are cheering for a union that has been successful in protecting its members’ economic interests www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

A fascinating article www.theguardian.com/wellness/202...

So sick www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

This is damning. US drugmaker Merck has scrapped a £1bn London research centre and will lay off more than 100 scientific staff, as the industry accuses ministers of making the UK uncompetitive and paying too little for medicines. on.ft.com/3VFbNpI

“A fortnight ago, a mob walked along one of the main streets of Faversham, the small town in Kent where I live. They were chanting “Sieg Heil”, hanging St George’s flags from lamp posts, and crudely daubing roundabouts and zebra crossings with red crosses.“ www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

“Collectively, these people constitute a government that is absent when required and violently invasive when not.” Searing column by Nesrine Malik www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

How lost is the US when it has become politically profitable to attack Tom Hanks, the long-time advocate for veterans and star of Saving Private Ryan - the film that always makes JD Vance cry

It’s almost as if there was something predictable here, some kind of pattern

I had to check to be sure this was real

This is so ludicrous, as is the arrest of Graham Linehan by armed police www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

It is, but I love the books. He’s more of a Raymond Chandler: paper-thin convoluted plots that don’t really make sense but that doesn’t matter. They’re really all about the characters, the style and the humour

Blimey www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2...

This is what happens in authoritarian countries. Fear and cowardice leads to self-censorship. www.nytimes.com/athletic/660...

Tomorrow: how they faked the moon landing and the alien spaceships the government is hiding from us

Hong Kong is still Hong Kong, sometimes

Britain is now one of very few countries where Gen Z are firmly left-of-centre

I think the natural scepticism of Britons insulates them to some extent to the appeal of demagogues, more so than in the US at any rate. It’s what may save us yougov.co.uk/politics/art...

Lovely people

Just checking in on where we are on the descent into barbarism…

What a surprise