We’ve heard lots about the impact of inheritance tax changes on family farms, but not the bigger hit to family firms which make up 90% of UK businesses. Many warn if they go ahead as planned, firms will be broken up and sold off to PE or foreign owners. www.cnbc.com/video/2025/1...

Read 'em and weep. (www.nber.org/system/files...)

Tori Amos Kate Bush Karen Carpenter Stevie Nicks Aimee Mann

Conservative Shadow Culture Secretary Nigel Huddleston tells GB News that the BBC should "grovel" to Trump. Amazing how many British 'patriots' are spending their time telling our national broadcaster to prostrate itself before a hostile foreign leader

Glad that someone has finally taken responsibility for the appalling assault on democracy that was the Jan. 6 insurrection. Slightly confused that it's the Director-General of the BBC, but what do I know?

Name 10 current female artists you love: Tori Amos Aimee Mann Kate Bush Phoebe Bridgers Bjork Fiona Apple Rosalia Sharon Van Etten Anna von Hausswolff Imogen Heap

Not a flicker.

Good to work with ⁦James Reed⁩ and other leading figures in business and philanthropy on this open letter to @spearsmagazine.bsky.social. It’s about a new way of doing business: karma capitalism, embodied by the PhilCo, at least 10% owned by charity. spearswms.com/impact-phila...

The president of the AA, who should know better, has suggested proposals for a pay-by-the-mile scheme for electric car drivers could become a 'poll tax on wheels'. I've written on why it's a sensible and necessary move as the fuel duty tax base collapses. www.linkedin.com/posts/james-...

The Huntingdon train hero has been named this afternoon as Samir Zitouni, reportedly born in Algeria. Thoughts and prayers with all the right-wing rabble rousers who tried to weaponise this horrible incident.

The police continue to investigate the motive for last night's stabbings. Their initial statement is they don't have grounds to believe it was a terrorist motivated attack Elected Reform Durham county councillor Darren Grimes posted this political attack on the assumption it was an Islamist attack

So, both alleged attackers in the dreadful Huntingdon incident are British and nothing to suggest any terrorist motivation, police say. There is palpable disappointment in large parts of the other site.

My gig of the year tonight: @gregoryalanisakov.bsky.social at the Apollo. An incredible band with violin, double bass, banjo, piano, guitar, drums and harmonica. And best of all, that voice. I left a fan for life.

The result overnight in Caerphilly is immensely cheering, as it shows that Reform might lead the polls but are sufficiently disliked by the rest of the electorate that people are prepared to vote tactically and ruthlessly to keep them out of power.

Brexit will hurt the economy for ‘foreseeable future’, the Governor of the Bank of England confirms. It’s years late, but much more of this Brexit truth-telling and the Government might actually have to do something about it. www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...

"There is no doubting that the impact of Brexit is severe and long-lasting,' says Rachel Reeves. At last, a senior figure in a government of any sort admits what's been plain to the rest of us for years. So what are we going to do about it? www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/rachel...

Good to work with Cherie Blair KC and her charity 50:50 Parliament on this piece for @thetimes.com. The charity is one of those taking part in @biggive.bsky.social’s women & girls campaign and all donations before Wednesday at midday will be doubled. www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

Ok, it doesn’t look very appealing, but that’s part of the point and it takes a few seconds to discover that it’s temporary, stick-on graffiti which will soon be gone. Can we please stop being permanently outraged by everything? #CanterburyCathedral

But the great thing about Robert Jenrick is that wherever he goes, he increases the number of white faces by two.

Why is Starmer becoming more confident criticising Brexit? Because quietly, without any great drama, a consensus has been reached. It's a disaster inews.co.uk/opinion/brex...

Not sure the man responsible for this poster is best placed to lecture anyone else on taking politics “into the gutter”.

Andy Burnham has called for the UK to rejoin the EU at the Labour Party conference. Now things are getting interesting.

Just 11% of Brits now see Brexit as a success. This is Farage’s one “achievement” - indeed he vowed to leave the country if it failed. What is he still doing here and why isn’t he asked about the disaster or Brexit in every interview? www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/how...

Sir Menzies Campbell was a fine public servant and a deeply honourable man. I remember him telling me over lunch the best thing about his life was its three stages: Olympic athlete, lawyer, politician. He advised me to do the same so I did: journalist, govt adviser now PR. RIP.

Farage. Corbyn. Lowe. All the right people are cross about ID cards. In an age of NHS apps and HMRC digital logins, what’s the problem? Sign me up.

This is essentially the end, at least for now, of the US government as a credible source of health information. That’s bad in any circumstances, but…if we get hit with another pandemic in the near future, god help us all.

Politically, you’d think kicking Truss out would be a free hit for Badenoch: terrible reputation with the public, easy way of signalling you’ve learned lessons, she’s not going to be nice about the party anyway, Reform won’t take her (and even if they did you’d be delighted). And yet?

I like Ed Davey’s stunts. He talks about serious issues like social care and how to take on Reform day in day out, and I think voters like to see politicians occasionally demonstrating they can have fun too. It’s also a way of commanding attention from a negligent media. Sue me.

Asked by Newsweek whether she thought Tommy Robinson had been "unfairly demonised", Liz Truss says: “Yes, I do.” A Conservative Party serious about ever regaining power would have slung her out long ago. www.newsweek.com/liz-truss-br...

Very odd watching BBC News talking about the Lib Dem conference and mentioning how the party has struggled to break through in the media like it's nothing to do with them.

Rolling Stone is reporting that executives at ABC and Disney didn’t think Kimmel said anything that crossed the line but they feared retaliation from Trump, and pulled him off air anyway. Meanwhile Trump declares evening shows are “not allowed” to attack him. RIP First Amendment.

This is shocking. When I was in the lobby and the authorities in Beijing tried to ban Bloomberg’s correspondent from a press conference because of their coverage of President Xi, we all refused to attend until the decision was reversed. UK and other media should do the same here.

This breathless headline and article sums up what’s gone so badly wrong with the BBC’s treatment of Reform. Of course they should be covered, but where is the scrutiny here? Where is policy interrogated? Why no mention of their one dismal “achievement”, Brexit? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

“I will make sure The Independent does not get to attend a single one of our events or get a single interview again... You don’t want to ruin relations with a party leading the polls.” Revealing piece on how free speech advocates Reform deal with media. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

That this can be posted by a former MP shows how far we have sunk.

Without lionising past Tory leaders too much, Britain's Conservatives have always been comfortable with at least a streak of liberalism: Disraeli, Baldwin, Macmillan, Cameron, even Thatcher. The seismic changes now possible in British politics are partly down to the Tories forgetting all that.

“Did you come here on a rubber boat? Ban the immigrants.” This was what a British NHS nurse of Filipino descent and her family faced on a walk in the park in Halifax, according to this account from the Mail. Rhetoric has consequences. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

Where will all this end? I dread to think. Next time you’re in York, do make a point of popping in to the Dragon House Chinese takeaway to show them this doesn’t represent the decent majority in the UK.

Of course the Queen was Remain. You don’t sustain a hereditary monarchy by randomly pulling pins out of grenades for the lols at the urging of a cluster of snake oil chancers.

Sad to see Draper and now Shelton out of the US Open with injuries. They felt like the only two who might stop Sinner or Alcaraz. #USOpen

Contrary to what was reported at the time, we learn the late Queen was a remainer. A minister who spoke to her months before the referendum recalls that she said, “We shouldn’t leave the EU.” Hardly surprising, she was canny and shrewd and that story never rang true www.thetimes.com/uk/royal-fam...

71% say the economy has worsened since Brexit, 77% say cost of living has got worse, 58% say UK businesses face greater difficulties accessing European markets as a result. This is Farage’s one “achievement”. He should be asked about it in every interview. www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/most-b...

The Notts Post has been reporting without fear or favour since 1878. Reform makes a lot of noise about free speech and a free press - but when journalists say something it doesn’t like, this is how it actually behaves. Imagine what it would do in government. www.nottinghampost.com/news/news-op...

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It shows such a basic lack of political understanding that Labour didn't go straight on the attack over this. Just because most people are worried about immigration being too high it doesn't mean they're psychopaths.

“We tried listening to him. His probity and judgment were sold as the product called Brexit. It turned out to be a piece of shit.” @rafaelbehr.bsky.social spot on on Farage.

Wednesday's DAILY MIRROR: Britain is better than this #TomorrowsPapersToday

And no mention that Brexit - Farage’s one “achievement” - helped cause the small boats issue he complains about. We left the Dublin Agreement which allowed us to return asylum seekers to EU countries they had passed through - thus creating a massive pull factor. Farage isn’t even questioned on this!

Always reluctant to join in BBC bashing but really…hours of fawning coverage for proposals from a party of 4 MPs, no mention of Farage’s role in Brexit which helped cause the small boats issue he now bemoans, and this headline that reads like a press release. Something has gone seriously wrong there

Reform UK, which has a grand total of four MPs, was just given an uninterrupted platform for an hour and a half on the BBC and Sky News channels, in order to talk about its plans for mass deportations When was the last time the Greens (with four MPs) or the Lib Dems (with 72) were given the same?