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.

“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...

Tori Amos Sufjan Stevens Aimee Mann Ryan Adams Kate Bush

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?

Bet all those flags come down when the neighbours realise what they'll do to house prices.

JD Vance: "I think the Russians have made significant concessions." (They have in fact made no concessions.)

Tori Amos’s b-sides often surpass the album tracks and this is one of my favourites from the 90s: Sister Janet. The lyrics read like a lost TS Eliot poem. youtu.be/qF_ckz7FfnI

Here's a fact for you all. Prior to 2017 there was not a single documented case of any individual travelling by small boats across the English Channel to caim asylum in the UK. Not ONE. This current 'boats' crisis has been largely caused by Brexit. But for some reason NOBODY is saying that.

Spot the difference

If I was still at HMT, I would be extremely hacked off with the BBC at this headline. This is the Reuters equivalent: “UK economy grows by stronger-than-expected 0.3% in Q2”. It isn’t the job of the state broadcaster to talk down good economic news. (This unofficial channel repeats BBC headlines)

Can this be true? Scandalous if so.

“Brexit is a self-inflicted assault on the UK economy that will prove more than twice as expensive as abolishing slavery in the British Empire…we need a plan to get back in the EU.” Interesting to see demands to rejoin now gaining mainstream media traction. www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...

Brexit was an attempted counter-revolution against many of the changes this country has gone through since 1945. It has turned out to be a failure with elements of farce. This has driven many people on the Right completely mad.

if I ever go properly "screaming about nothing in particular in the street" mad it will be due to having spent too much time having read about the opinions of men who have absolutely never cared about women's rights for one moment in their lives but decided to pretend just for the sake of racism

Hahahahaha… Brexit has been a success… I can hardly breathe. Can “Lord” Frost get any more ridiculous?

All the main parties are doomed to tawdry stories of this kind until someone grasps the nettle and gets big money out of politics by introducing state funding. The Phillips report setting out how to do it is there on the shelf waiting to be taken down. www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

These moments are for the history books. When your kids and grandkids ask you whether you stood up and fought back, be someone who can say you did.

If in four months this feeling ain't gone Well, fuck this city I'm movin' to Saskatchewan The pop lyric of the summer. youtu.be/woLfAvD5iXI

The Lib Dems getting 150 seats may be the only way to stop Farage. More power to them.

@eddavey.libdems.org.uk is showing more leg than ever on Brexit. "Brexit isn’t working, and the British people know it,' he says, calling for reentry into the customs union and then single market. Potentially huge prize on offer here for the Lib Dems. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

UK inflation is 3.4%. Eurozone inflation is 2.0% The Bank of England interest rate is 4.25%. The ECB rate is 2.0% Brexit is costing the government around £50bn a year. We are paying a massive cost for not being in the EU and the Eurozone, in higher inflation, interest rates, and taxes.

Listening to Tori Amos’s Winter, about her relationship with her father, whose death she announced. Dr Edison launched her career, accompanying her to play in bars in Washington as a teenager. “I tell you that I’ll always want you near / “You say that things change, my dear” youtu.be/_PDlGUdDF8Y

Just 29% of Brits would vote for Brexit today, according a poll in @thetimes.com. The omertà among the main parties on the issue of rejoining cannot last forever.

Have I understood this correctly? Labour is banning the kids of teachers from civil service internships? They’ve finally gone and done it and made me agree with Kemi Badenoch. www.bbc.com/news/article...

The Reform obsession at BBC News is out of hand. Something has gone badly wrong there.

He’s not wrong is he? www.rte.ie/news/busines...

Former soldier + TV personality Ant Middleton (who wants to run for Mayor of London - was hoping to go for the Reform nomination) wants to ban Kemi Badenoch, Priti Patel, Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman, as well as Sadiq Khan, and Boris, Churchill and King Charles III from government roles

Lots of pearl clutching from commentators at Labour's claim Farage is on the side of sex offenders like Jimmy Savile in his opposition to new online safety laws. Didn't hear many of them complaining when right-wing politicians falsely accused Starmer of personally failing to prosecute Savile.

What perfect album came out when you were 16? For me there were a few. Tori Amos, Little Earthquakes Automatic for the People, REM Dry, PJ Harvey It’s a Shame About Ray, The Lemonheads Harvest Moon, Neil Young