Going to be an interesting moment when Streeting, Mahmoud, Powell, Miliband, Burnham, Rayner and whoever the hard left come up with all sit down together to agree which of them should get the 80 votes needed to challenge Starmer....

Oh Dear....

The Economic and Social Research Council core budget for 24/25 was £134m, not £8 billion.

Month so ago Matthew Syed proudly announced he had joined Conservative Party. Must be rather regretting that column now he is promoting himself as new DG of BBC.

Ladies and gentlemen, Sir Robbie Gibb, the BBC Board Member with the impartiality remit

It is odd to see Tim Davie held up as champion of vigorous BBC journalism …he did more than any DG to blunt its edge with big cuts on key programmes and nothing to stand up to bullying of johnson government and henchmen like Gibb, Prescott and Grossman… in end a weak DG reaped what he had sowed.

This Government has introduced free breakfast clubs, additional free childcare hours and increased the minimum wage, it'll be great news if they remove the 2 child cap but let's not pretend they've done nothing for the less well off.

“I feel like they’ve destroyed all my pride in being an Israeli – in being an IDF officer.....All that’s left is shame.” Israeli soldiers speak out as eye witnesses to IDF's indiscriminate killing of civilians in Gaza.... Breaking Ranks, showing ITV 22.45 Nov 10.

Tim Davie was not a good BBC DG …far too eager too play populist tunes in the cause of audience “reach” and to cut resources for news and current affairs reporting rather than peripheral programming …BUT….

Some interesting ideas in here, counterbalancing the pervading sense of inevitability that in the end only helps the very people it is directed against.

Michael Prescott so-called “independent” adviser to BBC was appointed by Boris johnson as “independent” adviser to Ofcom when then PM trying to get Paul Dacre job of chair. Prescott BBC report classic example in stringing together unrelated incidents into conspiracy narrative’

Member of Kemi Badenoch’ s shadow cabinet …is it really something you would want on your cv? Suppose it beats member of Liz Truss’ cabinet

They let her out for the day?

La soif de liberté est plus forte que les dictatures: il y a 36 ans, dans la soirée du 9 novembre 1989, le Mur de Berlin tombait. N’oublions pas ce qu’il était. There was once a Wall in Berlin #LestWeForget

Fair to say appeasement tested to destruction....

Mischon de Reya senior partner James Libson bleats in Times that is just so unfair that high-paid City lawyers should be asked to pay same taxes as everyone else when they already face an increase in private school fees for their children....You have to feel for him.....

Reminded of the day sitting next to someone on tube who started reading one of my columns in FT...warm glow became icy range when he turned the page after para 3...

It’s like Robbie Gibb showing up at Black Country New Road gig to tell people they aren’t sufficiently concerned about small boats.

*Again* the top story on BBC 6 music is about immigration How is Shabana Mahmood wanting to introduce a ‘Danish style’ system for refugees the top story this morning?!? The obsession of 6 Music news on immigration and asylum is frankly bizarre

I expect GB News hysterically yelling to start rioting, Farage on every news channel moaning that Britain is broken, Mo Yusuf on Newsnight apologising for wrongly thinking only asylum seekers are sexual offenders, and Pochin leading a national inquiry into white people are child sex offenders.

A great story showing the vital role of local journalism - the more so in an age where Tim Davie's BBC has abandoned serious inquiry in quest for populist clickbait. And crushing indictment of City shyster described by judge as follows: "I do not consider him [Milne] to be an honest or credible man"

We’ve made this investigation free to read because so many people in Sheffield are affected by this story. Our journalists have been knocking on doors for weeks and we’ve had to employ lawyers because of the legal threats made against us. We can only do this kind of journalism with your support.

Mandelson’s advisory firm Global Counsel is in trouble it would appear www.ft.com/content/6580...

BBC News bulletins leading on the story of an Algerian man being mistakenly released by the prison service. Funnily enough I don't remember these cases ever leading the bulletins when an average of ten prisoners were mistakenly released a month in the final year of the last Government

This is a question I've been asking a lot of the BBC political coverage in recent months. I love the BBC and would pay the licence fee for Radio 4 alone, but I do appreciate balance and fairness too please.

Been a lot of 'suddenly realising' going on since the Tories left power. 14 years of see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Also, the 'suddenly realising' seemingly only applies to foreign prisoners.

I turned it off - ridiculous manufactured outrage and then they took a swipe at the justice minister buying a suit on the day ( how did they know, why was it relevant?) that someone else was released erroneously. Daily Mail tone not appropriate for the BBC flagship news programme

Agree but that’s what Radio 4 Today is like

This requires Europe to assume greater security responsibility and significantly increase defence investment, allowing the US to maintain engagement in a less dominant role while focusing on its strategic priorities.

For as many years as anyone been counting two or more inmates been mistakenly released from British prisons most weeks. Record does not make it acceptable. System needs to be fixed. It does leave me asking why BBC now gripped by end-of-civilisation hysteria heard on Radio 4 Today programme.

I don’t do book reviews very often, but @sjamcbride.bsky.social and @fotoole.bsky.social’s essays are one of very few intellectually and politically generous treatments of the #UnitedIreland question to date, while @philipstephens.bsky.social #OurDividedIsles provides rich historical context…

Another triumph for pollsters....on very eve of polling day badly underestimated support for Democrats in New Jersey and Virginia....so much for Farage in Downing Street in 1929.....

Really excellent piece from @eriklinstrum.bsky.social

Samir Zitouni...the courageous rail worker who put the lives of his train's passengers before his own. You can hear the weeping and wailing of Nigel Farage .....

I don't know, people with non-Anglo-Saxon names, who don't look exactly the same as me, coming over here, risking their lives for others, sustaining life-threatening injuries when others ran to hide, stealing our headlines...

My thoughts and prayers to all the racists trying to hold on to their bigotry in the face of inconvenient facts.

Of course it would have been better if Starmer's government had kept manifesto options open....it would also have been better if the OBR had not had to lower productivity estimates, if Trump hadn't started a global tariff war and Putin's war had not forced higher defence spending.....and so on.

This from someone who insists on using private aircraft rather than commercial flights.....

For racists like Goodwin the present leader of the Conservative Party is presumably best described as a "black 'British' woman" ....

Farage: epic grifter

Thoughts in the FT about populism and Catherine Connolly's presidential victory in Ireland www.ft.com/content/21ef...

On the left, the refurbished Lincoln bathroom. On the right, picture I took in Saddam Hussein's palace in Basra in 2005.

65% of white Britons say they ARE well represented in advertising. So why lead with the far smaller figure?

Brilliant and, sad to say, all too accurate about BBC's political coverage

Are personal taxes higher than they used to be? Fiscal drag and the employer NI rise have increased effective tax rates in recent years. But they remain lower than before the financial-crisis (for low and middle earners). 📉 👉 buff.ly/4ppe7Q8

Trump bungled China policy so badly he had to run to Xi to beg forgiveness and surrender. Everyone knows it. In the "deal", America gets nothing, not even a return to status quo. Trump has now totally abandoned his promise to "get tough" on China.

Does anybody really believe Rachel Reeves would deliberately not get a licence to avoid paying £900+.

Conservative MP Katie Lam preaches racism of "cultural coherence" and is rewarded with a gong from The Spectator. Then, what would you expect from editor Michael Gove after his Brexit fear-mongering about Turkish (Muslim) immigrants?

So why does the BBC label the academic and economist Faiza Shaheen an "activist" but refuse to do the same for the former academic, turned anti-migrant activist Matt Goodwin?

The problem though is that Farage gets wall to wall coverage for any idea, proposal, speech or basically even when he farts. Ed Davey and his 72! MPs routinely ignored even by public service, regulated broadcasters. I think they do the right thing in that context.