podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t... Fascinating episode for your rainy Friday afternoon delectation

Interesting editorial in one of today’s Russian papers. It states that in a political system like Russia's “politicians who find themselves in power get used to having more and more powers [and] have no external incentive to change.” #ReadingRussia

This is why I thought they'd back off. But because they made the pledge all the options are shit.

How can you spend three weeks telling MPs, you can't do XYZ because the markets think we are too in hoc to our backbenchers - and then do this? All the whips, advisors, external experts who have been faithfully disseminating this made to look like mugs.

do we think that with enough pressure we can get them to do a u-turn on the u-turn before the Budget, end up getting Reeves pirouetting at the despatch box like a haunted marionette

labour unveils 2029 manifesto title

I think a neglected truth in life, frankly, is that the best and easiest way to succeed in your job is 'have a good predecessor'. In politics it takes a long time to work off having a bad one, because it broadly involves going 'well, someone needs to be the sin-eater, and that someone is me'.

This poster is right that the white English reject an ethno-nationalist racially defined idea of the English nation He is wrong to say that ethnic minorities support it - most ethnic minorities reject it, but a larger minority of minorities than in the white group back it

Tonight Russia turned Kyiv into a map of burning apartment blocks: strikes and drone debris hit homes, a medical facility, a school and heating lines in district after district. At least 11 people are wounded, including a pregnant woman, and parts of the city are now without heat, light or water.

crazy IG em_clarkson

As Russian forces push harder on multiple fronts, Ukraine strikes back with missiles on Oryol and Crimea, securing vital international support to counter the aggression. https://buymeacoffee.com/meaninuak/top-news-today-november-13-2025

Yes, your honor, we received and sold stolen goods, but if there was no market for such we wouldn't have done so. Our customers are to blame. We live in a golden age of shamelessness and grift.

If a core plank of my messaging was “you can’t replace me, it’ll scare the markets”, I simply would not throw out by far the biggest revenue raiser less than two weeks before a Budget where I need to find tens of billions of pounds

This is going to go down as the dumbest war in the Western Hemisphere since Napoleon III decided that only a Habsburg princeling could save Mexico

It’s started.

Ukrainian missiles struck oil facilities in Novorossiysk, Krasnodar region, in Russia. Those are the most important ones in the entire Russian South. Shortly before, Russian air defense missiles were launched, but either failed or were overpowered.

Two minutes on 3 ways Trump has undermined civil rights since Monday... youtu.be/oKgUDTGUORk?...

“We don’t want to do things that antagonize Labour MPs and voters”. Guys that ship sailed. That ship disappeared over the horizon. That ship is docking in New Zealand. You have 400 seats. Just do the policy that makes sense. Stop running away from shadows.

Oh wow. At this point I genuinely don't know who or what they think they're in government for. Please tax me more. I want nice things that work. I want security for people that aren't doing as well as me. I want investment in a positive future. Please put up my income tax.

Oh ffs “Reeves would also rely heavily on what has been dubbed the “smorgasbord” approach of increasing a range of narrowly-drawn taxes”

Exclusive: As part of the Whitehall delivery drive, the Labour government is looking at overhauling the 'write-round' process that has been used by Cabinet for years Frustrated insiders say it creates needless delays and are pushing for a shake-up It'll be major reform if they go for it

The childcare subsidies are huge. You can be £20k worse off at £100,001 than you were at £100,000 People know this. They make additional pension contributions, turn away work, refuse promotions, work 4 days a week...

The whole session is currently available here, hope these politicians will act on the evidence presented or our next general election will become a travesty of democracy. parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/...

❗️ Russia plans to begin mass deportation of Ukrainians from temporarily occupied territories to Siberia, — Center of National Resistance

In Kostiantynivka,Donetsk region,volunteers rescued 2 elderly people&their cat,who had been trapped on the 7 floor of a half-ruined residential building for 3 days. The rescue operation lasted three hours, during which they had to hide from drones flying nearby. 📹bogdanzuyakov

Absolutely. This is also the story of the Starmer project, such as it is. The habit of talking to everyone else like they are babies has led to a project unable to grasp trade-offs or think in horizons of longer than a week.

Have written for the New Statesman about why, if he will not accept an apology, the BBC should welcome a Trump lawsuit. They should show guts and fight it because impartially matters and if they don't, they will have tacitly accepted a rewritten history. www.newstatesman.com/politics/med...

"What matters is people’s party identification not the constituency they live in....Blue Labour believe...that Labour voters in the marginal Red Wall district have fundamentally different views on social...issues than Labour voters in safe London seats. They don’t." Fab by @benansell.bsky.social

In the Kharkiv region, three civilians were killed by a Russian FPV drone while traveling on homemade motorized carts to collect pensions and aid near Novoplatonivka, Izium district.

Keir Starmer's spokesman says he spoke to his senior team today and "has been assured that no No. 10 staff briefed against ministers." Asked why he apologised to Wes Streeting if he believes his staff didn't brief against him, he replies that he "apologised for the situation he found himself in"

Epstein had his own ‘nerds’ and one of the longest emails released documents Twitter sentiment analysis. This doesn’t mean that Epstein was intervening in Brexit — though it could — but he certainly was interested in making money out of it

rolling out project management software that enables easy visualisation of timelines and resources allocation would be a productivity game changer but instead we have mandatory training on copilot

Worth noting here as well that- unlike in the Commons, where the Speaker selects which amendments are debated- in the Lords, any peer can insist on having their amendment debated and voted on (although there aren't *usually* lots of amendments pushed to a vote)

A campaign to secure the future of seven UK grassroots music venues has reached 86% of its £1.5 million target, with just three days remaining until the investment deadline. #NewsInBrief

Five years into an independent UK trade policy with no reporting whatsoever on whether trade agreements are performing well or badly does not exactly scream out any government serious about improvements.

They were being integrated with the mayor role anyway so this makes total sense. No need for a separate function. Helps build up mayors as the single tier of regional government.

The oil refinery in Nizhnekamsk in the Republic of Tatarstan, currently Russia, has been severely struck. One of the primary oil processing units is on fire.

#Ukrainian Armed Forces launched a massive attack against the Russian military and fuel infrastructure. Attack and jet drones, as well as various types of missiles, were used to deliver the comprehensive strikes, including domestically developed Flamingo missile and Bars and Liutyi drones.

World leaders must draw upon storytelling arts such as literature, film, and music in developing “serious” climate change policy and action, a collective of more than 200 academics, actors, authors, public figures, and scientists has urged.

The question is whether this is a first step towards what some senior police leaders and watchdogs have long been calling for - reform of the archaic 43 force model in England and Wales PCCs baked it in at a point where many believed it should be modernised with larger regional bodies

All 41 police and crime commissioners to be scrapped bit.ly/47Z9nbf to save £20m for front line policing

Important to understand the Epstein stuff and the fascism and the corruption are, in a lot of ways, really all the same story from different angles: powerful men who can and do abuse vulnerable people around them because they can, and because systems of elite accountability catastrophically failed

Ghislaine Maxwell lied about Trump never going to Epstein's house (directly contradicted by her email correspondence with Epstein), and she was rewarded for that lie with a transfer to a cushier prison. The coverup is happening in plain sight.

i.e. The headline to my piece is misleading. I also agree with those who have commented, wondering why our govt appears to have such legal qualms about this issue, but was willing to go along re Israel, involving far more substantial violations.

I did not have insider knowledge. I have just been around Brussels negotiations for a long time... EU agrees a mandate for UK negotiations as I predicted. With the bonus that the future path becomes clearer - if you pay you can have more. www.politico.eu/article/uk-s...

Bit of analysis from me - a key upside from busting the manifesto pledges is meant to come in cheaper borrowing, as bond markets buy into the budget. Wesgate makes that much harder, by amplifying fears about whether Reeves/PM can stick around to implement it: www.theguardian.com/business/202...

🇵🇱🇪🇺 Polish FM Sikorski: I’m in favor of the European Union starting to have some defense capability of our own so that we don’t have to call on the United States in every emergency. We should be capable of sorting out some warlord in Libya or the Balkans next time around.

GB News inching closer and closer to Lord Haw Haw

Things gradually slotting into place.

Update for anyone who has not yet lost the will to live; Starmer saying he didn’t authorise briefings against Streeting means the story now becomes ‘so will you sack whoever did it’. Well done everyone.