I am a statistician who has two small caged mammals so it feels great to be represented in the national press like this.

True in principle but probably not true when the man in question is your husband embezzling money from the political party you lead and he is CEO of to buy luxury goods for your household.

Andy Burnham:

Obviously this disaster is to appeal to NIMBY voters in Makerfield but I ask those NIMBY voters how can you live in MakerFIELD and not support building houses on a FIELD? Where do you think your house came from?

There’s a real crisis at the moment that politicians don’t really seem to have opinions. One day Burnham can be in favour of house building and the next day he is not, because he just changes what he says he believes depending on who he’s talking to. And he’s not the only one.

Tonty’s essay got me thinking about this again because the wonderful thing about democracy is anyone can write an essay about where they think the government has gone wrong. The terrible thing about democracy is that sometimes it means you get essays written by Tony Blair or even worse, me.

2026 Me: Hey 1996 me, in 30 years time you'll be furious at everything Tony Blair says and think John Major makes some pretty sensible points 1996 Me: Fuck, so I'm doomed to become more conservative as I get older 2026 Me: Well not exactly

“Not all local objections to green projects are frivolous! One local man LOVES wind power, he just doesn’t think it should be built in the area where he lives or even on land at all” fuck OFF with this.

it’s not a robust policy it is literally a two word slogan!!!

YOU’RE LISTENING TO SISYPHUS FM, THE HOME OF NON-STOP ROCK

Mr Ed?

Coming round on this that Labour have actually played a blinder in Makerfiled becuase not only have the only other parties that could win it self-immolated in scandal but also if you like the government OR if you hate the government, the best thing you can do for your position is vote Labour.

I wanted to expand on this point in particular and make clear that even in the 1930s, as appeasement was ongoing and fascism was expanding across Europe, there was consensus between the Labour and Conservative parties to not give fascist groups in Britain an inch. No such consensus exists today.

Labour's response to losing a seat in Manchester was to blame sectarian voting, it's one inch away from Reform ranting about Islamists.

Labour's inability to condemn last years far right riots, and the Home Secretary endorsing the ludicrous flag campaign are probably two of the most shocking moments from a sitting government in my lifetime.

this Labour Government has largely presided over the sharpest uptick in racial, religious, and LGBT+ violence in my lifetime and it's hard to really stress just how much Labour actively chose this

So a trans woman I know, almost 70, now has to use male toilets? Why? She had gender reassignment surgery in the 1980s and has been using women's toilets for 40 years. She has never been a threat to anyone. Will she be safe in men's toilets? Where's the law to protect her?

Since I doubt anyone else will post it here, I regret to inform Bluesky that Gavin Williamson's pet tarantula has died, and he has made a photo montage to Angels commemorating him.

Every American politician wants to say they don’t like the Trump slush fund. No American politician wants to take a stand to stop it.

a very hot trend right now is every politician/party/faction about whom you for a single millisecond entertain the thought "perhaps they might be alright" doing something completely fucking disgusting before you have time to blink

We just don’t have proper bicameralism crises anymore. But we need to. The House of Lords blocked the assisted dying bill entirely after it passed the Commons and everyone was like “ok”.

this is unworkably insane as well as morally repellent, and still isn't going to win the government any points at all from the people who are now going to tour the country waging lawfare against any organisations that look like they might be treating trans people with dignity

Yet there you are, outside.

Angela Rayner left the tabletop dishwasher I ordered online right in front of my apartment’s outward-facing door and I’m too weak to move it on my own - me for the Telegraph

Hate to be “as a cis man” but I think there’s quite a lot of cis men on this app who won’t touch this issue, not because they aren’t personally in favour of trans rights, but because they’re not experts or they worry about speaking over people who are affected. Well, now is the time to say something

Obviously the EHRC guidance is terrible and discriminatory. I’m hopeful it won’t stand for long but in the meantime it is a permanent stain on the record of this government and the Labour Party that they have chosen the route of enforcing discrimination against transgender people.

I don't think it's a good idea to legally privilege someone else's discomfort over another person's rights.

I mean, everything else aside, this is really just it in a nutshell, isn’t it.

Well yes of course he does, because he has a massive incentive for Burnham to lose.

It’s time for the people who haven’t said much about trans rights because it’s a bit inconvenient and might cause tension with gender critical colleagues to actually say something btw

There we have it - you have to exclude trans people from single-sex spaces (so maybe avoid having them if you can). A bathroom ban from people who recognise that they’re doing a bathroom ban, and feel guilty about it. Shameful. www.gov.uk/government/p...

Call me a skeptic or naysayer but I think Burnham will back electoral reform only until he finds himself leading a party that has historically benefitted massively from FPTP.

The real paradox is you can’t back both Reeves and Mahmood’s policy agendas in the medium term because the Treasury is still costing as if net migration is 600,000. A new PM (or even Starmer) needs to demand either the Treasury or Home Office make massive course corrections in the next few months.

Again I ask if he has backed Reeves and Mahmood then what does he plan to do differently as Prime Minister?

Bryant is technically correct here but in the worst possible way. My understanding of it is that the sanctions announced yesterday were a watered down version of harsher sanctions that otherwise would have gone ahead, so it is still a deviation from previous policy to the benefit of Russia.

Another Brexit benefit that we are able to deviate from the EU on an issue so fundamental as protecting liberal democracy from a totalitarian invader. What is wrong with the government?

- Subsidising consumption in the face of a supply shock - reducing incentives to drive less/switch to EVs - using up limited fiscal space to help better-off drivers rather than the most vulnerable. Hard to think of a worse policy right now.

Apparently we are going to allow hundreds of millions of pounds to flow into Russia’s fascist war effort so that fuel prices rise only 21p this year instead of 26p.

and now the Ukraine reverse ferret. Just a godawful excuse of a politician.

actually so angry about that Russian oil decision that I can't even really bear to feel my own fury, it's so all-encompassing that I can only glance at it from an angle, once in a while, then think about something else

They are right, and they should say it. Weakening sanctions on Russia, allowing them to give more resources to their war, puts European democracy itself at risk, at already the most dangerous time for European democracy in 80 years.

GERMAN FOREIGN OFFICE SPOKESPERSON: ANYTHING THAT ENABLES RUSSIA TO CONTINUE WAR AGAINST UKRAINE ALSO POSES THREAT TO GERMAN SECURITY

Britain was perhaps the leading nation in maintaining a consistent principled line on Ukraine. We just threw that reputation away.

I see the line appears to be that the government was so blindsided by an energy crisis that I, Joe Public, have known about since February that they have no option but to cosy up to Russia immediately.

No-one is admitting to who took the decision to ease sanctions- whether it was FO, DESNZ, HMT, No10 - but the line that somehow if Miliband had eased North Sea oil and gas restrictions in 2024 would have made any difference whatsoever to the current predicament is stupid beyond belief.

Agree with Emily Thornberry here.. this is a properly shit decision from the govt. How can you just throw them under the bus

Is it morally defensible? No. But is it a coherent response to a difficult situation? No. Ah, but is it effective in bringing down fuel prices? Ha, you're not going to believe this...

This, while definitely better than an acute shortage of petrol and diesel, is still bad, it’s definitely a massive recession indicator.