All the analysis you need on the Gorton & Denton by-election from @patrickmaguire.bsky.social The opening two lines are spot on www.thetimes.com/article/4ac8...

Great column this: www.thetimes.com/article/5cba...

Seems we’ve still not got our heads round the fundamental role information plays in today’s security and geopolitics www.theguardian.com/media/2026/f...

just billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe throwing out some serious made-up numbers on TV

This is right. There’s a real opportunity for Kemi here. Will she take it? inews.co.uk/opinion/this...

We have an ageing population, struggling public services, and climate change. People might want low taxes, no migrants and cheaper energy, but they also don't want to lie in a hospital corridor for hours or have their house flooded. You can win elections with magic thinking but can't govern with it.

I detest the "open borders experiment" line so much. It ignores obvious pressures brought on from Covid, but also neglects the thousands of Ukrainian, Hongkongers, Afghan refugees who we welcomed at that time. Leans into terms like 'Boriswave' which was pushed by far-right conspracists online.

Robert Jenrick: an apology. thecritic.co.uk/fran...

A senior Tory says: "I’m sure Bob Generic will enjoy sharing a parliamentary office with 30p Lee." www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/robert...

Starmer keeps using this line, & it's bonkers. Most importantly, it's untrue: the party that ended Free Movement, ran the "hostile environment" & made Suella Braverman Home Sec did not run "an experiment in open borders". It's also politically mad. Voters who believe this will not vote for Starmer

This is true. It reveals such a reductionist view of the world.

Think this is genuinely revealing and says more about Jenrick than anything. So there is hope for the Tory party yet.

The Reform pitch is increasingly “the last government was terrible, so we’ve hired everyone who was in it”.

there’s always a tweet

Where Kemi Badenoch’s sacking of Robert Jenrick leaves the Tories www.economist.com/britain/2026...

This "open borders" line is *infuriating* - these people came here to study or work, because they had a uni place or a job to come to. They paid visa fees, student fees, NHS surcharge - and many of them are doing challenging and important work - staffing our care homes, for example, including Mum's.

About 18 months ago I sent this letter, along with a copy of my book, to a number of MPs and peers, including Wes Streeting. I never got a response (which to be fair was my baseline expectation), but it’s still disheartening to see today’s news about Haidt’s invitation to speak to policymakers.

Great piece that does a lot to explain one of the most curious characters of the MAGA world…

So many eyebrow raising bits in this piece about some of the quite mad but apparently leading figures on the so-called ‘new right’: airmail.news/issues/2025-...

The full Weiss memo is dogshit -who cares if administration figures “regret” sending people to CECOT -who cares about the criminal histories of the people we sent to CECOT, we sent them to a torture prison —who cares about the “debate” over the legality of sending people to a torture prison

“Windmills interfere with radar” is even dumber than “solar power only works during the daytime.”

Democracy dies in darkness. Journalism dies in 60 minutes.

This is a really good piece about the status of our immigration debate. Hits the nail on the head.

🤣

As I’ve said before, the omertà may finally be broken but the UK’s main parties are way, way behind the electorate on the disaster of Brexit. Given it is the single “achievement” of Farage’s career, it also represents the best line of attack against Reform.

A bit weird that FT tags this piece, repeating the lame excuses Brexiters make for the abject failure of their project, as being by the “chair of Marshall Wace”. Surely it would be more accurate to say “by the owner of the Spectator, Unherd and v right wing GB News channel”?

Suspect some female Tory MPs are quietly dying inside at this. When you’re so desperate to get in a bit of gratuitous foreigner-bashing that you find yourself arguing *against* preventative strategies that try to prevent sexual violence, ffs, what have you become?

Really hate this move to Downing Street press conferences. We don’t live in a presidential system. It’s inappropriate. It was wrong when the Tories did it and wrong now. Broadcasters should refuse to cover them or guarantee the opposition an equal right to reply.

Even by my low expectations for Kemi Badenoch ‘violence against women and girls is something done by immigrants and nobody else’ has shocked me.

For the second day in a row, the Tories are bizarrely on the wrong side of the political argument and demonstrating how out of touch they are with people like me, a parent of teenagers. It's really not clear who they think they're going to get to vote for them.

Important point: university isn't just for posh kids; Erasmus+ gives non-posh kids same chance as posh kids to study abroad, which they otherwise wdn't have; & covers vocational & other non-university training & education exchanges. And if more students come to the UK, that increases UK soft power.

Definitely one for Bluesky

Always great to speak with Senator Lindsey Graham, a principled and passionate leader in the fight for democracy worldwide. His megasanctions bill that will make Putin pay for his aggression against Ukraine now has 85 Senate co-sponsors.

This is a huge win for young people across Britain. Leaving Erasmus was a mistake. The programme opens doors for students from all backgrounds to experience new cultures, build skills, and gain confidence for their future.

I challenge you to think of one thing you would less like to do

Exactly. Again, we’ve just lived through a whole budget process where *none* of this context was referenced. If there’s a disconnect between these major issues and the Westminster conversation it’s because the govt has done nothing to make them the Westminster conversation.

"JOURNALIST"

What a truly terrible piece this is from the owner of Politico. Naive in the extreme. Politico do some good stuff generally… and then you remember who owns them.

Polanski here exhibits classic main character syndrome, as in believing that others are only ever responding to us as opposed to pushing their own agendas.

What really strikes me is their utter inability to see how this sort of language is not just morally wrong, but very clearly helps their opponents.

Journalists are desperate to write 'young people are voting for Reform stories' even though the data simply does not back it up.

It’s weird that news organizations like the BBC are covering this as if it’s a real thing with a real process behind it—and not clearly some nakedly invented “participation trophy” by a corrupt organization to curry favor with a corrupt and easily manipulated man-child. www.bbc.com/sport/footba...

This is pretty much exactly like a European saying the United States should be abolished, so that the governments of individual states can better represent their people. It’s a take, you’re entitled to it, but what’s it got to do with you, buddy?

Really great piece this. But the thing is, none of this is a secret. This is the world we’re now living it. Yet we’ve still just managed to go through an entire budget process that barely referenced any of this important context or to make any provision for us to respond. Time to wake up.

“There is a risk that the focus on the second strike and specifically the talk of ‘war crimes’ feeds into the administration’s false wartime framing and veils the fact that the entire boat-strikes campaign is murder, full stop,” sagt @becingber.bsky.social — völlig zurecht.

We have this cycle over and over of people panicking over the assumption that Trump can reshape the global order when the more likely trigger for global crisis is Trump generating disorder in America that collapses the US. Europe needs to prepare for a post-American world.

This is a good piece and I agree with all of it. But I'd add that a lot of Americans on encountering Actually Existing England come down with a version of "Paris Syndrome" - a widely recognised phenomenon described as....