One of Iran's goals with this war is to make the US withdraw from the region. They're actually having a fair amount of success doing that. Russia had great success pushing US to withdraw from Afghanistan--& this is the kind of targeting that RU likely helped with. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/u...

WATCH: In the first 7 months of Trump’s second term, authorities detained the parents of at least 11,000 U.S. citizen children — a number that, if the pace has held up, will have roughly doubled by now. That’s an average of more than 50 U.S. citizen kids a day with a parent pulled into detention.

The harder phase of the new towns programme is still to come. Government needs to decide governance, commit infrastructure funding and show the scheme can move from consultation to delivery 👇

supreme accidental comic timing in Commons just now during PMQs: Keir Starmer: “there is only one party leader who has shown he will say anything, no matter how divisive, if he is paid to do so” Speaker (calling the next question): “Nigel Farage”

Trump casts a mail ballot again in Florida even as he calls the method 'cheating'

Last week in the Lords we voted for women having an abortion to have safe choices and not to be investigated for criminal charges. I am proud to have voted for this. We did *not* vote to legalise abortion up till birth. Lots of misinformation - so here are facts 👇🏽 www.instagram.com/p/DWPJgNgDo1...

My thoughts are with all of London’s Jewish community following this heinous attack. Antisemitism has no place in our society. All Londoners must stand together against this kind of hatred and intimidation. Patrols are being stepped up in the area to reassure the local community.

Yesterday Elon Musk retweeted "white solidarity is the only way to survive". In our numb overwhelmed media environment it barely made headlines that the world's richest man endorsed blood-curdling white nationalism. My brief writeup for @religiondispatches.org religiondispatches.org/elon-musk-ju...

So many people in British politics don’t seem to grasp that the underlying problem is that the world *really* does have less of several very important commodities than it did four weeks ago, it’s not a weird trick by people who love the Iranian regime or the oil companies or the supermarkets.

from Fraser Nelson:

Labour's new National Housing Bank will launch next month! It's aim: to use £16bn of financing to support and enable the delivery of 500,000 new homes. It is expected to unlock £53bn of private investment in house building and provide house builders financial stability and certainty. Love it!

I made a timelapse last night and caught some of the Perseids

Our Chart of the week looks at an unemployment puzzle. Over 500,000 more people are unemployed compared to the start of 2023. But Universal Credit work search claimants have only grown by 27,000. What's more, there's no sign of an uptick in unemployed people claiming different benefits.

His rage at NATO is actually an admission that he needs our allies’ help—and that he wants somebody to blame as his war goes from bad to worse. trib.al/JL0W5w8

For several months, people have been wondering why Reform hasn't declared any crypto donations, despite Nigel Farage saying they'd received some Now @theobserveruk.bsky.social can reveal why...

So it turns out Reform are laundering their donations through crypto, before converting them into cash, hiding the original source of the money. So who is really funding Nigel Farage and Reform UK? observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Jewish News editorial in defence of Muslim prayers in Trafalgar Square "It is counterproductive to combat extremism by telling many Muslims they – alone – should not celebrate their faith in public" "Uphold religious rights for all - you'll be glad you did" www.jewishnews.co.uk/voice-of-the...

Covid nearly broke NHS "Staff were giving everything, in some cases their lives, to deliver the care needed. Shamefully, they were all but forgotten, burnt out and exposed to the virus, without even basic safety equipment.” Sara Gorton, UNISON

We're walking the Pilgrims' Way - to me a constant reminder of the ubiquity and value of rural council housing. Here, across the village green, is a small terrace of council homes in Boughton Aluph and Eastwell built by East Ashford Rural District Council after the war.

🌎️ | NEW REPORT: The net zero "backlash" is a myth. Voters still back climate action, but politics and media are telling a different story. Our new analysis with Persuasion UK explains why and how we fix it 👉 www.ippr.org/articles/apa...

Spain's renewables build-out has structurally decoupled its electricity prices from gas markets. Gas now sets the price in only 15% of hours, compared to 90% in Italy. Countries that invested early in clean power are far less exposed to fossil fuel price shocks. Those that didn't now pay the price.

The combination of the Anthropic-Pentagon clash and the US and Israel’s joint strikes on Iran have turned a years-long theoretical debate about military applications of AI into an urgent one, writes Tech Policy Press fellow James Ball. That debate is being had in capitals far from Washington.

How real or not is the apparent backlash to Net Zero, clean energy etc in the UK? I have some new research out with @ippr.org today. Easily the most in-depth look at this! Review of existing polling, new polling and message testing, interviews with ambivalent voters, etc Here's a taster 🧵

"Attempts in Western countries to circumscribe the Islamic way of life almost always end up doing the same to Jews."

The economics of battery storage are moving *way* faster than most people realize. The cost of battery storage has dropped more than 50% just since 2022! The LNG enthusiasts need to reckon with a world where buyers suddenly have options. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

NEW POST 3 sobering facts about pension saving today: - ONE THIRD of people in work aren’t saving into a pension at all - HALF of 25-54s are not on track for an adequate retirement income - Typical pension savings for workers at 50 are just £27,000 cradle2grave.substack.com/p/pension-pain

Interviewed the journalist who was getting death threats from polymarket gamblers to change his reporting on an Iranian missile strike. Scary stuff in here about how the intense harassment made him (for just a split second) doubt what he saw and reported. Others may not have his conviction/morals.

The industrial policy that helped spawn the world's biggest semiconductor manufacturer traces directly back to the New Deal's Tennessee Valley Authority asteriskmag.com/issues/13/th...