So as part of my day job I regularly have to check people's right to be in the UK, via a UK passport, or an eVisa/share code. These are legal requirements. Anyone saying we need online ID so we can verify who has a right to be in the UK is lying to you. We already do that. They are lying.

We’ve trashed the place over immigration. Brexit turned it into an ugly obsession that made us mad. Scrapping freedom of movement didn’t work. Losing our own rights just trapped us and our politicians and media won’t admit it. So, on we go, playing the same hateful record… and failing.

Breaking: Comey responds to Trump's Banana Republic indictment of him. Shorter Comey: fuck you, Trump Original vid: www.instagram.com/reel/DPC1sFF...

the post office is a public service. it doesn’t need to make money. public transit doesn’t need to make money. the library doesn’t need to make money. some things exist for the public good and we desperately need lawmakers to stop thinking about them in terms of capitalism. these are not businesses.

farage is going to do a lot more of these "migrants are eating swans" things. it's all about seeing what the media will engage with diplomatically. if you're a journalist and your response isn't to ask "are you on fucking glue" you've failed.

Preach

Suicide.

🤦🤷‍♂️

On time and on budget? Whaaat? Make this man prime minister immediately www.ft.com/content/639a...

Love this...

Excellent stuff

It's all very well being wise after the event.

Why would any foreign country invest in a nation that did this?

Chris Mason is a profoundly unserious man who writes about politics as if it were a video game with no real consequences. True to form, this article is purely about optics. Not a single policy is mentioned www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Srsly, are people so blinded by hatred of anything to do with the Starmer gov't, so jaded by factionalism, that they cannot recognise things he has plainly improved and prefer instead to repeat the l-i-t-e-r-a-l far right lie "they're all the same"? This will be the mantra of our fkn doom. 3/3

This is almost comically on point for Umberto Eco’s 3rd characteristic of fascism: the cult of action for action’s sake.

“I too came from a poorish family,” says the 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, eldest son of Major-General Gilbert Monckton, 2nd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley and Marianna Letitia, Viscountess Monckton of Brenchley.

🚨 How bad is UK fiscal vs G7 peers? on.ft.com/462WKLd

Magic Mike’s canard that Trump was an FBI informant will only make things worse for his dear Leader. Even the most braindead MAGA knows Trump would’ve been singing it from the rooftops during the 20/24 campaigns. “The guy who brought down the pedophile.” (1/4)

Sorry Americans, there are many, many millions of decent citizens of the USA. But this is a very pithy summary of what the outside world thinks. 'Shining city on a hill', 'beacon of democracy' etc was all BS even before Trump.

Angela Rayner accidentally pays less tax than she should have, resigns, and the media gives her hell. Nigel Farage deliberately pays less tax than he should have, and the media gives him a free pass. That, right there, is the problem.

‘Privately educated man who once claimed (but now denies) he bought a farm to avoid paying inheritance tax uses column in Britain’s most read newspaper to be angry at state school peasant for not paying her fair share of tax’.

We have a paper on how Labour's strategy is disastrous. There's an exclusive coverage in @newstatesman.com www.newstatesman.com/politics/202...

Worth reading the whole thing, it's really well structured and written. Conclusion: "It is truly a pity that Ryanair's communications and institutional relations policy appears to be governed by hypocrisy, rudeness and blackmail."

It sounds like Spanish national airport operator AENA is very much over Ryanair and MOL. Haven’t seen something this… forthright in quite some time, and goodness me, forthright it is. www.aena.es/en/press/sta...

The finest response I've seen so far.

Tomorrow we get the 2.0 pieces: VINE: Stop moaning about being judged more harshly than men, Angela! You knew the rules. OAKESHOTT: Rayner is not working class. She has no class. PEARSON: Where was Rayner when Lucy was jailed for posting it's okay to burn hotels? DORRIES: My Stamp Duty Tax Hell!

“It is the opposite of patriotism… a treacherous act… because he goes to other countries and does us in” Technology Secretary Peter Kyle on Nigel Farage giving evidence on free speech to the US House of Representatives, in which he compared the UK to North Korea. #Newsnight

The Epstein list is a who’s who of the rich & powerful. The reason Trump and the DOJ are shielding them is because they are rich and powerful. Every time we try to hold them accountable, the systems we believe were meant to deliver justice falter and betray us. (1/4)

I’ve studied US drone strikes, I wrote a book called “Drones and Terrorism,” and this Caribbean strike is different. Lethal fire at a non-threatening target in a non-hostile environment on purpose when other means, such as capture, were easily doable, and without even attempting a legal rationale.

Timeline cleanse

Fully agree. Bragg is such an inspiration for any of us doing radio to make sure you never talk down to your audience but to treat them as people just as fascinated by facts, arguments, stories, and data as you are.

Letters in The Times that sum up Labour’s deeply inadequate response to the perceived immigration ‘crisis’. Cruelty as policy and performative patriotism to try to pacify (rather than challenge) the frothing right wing press and the baying racist mob. It’s all just so gutless and wrong.

Centrism isn't an obstacle to fascism or a bulwark against it. It's a welcome mat. There's no point telling people "It's Starmer or Farage" when the dynamic at work here is plainly Starmer *and* Farage. "Labour or Reform" makes as much sense at this point as "Vichy or the Third Reich".

💯 this.

So true. Proving this on a daily basis

A government with such a large majority should be setting the political agenda, not following one set by a fringe party with 4 MPs. Whoever is advising Starmer is either stupid or working against him.

People are melting down at a Tribune article about CHSD 230 considering adding Arabic to its language learning electives. I wasted time in the comments, which I normally avoid doing since it's useless and awful, but it led to possibly the funniest thing anybody's ever said to me about France.

Just what is this government trying to achieve? Making my life better? Richer? (absolutely not the same) Making the public realm better? Making public services better? Building more homes? Building more infrastructure? What are the priorities here?

WHAT A WIN FOR THE ALBION! 🙌

Save our human rights

1776: Fine harvest day. Some corn housed. N.B. From Lewes to Brighthelmstone, & thence to Beeding-hill, where the wheat-ear traps are frequent no wheat-ears are to be seen: But on the downs west of Beeding, we saw many. A plain proof this, that those traps make a considerable havock among that...

SIGNS OF FASCISM 🪧

Before heading a few hundred yards east to the Savoy Steps - site of Bob Dylan's famous opening scene in the 1967 documentary Don't Look Back Hope you liked the thread

The best reaction anyone could give to the present flag mania vm.tiktok.com/ZNd4oc1BN/

Getting chicken pox as a kid led to me going blind in one eye (through shingles) as an adult in my 20s. Get your kids vaccinated

UK govt handed £895bn of QE to banks. It bought bonds/gilts, now selling them at a loss. It also pays interest on banks' central reserves. Costs the public purse £22bn a year and is avoidable. Profits at big four banks doubled since the pandemic. Windfall tax could raise £8bn. Tax the banks.