The presentation here of the country’s fiscal problems as being something the chancellor ought to solve personally without bothering anyone else is so odd as to make me question why these people want to cover politics for a living.

Who asked this and was it a newsroom bet because it’s a bizarre question

Love to open The Times and see the latest PR push by a gambling industry resistant to paying more tax while it rips wages out of communities.

Never not on. #CelebrityTraitors

This man just wants to play murder mystery and you’re ruining it #CelebrityTraitors #TheTraitors

Jonathan Ross: I’m trying not to draw attention. Jonathan Ross’ wardrobe: #CelebrityTraitors #TheTraitors

The fact that this is even seriously discussed, by frontbench politicians and in mainstream publications, shows that something fundamental has broken in UK politics. All those who look at Germany with horrified faces because of the rise of the AfD, kindly take a look in the mirror.

I mean not *all* the men and women worked together during the week. Some did, some had other jobs. For instance, Robert Jenrick’s dad was Managing Director at Cannon Industries.

If the UK had any sense it would be rolling out the red carpet for every American scientist. But a substantial part of that would involve fixing our HE sector, so

Jonathan Ross says he really didn’t enjoy his #CelebrityTraitors experience and yet

You know this reporting is giving Martin Compston the horrors in his WhatsApp groups. “What time are we meeting later?” “Oh is that Hollywood’s Martin Compston?”

Reform has 5 MPs and 4 of them are among Parliament’s highest earners. Party of the people.

The Conservative 2029 manifesto:

Agree with all this. But also felt a bit uncomfortable that Panorama aired the private criticism from other (mostly women) officers who didn’t like what they’d heard and confided in the undercover reporter. The doc blurred faces, but they now have to walk back into work at Charing Cross station…

this is actually extraordinary and a lot of it's been done just by asking people to drive basically any car produced since 2007. almost no cars later than that (and some earlier) comply with ULEZ - it's not forcing everyone into a Tesla, it's incredibly basic improvements

We definitely need more ‘haters said I couldn’t, they were correct, honestly great call from the haters’ features.

Fortunately by the next GE, UK voters will have had years of watching this sort of policy in action if the US H-1B visa changes come into force. The talent shortages will crush tech and professional services. The UK led Europe in tech inward investment projects last year, why would we give that up?

It was published more than an hour ago but Zarah Sultana’s announcement that she’s no longer suing her own party still hasn’t replaced her pinned announcement that she’s suing her own party.

‘Can I just shock you? The sexist boy’s club I was talking about earlier? I’m with them and you should vote for us.’

Skimread this as ‘Richard Burgon season’ and almost put my back out clicking to see when it was taking place.

At what point does it become a credibility risk for the Greens if she joins

What we need is a new New Party, freed from the shackles of the status quo that have ground down the old New Party. It’s our hope that the new New Party will embody the pioneering spirit the old New Party demonstrated when it was originally launched all those days ago.

Looking past the FAFO nature of Arkansas farmers being ruined by tariffs, this clip surprised me because do Americans see no issue filming themselves on a handheld phone while driving down a street?

‘The Labour leadership should stop catering to Farage’s racist mates and start catering to *my* racist mates’

They could just take down all the road signs to prevent Westminster Outsider Andy Burnham from even finding parliament.

Feel for Rayner as this does seem like a mistake rather than deliberate manoeuvring. At the same time, if you put one property into a complex trust arrangement, it seems a bit naive to then rely on a conveyancer’s advice for the next property. Surely just go back to the trust experts, just in case?

I suppose this is the point when I should say again that: the amount of money the videogames industry brings into the UK economy every year is *more than double* the value of the fishing and steel industries *combined* what this country is really good at is producing culture

Oh.

Whataboutism is very annoying but do think it’s somewhat justified when the people accusing others of backsliding on human rights have been deporting their own citizens to torture prisons. www.thetimes.com/article/5049...

“The only thing they can find money for is weapons of war” Across 2025/26, UK social security spending (£327bn) will be x5 the defence spending (£60bn). Personally think we should spend more on social security than defence and that we should stop pretending that we don’t already do so.

Hahahaha

We get x2 glitzy dramas about the Prince Phillip Newsnight interview and nothing for the day a noble BBC exec rinsed ABC for rights to one of history’s most commercially valuable IPs.

Interested to know if synthetic focus group results have already been presented in discussions with Labour MPs to justify policy and whether those MPs have understood that these are the opinions of voters who don’t actually exist.

🤔

He was asked to take the test in 2020, refused and offered to resign on the spot, and has instead been suspended on full pay until now. Five years.

Cool can we start hearing less from the fishing industry please

UK generally *feels* less violent than it did in the mid-2000s, when it felt like you’d be guaranteed to see fights every night you went out.

No UK climbdown on digital services tax. The trade pact isn’t announced because it’s ready, it’s announced because those 90 days are ticking down and nothing else has been announced yet.

Operation Halt China’s Global Influence is off to a rocky start.

Due to fly from Heathrow on Monday for a honeymoon to Japan that had initially been booked for March 2020 and boy are my nerves frazzled.

In which McDonnell says there’s an obvious short term need to placate Trump to protect Ukraine, but that long term a shift to European economic independence is needed. All framed as advice that hasn’t occurred to Starmer.

I agree with the last para here. We should record the names of everyone who opposes this. And they should reminded of it whenever they pipe up in future about peace, national responsibility, supporting the oppressed, standing on the right side of history etc.

‘Fair enough, ok!’ chuckles the journalist as the senator belittles the sovereignty of a neighbour and ally.

At some point you’d expect the regulatory instability to affect investment decisions for some fairly big businesses that might decide to put their money somewhere that isn’t having a daily policy flip flop.