I’d much rather have ‘student politics’ and ‘6th form politics’ than this.
Family man. MLC mod. Runner. Old music. Progressive patriot. Equality. Ally. #joinaunion. #PUSB. Twitter abandoner. Mids born & bred, now Durham/Tees. “Long-haired communist” - Boss. “Useless git” - Wife.
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I’d much rather have ‘student politics’ and ‘6th form politics’ than this.
When I taught AS level, I knew that every one of those students could hold their own in a political debate and knew far more over-18s who were clueless about British politics and how it works.
Not fucking about.
Paid a visit to the London arms fair today... Found a component for cluster munitions, banned under international law, on full display. Confirmed by staff, and removed swiftly by event organisers. But what else remains? These vile weapons should never be peddled in the UK.
Good indicator of where we are with Labour under Starmer: Mandelson is still a Labour legislator, still a Labour peer and is still subject to the Labour whip whereas the like of Rachael Maskell, Brian Leishman, Neil Duncan-Jordan, Chris Hinchliff etc etc have had the whip removed.
Free speech latest.
In its current state, Labour would probs elect Reeves, Cooper or Kendall. Lolz. (Btw, has needed to be an all-women shortlist for at least 3 leadership races now).
1998 - sandwiches wrapped in a road map. 2001 - wrapped in a Tom Tom. 2025 - wrapped in Waze.
Watch the full film here: youtu.be/eArGP8CdIXA?...
Tommy Robinson: 'I challenge any journalist to come to Luton and find Muslims with non Muslims.' I'm a journalist from Luton and this man is talking utter nonsense. A pleasure to work on this film, chatting to incredible people in my hometown and separating fact from fiction.
‘Against the advice of the security services’ seems to have transcended the last Tory Govt and the current Labour one. Tbf to Johnson, you might well have expected it from him. From Mr Clean, former DPP himself though? Nah. Not a chance. Of you fuck, mate. #skynews
They qualify to become the UK entry into Eurovision proper. I’d definitely watch it then. With a sack full of popcorn to hand.
No need to worry about that. Labour leadership became national experts in riding out ludicrous PPC selection storms.
Angela was the last remaining Cabinet member with some practical experience in trade union activism and organising. So, short answer: not a chance.
And Gary Lineker.
In a long list of extraordinary things that have happened today, this strength of this statement by Andy Burnham's new movement is something else. A proper shot across the bows.
Ireland should host an alternative Eurovision. Eirevision, perhaps. Tbh, I’d probably watch it if they did.
Formerly Artful Dodger in Bart’s ‘Oliver’. A role also performed in West End by Stephen Marriott and Philip Collins.
Correct decision. A decision Starmer probably wouldn’t have needed to make if, in this instance, he’d lived up to his reputation for attention to detail and forensic analyses. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Condemnation of political violence from: The bloke aiding & abetting a genocide, hosting the President of the state committing that genocide, absurdly instructing police services famous for policing by consent to arrest 100s and 100s of people peacefully protesting against that genocide.
‘Smash the gangs to stop the boats’ latest…
In today’s Labour, this kind of talk will get her nowhere near the position of Deputy Leader.
On the pissy non-issue of asylum seekers using irregular means to get to UK, we’re seeing 2019-24 Tory Govt levels of delusional, fantasy politics from the Labour one that replaced it. Might as well hand the keys to No 10 to Faridge now and get it over with.
These from Fake Music mind blowing. open.spotify.com/track/1ABnt5...
Not sure why yet another inevitable outcome of a nation full of gun toting idiots makes the top of BBC News.
‘Vote for us cos we’re better than the alternative’ latest:
Former DPP who has hundreds of victims of all types of abuse at heart, including Epstein’s victims, continues to stand by a paedophile’s ‘best friend’.
Starmer’s first reaction to this matter when asked at #pmqs was to be firmly on the side of Epstein’s victims. If those victims meant so much to Starmer, he wouldn’t be standing by Epstein’s ‘best friend’. As an eminent lawyer, he’d be urging his US Amb to tell his hosts everything he knows & did.
Keir Starmer: ‘Full due process was gone through to appoint the current Ambassador to the US’ vs Due process … #pmqs
Almost absurd whataboutery was always Johnson’s, Truss’s and Sunak’s defence of the long list of Tory Govt scandals 2019 to 2024. Keir Starmer resorting to that tactic now does him no favours at all. Mandelson needs to go. #pmqs
Peter Mandelson indirectly responsible for Badenoch’s best #pmqs to date by far.
Just got off the floor after fainting. Last thing I remember is agreeing with Kemi Badenoch and her line of questioning about Peter Mandelson. Imo, the current UK Ambo to the US is and always has been a slithery, conniving little shite-hawk. #pmqs
It was reasonable to give the Govt a year to deal with food poverty as the emergency it was when they took power. A year to markedly reduce it. A Labour Govt prepared to accept it at this level, at this stage, may just as well be a Tory one.
Reckon I could get a George Melly one?
Since 2021, mayors, PPCs, councillors, CLP chairs/execs who do back unions tended to end up going one way - aided by a proverbial Starmer-designed size 10 boot.
Coming to Britain with a Reform-led Govt soon enough. Making arresting people purely based on their skin colour great again. www.bbc.com/news/article...
It’s shocking that people are shocked about what that lazy, incompetent, useless oaf was up to whilst being ultimately responsible for the most disastrous 4- to 5-year period in the country’s postwar history.
None of the current Labour Cabinet have any active/campaigning trade union background. The only one whom did left last week.
We’d thought we’d forgotten about him and that catastrophic 4 or 5 year period of our post-war history. Then, up comes The Guardian with the least surprising revelations of what that utterly incompetent, lazy, corrupt oaf was up to all along. #borisfiles
BREAKING: By an apparent 6–3 vote, the Supreme Court halts an injunction that had prevented immigration agents from racially profiling Latinos in central California. Sotomayor, dissenting, says the decision is "unconscionably irreconcilable with our nation's constitutional guarantees."
1940s to mid-1970s Britain. A period of time many aspects of which this utter charlatan actually yearns for.
Every NHS worker deserves decent pay. We need to end outsourcing. #TUC25
Reshuffle it how you like, Starmer’s ‘grownup’ Labour has the Tory whiff of spiteful incompetence | Nesrine Malik www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
This week 51 Israeli companies will exhibit at the DSEI arms fair in London. Israeli Govt delegates are banned, but those supplying the actual weapons for genocide are ready to sell, sell, sell. Nothing but hollow words from this Government when it comes to stopping war crimes.
The kind of nepotism at the very top of Govt people were sick and tired of by the time 14 years of Tories drew to an end. Then Labour…
The utter ludicrousness on the UK’s flagship and most-watched breakfast TV programme: “The last Home Secretary did a fantastic job” - the last Home Secretary’s husband. #gmb
The political editor of the national, tax payer funded public broadcaster should at least mention the long list of conspiracist bonkers being spouted from the stage at this conference. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Bonkers.
Left Doncaster Hunters SC rally at half one. One accy cable and a pissing out fuel tap later, finally home. Special thanks to Saltburn Daz’s Lambretta wizardry, the Automobile Association, Thirsk McDonald’s and Mrs C who brought the spare tank down. 🛵💨
The many people who aspire to and succeed in supporting their kids to go to university still gonna vote for him. Because ‘immigration’ innit?
All about gotcha’s for clickbait. The days of Dimbleby, Day, Frost and Walden are aeons past.
86% Association of Genocide Studies scholars voted to confirm that Israel’s actions in Gaza categorically amount to genocide. Meanwhile, on our behalf, Keir Starmer is going to host & no doubt cosy up to the president of Israel - now classified by most valid academic accounts as a genocidal state.
Deputy Prime Minister having to resign is pretty significant.
Jesus H Christ
Amongst the monumentally ignorant, idiotically entitled and absurdly delusional. Nadine Norries finally found her true political home.
No10 spokesman not prepared to criticise anything about Farage speech today. Not his description of "invasion", not his prediction that the UK on brink of civil war, not plans to pay the Taliban or Iran to take back migrants, or indeed to rule out doing so themselves.
Djed Spence hopes to inspire others as England’s first Muslim player www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...
Still touring. Vocal talent still immense.
The wild thing is that McSweeney spent months and years explaining the plan was to fuck off the left, ignore the libs and build a crushing electoral bloc of Sensible Moderates and Reasonable Tories. And it was *instantly* clear the day after the election that this had not worked, nor would it ever.
Good policy. If it wasn’t for their inability to stave off the hard-right’s various non-issues, the Govt would be benefitting from this type of good news.
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/b...
Good on you and Greens. Impressive media round these last couple of days. Distant glimmers of real hope mixed with pragmatism. At long last.
Labour Government ‘we understand people’s concerns’ latest…
Starmer at #pmqs brushing off the topic of the Gaza genocide as if Ed Davey had asked him a question about a directly Govt funded play-park upgrade in Camden Town.
‘We’re not the ones referring ourselves to the ethics committee’, says Kemi Badenoch. She served in a Party of Govt whose MPs were referred to the various parliamentary ethics overseers at a rate of one MP every 6 months since the 2019 general election. #pmqs
Kemi Badenoch speaking about sacking a Minister for a breach of ethics. It’s as if she was never part of the most unethical, lawless, nepotistic govt the country’s had to endure in modern times. #pmqs
Our shithouse newspaper front pages this morning are ‘successful woman dresses like a woman and doesn’t dress like the witchiest ever headmistress or that female Nazi off Allo Allo’. Fucking weirdos.
Fucking, have Labour got nothing else in their playbook? "Oh don't vote for that guy because it might make our guy not win", how bout you fuckers actually earn some votes hmm? I mean they did exactly this with Count fucking Binface for crying out loud. Such a pathetic mess of a political party.
‘Labour are better than the Tories’ was all well and good when the country desperately needed the Tories out, Ed Balls. A year in, there’s a no more than a gnat’s bollock hair’s width of difference between them. #GMB
Also, the flagship current affairs radio programme our license-payer funded national broadcaster still uses this publication as a credible source from which to begin discussing the news of the day. #r4today
One of many truths in his acceptance speech: Starmer was elected as Labour leader on the coattails of the Corbyn leadership. Yes he was. Every pledge he reneged on is proof of that.
What’s the point? Labour are never, ever gonna claw people back who’ve already gone over to Reform UK or have already gone over to the Greens. Desperate.
Yet again, we get that tedious old line that the like of Zack Polanski only do 6th form politics. I’ve taught AS Level in a former life. By heck, I’d welcome 6th form politics any day over the current Hobson’s choice of 3 parties engaged in almost hourly immigrant-bashing & pandering to racists.
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
The body of evidence showing that when centrist parties adopt the priorities and talking points of the far right, they torpedo themselves is vast and powerful. Yet Keir Starmer's Labour Party seems determined to ignore it. A few examples in 🧵: theconversation.com/how-should-l...
I was born here and know it well. At the moment, Labour echoing Reform’s schtick is making this kind of thing much more common. No doubt.
Labour MP Jo White tries to justify Yvette Cooper's policy to abandon Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights Thankfully the Green Party's Sian Berry is there to set the record straight, and she even points out, "Labour opposed this when the Conservatives put this forward in 2022"
How we managed to keep probably our best 4 players, idk. #pusb
The PM and Home Secretary largely agree with Farage and the hard-right. Not a word calling him and his inner-circle out for the lying racists that they are and attract.
Sorry, but wtaf? This does absolutely nothing but ensure that even more people, including children, have to use irregular crossings, and blocks people who even this government have recognised are refugees from being with their families. This is utterly sickening from Labour. 1/
If you voted for a Labour Government last time, you may just as well have voted for a Reform UK Government or an even worse hard-right iteration of the same nonsense. You were warned. Goodnight, Britain. It was nice knowing you.
Mate. It’s gullible fuckwits and out-and-out racists who are going to smash your majority to pieces come 2029 who are putting these flags up. Not your local WI decorating a charity fucking jumble sale. For fuck’s sake, wake up man! www.thenational.scot/news/2543204...
Listening to this mini-reshuffle, apparently the Prime Minister has a ‘soft leftish’ No 10 Policy Unit. Great gig, that one. They’ve been on sabbatical since July last year.
I wouldn’t have thought many Labour MPs came into politics to strip the rights of torture survivors to be reunited with the spouses & children. They need to take a long hard look in the mirror & ask whether Starmer, Cooper & Reeves are really the leadership their careers should be remembered with.
I turn on my TV and a TV presenter is asking a Govt minister why they are talking about rolling out free childcare when the big issue is asylum hotels. This is objectively insane.
If you’re wondering how everything ECHR suddenly got into the minds of the masses, your head’ll explode when you find out that a mere 0.0005 of the population daring to come here in a boat every year became THE biggest talking point in Britain.
Happy 70th birthday to Bruce Foxton. Here are The Jam performing David watts on Revolver in 1978
UK's family reunion route is already a farce which sees too many people denied ability to reach UK to seek asylum, including children. Tightening it will only ensure even more, particularly women and children, are denied safety, and more families ripped apart. #r4todau www.bbc.com/news/article...
Two issues with liberals down-playing the numbers intimidating asylum seekers at their digs: 1. The Middlesbrough pogrom last year started with one local dickhead posting one call to muster. 2. Even a handful of racists at each means Govt totally lost the narrative to the far-right. #r4today
"UK council tax is based on 1991 property valuations, grouped into eight price bands and paid by tenants. It is probably the world’s most unfair property tax: the poorest pay the highest tax as a percentage of property value and the richest the least."
Just had my Dad’s 80th birthday weekend where our family favourite sing- and dance-along is always The Who’s Squeeze Box, which itself is 50 years old this year. The old man still wont let me complete the dot to dot on the LP sleeve. youtu.be/pW3PSKJ-Bik
Like myself at the last election (Gaza) there’s a limit to the extent you can just vote Labour to keep the main opposition out. If you’re advocating and voting for this shit, you may just as well advocate and vote for Badenoch or Farage. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
This is just fear-mongering bullshit worthy of the worst of the gammon fraternity from Labour. And, as the polls tell us every week, it’s not even working. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
Labour Govt handing the asylum narrative back to Reform on a daily basis, further demonising the most vulnerable among us as they go. Little wonder the polls say we’re heading for a hard-right landslide at the next election. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
Bearing in mind 3 quarters of asylum claims are accepted, a ‘nice’ course is likely going to be a nice benefit for both individuals and the communities they end up becoming part of.
secure.hopenothate.org.uk/page/176528/...
"I can be British, English, a Londoner. I can be Indian...even my father's East African heritage." Why UK identity isn't just about flying a 🏴 @hardeepmatharu.bsky.social @bylinetimes.bsky.social with @goldbergradio.bsky.social podfollow.com/byline-podca...
Safety and space at risk as SUVs reach 30% of car market in English cities, researchers warn
Absolutely. Farage/Reform and the more sinister hard-right elements in the same circle have been gifted a free platform by the Govt this summer for counter facts, myths and lies. A Labour comms fail the outcomes of which are already adversely impacting our communities.
South Norfolk's Labour MP Ben Goldsborough, who won his seat on a 19% swing, overturning a 21k Tory majority, has written a piece challenging Reform's approach to refugees, asylum and human rights as an issue of principle, not simply impracticality www.politics.co.uk/mp-comment/2...