there are like 50 people in the country who want the UK to get involved in the Iran War, one of them is Kemi Badenoch, one of them is Nigel Farage, and the other 48 are newspaper columnists
#OpEd The film, which is less about resistance than a chronicle of society during war, is a promising and worthy award contender, writes Pippa Crawford.
Thanks for reading!
If anyone is friends with any Georgian air traffic controllers, buy them a nice bottle of wine. As guardians of pretty much the only narrow gap still available between Europe and Asia that avoids both Iran, the Gulf, Ukraine and Russia, they are under some substantial pressure.
This is alarmingly stupid. Because some students from violent autocratic countries may have reasons to apply for asylum, we block all students from these countries from studying in the UK.
Asif Aziz evictions story is going mainstream. Telegraph and Independent have covered in recent days. Now the FT has done a brilliant piece - including finding another property affected, where a Ukrainian refugee and their disabled son are being evicted by Aziz. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
Got through to the second round of interviews for the Ayatollah but theyโre making candidates do a written task of matching a pitch deck and honestly they shouldnโt be asking us to do unpaid labour for a job interview
Today the Georgian anti-corruption agency will be abolished and absorbed into the State Audit Office.
The anti-corruption agency was introduced three years ago as part of the conditions to obtain EU candidacy. Clearly, Georgia has abandoned the very idea to become a member.
bm.ge/news/dgheida...
Trump has told four different journalists completely contradictory things about his aims.
It's going to be over in three days or four weeks... it's about regime change but he also wants to start talks again with the current regime...he's killed all the possible replacement leaders...
Total chaos.
As journalists working today many of us are taught to recognise disinformation when we see it and fight back against it.
Unfortunately there are some who willingly seek it out and put it on their front pages. A disgrace to the profession.
As discussed in this post it's a perfect example of elite consensus across the political spectrum - which is now the most powerful way to shift the news agenda.
samf.substack.com/p/the-signal...
this is an absolutely astonishing feat of independent journalism, top to bottom, and proves that the only way to truly fight billionaires is not being funded by them. justโฆread the whole thing.
a year is a long time in politics
Really good piece, Shaun, especially liked the pillow-fight quote from Zaluzhnyi!
The front pages of the Daily Mail, Sun, Independent, Daily Star, Daily Record, Daily Mirror, Times, Daily Express and Daily Telegraph. All show the photo of the pedo Prince looking like heโs seen the devil himself - hiding in the back seat of his car as heโs driven away from the police station yesterday. A truly beautiful collage of consequence.
I canโt remember the last time a single photo dominated the front page of every major newspaper in the UK.
Phil Noble of Reuters, take a bow.
๐๐ซก
Best part of the day
the andrew formerly known as prince
Robert Duvall, who has died aged 95, was one of the greatest character actors of his generation, specialising in brittle men with tortured inner lives. From The Great Santini to Tender Mercies and The Godfather, our film critic rounds up Duvall's best film roles โฌ๏ธ
It feels particularly weird that we're currently banning teenagers from using social media to engage with their actual friends, while leaving it completely open for companies to target teens with compellingly human-like simulacra designed to hook them into parasocial relationships for profit.
Silent Trades The class hates when in one translation blue night ends in a lily, and in the other a man goes into a bodega. Their suffering is great when faced with no correct translation. A few hundred Venn diagrams overlapping nowhere. Always a piece seems missing. Back in the times of silent trades if two peoples did not speak a common language one party left goods in a grassy area, the other waited, got closer, felt how heavy the salt or beef was, or picked the tool they needed, left pieces of gold. Students start to translate: Some argue the plums in a poem should be plush, others fresh. In a poem, one thing is meant but that thing is meant by the totality of all language, the pure language that no one speaks. So we are left with a goose flying overhead, But in place of its shadow, a mallard swims.
โSuffering is great when faced with no correct translation.โ A poem by Cynthia Arrieu-King.
McSweeney pressed for his mentor to get the job. One of the most bizarre shortlists of all time was drawn up: Mandelson, George Osborne and the rugged TV survivalist Bear Grylls, since it was believed he would appeal to Trump, also a star of reality TV. Starmer initially backed Osborne but McSweeney got his way.
This piece in The Spectator by @shippersunbound.bsky.social has an absolutely mad detail that I was not previously aware of spectator.com/article/auth...
Former Washington Post journalists have launched a GoFundMe to help repatriate fired staff members who are effectively stranded in foreign countries.
One of the richest men in the world fired them from the paper and didnโt even pay to ensure they got home.
Abolish the billionaire class:
Two chaps on the train: Mandelson? It's jobs for the boys innit. Remember Boris? While we're having a cold pork pie he's sipping fuckin champagne and dancing in his garden!
Kier Starmer to perform a live 'apology rap' in a move his closest allies are calling 'misguided' and 'a mistake'
โก๏ธ BREAKING: Russian General Vladimir Alekseev shot multiple times in Moscow, Russian media reports.
He has been rushed to hospital and the gunman fled the scene, according to reports.
a little baby holding a big curling broom and pointing
a little baby with a curling broom wearing the same jersey as his mom
a curling dad holding a baby, who is holding onto the curling broom
the Swiss mixed doubles curling team is married and when their game ended the Peacock stream just showed them playing with their Curling Baby for like 5 minutes with the Olympics music playing
A correction for the ages (from The Guardian's review of 'Melania'):
The more titles you hold, the more chances you get to say you have already been punished.
We worked on this story with Jim Pickard at the FT.
Here's Lord Mandelson's response to the FT.
This doesn't explain Lord Mandelson's actions. It's quite extraordinary for a serving Minister to advise a foreign bank to threaten the Chancellor.
NGL this description of Bsky in Vulture cracked me up
