So, in launching a huge bombing campaign on Iran they apparently didn't plan for:
- Who takes over;
- Interceptor shortages from sustained drone retaliation;
- How to defend US bases in the region;
- Threats to ships in the Strait of Hormuz; and
- How to evacuate Americans with airspace closed.
BREAKING: Keir Starmer says the U.K. has given the US permission to use British bases to launch strikes on Iran
The problem with MPs spending all their time on X is they start thinking people care more about who gets to use what bathroom than cost of living, housing, and public services
"The only way we can defeat ethno-nationalism is by deporting all the black and brown people" suffers from one small logical flaw...
The regime is now dictating what political views are acceptable to air on television and paramount/cbs are collaborating in that censorship bsky.app/profile/ditz...
Wow!
Palestine Action win judicial review - Guardian report.
This is a *big* legal win.
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
Subtly brutal from @stephenkb.bsky.social
www.ft.com/content/1b23... Carney, Trump and the power of a good speech
Treat the US government and ICE claims like you'd treat a Russian government claim after they've shot down an airliner or bombed a hospital. America 2026.
christ, at least Chamberlain rearmed
For those keeping score, Bellingcat, The New York Times Visual Investigation Team, & Washington Post's Visual Forensic team have all published analysis showing the ICE shooter wasn't in the path of Renee Nicole Goodβs vehicle when he shot her, contradicting statements by the President & his cronies
Not the most important thing. But this contract was - probably unlawfully - awarded without competition. But the Court of Appeal, under pressure from the Tories over our VIP lane judicial reviews, said there was no public interest in who Government awards contracts to so there can be no challenge.
One example of how Grok is being used to target women. Swedish Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch being sexualised, degraded, and humiliated step-by-step by Grok. All the images accurately reflect the prompts provided.
Great powers have always, to some extent, written the rules for themselves. But this should be a reminder that for all we might lament the βrules based orderβ, itβs largely gone, if it ever existed. Hard power is the only thing which matters now. Europe needs to wake up to the new realities.
Keir Starmer should condemn Trumpβs illegal action in Venezuela.
Maduro is a brutal and illegitimate dictator, but unlawful attacks like this make us all less safe.
Trump is giving a green light to the likes of Putin and Xi to attack other countries with impunity.
Think twice about doing it themselves?
Whatever you might think of Maduro, the seizure and kidnapping of a head of state takes us to a very dark place. Vast, arbitrary, extra-legal power, which could be exercised almost anywhere, regardless of the character of the target government.
Trump isnβt predictable or consistent, but this particular action *would* be consistent with the emergence of a G2+1 order where Washington and Beijing, with Moscow as a junior partner, give each other free rein in their purported spheres of influence.
Exclusive: The CIA carried out a drone strike earlier this month on a port facility in Venezuela, sources told CNN, marking the first known US attack on a target inside that country. This is the attack Trump has repeatedly alluded to in recent days. www.cnn.com/2025/12/29/p...
This sounds like defensive briefing straight from a Morgan McSweeney Whatsapp group in denial about how an ineffective leader unwilling to face the breakdown of US-Europe relations might not be the best figure to lead the UK into a post-American order
From kellnerp.substack.com/p/the-majori...
Iβm so sorry.
my lanyard.
itβs desecrating the working classπ
The Home Secretary says "we have become the destination of choice in Europe, clearly visible to every people smuggler and would-be illegal migrant across the world"
That is a factually untrue claim: the Home Office shows that the UK is fifth, getting 1/10 claims, while Germany gets 1/5 claims
"The era of permanent protection is over"
Is this Labour government really saying it was wrong in principle to let these refugees of the last 75 years to stay, settle and become British - and they believe that should NEVER happen again in principle or practice?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiuR...
Sorry, but there's something so ineffably depressing about ministers spending their time on this kind of stuff. Not as if there aren't real problems that central government should be getting on with while letting local government make its own choices (and even its own mistakes). #GetAGrip
Good to see the Conservative Party committed to keeping the deficit down by *checks notes* spending Β£2 billion giving tax breaks for private education, creating a massive new deportation force and pledging to maintain pensioner benefits.
I'm getting really really fed up at constant reassertion that welfare spending is "out of control" when it is the same as the average for the past few decades.
One reason disability benefit costs have risen is because core support has fallen.
This is really good, it explains the govtβs lack of a compelling narrative/ vision very well.
Ok. Theyβve pissed me off.
Iβm back to tell you 3 things about ID cards:
1. Migrants ALREADY HAVE biometric ID cards & govts have been trying to digitise them for years w repeated fuckups & failures causing complete chaos - they donβt work, you do not want that system for you.
Picked up some Lib Dem stats at conference. Some of these surprised me (especially given media coverage):
1. The Liberal Democrats now control more councils than the Conservative Party
2. In May's local elections in England, the LDs elected more councillors than either Labour or the Tories.
(1/x)
