So they are cutting the procurement questions which might bar companies like Palantir or Fujitsu from winning bids and penalising UK SMEs for not subsiding Potemkin jobs to win contracts Well done Weimar Labour, well done. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Government contracts to require job creation instead of green targets under new rules

Louise Haigh says taxpayer money must benefit local communities amid backlash from environmental groups

theguardian.com

I want to go back to a country where people looked out for each other, you could leave your door open, and everyone knew right from wrong. That's why I'm voting for the sleaziest collection of corrupt f***ers the world has ever seen to do that for me.

I really hope that one day, when Trump is gone, there will be a massive reckoning at how many big companies and rich individuals handed over money to Trump's utterly corrupt "fundraising" vehicles. And when I say "gone" re Trump, I hope that means "gone to jail".

Anne Applebaum@anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 6d ago

“the boss wants this money" from @wsj.com, a deep dive into the extortion operation run out of the White House gift link: www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

Of course he bloody did. Fiona Cottrell isn't rich. Yes, she's posh, but she's not hundred-millions rich. And nor, for that matter is George. Whose money is it?

Henry Dyer@direthoughts.com · last wk.

New story on Reform's finances from @annaisaac.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

“Seizing the microphone for a national conversation about gold, crypto and dodgy property is the perfect way to make Farage squirm”. @benjudah.bsky.social writes on the anti-corruption summit that he planned and that Burnham should champion. www.arguably.uk/p/dirty-mone...

Dirty money should be Burnham’s fight

The new PM can lead the anti-corruption summit that I planned

arguably.uk

I have a modest proposal for a new tax. It involves a deck of cards and a monkey throwing darts. Here are the rules:

Yes. Public procurement is not the technocratic exercise in transactions cost economics that it would be in a rational polity. Instead, it's the product of lobbying, ideology & the prospect of good jobs post-politics.

Local govt, taxi licencing, HMOs, shoplifting, escooters, asb, vam dwellers, tax doging, money launder shops etc etc. Its all the same thing

Its not a new observation - @jim.londoncentric.media has been making it for months now - but this all comes back to a society where it seems there is no consequence for bad behaviour Austerity hollowed out and collapsed the regulatory state. Its the same phenomina with shoplifting, tax dodging etc

Jennifer Williams@jenwilliamsft.bsky.social · 3w ago

Ok well live next door to a house that’s a nightmare - anti social HMO, empty and a lightning rod for nonsense, a commercial building rotting - that’s owned by someone hundreds or even thousands of miles away, who is unresponsive, and their agents don’t care, and even the council can’t get purchase

There's gonna be a new PM. What he needs is an op-ed telling him what to do, of which there's no doubt a lamentable absence. Here's the time-hallowed method for creating one: 1. Set out the problem cleanly, as if the PM had literally no idea that growth, the cost of living and deficit matter. 1/

That last 40 minutes felt like watching a composite of a dozen other identical defeats. The crushing sense of inevitability...

I just don't think Tuchel's and England's approach to holding this lead made a damn lick of sense

[boldly] I just don't think the British government needs to have Shabana Mahmood in it, I think we managed fine without her and we can just keep going without her, it's fine, Andy Burnham doesn't need to find a space for her in cabinet, there are other MPs

Yet another man who dresses like a German spy caught within minutes of landing by parachute here in 1940.

*Farage removes all his clothes in public and takes a dump on the floor* Chris Mason: "some might say this is not the act of a PM in waiting but others note in today's politics the public appreciate authenticity."

No rush 😐

The Guardian@theguardian.com · last mo.

Ministers to crack down on political donations as Farage faces calls for second inquiry

Your regular reminder that cryptocurrency does in fact have a use case and that use case is crime

This seems an interesting question. I think I know, you think you know, but it would be nice to see it investigated by the proper authorities…

Arthur Snell@snellarthur.bsky.social · last mo.

All the evidence points to conclusion that Cottrell doesn’t have serous money. So where is he getting the money he spent on Farage?

Culture secretary Lisa Nandy says she and the DCMS as a department are leaving X, adding: "It isn't healthy for our democracy or our communities and I don’t want to support it." No Bluesky account yet though...

PS oh and despite the best efforts of Parliament we still have no idea who proposed getting rid of the UK Ambassador to the US, whom proposed Mandelson, who drew up the shortlist or who signed off on his appointment pre vetting? I am a bad person so I am much more suspicious of WhatsApp use ;)

I am genuinely excited about a PM who will be serious about devolution. If done right it could give people more sense of control about their locality; free up Whitehall to focus on big strategic issues; and make it harder for a future national govt to burn everything down.

There's nothing particularly pernicious about him. He's not biased or exploitative. He's just utterly mediocre. His success is evidence of a corporate culture that has completely lost its way.

been furious with Starmer for long enough that this is genuinely coming as a surprise to me, but I'm feeling a bit.......sad this morning? not really about him per se but about the waste of time, I guess, and the end of yet another political failure when Britain really couldn't afford another one

On the referendum day my reasons for voting remain were the opportunity cost of figuring out a deal and the economic hit. Both those things happened and were bad.

Broadly speaking: reality tv is bad for democracy, influencers are bad for democracy, streamers are bad for democracy, YouTubers are bad for democracy. Exceptions to all categories exist, but it’s astonishing how absolutely clogged our political and media ecosystems are with low-info narcissists

We have somehow built a society which treats people without capital as children into their 30s, but then as unemployably past it by their late 40s. The whole thing is completely fucking borked.

Time for me to repeat one of my ‘sayings’. If you try to solve a problem by passing a law, but people don’t obey the law, you now have two problems where you used to have one.

Guys, Starmer is in his Monkey Tennis era now, just throwing out unworkable proposals in the hope of catching the Labour party selectorate’s fancy. Best to just ignore him till he goes away.

Flashing back to saying before the election "at least Labour will actually try to govern and not just obsess over immigration gimmicks like Rwanda" and feeling that same sense of shame as when you call the teacher Mum.

Dylan Difford@dylandifford.bsky.social · 2mo ago

"labour is a socially liberal party" factoid actualy just statistical error. average labour cabinet minister is 0% liberal. bisexual roy, who does not live in a cave & wants people to have over 10,000 civil liberties, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

A society where Government thinks it is powerful enough to parent from the centre but not powerful enough to properly regulate social media companies is really heading for the buffers.