A big ‚Thank you’ to the lovely ppl from @BBCRadio4 for inviting me to talk about my new book ‚Dear Britain’ which has become quite a bestseller in Germany. So we also talked about why the Germans do love this strange little island still so much. Including me ;). 👇 www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

The World Tonight - Migrants rescued as boat catches fire in Channel - BBC Sounds

The boat was attempting to cross to the UK when its engine caught fire

bbc.co.uk

The war. It always comes back to the war. That happened long before they were born.

Leaders of flag-raising group Raise the Colours Oxfordshire placed trackers on highway workers’ cars to find out their home addresses, the High Court has heard. RTC then attempted to intimidate the highway staff into no longer removing flags by repeating their addresses to them.

Reform's latest proposals display many features of pro-Brexit arguments, including bogus but technical-sounding claims (here, UNCLOS, cf 'CTA', 'WTO terms', 'GATT 24'), and assumptions aboutt what other countries/ EU will/ should/ must do. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... 1/2

France hits out at Reform UK plan to return migrants using Royal Navy

It comes after the party said it would override French objections to return migrants to France.

bbc.co.uk

Not for the faint-hearted, but excellent as ever

Simon Nixon@nixonsimon.bsky.social · 3d ago

How Europe lost the Battle of Ceuta; the four horsemen of the summer apocalypse; why Europe faces a climate sovereign doom loop; and why the Clacton by-election is not a joke - latest edition of Wealth of Nations just published open.substack.com/pub/nixons/p...

The BBC and its chair Samir Shah deserve enormous credit for fighting Donald Trump’s attempts to extort money from the British public Piece from me on how Shah’s bravery contrasts with US broadcasters’ cowardice

Praise the BBC’s fight against Trump’s gangsterism

Samir Shah: Hero of liberal democracy!

open.substack.com

Good piece: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The right’s exploitation of the Ceuta migrant ‘crisis’ almost guarantees that it will happen again | Ruben Andersson

The EU’s panic and the lack of solidarity emboldens smugglers and the far right – and makes Spain even more vulnerable, says Ruben Andersson, professor of social anthropology

theguardian.com

Oh my lord....there is a lot of space between "government is a household" and MMT. This might come as a surprise, but many people who don't sign up to the latter, also don't believe in the former.

NEW How the BBC turned the litigation table on Trump The president now faces a dilemma about revealing his business records By me at @prospectmagazine.co.uk www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/th...

Striking how Reform have pivoted over the course of two days from the nonsensical claim that 'Ceuta proves we are in terrible danger' to the nonsensical claim that 'Ceuta proves there is a simple solution'.

They don’t want it to be true. If the crossings stopped they’d be subsidizing them to embarrass Labour. Reform and Restore NEED the small boat crossings

Liam Thorp@liamthorp.bsky.social · 2d ago

Andy Burnham correctly points out in an interview that small boat crossings are massively down this year compared with last. The comments in the post are filled with people suggesting he is lying about this very clear, data-evidenced fact. It’s almost as though they don’t want it to he true…

Behind the bewildering transformation of British universities, are management consultants being paid millions Really proud to have this vital piece on our unis are being gutted from the inside by @jheathershaw.bsky.social on Democracy for Sale. Do read democracyforsale.substack.com/p/inside-bri...

Inside Britain's university crisis

As teaching staff face job loss, their bosses have netted pay rises and bought advice from a “vampiric” management consultancy, writes Prof. John Heathershaw of the University of Exeter

democracyforsale.substack.com

Vance, Farage and Weidel posted fear-mongering messages about a Spanish migrant crisis that weren't true. They haven't retracted them. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

The Far Right Is Distorting Ceuta

We’ve seen this before.

theatlantic.com

Exclusive: Some EU citizens in the UK have been contacted by the Home Office to say they were granted settlement status after Brexit "in error". If you know anyone this happened to contact me on lisa.ocarroll@theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

EU citizens in UK get letters telling them post-Brexit residency rights were given ‘in error’

After years of building lives in UK, potentially thousands of EU citizens could be told they have no right to remain

theguardian.com

Few people understand that the UK university system is in crisis, but even fewer realise that many of the people losing their jobs are amongst the best in their fields

Glen O'Hara@gsoh31.bsky.social · 3d ago

So it's farewell to the History subject area at the University of Hertfordshire, not the first nor the last to go. One of the best departments in the country, just extinguished like a snap of the fingers. Think of the waste. (1/2)

Here are those special rules on Ceuta and Melilla as regards Schengen - dating back to Spain acceding to the Schengen Convention eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-conten...

Nissim@nissimss.bsky.social · 5d ago

Ceuta isn’t in mainland Spain. Is on Morocco’s coast. Under Spanish control since 1500 Is one of 2 Spanish cities that form the European Union’s only land borders with Africa, While Ceuta is part of the EU, it operates under special rules that restrict people from entering Spain and the rest of EU.

Zia Yusuf is coming ever so close to noticing that the ECHR does not prohibit or prevent state action - armed forces, police, prisons, border controls - when it is for a proper + legitimate purpose, conducted in accordance with fundamental rights to fair process, to not be tortured, and so on.

🧵On @thenewsagents.co.uk yesterday, school closures and the lab leak theory were offered as two examples of legitimate questions that were hard to ask. Both have in fact been asked constantly since 2020. But here's a thread on why I think they were wrong and dangerous on school closures 1/12

Remember that these scaremongering Reform folks are doubly untruthful: overlooking the huge numbers of immediate returns and falsely implying that the migrants can enter Schengen

Sunder Katwala (sundersays)@sundersays.bsky.social · 5d ago

Braverman: "make no mistake, these men are on their way to the UK right now" Farage: "before long, many will be crossing the Channel" [Would see big spike in Moroccan boat arrivals + asylum claims in next 3 months if true. V unlikely to be true].

There's always been some dishonesty in politics across the political spectrum, but the current level of dishonesty from RW people talking about migration is unprecedented

Sunder Katwala (sundersays)@sundersays.bsky.social · 5d ago

Robert Jenrick (7pm) tweeting about "30,000 military age men rampaging through Spanish territory" long after the return rate was over 90%

It really irritates me that, despite the news being full of reports of drought and wildfires, almost all the weather forecast presenters adopt a jolly, upbeat tone when talking about 'fine, dry weather' and a slightly glum tone when mentioning the odd places where there will be a few showers.

Take note. "For years, Moscow has used migration and other sensitive topics to stoke fear and destabilize European countries." From the Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine 👇

Revealed: George Cottrell transferred $2m to his mother days before her donations to Reform UK www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Revealed: George Cottrell transferred $2m to his mother days before her donations to Reform UK

Exclusive: Sources say Fiona Cottrell told bankers the transfers, received 24-72 hours before her donations to Reform, came from her son

theguardian.com

New substack: in wanting to reform social care, Andy Burnham risks bringing economics into politics: chrisdillow.substack.com/p/social-car...

Social care: the fight for economic thinking

Reforming social care isn't a left vs right issue: it's about economics vs prejudice.

chrisdillow.substack.com

It seems highly unlikely that the French Navy would want to "intimidate" Philp to prevent the interview he was conducting, even if they were aware of it: news.sky.com/video/senior..., and he is hardly a reliable source: bsky.app/profile/chri...

Senior Tory Chris Philp: 'This was an attempt at intimidation'

Senior Tory Chris Philp has suggested a French warship was trying to "intimidate" him by firing "live rounds" while he was on a boat in the English Channel.

news.sky.com

Chris Grey@chrisgrey.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Extraordinary stupidity or disingenuity being peddled by Chris Philp MP about UK Unis suggesting: 1. There's something sinister in them having London campuses, miles way. There isn't: in the market-driven HE environment Philp surely favours, it's responding to what some/ many students want. 1/3

Polanski very stupid for what he shared, but Reform’s pivot from bringing a woman who called for hotels full of asylum seekers to be burned down as their guest of honour at conference, to saying the Green leader should be jailed - is a difficult circle to square

When it comes down to it Brits would prefer any current main party leader as Prime Minister over Farage.

There's a very weird thing going around that Grant Shapps, reportedly deselected by the Conservatives for being too 'centrist' has joined Reform (sometimes presented as a great coup for them, sometimes as a criticism).

It's depressing that when humans created AI they did so in the form of a sycophantic, over-confident, know-all who is prone to lying, fakes sincerity, presumes a friendship that doesn't exist, and never willingly stops talking.

The Times corrects its splash story headlined "Migrant care workers bring dozens of family members." The Times got this totally wrong. It then used its own error as the basis for an editorial calling explicitly for forced expulsions of people living here legally. www.thetimes.com/comment/regi...