None the wiser (but I have a headache....)

Full Fact@fullfact.org · 12h ago

Andy Burnham has claimed only 500 prison places were added between 2010 and 2024, but Kemi Badenoch says the Conservatives created 14,000 new places. Can these two claims add up? We’ve had a look at the figures 👇 fullfact.org/crime/how-ma...

More questions over Farage's £5m gift... Daisy Cooper, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats: “With every new revelation, Reform UK and Nigel Farage look more and more like a bunch of grifters who believe it’s one rule for them and one rule for everyone else."

Farage urged to ‘come clean’ as fresh questions raised over £5 million gift

It casts new doubt on his defence for not declaring a £5 million gift from crypto-billionaire and Reform donor Christoph

standard.co.uk

We are seeing the devastating impact of climate change before our very eyes. We need to act now. "Droughts that were once a century now happen every year, and the impact on wildlife, industrial output and culture itself is catastrophic."

Europe’s rivers are running dry, and the knock-on effects are disastrous | Yiannis Baboulias

Droughts that were once a century now happen every year, and the impact on wildlife, industrial output and culture itsel

theguardian.com

A paramilitary group plotted to overthrow the Constitution then conducted a violent attack on America. They were convicted in court of seditious conspiracy, and jailed. Then the leader they aimed to illegally install got power and let them out, their records wiped clean. The Jan. 6 attackers won.

Judge Pained as He Grants Dismissal of Jan. 6 Charges Against Oath Keepers

The judge, Amit P. Mehta, blasted the administration’s request for a dismissal in the case, saying it bestowed “unearned grace” on the Oath Keepers defendants “by wiping their records clean.”

nytimes.com

The banks pay £5bn a year less tax than in 2022 because of Rishi Sunak's bank tax cut which has never been reversed.

Zack Polanski delivers ‘reality check’ to Burnham over ‘biggest crisis since WWII’ after summer of extreme heat

Badenoch represents double-down conservatism. Never apologise or moderate. Insult your opponents. Patronise journalists when challenged. Contradict yourself, lie, whatever it takes, but never back down. And that's how you end up creating an extremely avoidable Tory antisemitism scandal overnight

I don’t understand why some commentators seem to think Badenoch is doing well as leader, when everything I see her do fits exactly this description. Sorry, she just comes across as very stupid

Dorian Lynskey@dorianlynskey.bsky.social · 18h ago

Badenoch represents double-down conservatism. Never apologise or moderate. Insult your opponents. Patronise journalists when challenged. Contradict yourself, lie, whatever it takes, but never back down. And that's how you end up creating an extremely avoidable Tory antisemitism scandal overnight

Let’s see if Susan Collins stands by her “concerns”, or if she folds like she always does.

Waking up to Sharia Law in NYC is crazy. Knicks won, crime is down, 2,000 toddlers are going to school for free, parents got “date night” with nyc babysitters, they’re building housing on city land, small businesses are saving money and selling ice cream. Its sunny out i should go get one.

In the 1950s we had 700 different chemicals in our food Today we have over 10,000 in our food In Europe, they only have 700 still today. Kelloggs makes the safer Canadian version and the American version. Two different options, same manufacturer. Americans have been sold out sadly.

It probably won't happen but the prospect of Badenoch leading a Tory general election campaign is a joy. Every time she leaves X and enters the real world, she is hilariously inept and crass.

I know she's incapable of ever admitting she's wrong about anything, but even I'm surprised that Kemi Badenoch has chosen this particular hill to die on

Here are the stupidest things Kemi Badenoch has said so far today inews.co.uk/opinion/kemi...

Spot on ⬇️ "Reform UK remains almost entirely a party of grievance. Rather than offering a vision of a more prosperous, productive or communitarian Britain, it doubles down on punitive proposals." https://national.thelead.uk/p/nigel-farage-end-of-reform-as-we-know-it

It's the end of Reform as we know it

A bad few months for Nigel Farage's insurgent party has shown their true colours

national.thelead.uk

The United States Treasury: An ATM for the Rich and Powerful

Frankly astonishing piece by @alexisconran.com on all the data our phones keep on us and what they do with it (it's not good). open.substack.com/pub/scamproo...

El-Sayed: "Mike, I'm gonna say it right now, I know you're gonna say no because you're a coward: Five debates, alright? ... By the time we're done, you are not gonna have safe quarter from people holding you accountable to what you've done for them here in Michigan. We will send you back to Florida"

El-Sayed: "If all Mike Rogers got is that 'his name is Abdul, and my name is Mike,' you're gonna be surprised how many people are like, 'Yeah, but that's the Abdul who wants to bring down the price of my groceries and make sure I got healthcare. So yeah, I like Abdul over your Mike from Florida.'"

I’m glad the President has his priorities straight.

Badenoch's two biggest flaws are that she's nowhere near as smart as she thinks she is and is incapable of admitting error. Both well illustrated by this fiasco.

Alex Partridge@alexpartridge87.bsky.social · 10h ago

Joshua Bonehill-Paine steps back from being a Conservative council candidate following backlash

Come on, Ben. This isn't about "disagreeing" He put this in print, FFS. bsky.app/profile/samo...

Sam@samomar.bsky.social · 2d ago

Here's some of his work

See also

There are limits to this principle. It breaks down at some point, depending on whether "disagreeing" with someone, who says that he wanted to look at child porn & would have had sex with schoolchildren if he'd been a teacher, is sufficient. Past a certain point, silence isn't mandatory:

Snigdha@snig.bsky.social · 2d ago

Your reminder Rod Liddle not only said he couldn't have become a teacher because he "could not remotely conceive of not trying to shag the kids" in The Spectator, but he also wrote laws banning child pornography are "absurd" in The Guardian. Abhorrent.

There’s obituaries…..then there’s a rather alarming self own from Tim Shipman on Liddle “Tim Shipman, a colleague at The Spectator and The Sunday Times, says in his piece on Liddle that he was “a guilty pleasure, someone who would write down what the rest of us were thinking”.

LeedsBookClub aka Drneevil@leedsbookclub.bsky.social · yesterday

“So anyway, Rod Liddle is dead.” The only obituary for that person worth reading.

Reform MP Robert Jenrick: “Rod Liddle said the unsayable truth years before anyone else would come close.” Rod Liddle on child abuse images: “We should not be in the business of putting people in prison for simply looking at things."

On a call with my 70-something parents… Both of them saying they hope someone does something about this climate change …me explaining that unless it’s on their doorstep, leaders are too corrupt or weak to do a God damn thing.

"Hands up if you're a prancing prick who's been spouting complete bollocks about using the Royal Navy to send migrants back to France in a desperate bid to distract attention from the sleaze your party is mired in"

Gill: All 100 senators last week passed a non-binding resolution condemning any pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell. They're simultaneously considering confirming the guy who met with her and moved her to a low-security facility as the top cop in the United States. That is so insane to me.

I grew up among Conservative politics. This is beyond that now. Defending a neo-nazi candidate shows how far Badenoch has shifted them to the far right. There is now no difference between her party and that of Restore and Reform. That should not be normalised. www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

Kemi Badenoch defends selection of man jailed for harassing Jewish MP in council election – as it happened

Conservative leader tells press she stands by decision to select Joshua Bonehill-Paine as a candidate for local election in Somerset

theguardian.com