What Did Ancient Rome Look Like? A 3D Virtual Tour of the City During the Second Century AD www.openculture.com/2026/08/what... #Archaeology #Italy

What Did Ancient Rome Look Like? A 3D Virtual Tour of the City During the Second Century AD

The description 'open-air museum' has often been applied, in various senses both positive and negative, to the country of Italy in general and the city of Rome in particular.

openculture.com

So Badenoch would recruit a neo-Nazi but *not* someone who didn’t want to leave the ECHR or someone who supported our NetZero commitments. Second chances for this guy but not Dominic Grieve. The Tory party is truly wretched. It’s screwed the country, betrayed its own and lost its tiny mind.

Farage forgetting that everything he has ever said and done is somewhere in the depths of the internet and some one will find it and post it!

Anti-Reform@antireform.bsky.social · yesterday

That's 4 years before Nigel Farage completely contradicted himself He's so desperate to move the conversation from £5 million undeclared bribe how soon before he U-turns within a month, week, day ... "The problem is we always keep receipts… " via Reform Are Not Your Friends

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.

This thread from the Spanish Foreign Office is really useful for anyone faced with mis/disinformation about the situation in Ceuta. There is one hell of a lot of that about at the moment!! Please use it to counteract ignorant claims, wherever they're from. It's available in French and Spanish too.

Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, UE y Cooperación de España@exterioresgob.bsky.social · 2d ago

1/5 🧵 Entering Spain irregularly through Ceuta or Melilla does not grant any right to remain in the country, travel to mainland Spain, or move freely within Europe. It also poses a grave risk to life. No court ruling has changed this. 🔗 www.exteriores.gob.es/en/Comunicac...

"Dear Diary The launch of our scheme to use the Royal Navy to stop small boats has gone exactly to plan. It is so patently absurd that it is all anyone can talk about, providing the perfect distraction from all our dodgy financial dealings"

How the hell have journalists allowed Farage and Yusuf to pretend that their Royal Navy idea is a ‘humanitarian’ mission if ‘innocent’ immigrants are taken back to France, but a full-scale war-like ‘invasion’ of ‘illegals’ if coming our way? I mean, seriously. Please don’t be this hopeless…

But look, he's very sound on climate change.

Chairman Moët@chairmanmoet.bsky.social · 2d ago

dear god

Snort!

Larry the Cat@number10cat.bsky.social · 2d ago

The picture on the front of Reform's policy is of HMS Ocean on the River Thames in 2012. It was sold by to the Brazilian navy in 2018. Turns out you can judge a book by its cover.

“a brand new party full of new people” - Badenoch www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Former neo-Nazi activist selected as Tory candidate for Somerset council election

Joshua Bonehill-Paine, creator of satirical Crewkerne Gazette, has convictions including for harassing a Jewish MP

theguardian.com

Today I have mostly been telling lies about using Navy warships against dinghies and forgetting to mention that small boat arrivals are down 44% and net migration fell by 80% last year.

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'.

And 25% of voters would put these ridiculous moneyed fools in charge of the govt and treasury, would they? How many investigations into Reform’s dodgy finances are there now? I’ve lost count. And no, it’s not an ‘establishment’ plot. It’s just what happens when corruption/incompetence meets scrutiny

Paul Brand@paulbrand.bsky.social · 2d ago

BREAKING: Parliamentary standards commissioner is now investigating Reform UK’s Deputy Leader Richard Tice (as well as its paused investigation into Nigel Farage). Tice is being investigated for allegedly failing to declare a financial interest.

Which is an example of why I think the term 'Brexitism' is useful, as I argue in this recently published piece: www.tandfonline.com/eprint/ZGMSN... (not sure if this link wil give full access: apologies if not) 2/2

Brexitism: Brexit’s new domains

This commentary argues that the term ‘Brexitism’ is a necessary addition to the lexicon of concepts used to understand contemporary British politics. Its value lies in capturing how Brexit continue...

tandfonline.com

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

Of course Farage's 'policy' doesn’t work. It isn't intended to work. It's meant to cause a splash in the unthinking press (and GMB) and thereby get Doris at Number 33 Lambert Road, Peterborough to go 'Ooh at last someone is trying to do something about these awful boat crossings.' That's it.

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 2d ago

Former navy officer criticises Reform plan to use military to stop small boats

Aprendamos de la gente de Ceuta y regalemos a Vito Quiles y Alvise Perez la misma cálida bienvenida en cualquier sitio de España.

How come Farage is allowed to hold a press conference, which was broadcast on the BBC?

Sending the navy to stop the boats is not a serious policy, and it would help if the UK media made that clear. Seriously.

Long, but worth your time. Farage, the money launderer and me: a decade of denial www.thenerve.news/p/nigel-fara...

Farage, the money launderer and me: a decade of denial

The Reform leader’s relationship with the UK media has enabled him to operate with impunity for years. This past fortnight, that impunity finally appeared to be coming to an end. Carole Cadwalladr, wh...

thenerve.news

Hahahahahaha!!!! Farage up to his usual tricks 🤣

Roland Smith@rolandmcs.bsky.social · 2d ago

The guy on the – ahem – far right....

Anyone remember Priti Patel's Clandestine Commander? 🤣 Whatever happened to him...?

Sarah Murphy@13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 2d ago

Very obliging of #r4today to lead with Reform’s ‘plan’ to stop the boats using the Royal Navy, pretending it’ll be some great WWII-style escapade, rather than a hateful, costly, diplomatically incontinent mess. A total waste of everyone’s time as they’ll never be in power and it’s unworkable anyway.

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

Terrace, book, cats, wine, olives...I don't think it gets much better than this 🙂 Blessings being counted, and there are many...

6.15pm, a bit early but it's 35C outside and arguing with the hard of thinking on social media these past few days has been quite tiring, so I am about to pour a bucket (well, large glass!) of crisply dry white wine. So there! Cheers, y'all 🥂 😃 Why isn't there a glass of white wine emoji, I wonder..

Since the EU return directive (until its replacement) explicitly allows Member States to regularise irregular migrants, this would have been a nonsensical and unlawful response to Spain's decision to do so.

Bogdan Buduroiu@buduroiu.com · 3d ago

Italy and other bloc nations should've suspended Schengen status with Spain when Sanchez announced mass amnesty, when most of the EU bloc wants the opposite. Sure, this was an easy political victory for Meloni, but the crisis is of Sanchez's own making

The legal details of why Spain's regularisation of irregular migrants was lawful under EU law as it stands, and therefore why responding to it by suspension of Spain's participation in Schengen would have been unlawful

Steve Peers@stevepeers.bsky.social · 3d ago

Accession is subject to unanimous voting. Suspension by a group of Member States is subject to a detailed procedure in the Borders Code based on "serious deficiencies" in external border control. Again, as things stand regularisation of irregular migrants is expressly allowed by the return directive

Great thread:

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

57 people have died in the chaotic scenes on the Spanish border with Morocco. After 50,000 people entered Spain from Morocco, over 9/10 (approx 96%) have returned to Morocco

Disgraceful conduct from the UK: EU citizens in UK get letters telling them post-Brexit residency rights were given ‘in error’ 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 hundreds of thousands of EU citizens could be told they have no right to remain

theguardian.com

This declaration on Ceuta and Melilla in Spain's Schengen accession treaty is now reaffirmed in the Schengen Borders Code BTW eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016...

Steve Peers@stevepeers.bsky.social · 5d ago

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...