The Tories decision to stand by this man is an extraordinary misjudgement

I started a wild flower garden this year and despite the destruction of the heat waves it's put on a good show, which heartens me enormously. Today this appeared, nettled leaved mullein. England will be a brown fireswept desert in 30 years time, but in the meantime, enjoy this.

On/off war. Two theories. Either just he's just the demented mass murderer we all know and love. Or he's discovered that his statements make the oil and stock markets yo-yo and he and his chums are making an immense fortune speculating

The vindictive, even hysterical campaign against Palestinian Action continues; the first ever trial of a defence KC for contempt, the outlawing of a perfectly reasonable defence, used in the past by lawyers now praised for their courage, the manipulation and constant upping

A sad farewell to all my nothingness

How the Met police spent £2.5m hiding spycop from former partner | Police | The Guardian share.google/HRoOhp5CiRpi... Beggars all belief. Our police are a scandal. Without any moral compass and actually quite useless at dealing with crime.

How the Met police spent £2.5m hiding spycop from former partner

Spycops inquiry has revealed how Helen Steel was secretly monitored in her search for undercover officer who deceived her into relationship

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Starmer used anti-terror laws to stifle criticism of genocide in Gaza and to send thousands of peaceful protesters, many elderly and infirm, to prison. If Burnham does not drop these prosecutions, and he shows no sign of even being aware of them, then I'm not interested in him or the Labour Party.

For every 'woke' barrister fighting tirelessly for justice, there's an establishment judge fighting tirelessly for injustice. Bravo Rajiv Menon.

Network Rail just announced the 10th missed deadline of the Oxford station project, which has cut the city in half, devastating businesses and communities.They said Botley Road would be closed for just 4 days, now nearly 4 years. The minister Lord Hendy and project manager Phil Morton must go!

In a sense, Trump is right. The new America, no longer truly democratic, eager to attack countries with valuable minerals, contemptuous of international law, human rights, morality, delighting in killing, has no need of Europe. Its natural partner is Putin's Russia. What need has he of Europe?

The US ruling class with their sense of entitlement is the biggest current threat to life on Earth.

Why can't Starmer show the same integrity, courage and forthrightness as the Spanish PM? Isn't it absolutely obvious by now that playing along with Trump, humouring him, gains you absolutely nothing. What he is doing is so evil, so destructive, that surely we have to speak out and say it as it is?

In the first 187 years, Americans assassinated a president on average every 47 years. In the last 63, nothing. Just saying.

The hardest part of a three week war is the first two years.

AI is destroying trust, the basic glue of society, in so many ways. Now it's polling. ‘Our assumptions are broken’: how fraudulent church data revealed AI’s threat to polling | AI (artificial intelligence) | The Guardian share.google/HxrH7xXb6Gh5...

‘Our assumptions are broken’: how fraudulent church data revealed AI’s threat to polling

Experts say paid participants are using automated tools to generate unreliable survey responses at scale

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So depressing. Stale ideas, left over from 1989s, reheated and served up as fresh. Take someone's guesstimate for amount lost through fraud and say, we'll save all that, so that's money we can spend... What's lacking is any genuinely new idea for how public services could be delivered differently

I keep thinking of Rutger Bergman's comment: that what MAGA has done is not to betray Americas core values, but to reveal them.

Phoenix Arizona has just had 5 days with temperatures over 100° F, 20° above normal. And it's only March. However awful the Mid East War, something far worse is coming, and it's coming to stay.

The economic catastrophe coming straight towards us makes a total nonsense of steady as she goes, business as usual, don't frighten the horses starmerism. Now we MUST have real, courageous, imaginative leadership. I can't see where we can get it from but if we don't get it, democracy is finished

"Bring back British Values!" via Phil Brookes #SocialistSunday

Labour, Tories, LibDems flatlining, possibly having reduced to immoveable core voters, Greens very slowly inching up, Reform sagging. Portrait of a country that's run out of hope.

And yet, there is a lot of goodness.

That's nothing compared to the anger we feel towards ministers who allowed Trump to bomb Iran from UK bases. UK Is part of us war machine

Starmer once again doing just enough of the utterly wrong thing to alienate Labour supporters, but not enough (and not soon enough) to earn any credit with the Orange Murderer (not that he does 'thanks' anyway).

Odd that while we all recognise catastrophic decline since 2000, we still have no name for it. Maybe because it's not one thing in one place. Climate change, destructive capitalism, the erosion of democracy, genocidal wars....'The Great Fuck Up'?

Just flew on BA, no sandwiches available so I bought "Ploughman's Selection'. Like those space station meals squeezed out of tubes and you don't know what it is. Except I do know. It's this. Pretty sure the RSPCA would have me arrested if I fed this to my cat.

Another U-turn, another half baked compromise that makes a nonsense of the original policy while placating no one. Starmer is delivering Britain to Farage yet Labour MPs won't act.

As Trump realises what a quagmire he's been lured into by Israel, he'll grab anything that looks like a way out. So when Israel proposes to use 'small' nukes against 'military' targets to end Iranian nuclear efforts....What's to stop him? Not Congress. Not Russia (longs to do likewise). So....