Minute Cryptic - 5 August, 2026 "Big fans of bananas eat "boring grapes"" (5,4) 🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣 🏆 0 hints – 2 under the community par (128,245 solvers so far). www.minutecryptic.com?utm_source=s...

When Reform are making hay on this you must realise you’ve fucked up badly.

Alex Partridge@alexpartridge87.bsky.social · 5h ago

A Reform UK spokesperson says it “beggars belief that Kemi Badenoch has hired a former neo-Nazi”. Says it’s “alarming news for the Jewish community in Britain”

Hands up if you just knew Polanksi was going to wade in on this one and stick up for the guy jailed for a prolonged campaign of antisemitic harassment against a Jewish MP

Jordan@jordanpfot.bsky.social · 9h ago

Why are you commenting if you don’t know the specifics of the case!!!!!

To be fair, “Councillors and council elections don’t matter” are a load-bearing part of the “Kemi Badenoch is doing well and the Conservative party’s prospects under her are looking good” thesis.

Chris Terry-Enescu@cjterry.bsky.social · 13h ago

It's OK for criminal ex-neo Nazis to run your bins is a hell of a line.

Anyone who refuses care from a non-white member of NHS staff should be told to pay to go private.

Charles EP Murphy@cepmurphy.bsky.social · 2d ago

news.sky.com/story/nhs-st... stereotypically this has been seen as Old People, but not only would the old people of now have often been born post-Windrush, lot of this will be younger people who've always lived in a diverse Britain. The guy with a pregnant wife likely millennial at oldest

The state of this. A lovely day out for Badenoch and Philp, playing dress up and making pronouncements about early release schemes - having left the country with one hundred available men's prison places, after fourteen years in charge. You read that right. One hundred places.

This Badenoch quote should be read back to her every time she attacks Burnham's appointment of Lou Haigh: “I want second chances for people, for people who’ve learned their lessons, for people who are showing that they know what they did was wrong."

Mark Chadbourn@chadbourn.bsky.social · yesterday

Kemi Badenoch certainly seems to be advancing with her agenda to turn the Conservatives into Reform.

Yep, please, no pious lectures from people who have switched to the Greens because Labour is cuddling up to racists ...

James Austin@jamesdaustin.bsky.social · yesterday

A party that was actually anti-racist would be kicking this person out, not allowing them to run for the Governing Committee. There are many decent Greens who will be disgusted by this and I wish them all power fighting back against it. We know from experiance how hard that is.

The fact that various people are saying Liddle was nice in private speaks to a columnist disease - people having nasty and ugly views once a week for money, with little care for the social consequences. But enjoy that £1 a word!

Folks: these days the England system has BTECs, T-Levels, degree apprenticeships, a whole load of other apprenticeship assessments, and very flexible HE entry across a broad range of providers, including foundation years for those without L3. We already *have* a lot of pathways!

We could do more post-16 courses without moving GCSEs if we just taught sixth formers full time. We don’t make full use of those 2 years.

Its quite hard to know what, exactly, will actually lose someone their licence if 59 points, driving while disqualified and no insurance doesn't. Its not juat dangerous - its clear contempt for the law. We should treat car crime like any other crime

Jon Owen@anotherjon.bsky.social · 2d ago

"I'm getting fed up with getting pulled by you guys, so this one will result in a complaint," says the driver with 59 points on his licence. 59 points, and still driving, and he didn't go to prison. The system is broken. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Everyday the deliberate decision taken by George Osborne and David Cameron to trash Sure Start - with the backing of Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander - looks more and more spiteful and wrong. Generations of kids, and counting, have been betrayed.

Once again for those at the back: ‘Don’t speak ill of the dead’ is about your great aunt Elsie, who liked a long gin with a short tonic at elevenses, and blew your inheritance money betting on the horses. Speaking ill of absolute monsters is a moral obligation, actually.

As always this cartoon is best when said in Randy Feltface’s voice.

Paul Hilton@paulhilton.bsky.social · 2d ago

Check the hard drives of everyone publicly defending him

It is also the case that the two correlate - there’s a lot of people who could choose either (and end up with some of both) and a lot of people who find both equally difficult. The idea that those who find school hard would find carpentry easy is quite wrong-headed.

RIP monkeymfc

Former Spectator editor Fraser Nelson: “Rod Liddle was the greatest satirist since Swift”. Sometimes, you wonder what planet these guys are on.

Rod Liddle, 1960-2026

Rod Liddle, The Spectator’s associate editor, has died at the age of 66.  Rod, who was also a columnist for the Sunday Times of London and Sun, died at the James Cook University hospital in Middlesbro...

spectator.com

What satire was he promoting when he got that police caution? Punch & Judy?

Ian Fraser@ianfraser.bsky.social · 2d ago

Former Spectator editor Fraser Nelson: “Rod Liddle was the greatest satirist since Swift”. Sometimes, you wonder what planet these guys are on.

*boosting opportunities for some young people. Narrowing them for other people’s kids.

Lucy Rigby MP@lucyrigby.bsky.social · 2d ago

A busy fortnight of announcements by our new Prime Minister Andy Burnham, including: ✂️ Tax cut on energy bills 🚎 £2 bus fares cap 🍺 20% cut in business rates for pubs, clubs & music venues 🙋‍♀️ Boosting opportunities for young people 🧑🏻‍⚕️ Plans to fix social care 🧵

Wait, isn’t the point that children *don’t have* such skills yet, and that’s why they go to school? I spent the 2010s lamenting ‘Labour is nowhere on education’. Seems we’re back there.

Niche@mr-n-wood.bsky.social · 2d ago

@labouruk.bsky.social This is an unnecessarily dichotomous way to view young people. At school the both have and lack a range of skills / knowledge to varying degrees. This rhetoric is clumsy at best.

I thought Jimmy Cricket was alright, you know 🤷🏻‍♂️

Steve Peers@stevepeers.bsky.social · 2d ago

When highly unpleasant people die, it is polite not to remark upon their great unpleasantness. But we do not have to pretend to think that they were a decent person.

If I wanted to protect the most prestigious and highly paid jobs for the social groups who usually hold them I'd probably design an education system that discouraged poorer children from studying the entry qualifications for these jobs as early as possible..

Rod Liddle’s brown bread? That’s a shame.

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 · 3d 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…

That’s not a good thing, you grifting racist prick.

Adam Bienkov@adambienkov.bsky.social · 2d ago

"Questions about [my] money could go on for years," says Nigel Farage, when asked about the secret deal he struck with the convicted fraudster George Cottrell before agreeing to return as leader of Reform UK.

Nick Timothy is an Islamophobe. Plain & simple.

Nate O@nateo.bsky.social · 3d ago

It's incredible what can be ground up and shoved into the moral panic sausage casing at The Telegraph. Non-Muslim police staff raising money for charity by voluntarily fasting in some parkrun-esque project is grounds for extensive quotes from Nick Timothy on scrapping the Public Sector Equality Duty

Bent, bent, bent, bent, bent. Grifters the lot. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Richard Tice investigated by parliamentary standards watchdog

Tice says the complaint related to a debate on Israeli influence and whether he should have referenced his register of interests.

bbc.co.uk

'I want to damage the life chances of 75% of people because I feel their ability can be determined at 11 and that they're just not worthy of higher things'. Go fuck yourself. I saw too many classmates fail to reach their potential because they were told they were idiots at 11 and not given a chance