Best Of

If it is true, as Polly Toynbee in Guardian asserts, that Reeves backed out of her 2p income tax rise at the "command" of Downing Street, why didn't save some dignity and resign?

Integrity has disappeared from politics

That is as may be, but remember however that Boris Johnson got all the big calls right.

Um... he turned the moderate Tories into the snow, creating a ludicrous reality-denying, populist fiasco, and all to defend his disastrous judgement on Brexit, for which both he and Farage should be left in the political stocks for the rest of their lives.

As for Ukraine, he claims vast credit, but that is, quite frankly, stolen valor .

He was hugely important for Ukraine in the initial months providing the first defence and rallying allies. Just ask the Ukrainians

John Major. Like a voice from a lost age...



If the law loses its authority, the bully walks tall & the lawless walk free..

https://x.com/Haggis_UK/status/1990870610059165972

Is there any living ex PM with more gravitas and authority now than Major? Nobody would have believed that in 1997 and he certainly has more authority than Starmer now too

It alarms and depresses me that the 'comedy PM' of 'Cones Hotline' fame is now our senior elder statesman. And yet here we are.

Looking back on it his premiership was overall relatively successful, he left low inflation, a balanced budget and low unemployment and a growing economy for New Labour and when he went to war with Saddam in 1990 it was with a UN mandate. Plus he started the NI peace process, got an opt out from the Euro and left the National Lottery which has made a big difference to our Olympians and boosted cultural causes too.

Looking back is very different to how it felt at the time, though. It was almost a daily "Is the government about to collapse?" feeling.

Only because Blair looked relatively fresh and new and the Tories had been in too long and some of their MPs behaved badly.

Now Major probably has more respect from the voters than Blair

So the BBC news main story tonight across the UK is that Scotland have qualified for the football World Cup, not won the World Cup but qualified which England already did anyway, pushing even the Epstein files release vote to no 2 story.

So can we have no more whinging from Scottish nats that the BBC ignores Scotland!

Don't be ridiculous

Scotland qualifying for the World Cup is the news tonight and especially the way it was won

For Scots maybe, I doubt the average England football fan will see it as the main news but the BBC put it as such anyway.

I highly doubt Scottish football fans cared when England qualified for the WC but given the BBC have made it the main story they can hardly complain next time a big England football win leads the news at least

To be fair sometimes the news can lead with pretty tedious sporting stories relating to England from time to time, news at 10 would lead on an England story on the physios girlfriend if she got a new cat. Time for another home nation to bask in success for the evening, Scotland is in the UK, Epstein was American

It's not like Scotland will win the whole thing*

*reverse psychology obvs. Actually I think Trump should engineer a final between his 2 home nations, USA and Scotland

Epstein a never-ending source of fascination for our Royalists such as HYUFD, though. Sort of honorary Brit from that point of view. So you can see why HYUFD is upset. No Pri-, sorry, Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor news this evening.

No and of course plenty of Presidents, a PM and a former Cabinet minister and billionaires and an actor or 2 also in the files I suspect but it was the main current affairs story of the day. Other than Trump raging against an ABC news reporter for asking a horrible question of the Crown Prince of Saudi and disrespecting him too '“I think you are a terrible reporter. It's the way you ask these questions. You start off with a man who is highly respected, asking him a horrible, insubordinate and just a terrible question. You could even ask that same exact question nicely.”

Trump continued: “You're all psyched. Somebody psychs you over at ABC, they're going to psych it — you're a terrible person and a terrible reporter. As far as the Epstein files is, I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. I threw him out of my club many years ago because I thought he was a sick pervert.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-abc-reporter-saudi-arabia-epstein-question-b2867669.html

Kitty Donaldson
@kitty_donaldson
·
5h
For Labour to stand even a chance come 2029, the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood needs to ignore her internal Labour critics on migration policy. It worked in Denmark.

My opinion column this evening:

https://x.com/kitty_donaldson/status/1990484523511865840

Sorry Kitty, but Denmark has a completely different DNA than UK and whole world has different view of us and them, which is two salient points right at heart of this issue making your “worked in Denmark” really rather embarrassing.

Here’s the opposition to it, Cambridge educated lawyer with Filipino mum, so by the, can’t remember which one, law of PB, it means bana the basher is doomed to fail.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Vaughan_(politician)

Cambridge educated lawyers are invincible awesomeness, or something.

Mahmood's policy being successful is the only hope for social democracy in this country. Let's hope it is.

I must admit I look at some of her policies (eg on redefining the “family” to mean parents/spuse/kids) and my reaction is why the F didn’t the Tories do this? It’s blindingly obvious that was the intention behind the right.

Chain migration is also an issue