PMQs underlined a political fundamental. Anyone who aligns themselves with Trump is going to get burned. Reform, the Tories and their allies ignore that fact at their peril.
Yes he is. Perhaps he can compare notes with Farage who is also there in a spectator capacity, unless Trump personally invites him into the room of noxious odours.
It’s funny to see the PB commentariat suddenly wake up to the problem of over-reliance on the US.
I think only @Luckyguy1983 has consistently positioned himself as a U.S.-sceptic, and he’s stark staring bonkers.
I think it's been a fairly regular topic since Trump's re-election hasn't it ? Admittedly no one suggested that Trump was actually going to invade us.
The other under-discussed element is that the US right to as many Greenland military bases as they want is grounded in their NATO membership. If that falls apart, then so does their right to those bases, I think.
'The BBC has announced a landmark deal with YouTube, which will see the corporation make content that is tailor-made for the video streaming service.
The broadcaster has previously used YouTube, which is owned by Google, to promote clips and trailers for its own shows in the UK.
But the new move will see the BBC make content primarily aimed at YouTube's digital-native younger audience, although it may also be made available on the BBC's iPlayer and Sounds platforms.
The new programmes will feature adverts when viewed from outside of the UK, generating extra funds for the corporation at a time when its future funding model is being debated.
ITV has also been using YouTube but so far no purpose-made content sfaict. Just this morning I was watching the pilot episode of Endeavour.
As for the Winter Olympics, I suspect dumping half of it onto YouTube will cause sighs of relief for the channel controllers. It is also a reminder that Netflix is said to regard YouTube and not the other streamers as its main competitor, and Netflix has had limited success with live events, although they will no doubt catch up fast.
BARB thinks that YouTube already has a higher monthly reach than any of the other broadcast groups it tracks.
While I was waiting in the chemist last week an older chap, must have been at least 70, came in and was chatting with one of the staff. She asked if he'd seen something (Traitors, maybe, can't remember) on TV last night and he replied, no, he didn't watch TV any more, only YouTube. I do wonder if that's a lot more widespread than we think.
Probably. And someone in their early 70s today would have been in their late 40s when broadband - and the digital video piracy that first brought proper on-demand - first started to boom in the UK.
If you were wondering who is the dumbest European far right leader, wonder no more! George Simion, the Romanian leader of the AUR party has travelled to the US to chop up a cake in the shape of Greenland with republican congressmen in front of the press. While all of his allies in Europe have come out with strong condemnations towards the insane actions of the Americans, including Mr Brexit Farage himself, Simple George shows the entire world his superb aptitudes to be a rag. To add insult to injury, this profoundly gifted man's entire campaign was on the subject of sovereignty and he calls himself a "sovereignist". https://x.com/MeminescuTop/status/2013949561631318072
The 'new EU' stumbles at its first hurdle. This is likely to delay the deal by two years.
n a shock result, the European Parliament has just voted to refer 🇪🇺President @VonDerLeyen 's signature of the #Mercosur agreement to the EU's high court by razor-edge vote on 334 to 324.
The overall vote was as follows, listed in the order candidates appeared on the ballot:
John Cowings – Labour – 116 Adrian Miller – Liberal Democrats – 43 Amanda Paget – Conservative – 426 Lian Pizzey – Green Party – 1,341 Juliette Stevens – Reform UK – 1,091 Alex Stevenson – Advance UK – 57
So the combined vote for the right ie Reform + Conservative +Advance UK was 1574 in the Horsley by election ie more than the combined vote for the Greens, Labour and the LDs which was 1500.
So more Labour and LDs being willing to tactically vote Green than Tories were willing to tactically vote Reform is what cost Reform the seat
So looks like the main beneficiaries of Jenrick's defection were Starmer and Davey, with Labour and LDs both up 1% with MiC in a poll taken entirely after the Jenrick defection and the Tories and Reform unchanged.
Greens down with MiC though in contrast to Yougov (who also had no bounce for Reform from gaining Jenrick)
YG has Tories down 2, LD down 1, Greens up 3 with Ref & Lab unchanged
I have not posted for about 2 weeks and more relevant I have not been lurking either during this time. I decided I needed a break. I'm not flouncing and I may well be back in time, but even with my modest level of posting I do spend a lot of time lurking and I do have a busy life.
Mostly I will miss the superb humour and the news. I was going to list out those that I will miss most, but realised I would miss too many out.
The deciding factor was again being sucked into one of those pointless debates, which is such a waste of time, but which sadly I fall into the trap of rather than dealing with, with wit and humour, like most of you do so well.
It was the debate on driving (U turns, 70mph across roundabouts, bends, stopping at roundabouts, etc). As some of you will be aware from my past posts I have quite a few friends who are existing, or ex-cops, including a retired Chief Superintendent, a Royal Protection Officer and a number of blue light drivers, all with the highest driving qualifications. I showed some of them the posts being made by 'we all know who', and typical comments were 'What a load of bollocks' and 'Shouldn't be allowed behind a steering wheel'.
But more relevant was why did I feel the need to do that? So before I do the same again and waste more of my time I am taking a break for a bit.
The overall vote was as follows, listed in the order candidates appeared on the ballot:
John Cowings – Labour – 116 Adrian Miller – Liberal Democrats – 43 Amanda Paget – Conservative – 426 Lian Pizzey – Green Party – 1,341 Juliette Stevens – Reform UK – 1,091 Alex Stevenson – Advance UK – 57
Changes from last May: Grn +16.7 Ref +0.6 Con -8.9 Lab -6.5 LD -2.0 Adv New
The 'new EU' stumbles at its first hurdle. This is likely to delay the deal by two years.
n a shock result, the European Parliament has just voted to refer 🇪🇺President @VonDerLeyen 's signature of the #Mercosur agreement to the EU's high court by razor-edge vote on 334 to 324.
Where’s the UK-Mercosur deal? Oh, there isn’t one.
Fray Bentos must be tearing their hair out.
Last year I was just twenty miles from the infamously massive Fray Bentos corned beef factory in Uruguay, one of only two or three UNESCO sites in Uruguay. I was able to just drive over and see this interesting old factory that made corned beef
However, I didn’t. Who the fuck cares about a corned beef factory. So I drove along the coast and had the best steak of my life at Francis Mallman’s restaurant in Garzon
Ergo, the elites abandoned renewables and climate change justice overnight.
The Chinese AI boom is being fuelled almost entirely by renewables.
There's some interesting commentary on that which suggests they're actually focused on building sufficient grid power for mass robotics (which will likely require more power than current AI demands) in the anticipation that they can get ahead of the US in that, and catch up later in AI.
Hmmm: there's a new DeepSeek coming (V4) that I suspect is going to be right up there with OpenAI and Anthropic; the QWEN models are surprisingly great; Moonshot is a new player whose K2 models are among the very best for agentic and coding work; and then there are a bunch of new guys like MiniMax and Zhipu.
Right now, the US is leading (Google's new Gemini is pretty insane), but China really isn't very far behind at all. Mistral is the only European play, and while that's made some great strides in the last year (and you might argue has surpassed Meta's LLAMA in the low paramater, Western, open weights model space), it's definitely not top tier.
So looks like the main beneficiaries of Jenrick's defection were Starmer and Davey, with Labour and LDs both up 1% with MiC in a poll taken entirely after the Jenrick defection and the Tories and Reform unchanged.
Greens down with MiC though in contrast to Yougov (who also had no bounce for Reform from gaining Jenrick)
YG has Tories down 2, LD down 1, Greens up 3 with Ref & Lab unchanged
So again no bounce for Reform from the Jenrick defection is the takeaway from both YG and MiC
Comments
PMQs underlined a political fundamental. Anyone who aligns themselves with Trump is going to get burned. Reform, the Tories and their allies ignore that fact at their peril.
Admittedly no one suggested that Trump was actually going to invade us.
The other under-discussed element is that the US right to as many Greenland military bases as they want is grounded in their NATO membership. If that falls apart, then so does their right to those bases, I think.
https://x.com/MeminescuTop/status/2013949561631318072
NEW THREAD
So more Labour and LDs being willing to tactically vote Green than Tories were willing to tactically vote Reform is what cost Reform the seat
https://www.gloucestershire.police.uk/news/gloucestershire/2026/january/man-who-was-double-the-drink-drive-limit-pleads-guilty-to-causing-motorcyclists-death/
But enjoy your break anyway!
Grn +16.7
Ref +0.6
Con -8.9
Lab -6.5
LD -2.0
Adv New
No Ind (1.7)
However, I didn’t. Who the fuck cares about a corned beef factory. So I drove along the coast and had the best steak of my life at Francis Mallman’s restaurant in Garzon
True story
Right now, the US is leading (Google's new Gemini is pretty insane), but China really isn't very far behind at all. Mistral is the only European play, and while that's made some great strides in the last year (and you might argue has surpassed Meta's LLAMA in the low paramater, Western, open weights model space), it's definitely not top tier.
BTW, ALL THE COOL KIDS ARE ON THE OTHER THREAD