Yvonne Singh

the loss of the World Service would be a tragedy and huge lost of soft power for Britain

PM asks Sir Jim Ratcliffe to apologise for saying UK 'colonised by immigrants' Sir Keir Starmer says comments by the businessman and Manchester United co-owner are

Obviously zero reflection in any of this on how operating the largest empire in human history may have turned us into a multicultural nation. We are here because you were there. #Empireland

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Wetherspoon boss urges pubs to back Reform By Henry Saker-Clark The founder of Wetherspoon has urged other pubs to back Reform UK. Sir Tim Martin, chairman of JD Wetherspoon, said Reform's plans to slash beer duty would help the sector move towards "tax parity with supermarkets". Nigel Farage's party announced a series of proposals to support pubs last week. They included pledges to cut VAT in the hospitality sector by 10 per cent, cut beer duty by the same fraction. Reform also said it would reverse the recent rise in employers' national insurance contributions (NICs) for the sector and gradually remove business rates for all pubs. The party has said it would fund this package with around 23on, which it plans to secure through reinstating the two-child benefit cap, except for families with two British-born parents. In a lengthy stock exchange filing yesterday, Martin (inset) told industry leaders "there's no question that this initiative would utterly transform the competitiveness of pubs" He said: "By eliminating the tax differential between supermarkets and the hospitality industry, and restoring margins to devastated businesses, these changes would enable pubs to regain some, or all, of their lost trade. "You would think that this offer from Reform would have been greeted by a crescendo of enthusiasm, ecstasy and support from the licensed trade and its supporters. "However, surpris-ingly, initial support has been underwhelming, at least from the great and the good in the hospitality industry" Last month, Labour announced additional business rates support for pubs. The announcement was a U-turn following complaints from pubs about rates changes in November's Budget.

Multimillionaire Brexiter, Tim Martin, urges pubs to back Reform. Just like he urged the country to vote for Brexit. Too bad if it makes you poorer. Too bad for the children he’ll push back into poverty. Tim wants more money. And he couldn’t give a shit about the cost for everybody else.
(iPaper)

‘There’s this whole other story’: inside the fight to end slavery in the Americas The Great Resistance, an expansive new book by author and historian Carrie Gibson, brings together often unheard narratives to tell the bigger picture of a difficult time

Good review of an excellent book by @carriegibson.bsky.social

www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...

lovely piece...https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/01/cecilia-gimenez-monkey-christ-woman-restorer-spain

If you’re a woman wearing trousers jn a workplace right now, it’s because of the bravery and chutzpah of thousands of women who came before you.

More MORE JAM TOMORROW coming soon - here’s the latest episode!

A doomed democracy?

UK #Labour to take no action!!

👀 On Electoral Reform which will keep extremes out of power with less than 50% of the vite

👀 On Leveson or media propaganda such as GBN

👀 and Russian infiltration of Social media

On International Migrants Day, let’s celebrate the generations of migrants who’ve helped make London what it is today - the greatest city in the world.

Don't make this Photoshopping have been in vain

Starmer calls for police crackdown on pro-Palestine marches The prime minister’s official spokesperson said that while ‘free speech is an important right in this country, that can’t extend to inciting hatred or harassing others’

But it’s ok for racists go shout hate outside the homes of unaccompanied underage refugee children and abuse our national flags as happens in my town?
It’s very sad to see how Labour has lost its way under Starmer.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

Food inflation is around 4.9%, inflation at 3.6% homelessness up, poverty up, 3.8m, including 1m children currently experiencing destitution. The economy is on its knees and yet Labour still refusing to explore a CU with the EU or tax the rich appropriately.

No wonder they are tanking in the polls.

Welcome to the twilight zone where Nigel Farage can be accused of racism yet still lead the polls | Nesrine Malik After weeks of allegations of schoolboy racism, the Reform leader is doubling down. And our political establishment is allowing it, says Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik

'This is one of those twilight-zone moments in British politics, where it seems something is going to “cut through” any minute now. For a moment it seems as if it absolutely will. And then, there’s a loss of momentum and a return to the status quo.'

I've written for Psyche about some of the extraordinary things institutional trust enables us to do, and why we have to live with the fact that big organisations screw up.

The most worrying thing about daily life in Britain now is that you hear overt racism all the time that would have been thought unacceptable in the 90s.

We want our country back: Fix Brexit to fix Britain. No tax rises required! The solution is clear, we need to remedy Brexit to get Britain back on track

Not just ’fix’ Brexit, undo it.

sussexbylines.co.uk/news/brexit/...

Reform’s record £9m crypto donation is just the latest offering from abroad | The Observer

Reform is an overseas funded organisation.
Foreign donations to political parties should be outlawed.

observer.co.uk/news/politic...

Remind me again how America was founded and who was there first?

The cover for this week’s issue is “White House of Gold,” by Kenton Nelson. See what’s inside: www.newyorker.com/magazine

Photo of a Gammon joint with the label, ‘flag shagger’.

A couple of weeks after racist flag shaggers put up more flags they have all been removed by what I assume are our ninja de-flaggers. Well done and thanks guys…..it’s lifted the atmosphere in our town. 👍🙂

This is a shocking story...vulnerable people without water for days. Shame on South East Water...

Great culture can save lives. Literally.

Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard

Brexit: the trillion pound ‘mistake’ The recent NBER report suggests the Treasury’s 2016 analysis – slammed by Brexiters as a ‘hoax’– actually understated the impact of Brexit

Nigel Farage’s Legacy — Brexit: the trillion pound ‘mistake’

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)… confirms the Treasury’s 2016 analysis, claiming a relative fall in GDP of between 6% and 8%.

yorkshirebylines.co.uk/opinion/brex...

PM to defend Budget after Reeves forced to deny lying to public to justify tax hikes Calls for multiple investigations following accusations that the chancellor misled the public

If only the press had held Johnson and the Tory party to the same standards when he was PM.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

And all these judgments can be reached on the basis of published official tables. A Woodward & Bernstein expose is definitely not required!

Getting a book written is hard, published even harder and noticed even harder still.

So I'm pretty bloody pleased to see that JESUS CHRIST KINSKI is No. 6 in The Independent's best books of 2025.

@bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social

Dinner with Mr Brexit: Bannon’s European Revolution – Planned with Farage, Backed by Epstein Nigel Farage was the figurehead and his partner Laure Ferrari started it. Steve Bannon and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were providing almost daily support

This is explosive stuff. Evidence that Jeffrey Epstein not only ran a child sex trafficking operation for powerful men, he also seems to have advised & supported Farage’s far right political projects in Europe and the UK, including Brexit, via Steve Bannon.

bylinetimes.com/2025/11/19/d...

This is a fantastic - though necessarily very truncated history (each episode deserved a whole series) but its brevity makes it an ideal resource for schools - I hope they use it.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Brexit caused UK GDP to reduce by 8%, new study finds So much for the land of milk and honey promised by Brexiteers.

There are countless studies on the damage of Brexit (here’s one of the latest ones👇) and countless polls on the growing majority that want to rejoin.
Free tip for struggling Labour…try doing something popular.
@stellacreasy.bsky.social @labourlewis.bsky.social

leftfootforward.org/2025/11/brex...

Former Tory PM Brands Brexit 'An Act Of Collective Folly' In Outspoken Attack John Major said "our enemies celebrated and our friends despaired" at the vote to leave the European Union.

‘Act of folly?’………more like an absolutely country cracking fucking disaster. But I appreciate his sentiment.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/former...