CTTeller

A horizontal bar chart from the Institute for Government showing the tenure of Cabinet Secretaries. The tenure of Sir Burke Trend (1963-1972) is highlighted in a poor attempt at a pun. The full list can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_Secretary_(United_Kingdom)#List_of_cabinet_secretaries

Time for my increasingly frequent, 'there's a clear Trend on this chart' joke

...we were told that they were no longer offering Japanese and we were all given Spanish. When we later chose our languages, almost everyone, including I, chose German as we had a lot more time practicing it, except for the Portuguese contingent who almost entirely chose Spanish

We did both til the third half-term in Year 8... Our 1st Japanese teacher left at the end of Year 7, our 2nd left at Christmas in year 8, then our 3rd only lasted a half term, and cited, politely, how poorly we behaved as the reason why they left, and when we came back from the half term break...

I'm reminded of my language studies story... my 2nd secondary school was a language college (once one of the best in Europe but not so by my time), when I started there halfway through year 7 it was the first time since year 2 I hadn't done French; the form I was put in did German and Japanese...

What makes the juxtaposition even funnier is *he* published those WhatsApp exchanges around the same time this column landed

Well this has escalated

real answer to "can you explain this gap in your resume" is thousand-yard-stare silently for just longer than comfortable and then say "your father forgives you, you know". most of the time their father doesn't, is dead, etc. but if they run out of the room in wide-eyed terror, free office supplies

If Starmer wants a reset - and not yet another U-turn when the parliamentary party balks at a policy - here is his chance.

One of the subplots of the Keir Starmer premiership has been a chronic and debilitating inability to build a stable team at No 10, on both the political and civil service side. This has been genuinely quite surprising to me.

to be fair, not exactly great look that Starmer has spent almost a year sucking up to Trump who is arguably as prominent in those files as Epstein himself

Given that Mahmood goes on to say the answer to Wilkinson’s question is that we definitely won’t be seeing anything like ICE, this is the absolute worst opener she possibly could have given. Ignorant and confrontational in order to vice signal to nobody at all.

the smithsonian has the bible jefferson spliced together to isolate jesus’ moral philosophy but UVA has the “anti-jefferson bibles” he cut from leaving the trappings + formulas of scripture but with a carefully hollowed abyss where the morality should go & that seems like about their speed

In an attempt to distance himself from the Epstein scandal and Mandelson, the health secretary reveals that he's a moral coward only willing to say the obvious behind closed doors and in private groupchats.

Getting really tired of "this is all a media concoction"...

Starmer has the lowest approval rating of any PM in history bar Truss. Senior ministers are openly and unsubtly positioning. His Chief of Staff, Director of Comms and Cab Sec have all resigned on the same day.

I mean come on...

The balls Discord has to introduce an age verification update after they already had a major data breach back in October.

Needs a high speed rail network linking the cities.

We could call it... HS2

Trans Youth Suicides Skyrocketed In UK After Care Drawdown; Government Covers It Up A Freedom of Information request to the National Child Mortality Database reveals that 22 trans children under 18 died by suicide in England in 2021-22 alone.

In an alarming development, it appears the UK Government covered up a massive spike in trans youth suicides after restrictions.

Then covered it up again when caught.

Now, after fighting for years, the data is public: trans suicide increased 5x in the country.

Subscribe to support our journalism.

How extraordinarily fortunate for Wes Streeting that the only text messages he sent Peter Mandelson just happened to be exactly the sort of things other Labour MPs want to hear from a potential leadership candidate

MPs cheering Keir Starmer at the PLP meeting "like the troops at Little Bighorn," remarks one exasperated Labour MP leaving the room

Wes, this is your lawyer. I am advising you to keep posting this stuff.

Round of applause and cheers for Keir Starmer as he arrives to address Labour MPs at the PLP meeting

Almost as loud as the response Theresa May and Boris Johnson got from Tory MPs before they were ousted

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/02...
The Telegraph is once again realising that people hate what they stand for, but it is the people's fault

A Labour MP remarks: "Starmer will go down as the worst PM in Labour history ... He’s a coward who refuses to take responsibility for his own actions. He is a moral gravity-well from which neither decency, honesty or integrity can escape. A genuine disaster for this country and the Labour movement.”

Not the first time he's talked about giving big ministerial jobs to unelected individuals, but afaik it's the first time he's linked it to 'support'... This is (another reason) why standards & vetting of appointments is so important

This is all started to seem a bit, "A Labour Leader resigned this week but not necessarily the one you were expecting", isn't it?

If the end result of this is just that Sarwar goes then honestly I'll take that, it wouldn't be the first time Scotland leader was taken out judt months before an election, Sarwar might know a thing or two about that actually

I was there, surrounded by Labour people, when the exit poll dropped to a collective “Well… that’s still pretty good!”

I will not be gaslit.

Problem with any anti-Starmer tweet that gets attention is I inevitably have to hear the thoughts of people who think Starmer is Blair 2.0, when a lot of the Starmer project's reactionary tendencies are an attempt to distance itself from the socially liberal aspects of Blairism

I feel like Corbynism has a coherent theory of why Blairism was bad whereas Starmer's crowd seem to be against it on vibes