Pawel Swidlicki

Now obviously they'd come up with some kind of mental gymnastics but even so it could be revealing to some extent, the kind of thing a good interviewer in an extended, non-aggro interview could really tease out.

To best of my knowledge, neither Farage nor Badenoch or other prominent Brexiteers have even been pressed to elaborate on why when it comes to UK-US relations 'taking back control' should be subservient to other considerations.

Yeah, he's called his show 'Harry Cole saves the West' and the lots of the people he invites on there are properly out there

6%? Guessing that's about the size of the organic Blue Labour constituency?

Yes, maybe Trump's secret police can arrest you off the street and willfully violate your rights for several months just because they can but did you know that a car wash manger at Buc-ee's in Alabama can earn over $100k?

Not if 80% of Reform are ex-Tory MPs though

Trump’s war is messing with the fallout from Trump’s tariffs, which is messing from the fallout from Trump’s war on clean energy

Think there is something to be written about how bad the news environment has got for people who want to keep up with politics but don't have the time/knowledge to go beyond the flagships.

I saw a clip of Hunt on LBC in which he said Trump had been given cause to 'question our loyalty' and implied that we should have gone all in with him in order to maintain his support for Ukraine (Trump has massively reduced US support for Ukraine).

"This government has restored economic stability" feels like a tin-eared thing for a Chancellor to say when global markets (and especially oil and gas) are in turmoil thanks to the USA's middle Eastern adventures. Not her fault but odd to ignore it.

Quite the contrast to the seemingly surgical decapitation strikes on senior regime figures

Minab school bombing: how the worst mass casualty event of the Iran war unfolded – a visual guide A strike on Shajareh Tayyebeh school during the US-Israeli bombing campaign killed up to 168 people. The Guardian has pieced together the incident and its aftermath using verified footage and images f...

"Photographs and verified videos from the site... show children’s bodies lying partly buried under the debris. In one video, a very small child’s severed arm is pulled from the rubble. Colourful backpacks covered with blood and concrete dust sit among the ruins." www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Well, he did succeed in salting the earth for Labour, which I always thought was a core part of the rationale

I have a relatively high degree of sympathy given the unprecedented nature of this particular shit sandwich in the post-war context but what I find hard to forgive is all the excitable briefings about UK-EU tech partnerships, all the great trade opportunities, looking to DOGE for inspiration etc

Yep - exactly my point

Yeah was clearly a case of 'hope for the best, prepare for the worst'. Notwithstanding that even the realistic best case here was still bad.

Apart from everything else, the timeline here…he rebuilt the military in his first term and then Biden gave it all away but it’s fine because…he rebuilt the military in his first term?

Anyway, this is as good a sign as any that the stockpile is a huge concern.

Also, from a UK perspective, pretty much everything he has done has been harmful - tariffs, climate policy, geopolitics... the single win that Starmerites touted was getting a slightly less raw deal on tariffs!

Its why he appointed Mandelson despite the misgivings he must have had!

"Isn't there somebody you forgot to ask?"

Think the geopolitical one (NATO, defence spending etc) is relatively safe as long as they don't go too OTT.

This is not to say they couldn't/shouldn't be doing better but it's not obvious to me what they should be doing differently, don't think Davey has really put a foot wrong in terms of his positioning on key issues.

I don't think they're doing that badly. Bumping along mid-teens is a considerable improvement from previous parliaments, they have a stable platform and I think some of the Green surge will naturally dissipate as their positions come under greater scrutiny. Their biggest threat is Kemi getting axed.

So emblematic of this government's entire approach to comms and policy. At no point does anyone appear to be subjecting anything to even a cursory sense-check, result is pissing people off (often own political constituency) then having to row back anyway damaging credibility bsky.app/profile/colm...

The old age dependency ratio has put an unbearable burden on middle income young earners and that means labour backbenchers need to resolutely back immigration reforms that will make that problem worse is certainly an interesting take

The single most effective way of tackling 'foreign interference from hostile actors' would be to ban twitter but err... good luck with that

I have seen this a few times now

Labour going to commit to a second referendum?

Maybe we should confiscate their jewelry upon entry

And people thought ampel was bad... Quite seriously though, you see how this could see how this could resurrect the 'coalition of chaos' type attacks from Tories and Reform (and their media ecosystem) notwithstanding that they'd need their own arrangement.