This, this, this. If journalists don’t scrutinize this and explain it properly now then they have failed on their duty and will bear a share of the blame if such policies are enacted (most of the public oppose them and don’t I think realise what is being proposed yet).

While I have sympathy with the views of the questioner, this is just so unfair! I suspect you wouldn’t support it if the questioner was someone on a far right protest demanding, on camera, that an individual cop give an account of himself. Go after the system. This is just a guy doing his job.

As I was speaking on panels at Labour conference last week I began to describe the Britain I know exists and love. In the end I gave it a name: Mr Blobby Patriotism

And I’ve written about it for @renewaljournal.bsky.social here bsky.app/profile/rene...

Off to walk the dog in the autumn sunshine. None of the myriad terrible things happening are going to get worse because I don’t instantly know about them (is what I have to keep reminding myself!)

Reform poised to raise Kent council tax as Musk-inspired attack on costs falters ANNA GROSS - KENT Kent's local authority will probably raise council tax rates next year as Reform UK struggles to find big savings under an Elon Musk-inspired cost-cutting drive. Kent was one of 10 councils that Nigel Farage's rightwing populist party seized in a swath of local election victories in May. He vowed to save "a lot of money" by abolishing "wasteful" spending. But Diane Morton, Reform's cabinet member for adult social care on Kent county council, told the Financial Times that services were already "down to the bare bones". an "We've got more demand than ever before and it's growing," she said, stress-ing she did not believe access to those services should be limited. "We just want more money." As with many local authorities in England, the bulk of Kent's budget went on adult and chil-dren's social care, as well as on children with special educational needs, which together accounted for about 50 per cent of its £2.5bn annual expenditure. All councils have a legal duty to bal-ance their books and will set next year's budgets in February or March. Ahead of that, most councils in England are expected to increase council tax by 5 per cent, the maximum allowed. "I think it's going to be 5 per cent," Morton said of where Kent would land on tax rises, adding that every 1 per cent increase equated to an extra £10mn. Council leader Linden Kemkaran, a former BBC journalist, said Kent was a test bed for the party's national policies and the "shop window through which everybody is going to see what a Reform government might look like". She declined to say whether council tax would be raised but other Reform coun-cillors said they wanted to avoid hitting the full 5 per cent. Reform's experience highlights some of the obstacles it may face in national government if it won the next general election and pursued its pledge to slash taxes and spending. "Everyone thought we'd come …

Meanwhile, in 'ya don't f*king say' land, Reform discover that governing ain't quite so easy...

' "Everyone thought we'd come in and there were going to be these huge costs we could cut away but there just aren't," said a third senior Reform cabinet member in Kent. '

It’s exactly how I feel. And on the subject of feeling safer, it would be helpful if politicians didn’t use an *actual* antisemitic attack as a reason to diminish the right to democratic protest. If they find themselves backed into an idiotic corner, I’d really rather they found their own way out.

Both my grandfathers fought in the war and my grandmothers served too. Their parents would all have been deported under Reform's policies.

It's not about "considering them". They are in gov't. It's about finding the best way of engaging them and changing their mind.

Many of us worked our butts off to change minds and shift policy within Labour, knowing that when the shift finally came, hecklers would still heckle "too late". Moral superiority resides in the object-ing, not the object-ion. But I will still take modest real victories over grand fictional ones.

Point that really resonated was the one about role clarity. Simply not TC’s role to craft a position that marries his values with electoral realism. But sees that this is the role of politicians and is forgiving about what that role demands. Poignant to hear Ezra’s struggle to articulate his role.

Pork recipes at this time of year? Bold move!

Labour must grab the microphone from Reform UK and stand up for true British values | Lucy Powell If elected deputy Labour leader, I would take the fight to Nigel Farage and show him for what he really is, says Labour MP Lucy Powell

“Labour must grab the microphone from Reform UK and stand up for true British values”
@lucympowell.bsky.social

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Well what do you know - it’s women being terrified into ‘toughing out’ pain and fever on the basis of no evidence whatsoever. Amazing how this kind of unutterable nonsense never puts the men who peddle it in line for risk and pain.

Because you’d regret ‘trunkating’ our brilliant repartee?

We should probably leaf it alone now

Before you log on?

My place or yours? - Flags and the far right from someone who looks different to you By Alex Andreou

I wrote something about feeling like a guest in a country that is my home.

bestforbritain.substack.com/p/my-place-o...

Leadership!

What’s really happening with asylum seeker hotels? By Ayesha Chaudhry

“Awareness, solidarity, and practical investment are key to countering misinformation and building communities that are fair and safe for everyone.”
Bravo Ayesha. This is a full myth bust on asylum hotels 👇
open.substack.com/pub/bestforb...

Would value a human rights lawyer’s view - seems to me that even if this bill becomes law and offers protections-these are also arguments for the ECHR? The state is powerful and can do these appalling things so why would we so lightly consider giving away recourse to another layer of protection?

It’s grotesque!

We all need to be having these conversations.

Great work near Barrow today, in support of the South Lakes Islamic Centre being built via funding from doctors at Furness General Hospital, and counter to a few 'patriots' bussed in from elsewhere.

Loath though he is to alienate floating racists, perhaps Starmer could rouse himself to condemn a violent fascist rally teeming with people who want him overthrown and/or killed

Easily amongst my most favourite books!

So where is the Prime Minister? Why is he not leading the ‘decent millions’ with unequivocal repudiation of the politics of the mob and their violent, racist bullying and vigilantism that has been escalating for months? This is no time for the mealy mouthed - it’s time to pick a damn side!

Starmer is losing senior figures at the rate of one a week Sir Keir Starmer stares impassively at the camera against a backdrop of a union flag IMAGE SOURCE, REUTERS By Chris Mason Political editor Published 5 hours ago The current attrition rate of senior figures from the government is running at one a week this autumn.

“The current attrition rate of senior figures from the government is running at one a week” - WAIT FOR IT! - “this autumn.”

Filed eleven days into autumn.

I’m running out of pejoratives for Mason. How can someone this mediocre end up in a position meant for the best political journalist in the UK?

Time for a systematic campaign of complaint to the BBC pointing out every instance of evidence free editorialising and recycling of extreme right misinformation?

What is the endgame in this toxic immigration debate: is it friends and neighbours thrown out of the country? | Jonthan Liew The notion of remigration was abstract, but the right is dragging it towards respectability. If the goal is homogeneous whiteness, they should say it, says Guardian columnist Jonathan Liew

"The politicians and pundits who crack the whip on immigration need to be asked, right now, where this ends."

@jonathanliew.bsky.social is absolutely right here. Long past time to stand up to the dangerous racism infecting our political discourse.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

What's Nigel Farage's problem with solar panels?