The UK is really really good at integration, and yet people want this to be a weakness

It’s a bit hard for the people of Iran to rise up while the bombs and missiles rain down. And when the bombardment stops, the men with guns are all too likely to be ready for more repression.

The Home Secretary has the vibe that it is "still pretty high"

"Comfortably over 200,000" is a stretch for the year to June 2025 figure of 205k + is out-of-date given actual facts on falling visas, as well as projections for 2026.

She compares it to net migration target 2010-19 govt always missed

Nigel Farage is clearly deliberately misleading people in claiming that immigration has not fallen at all - and it is only an emigration exodus that sees the number fall (He could make other points about emigration and immigration still being 850k, but this claim to the BBC was simply wrong)

10 years for many mid-level workers, 15 years for care workers, 20 years before refugees can settle. Dependents often longer than spouse, with many excluded entirely but govt likely to change much of those details, now that has been noticed. How that was proposed shows how slapdash/rushed this was

The Prime Minister & Home Secretary seem to be proposing that the 7 year old daughter in a of the clearer of the bank in Birmingham & London will now face international student fees to go to university at 18 while their classmate, son of the banker,might have become a citizen aged 10

Starmer’s response to yesterday feels like the end of his leadership

There’s no way can compare Greens to Reform and expect to win back the voters that have left you

Good advice! I’m waiting for a knee replacement and do miss them.

My line on BBCr4 Today on the Iran strikes was this. Last June there were intensive US/Iran talks under way. Aborted by Israeli strikes on Iran which US joined. I think this is similar. The US-Iran-Oman talks seemed to be going well. Netanyahu preempted, and Trump felt he had to follow 1/5

As ever, I don't imagine myself representative of anyone but me. But if I'd had a vote in Gorton I'd have agonised, then done whatever felt most likely to stop Goodwin. After Starmer and Mahmoud's responses I now feel quite motivated to vote *against* Labour?

Absolutely. “I’m not racist, I just care deeply about ‘lifetime net fiscal contribution’ for reasons I can neither articulate nor defend.” In one way, it’s just the latest in a long line of bigotry-shaped fig leaves. In another, it’s worse because it devalues public service & caring professions.

Several canvassers say the *settlement* reforms (make over a million voters wait 10-15 years for settlement, not 5, is a top of mind concern for those affected & friends, family

A basic fallacy in Home Office citing more in common polling on asylum reform - a different issue - and net migration

My worst experience on radio was on her BBC Scotland radio show. What could have been an intelligent discussion was deliberately turned into a clickbait culture war. There was no interest in fact or debate. She wanted a circus. I swore I’d never return to her dreadful programme and I didn’t.

Can’t blame this on Morgan McSweeney.

Agreed. KS statement this morning was a disaster. Pretending that the Greens are as bad as Reform, jUsT oN tHe LeFt, is an idiotic strategy.

They equate SNP to Reform too. It’s their standard insult.

Overton Window has moved the so-called centre ground. Labour remind me of David Cameron’s Tories. So Greens in England have moved into the space left by Labour. And that’s a big space with the other main parties fighting over the right.

Trump administration meets with UK far-right activist Tommy Robinson Agitator whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon was hosted by senior adviser at US state department

Tommy Robinson, who has convictions for assault, using a fake passport, mortgage fraud and contempt of court for repeating false allegations against refugee in breach of an injunction... meets Trump administration and gets a tour of the State Department
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Quelle surprise.

Step 1: Make renting more insecure for workers.
Step 2: Pay them less and fire them more.
Step 3: Force young women, who mostly rent and work, to have kids.
Step 4: ???
Step 5: Welcome back to the 1950s baby, oh yeah

Alignment with EU law is easier said than done - UK in a changing Europe Joël Reland outlines the key trends in UK-EU regulatory alignment and divergence over the last five years, as exlpored in our new report 'UK-EU alignment and divergence: the road ahead'.

"Ironically, Brexit means the UK has to spend more time thinking about EU regulation now than it did as a member state."

✍️ @jreland.bsky.social summarises the key findings of our latest report looking at the state of UK-EU regulatory divergence and alignment

🔗 ukandeu.ac.uk/alignment-wi...

And led by a plain clothes officer into a plain white car with no police markings. What a contrast to when the Murrells were investigated when even the press were notified so that they could photograph and film the blue tent and dozens of police searching the house and digging up the garden.

I won’t eat in these restaurants as a result of this decision. And I’m sure I won‘t be the only one.

Spending probe launched into flagship Scottish Government energy project The Scottish Government's flagship ScotWind project, the Government-run auction of Scotland’s offshore wind licenses, is set to be probed by the…

Audit Scotland is a politically driven outfit happy to push a neoliberal Unionist agenda. ScotWind is suffering from the same problems as big wind everywhere. Increasing costs, grid connection delays etc. End of. www.thenational.scot/news/2587505...

Actually I found Catriona Stewart’s ( a court reporter for 15 years) very helpful - the indictment was available to reporters at the courts but apparently now removed as the preliminary court date changed. Also looks like Sarwar misled parliament

NEW

How Palantir captured the Ministry of Defence

How a close read of public domain documents show how MoD was commercially colonised by Palantir

By me, at FT

www.ft.com/content/5207...

Dont go to US whilst Trump is in charge!

This is a good piece, but the attacks on Dorothy Bain are not the only recent example of attempts to undermine trust in the legal system for political gain, and the press and others who have been insinuating wrongdoing on the flimsiest of evidence are also complicit.

😢😡🤬

Labour lost three by-elections yesterday - all to different parties mobilising disaffected voters on their liberal left flank: Greens (see below), Lib Dems and Plaid Cymru.

Starmer/McSweeney strategy of marginalizing the left flank to go after socially con Reform curious continues to backfire