Paul McNamara

😃 we may disagree on the dignity of fighting a relegation battle with your manager and star player manifestly disillusioned

I do know.

An absolutely nerve-shredding evening at the Amex. Sod the entertainment value, they just played badly. Still, at least things look better than at the other end of the Seven Sisters.

Sovereignty for sale Tech monopolies and the future of the nation state

New post just out:

"Sovereignty for sale"

The UK is uniquely exposed to the power of US tech monopolies - from Palantir to AI and cloud services.

Why is it so dangerous? What are other countries doing? And what should we do?

(£/free trial)

open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/s...

this the FT not The Onion

The influencers leaping to Dubai’s defence [FREE TO READ] As missiles streak across the region, unfazed residents insist they ‘know who protects us’

‘British expats, he claimed, were refusing to fill out evacuation forms provided by the British government “just in case it somehow turns into a tax form instead”.’

No notes.

as.ft.com/r/65cf2b43-6...

Football Away D... • Follow • •• 5h • Wolverhampton Wanderers have won as many home games this week as Tottenham have won since April 2025. X ALA

Time to collect a few more unfollows

This is just the most incredible chart...

if the UK government implements current policies on taxes and benefits, public debt is stable (contrary to what the OBR always mistakenly tells us)

My column as.ft.com/r/e69f1407-e...

Had to Google it, but Starmer actually opposed the Iraq War, specifically citing its illegality.

Scenes

Stan Flashman Article Talk XA Stanley Flashman (3 December 1936!1 - 21 December 1999) was a British ticket tout and football team chairman. He claimed he could obtain tickets for almost anything, from sports events to the Queen's Garden Parties at Buckingham Palace. 21 He claimed he sold his first ticket for a game featuring Tottenham Hotspur in 1960. He was known as Fat Stan due to being overweight all his life and, by 1975, weighed over 19 stone. He became Britain's number one ticket tout. 3]

Terrific books

Arsenal were my nearest league club as a kid, but actual local team Barnet were constantly threatening to join the league. Fun club, Barry Fry a reliable nutter and a (physically) huge ticket tout called Stan Flashman as chairman.

I’m marginally closer to QPR than Fulham here, Bees third nearest. Really hard to find any particular affection or dislike to any of them (maybe marginal liking for the Rs)

Premier League Premier League + ENGLAND Bournemouth Brentford Everton Everton Burnley Leeds Sunderland

I defy any neutral to remotely care about the Premier League games currently in progress

Trump Weighs Backing Militias to Dislodge Iran’s Regime The president, who hasn’t made a decision, also said “somebody from within” would be the best option to lead the country.

Creating a civil war right next to the world's most vulnerable hydrocarbon shipping lane? I foresee no problems with this.

#Thread A compilation of false claims, fake videos, AI-generated clips, and old imagery being shared in the pretext of the ongoing situation in #Iran #Israel and #MiddleEast on social media. #FactCheck

It’s a Special Military Operation

This IPSO adjudication against the Telegraph is quite something

Confirms their story titled: ‘We earn £345k, but soaring private school fees mean we can’t go on five holidays’ was completely fabricated, with the family involved non-existent and stock pictures used

www.ipso.co.uk/rulings/0210...

Kinda feely these days eveything's getting a bit psycaitubbey

Um.

I’ll shut up about Spurs when they stop doing stuff like this.

Between this and the rapid rate global stocks of interceptor missiles are being burned up at, this is a truly *fantastic* week for Russia.

U.S. Troops Were Told Iran War Is for “Armageddon,” Return of Jesus Advocacy group reports commanders giving similar messages at more than 30 installations in every branch of the military

EXCLUSIVE: At more than 30 installations, U.S. commanders told troops the war on Iran is a Christian war.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation has been “inundated” with more than 110 complaints.

One NCO said they were told the U.S. war is to bring about Armageddon and the return of Jesus…

The Gulf Kingdoms have some of the largest concentration of refineries on the planet. They don't just sell crude, but refined products. bsky.app/profile/dang...

There was an air of seriousness in the House of Commons. Over the weekend, great events had taken place: the sweeping away of the hated Ali Khamenei from Iran, and of the scarcely less-hated Labour Party from Gorton and Denton. Earlier in the day, Kemi Badenoch had made a heroic attempt to link the two issues, claiming that Keir Starmer’s reluctance to get involved in Donald Trump’s attack on Iran was because he feared upsetting Muslims. As though there aren’t any British Muslims who are glad to see the back of Khamenei, or indeed any other reason why a Labour prime minister would be nervous about a Middle Eastern regime-change operation run by a US president without a plan. However bad a job you might feel Starmer is doing, Badenoch speeches are a reminder that things could be worse.

Bickering as the bombs fall. My SKETCH of Britain failing to rise to the occasion. thecritic.co.uk/bick...

Was there anyone else bombing Iran? Someone with a track record of deliberately targeting civilians?

Caligula made his horse a consul. This is a couple of letters off, but same thing