Calls for Peter Mandelson to face inquiry over meeting wi...
Patrick Vallance recorded contact as with Global Counsel, the consultancy founded by Mandelson
Exclusive: Peter Mandelson is facing calls for a standards investigation over a possible breach of parliamentary rules
Comes amid ongoing questions about whether the Labour peer should remain a member of the House of Lords
π
observer.co.uk/news/politic...
13.09.2025 19:10 β π 83 π 36 π¬ 7 π 4
US private money pitches weapons built by startups into field of battle | The Observer
With large profits from arms such as drones, makers have little incentive to see wars end
Ukraineβs battlefields are shifting. Tankers and trenches are being replaced by autonomous weapons, built by startups and battle-tested on the frontlines. And, increasingly, theyβre backed by private money.
My latest w @seitarowhite.bsky.social
observer.co.uk/news/busines...
21.05.2025 15:27 β π 3 π 3 π¬ 0 π 0
Money trail leads through Carlton Club to Tories
Billionaire accused of using a 'strawman' to donate to German far-right party AfD is linked to company using loophole to make UK donations
My last (gulp!) in this series of joint investigations with @tortoisemedia.bsky.social and BBC R4's The Naked Week π
www.tortoisemedia.com/2025/04/11/m...
11.04.2025 07:58 β π 46 π 23 π¬ 1 π 1
Hot Air β Explore the Tool
@chefboibex.bsky.social @ktriley.bsky.social and others have been working on an incredible new tool to track climate misinformation online. Check it out here @tortoisemedia.bsky.social
08.04.2025 10:25 β π 5 π 7 π¬ 2 π 0
Introducing Hot Air, a publicly-available interactive database and visualisation tool highlighting the volume of online misinformation surrounding climate change.
Developed in partnership with C3DS University of Exeter and supported by Octopus Energy.
π
torto.se/4j0NNY4
08.04.2025 12:13 β π 36 π 25 π¬ 1 π 9
They say that in London you are never more than 6ft from a rat. I have discovered that in Tokyo, you are never more than 6ft from an advertisement with Shohei Ohtani's face on it.
01.02.2025 11:29 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0
Shoutout to @chefboibex.bsky.social for the groovy chart!
07.01.2025 22:25 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0
A look at Musk's tweets show he's only recently taken an interest in British politics βΒ mainly in August in the wake of the Southport riots, and in the last few days. His tweets on the latter already have a combined view count of 1.2 billion since the New Year.
www.tortoisemedia.com/2025/01/07/m...
07.01.2025 22:25 β π 3 π 1 π¬ 1 π 0
Tory peer may face probe over undeclared defence shareholding
New: Lords' commissioner urged to investigate after @tortoisemedia.bsky.social revealed peer's Β£28k BAE shareholding
@unlockdemocracy.bsky.social is also seeking clarity on when peers should declare interests below the Β£100k registration threshold
π
www.tortoisemedia.com/2024/12/17/t...
17.12.2024 10:25 β π 18 π 12 π¬ 0 π 1
Tortoise shines a light on peersβ secret shareholdings - Tortoise
The House of Lordsβ threshold for disclosure is 100 times higher than the US Senateβs
Exclusive: Dozens of peers own stakes in the UKβs biggest companies, spanning sectors including banking, defence, mining and energy, that have effectively been held in secret β until now
By me and @chefboibex.bsky.social for @tortoisemedia.bsky.social
www.tortoisemedia.com/2024/12/05/t...
05.12.2024 07:46 β π 67 π 32 π¬ 2 π 4
Muskβs $100m to Farage will break our democracy
Keir Starmer needs to fix Britainβs broken electoral laws now - if he doesnβt, we will all suffer the consequences
NEW π¨ Britain's electoral laws are broken - but successive governments have done nothing
Musk's proposed $100million donation to Nigel Farage shows we are on the cusp of a real crisis for British democracy
But it can be fixed. Here's how, by me
democracyforsale.substack.com/p/musks-100m...
01.12.2024 12:56 β π 1630 π 916 π¬ 75 π 84
The Lordsβ work: what is Tortoiseβs Peer Review? - Tortoise
A quarter of the members of the UKβs House of Lords do two-thirds of the work, Tortoise has found
5οΈβ£ @tortoisemedia.bsky.social: Following the huge success of last year's #WestminsterAccounts project, Tortoise's @catneilan.bsky.social and her team have now put the UK House of Lords under the spotlight. We recommend checking out the whole series with new stories breaking daily.
27.11.2024 13:47 β π 8 π 6 π¬ 0 π 0
Also shoutout to @ktriley.bsky.social for the vanishing chess pieces in the online article, which is my favourite bit of the whole thing!
22.11.2024 18:10 β π 2 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0
You can see the jump in absences here, from December 2021 to Jan 2022 βΒ when the new disclosure rules kick in.
22.11.2024 18:09 β π 3 π 0 π¬ 2 π 0
Very proud of this piece, which involved programmatically trawling through around 1000 proceedings minutes over the last seven years to track individual leave of absences.
Amazingly, there's no compiled historical record of absences for the Lords available elsewhere (unless I've missed it!)
22.11.2024 17:43 β π 21 π 7 π¬ 2 π 0
Disapeering act: some peers hide foreign earnings by going on leave - Tortoise
Others say this is a loophole that needs closing
The number of peers on a leave of absence jumped 48% after new rules requiring them to declare income from foreign states were introduced, @tortoisemedia.bsky.social analysis has shown.
More Peer Review work by myself and @seitarowhite.bsky.social π
www.tortoisemedia.com/2024/11/21/d...
21.11.2024 11:57 β π 85 π 48 π¬ 3 π 4
π¨ LAUNCHING TODAY π¨
Nearly two years ago, @tortoisemedia.bsky.social unveiled the Westminster Accounts, a free tool designed to give people greater understanding of the money that flows through parliament.
Now, with Peer Review, we take on another arcane part of our system - the House of Lords
20.11.2024 07:25 β π 648 π 244 π¬ 31 π 36
Treasury minister Alan Mak received thousands from defence giant Lockheed Martin. He says he doesn't need to declare it.
Alan Mak, a Treasury minister, received multiple payments from Lockheed Martin including one lump sum of Β£2,500.
Alan Mak has joined Kemi Badenoch's shadow cabinet, so here's a little reminder that he accepted thousands of pounds from defence giant Lockheed Martin and Temerko-fronted Aquind into his "community account" without declaring them
www.businessinsider.com/treasury-min...
05.11.2024 10:00 β π 35 π 26 π¬ 4 π 2
Whitehall editor at the Financial Times ποΈ
Host of the FTβs award-winning βPolitical Fixβ podcastποΈAuthor π
@financialtimes.com columnist & associate editor. @CNN.com economic analyst. Author of 'Don't Be Evil,' 'Makers & Takers,' and 'Homecoming.'
ranaforoohar.com
President of the @ec.europa.eu
Mother of seven. Brussels-born. European by heart. πͺπΊ
Menswear writer. Editor at Put This On. Words at The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Financial Times, Esquire, and Mr. Porter.
If you have a style question, search:
https://dieworkwear.com/ | https://putthison.com/start-here/
Journalist in Brussels for @financialtimes.com, covering EU politics and editing the Europe Express newsletter
NYT bestselling author of EMPIRE OF AI: empireofai.com. ai reporter. national magazine award & american humanist media award winner. words in The Atlantic. formerly WSJ, MIT Tech Review, KSJ@MIT. email: http://karendhao.com/contact.
Writer of books, most recently: No Questions Asked: How Football Joined the Crypto Con (amzn.to/42aKE0w). Investigative pieces at http://theuglygame.wordpress.com/
contributing features and headlines @ the onion
amyash.me
Alcohol and sugar protect our eyes // http://veryimportant.lawyer // http://bigsleeprecords.bandcamp.com/album/tonal-rotors
New Yorker staff writer and Houston Rockets fan.
Mayor-Elect of New York City
Enjoy The Observer journalism in print every Sunday, and digitally, seven days a week ποΈ
Sign up now at Observer.co.uk
Freelance journalist covering British politics and public services - NHS, education, care, housing, disability, benefits. Not a tribalist.
I like good things and I don't like bad things.
Dataframes powered by a multithreaded, vectorized query engine, written in Rust.
Editor of FT Alphaville. Norwegian, despite the Harry Potteresque name.
Researching antifeminism, conspiracy theories and the far right. PhD from UEA, former postdoc on Everything is Connected project. UK correspondent for QAA Podcast + MAN CLAN and writer of Vaccine: The Human Story. New series TRULY TRADLY DEEPLY out now!
Executive Producer of The Observerβs current affairs and culture podcasts including The News Meeting and The Sensemaker
Senior Development Producer at @theobserveruk.bsky.social
A global network of city mayors delivering urgent climate solutions. Protecting the people and places we love. π³πππ
http://www.c40.org/