Dr Zubaida Haque

I’ve spent years, decades, obsessing over the Bush Administration’s Iraq WMD lies, writing about them, debunking them.

I can think of no lie about Iraq WMDs told by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al that comes even close to the enormity and absurdity of this lie from Donald Trump.

Invoking the NHS by mentioning doctors and nurses as being people who are more deserving whilst bashing migrants is breathtakingly cynical, frankly. Moreover, low-skilled workers also contribute, often in jobs that are not easy to recruit to:

Your regular reminder than a large majority of voters - and overwhelming majority of Labour voters - favour giving settled migrants access to the welfare state after five years or less. The Home Secretary is not reforming rules in line with public opinion. She is doing the opposite.

Labour Chairs Warns Party It Must Tackle Immigration “In A Way That Stays True To Our Values” Exclusive: Labour chair Anna Turley has privately warned her party that it must tackle immigration – but only “in a way that stays true to our valu...

Labour chair Anna Turley has privately warned her party it must tackle immigration – but only “in a way that stays true to our values”

In remarks to campaigners following the Gorton & Denton by-election, obtained by PolHome, she said her party must find "the right language" to combat the Greens

So, in launching a huge bombing campaign on Iran they apparently didn't plan for:

- Who takes over;
- Interceptor shortages from sustained drone retaliation;
- How to defend US bases in the region;
- Threats to ships in the Strait of Hormuz; and
- How to evacuate Americans with airspace closed.

Hegseth: "We are only four days into this and the results have been incredible."

- Middle East engulfed in regional war
- 11 countries attacked by Iran
- Oil & gas prices skyrocketing
- Strait of Hormuz now a conflict zone
- Terrorism threat raised across the world
- No sign of Iran regime collapse

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...

All I can think about is Jeff Bezos saying that he slashed jobs at the Washington Post — including those of foreign correspondents in the Middle East — based on "the data," and a few weeks later a whole war breaks out in the Middle East that these laid off folks would have covered as true experts.

Thank you @Debbie_abrahams for chairing our discussion on the module 2 report in Parliament today.

Its vitally important we get the @covidinquiryuk recommendations implemented in full.

Doing so will save lives.

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...

Post Nigel Farage @Nigel_Farage We don't need to take foreign policy advice from the American President. The last time we did that it was called the Iraq War. 6:29 PM Jun 7, 2015 338 replies 2.3K shares 2.7K likes https://x.com/Nigel_Farage/status/607600226774482945

Nigel Farage MP @Nigel_Farage The Prime Minister needs to change his mind on the use of our military bases and back the Americans in this vital fight against Iran! 10:34 AM Feb 28, 2026 4.7M Views 8.1K replies 5.4K shares 35K likes https://x.com/Nigel_Farage/status/2027693784310710744

Full Farage

NEW: Keir Starmer tells MPs the UK govt remembers the "mistakes of Iraq" and will always operate on a "lawful basis" and with a "viable thought through" plan when it comes to Iran. Clear implication from PM is that he thinks the initial US/ Israeli strikes on Iran were neither.

I spent 6 years of my life writing a PhD about UK policy in Persian Gulf in the 1960s, including the role of the Anglo-American alliance.
Key to the Persian Gulf policy of both countries: AVOID a power vacuum under any circumstances &keep Iran&Saudi Arabia from attacking the smaller Gulf States.

Its genuinely mad that we are, arguably, the most successful multicultural state on earth and instead of celebrating that we...

...keep trying to copy nations who have very evidently done worse at it than us

Oxford Street pedestrianisation plan gets final official approval City Hall hopes to stop traffic from using the street by September.

Delighted to announce that following the consultation, I'm giving the green light to make Oxford Street traffic-free.

Thought his Trumpian temper tantrum was really disgraceful, even by his standards. Just utterly graceless in defeat - Gorton and Denton voters emphatically rejected him, the margin wasn't close - to undermine the legitimacy of a result like that is ugly stuff.

Gorton and Denton by-election result:

GRN: 40.7% (+27.5)
REF: 28.7% (+14.7)
LAB: 25.4% (-25.3)
CON: 1.9% (-6.0)
LDEM: 1.8% (-2.1)

Green GAIN from Labour.

Land and Expand - how Palantir captured the Ministry of Defence What a close reading of public domain documents tells us about two concerning contract awards

Excellent analysis from @davidallengreen.bsky.social on the MoD contract awards to Palantir

And it looks to me as if the Gov (as with MoD - initially Tory and now Labour) have walked into similar contract traps 🎣 with NHS contracts awarded to Palantir
Woeful

emptycity.substack.com/p/land-and-e...

NEW

Land and Expand - how Palantir captured the Ministry of Defence

What a close reading of public domain documents tells us about two concerning contract awards

Detailed post by me, following-up on my FT column

emptycity.substack.com/p/land-and-e...

Goodwin & Kaufmann announced an event "is rising ethnic diversity a threat to the west" & later changed it to "immigration & diversity politics: a challenge to liberal democracy" The critique of their title, which they chose to accept as valid, is presented as an objection to discussing the topic

Wunmi Mosaku accepts the BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress for ‘SINNERS’.

#WunmiMosaku #Sinners #BAFTAs

Wunmi Mosaku wins Best Supporting Actress for ‘SINNERS’ at the 2026 BAFTA Film Awards.

#WunmiMosaku #Sinners

Met police using AI tools supplied by Palantir to flag officer misconduct Exclusive: Police Federation condemns deployment of US firm’s tech to analyse behaviour as ‘automated suspicion’

Looks like the state is being slowly outsourced to Palantir. I am not sure this is ideal.

Met police using AI tools supplied by Palantir to flag officer misconduct www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Who's the billionaire behind London’s biggest mass eviction? He's the London philanthropist who says he's committed to solving homelessness. So why is Asif Aziz's Criterion Capital rushing to make hundreds of Londoners homeless in the coming weeks?

London’s “worst mass eviction in recent history” is underway; hundreds of households across London told to get out of their homes this week by the same landlord, ahead of the renters rights act. The landlord? Billionaire Asif Aziz’s Criterion Capital. www.londoncentric.media/p/asif-aziz-...

This started as a single tip about one building but on a hunch we got @pollysmythe.bsky.social to chase around London and check all the Aziz family’s properties. Sometimes she got there just before the eviction notices. The scale of the clearout is enormous – and we don't think we found all of it.

If Starmer 2.0 means nothing else, perhaps it can mean this…

Starmer 2.0: could a more authentic PM revive Labour’s appeal? After surviving a coup, and with his critics chastened, No 10 insiders say a more combative PM is up for taking the fight to Reform UK

For this weekend’s long read

The fights Starmer has started to pick with billionaires and and the hard right - and whether a brutally honest, wholesale revaluation of why Labour won in 2024 is the thing that could revive their fortunes.

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Discussing this article in two separate group chats with other women in tech, and I think it gets a lot wrong. The sexism isn't worse in the tech industry now, it's just that people outside the industry can see it too. I've worked in tech since the 90s and disdain and misogyny has always been there

I have no particular knowledge nor interest in Palantir, but as a public procurement lawyer looking closely at the public domain documents about the MoD-Palantir contracts, there is something concerning going on.

Two successive high value tenders without advertisements or competition?

Really?

‘Don’t go to the US – not with Trump in charge’: the UK tourist with a valid visa detained by ICE for six weeks Karen Newton was in America on the trip of a lifetime when she was shackled, transported and held for weeks on end. With tourism to the US under increasing strain, she says, ‘If it can happen to me, i...

A retired British primary school administrator with a British passport and a valid visa was shackled, chained and detained for six weeks by ICE

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...