Paul Osbourne

Whether it's ID checks for Spotify or arresting people for writing the wrong thing on a placard, Labour's starting develop a bit of an authoritarian streak...

Front page of The Observer, August 10 2025, shows a picture of protestors sitting in Parliament Square. The headline is "The Sound of Silence. More than 400 arrested at a peaceful protest in support of Palestine Action."

Front page of The Sunday Telegraph, August 10 2025. Headline is "Hundreds held in Palestine protest."

Headline from The Guardian, August 10 2025, reads "Police arrest 474 people at protest over Palestine Action ban in London."

Keir Starmer to JD Vance, February 2025: "We’ve had free speech for a very, very long time in the United Kingdom and it will last for a very, very long time."

August 2025....

This is before we consider the fact that Apple Music, which had offered to securely store all my precious music in its supposedly infallible cloud, took it upon itself to delete almost 400 tracks. A music app that hates music....

In the hour-long tussle to rip a CD to Apple Music, convince it to sync it, and convince it that it wasn't in fact three separate, identically-named albums, I have become convinced Apple Music is designed to induce stress-related medical conditions. "It Just Works" my arse...

Rupert Lowe mistakes charity rowers for illegal migrants The independent MP alerted the coastguard about a small boat off Great Yarmouth, which was crewed by a team of four including a former Royal Marine

Jesus wept, there is just no end to the stupidity…

www.thetimes.com/article/14a2...

Been cheering everybody up again by going on the radio to talk about the United States' crumbling alliances with the rest of the world... www.paulosbourne.net/latest/do-am...

Donald Trump: President, watch dealer, bible salesman...

This is why sentence case is much better for headlines than title case

Headline from The Times which reads "Elon Musk calls for Trump to be impeached in escalating feud."

If only there'd been some way of knowing in advance that it would be a terrible mistake to put these two half-witted narcissists together...

Let's all pause a moment in memory of the now-dead bromance between tiny-handed orange man-baby Donald Trump and real-life Bond villain Elon Musk... 🍿🍿🍿🍿

One of the truly depressing things about watching #PMQs for as long as I have is that it never really changes, no matter who's sitting on the government benches. Meaningless soundbites, questions go unanswered. An entertaining pantomime, perhaps, but not in any way useful...

Nothing was ever so British…

Headline from The Times, saying "Mahmood considers mandatory chemical castration for sex offenders"

Dystopia update... clearly no-one will shed a tear for convicted sex offenders, and nor should they. But if you wanted to pinpoint a group to test out a policy as potentially horrifying as chemical castration mandated by the state, no-one's going in to bat for convicted sex offenders....

YouTube video by OneNoteAndMeanIt Mike Oldfield recording the Blue Peter theme (FULL VERSION) (25.1.79)

If 11 mins Mike Oldfield recording the Blue Peter theme on multitrack doesn't convince you that he's dreadfully talented, put you on Oldfield binge, and make you wistful for TV that trusted interesting things to be interesting, then sorry, we're not friends.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4lb...

Newspaper headline, saying "You be the judge: Should my best friend and I get matching tattoos?"

No. No you shouldn't.

I have a funny feeling that JD Vance has accidentally set the terms by which Trump could be removed from office at some stage in the future... oops.

From page of the 20 May 2025 edition of The Daily Telegraph, the headline is "Kiss goodbye to Brexit" over a picture of Keir Starmer kissing Ursula von Der Leyen on the cheek.

The Telegraph's decline into insanity will, one day, make for a fascinating book. Certainly more fascinating than the nonsense within the pages it somehow has the audacity to charge £3.50 for...

Well, I'm deeply conflicted between Sweden and Estonia... #Eurovision

Ann Summers Rammstein.

come for the #eurovision analysis www.nytimes.com/live/2025/05...

"What if last year's winning song was set on a boat, and significantly worse..." #Eurovision

Honestly, though, do we deserve an automatic spot in the final... #Eurovision

I get the feeling I'm going to spend the next two hours going "but it's not as good as Estonia, is it?" #Eurovision

I do wish the BBC could get over its Gorka obsession. Whatever value he once offered was exhausted an awfully long time ago.

Headline from The Guardian, saying "Starmer's migration speech 'completely different' to Enoch Powell's, says Yvette Cooper."

I mean, I'm no expert in political communications, but I can't help thinking if you're having to publicly deny the Prime Minister is copying Enoch Powell, you may have a problem...

Washington Post headline, reading "Trump names Fox News host Jeanine Pirro as interim US attorney for DC"

Well, obviously, of course. This makes perfect sense...

Biden's not saying anything new in his criticisms of Trump's appeasement of Russia or shattering of global alliances, but it's worth repeating, particularly from the man who tried to fix all that the first time around...

Reform won't suspend councillor who shared Hitler meme during VE Day commemorations Councillor Joel Tetlow appeared to compare the small boat crossings in the Channel to Hitler's invasion of Europe in a post he has now deleted. He told Sky News he did not mean "any disrespect" to sol...

Well, I am shocked. Shocked, I tell you. Whoever could have imagined such a thing happening less than a week after the elections.. news.sky.com/story/reform...

A selection of newspaper front pages, reporting on the results of Australia’s federal election.

A little light post-election #auspol reading…

Reform-esque parties of the hard right regularly pick up 10-15% of the primary vote in many electorates, but a combination of compulsory voting and preferential ballots (the system the UK rejected in 2011) makes it very hard to win from the extremes, either right or left..