Martin Calladine

Venezuela: replaced President with Vice-President.

Iran: replaced spiritual leader with namesake son.

Any country whose head of state has an identical twin better be on the watch out.

Trump to POLITICO: ‘I really don’t care’ if Iran plays in World Cup The country has pulled back from World Cup preparations after U.S. military attack.

It would be so ridiculous if Iran lose the chance to play in the World Cup because they’re being bombed by the hosts and FIFA actively helps exclude them because Infantino is the biggest Trump fanboy.

www.politico.com/news/2026/03...

Especially as it was reported at the time that the source of the story was a PR company working on behalf of a wealth management firm.

Extract of FT article: Criterion's spokesperson called the evictions "standard asset management process to regularise occupation terms", and said the evictions were not related to the upcoming Renters Rights Act.

Evicting people from their homes is a "standard asset management process."

The case for our society to completely rethink its relationship with housing (and finance) made in one sentence...

Nearly enough to put a beginner's guide to chess on each one of Rishi Sunak's signature outdoor boards. This is the kind of joined-up investment in public services that delivers a legacy of national transformation.

Anytime I read or hear the phrase, “All-hands meeting,” I think Chief Deckchair Officer.

One of the funniest things to come out of this are the brits who won’t leave Dubai even as it’s being bombed. One influencer adjacent guy went on a live stream on his balcony and said he’d rather be killed by Iran than go back to Wigan

If they need foreign reinforcements, they'd prefer mercenaries who can actually do some damage.

The ones they spoke to seem mostly to have been off the frontline - artillery and logistics. The implication being that, because they weren't trained soldiers, they wouldn't have been much use and, I suppose, the publicity surrounding their deaths would've been worse than their military value.

Outstanding pod from The Observer interviewing British people who left to fight for the Russian army in Ukraine. They are, as you expect, troubled, inadequate men, but it's still fascinating hearing them struggling to explain what they've done and why.
podcastaddict.com/the-slow-new...

Literal casino capitalism.

There's no way this incursion into media isn't going to degenerate pretty quickly into live odds running alongside news, like next goal odds during football broadcasts. The future of the world economy: AI and betting.

New addition to the bookshelf (hi randy)

Hour one: Alysa Lui
Hour two: Raygun

You could go blindfolded, mapless and drunk into a maze and still not lose your way as badly as Sirât does in its second hour. It didn't so much fail to stick the landing as gleefully catapult itself off into the stands.

World’s money launderers are shifting to crypto, report warns New report sheds light on lax enforcement of money laundering powered by the tech.

Western governments are being urged to clamp down on cryptocurrency as new research suggests $350 billion has been laundered by criminals and hostile states using the technology in the past two decades.

Six years ago, his principles were entirely different.

Strike: when we bomb someone
Attack: when someone else bombs us

Former President 'killed in strikes' as missile 'hits home' during attack Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has reportedly been killed after a missile struck his home during the US and Israeli attack on Iran

Sad day for Brooklyn 99 fans.
www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...

Me either. Somehow he always finds a way to disappoint everyone.

Spot on.

Impressive how Starmer's done a speedrun of the Blair years - from turfing out the Tories after a generation to supporting an illegal American war in the Middle East - without first passing through being really popular by fixing Britain's public services and offering a positive vision of Britain.

Aiding and abetting.

She’s learnt her lesson about wanting hotels full of foreigners and immigrants being burnt down. See. Prison does work

Platner sat for lengthy interview with antisemitic conspiracy theorist, said he was ‘longtime fan’ of his show Weeks before Graham Platner promoted an antisemitic conspiracy theorist in a now-deleted social media post on Thursday, the controversial Maine Senate candidate appeared on a popular YouTube show whos...

If only there'd been some earlier sign that he wasn't a suitable candidate to represent a progressive party.
www.yahoo.com/news/article...

Death toll from Iran school bombing reportedly rises to almost 150 Strike on girls’ elementary school in south of Iran has killed 148 people and injured 95 others, according to Iran state media

"He had grown up in a country run by politicians who sent the pilots to man the bombers to kill the babies to make the world safe for children to grow up in."
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

They know that no amount of ethnic cleansing could create the white Britain they want, so they've decided to settle instead for terrorising and spilling the blood of their fellow citizens and reinstituting the myriad ways, large and small, in which people can be oppressed and immiserated.

They are fundamentally unable to adjust to or function in the modern world - a world far better than the one in which they grew up - and so, unable to contribute constructively, can think of nothing else but to try and tear it down.

It highlights the reality of the current political divide. The far-right are pitching not just toxic nostalgia, but an entirely imagined past. They could not achieve their political vision even if they had an actual time machine. All they have to offer is cruelty, violence, corruption and decay.