Rick

Found one!

Nigel Farage urged to root out Reform links to Russia after jailing of Nathan Gill

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

Any one who considers themselves to be part of the pro-democracy movement in the United States needs to be calling their Senators and House Member this week to demand they fight Trump's selling out of Ukraine. We need to be very, very loud this week.

Trump's 28-point plan for ending the Russia-Ukraine war can be summed up very simply:

Putin: 28

Ukraine: 0

#TrumpIsAPedophile #TrumpIsARapist #MAGAIsADisease

‼️ Friends, this is very important. Please share to whoever this may concern, especially if you are in the United States.

Ukraine wants peace. Lasting, just, sustainable peace, and not a pause before the next bloodbath. I cannot stress this enough.

The Confidence Trick That Put Boris Johnson Into Power Is Now Being Used on Nigel Farage The same people who convinced the British public to back a catastrophic Boris Johnson premiership are now pulling the same trick again with Nigel Farage

There’s a section of the British electorate in thrall to confident-sounding posh blokes. They’ll vote for them even when they know they are incompetent charlatans.

www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/the-confid...

It’s another conspiracy of silence. Conservatives don’t want to admit they massively increased taxes on high earners. Labour definitely don’t want to say so; they still want to peddle the idea that others, the rich, can pay more. Truth is if we want more spending we’ll all have to pay more.

David Olusoga: A Gun Through Time Join David as he uncovers the story of three firearms that changed the world and the lives of our ancestors.

I expected @davidolusoga.bsky.social to be good but this was brilliant.

I knew a lot of the history but the way he wove it together, made the connections then brought it up to date was riveting.

cultureedinburgh.com/events/david...

You wait a lifetime to see #NFFC win at Anfield and then two come along at once….

Tax and ‘the rich’ One of the my favourite Spitting Image sketches features the Queen complaining about the behaviour of the rich, to which an exasperated Prince Philip replies, “You ARE the bloody rich!”…

Been banging on about this for years.

As I said in 2017, “At some point, someone will have to tell those on middle incomes that they will have to pay more tax.”

flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/2017/04/27/t...

How is the tax burden at a high when most of us are taxed so low? | Institute for Fiscal Studies Luck has played its part for Jeremy Hunt but whisper it quietly: this Tory government has taken a serious chunk out of the incomes of the 1 per cent.

Similar point made by @pjtheeconomist.bsky.social last year.

ifs.org.uk/articles/how...

Britain’s tax system combines the worst of the US and Scandinavia The UK’s experiment in eating the rich while shrinking the state has left everyone worse off

As @jburnmurdoch.ft.com explains, we’ve already ‘taxed the rich’ (Osborne did a lot of it) but middle earners pay low taxes compared with most of Europe. www.ft.com/content/75ce...

Attention is on NEETs today, but the problem is much worse.

NEETs include stay-at-home parents & jobseekers.

Strip those out to focus on people not working, not seeking work, not in education & not parenting: this group of economically & socially dislocated young adults has *doubled* in a decade.

The disciplines theory of government Are legacy disciplines dragging the whole operation down?

Are a small number of legacy disciplines dragging the whole of government down? A provocation:

medium.com/@jamestplunk...

Government seems increasingly unable to cope with the pace and complexity of today's world. Why? 1/n

Grenson?

Nathan Gill was a 'bad apple' says Head Bad Apple of the Bad Apple Party.

Annotated: the full text of Donald Trump’s 28-point Ukraine-Russia peace plan Draft agreement has shocked Europe and is unlikely to satisfy Kyiv or Moscow

FT Europe Editor Ben Hall explains here why Trump's Ukraine proposal is seen as highly favourable to Russia in a video accompanying this annotation of the text www.ft.com/content/44d1...

Brexit party MEPs vote against plans to tackle Russian propaganda Resolution seeking upgrade of EU counter-disinformation unit nevertheless passes easily

Traitor #NathanGill sentenced to 10yrs for taking Russian bribes.

“Farage and the Brexit Party voted against stronger EU measures aimed at countering “highly dangerous” Russian disinformation.”
www.theguardian.com/world/2019/o...

Since 2016.
That’s when the US became an unreliable ally.

If Trump's plan does not wake up European states to the reality that the US under his leadership is an existential threat to freedom on the continent--nothing will.

Trump's plan is so grotesque and makes the US such an enemy of European freedom, that European states should have no other option than to tell Trump to shove it where the sun does not shine.

Excellent thread. Ukraine gets little out of these 28 points except the possibility of EU membership (still subject to Hungarian veto?); Putin gets plenty, inc a favourable starting point for next assault on Ukraine & return of all but $100 billion of immobilised Russian assets, plus US investment.

On "Peace Plans" and Military (Im)Mobility in Europe In this week’s Europe Dispatch, Minna Ålander discusses persisting lack of military mobility in Europe and likely yet another nothingburger, served by Trump.

Fabulous and timely new Europe Dispatch column by @alanderminna.bsky.social just appeared. She not only discusses Trump's latest "peace" plan for Ukraine and Russia (a nothingburger in her eyes) she delves into European military mobility. It’s all free. open.substack.com/pub/phillips...

Trump’s Devastating Plan for Ukraine The White House is giving Putin permission to try again.

Latest piece out in @theatlantic.com . Trump's "peace" plan for Ukraine, which he at this very moment trying to force on the country with threats and intimidation, is grotesque. The US president is admitting what too many refused to admit, he wants Putin to win. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

I am prepared to accept Farage did not know what Nathan Gill was up to and was appalled when he found out. But Starmer, Davey, Badenoch would face calls for resignation if a close associate was convicted of spying for Russia. Reform wants to be the government, so should be judged by same standards.

'Had all the tax raising options been on the table, we would've seen less speculation about itty bitty tax changes.'

Ahead of the Budget, @helenmiller.bsky.social and @benzaranko.bsky.social discuss the economic impact of speculation.

🎧 Listen to our podcast here: ifs.org.uk/articles/bud...

The Starmer office's freakout over Ulez and Uxbridge really was the most significant thing they did in opposition, in that it showed a basic inability to grasp 'unpopularity is what the middle years of your term in office are FOR'.

UK manufacturers report sharpest drop in output since August 2020 - CBI

"What’s striking in this month’s survey is how consistently firms link the slowdown to uncertainty ahead of the Budget," says CBI economist Ben Jones.
www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-...

You want to see how angry people from Kent can be. Like the Krays but with an allotment.

I was talking to @chrisdillow.bsky.social yesterday about blogging in the pre-Twitter days. Because of its longer form, blogging was more considered and you didn't get these sort of outbursts. So you could treat people with different views as 'interesting voices'.

Scratch a 'classical liberal' and you find an old fashioned reactionary authoritarian.