Perpetual Despair

If polling is all over the place then it explains why Reform are leading the polls but can’t win a byelection 😂

The appropriate time I want to hear from him is when he’s sent to jail for war crimes

🧐

The fact that Isabel Oakeshott, economic migrant to the UAE may just turn into a refugee fleeing to the UK from a war zone will cause a level of schadenfreude in me that may just make me topple right over.

US troops were told war on Iran was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’, watchdog alleges Religious freedom group says 200 troops sent complaints of superiors using extremist Christian rhetoric to justify war

So, not dissimilar to the IRGC then

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

Starmer’s position on Iran pleases no one, but that is because there are no good options | Rafael Behr None of the prime minister’s critics engages with the hard strategic dilemmas arising from Britain’s perilous dependency on US power, says Guardian columnist Rafael Behr

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

What disrupting the strait of Hormuz could mean for global cost-of-living pressures The narrow shipping route on Iran’s southern border carries one fifth of global seaborne crude oil, one fifth of LNG shipments and one third of the most widely used fertiliser

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

The money behind the new Iran War In private calls over the last several weeks, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman urged President Trump to attack Ira

Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE lobbied Trump to strike Iran.

Both countries have major financial ties to Trump & his son-in-law Jared Kushner.

War gives dictators like Trump (and his family) more power and more wealth. Period.

https://popular.info/p/the-money-behind-the-new-iran-war

Russia have been explicitly seeking to discredit the west and since October 7th via an Iranian proxy, that’s exactly what they’ve done. Now we’re in a world where nobody knows what is right and what’s a false danger. If you’re Russia or China you’re rubbing your hands about all this

In all honesty, I suspect this is exactly what Russia and Moscow wanted. The amount of misinformation that MAGA have soaked up from Russia is insane and there’s a very good chance this is a combination of what’s been drip-fed to MAGA along with Trump’s corrosive and corrupt interests

If Europe is drawn into this conflict, Ukraine is in big trouble

Why Attack Iran? Our Authoritarianism and Our Corruption

How to understand war with Iran? We must get away from propaganda. Facts suggest two interpretive frameworks: a foreign war as a mechanism to destroy democracy at home; and a foreign war as an element of personal corruption by the president of the United States.
snyder.substack.com/p/why-attack...

They could end up? They ended up there some time ago when you consider the rise and rise of Farage who’s gone from fringe nutter to man who pulled us out of the EU to now being very close to being in power - it’s the UK media who helped his trajectory along.

X Is Drowning in Disinformation Following US and Israel’s Attack on Iran WIRED has reviewed hundreds of posts on X that promote misleading claims about the locations and scale of the attack.

“Almost all of the most viral posts reviewed by WIRED on Saturday came from accounts with blue check marks, meaning they…could be eligible to earn money based on how much engagement their posts generate, even if the content is false.”

From @davidgilbert.bsky.social

How to make your brain 3years younger? By not reading the Daily Mail in the first place.

The absolute state of democracy in this country. Greens winning a byelection has caused Reform to report the result to the Electoral Commission, the Tories to demand a look at voter fraud, and Labour to mildly question the behaviour of alleged family voting. Something is so so wrong here.

UN experts urge UK to ensure equal protection for all women and girls and all transgender people GENEVA – The United Kingdom must ensure its ongoing review of statutory guidance under the Equality Act remains compatible with international human rights law and upholds equal protections for all tra...

Frankly I’m still picking myself up off the floor that the OHCHR has had to remind the UK of this. Considering we’re now 22nd in the rainbow rankings and just a little above Albania, I can’t imagine why.

www.ohchr.org/en/press-rel...

*JUST FOR FUN CLAXON*

If the proportional swing in Gorton & Denton was applied to national voting intention figures (Scaled up so big 5 parties ≈ 93%):

RFM: 415 - 34.6%
GRN: 100 - 24.3%
LAB: 38 - 19.8%
SNP: 35 - 3.0%
LDM: 31 - 7.0%
PLC: 7 - 1.0%
Others: 4 - 3.5%
CON: 1 - 6.8%

💯 I’m very much a homeless voter just now so my GE vote is very much up for grabs

Let’s hope

It will take at least four years to implement a wealth tax and it’s uncertain how much wealth it would actually redistribute. Taxing the rich more is a sensible policy but how it’s implemented is complex and I want to see a more robust plan for it than I’ve seen so far

I don’t disagree, doesn’t mean I embrace populism without some trepidation. Populism’s sole purpose is to tell you what you want to hear, delivery is often less concrete. Trepidation doesn’t mean I’m anti-left change

Pathetic. And beaten by a woman too. That must have really stung.

Looks more like a lovely wildflower meadow to me 😀

What happens if the favourability scores from the British Election Study in May 2025 get fed into an Alternative Vote election count to simulate perfect tactical voting 👇

ewanhoyle.substack.com/p/to-av-or-n...

Feeling I can barely stomach a world where the only political options are populist but that’s where most voters are now - in the populist thrall.

Gorton and Denton first thoughts - incredible result for the Greens who won the long battle to be the best placed anti-Reform candidate - helped by being the obvious anti-Labour candidate for disappointed progressives. As I noted in the Observer last month, a Revolt on the Left is growing

She did say “they either think they have it in the bag or someone has their sums wrong”

Turns out it was the latter.

The Greens won a local by-election. I’m not sure that means they are best placed to beat Reform in a GE. What it says to me is people in Labour constituencies are fed up & want to give Labour a bloody nose. Let’s be careful about assuming more. But I’ll give it to the Greens, that is a massive swing

Rainbow Map Europe's LGBTI Rights Rankings 2024

UK now ranking 22nd, with Estonia, Croatia, Montenegro and even Slovenia better ranked. To go from 1st place in 2015 to hovering 20% above Albania is a disgrace.

rainbowmap.ilga-europe.org

Whenever I do an econsult I always choose the one they don’t want me to. Nobody has ever challenged it but I guess it depends on the form and the surgery