This unusual level of diffidence was a sign that we were at an event that was out of place in our new shouty age of politics. It was the launch of Prosper, a centre right campaign group. Everywhere we looked were people who had been massive in British public life in about 2018: David Gauke, Amber Rudd, David Lidington, Ruth Davidson. Exiled under Boris Johnson, irrelevant in the glory days of Brexit, they had returned to ask whether we might, on balance, want to have a think about doing things a touch differently. It was, Street assured us, “a very significant day in British political history.” What will the movie be called? The Empiricists Strike Back? The Revenge of the Seething? This outfit were less The Fast and The Furious than The Mild and The Miffed.

Centrists Assemble! A new gang of very diffident heroes is going to save us from Nigel Farage, so long as no one minds. thecritic.co.uk/two-...

“There are now more members of the Truss cabinet in Reform than there are in Kemi’s shadow team”

#AlphabetChallenge
#WeekDforDramatic
Day 1 time to go
#Botswana

Burnham was elected in 2024 to do a job until 2028. If he didn’t want the job he shouldn’t have stood for it

#AlphabetChallenge
#WeekCforCloseUp
Day 7 clothing in the countryside
#LoveOfGates ?

Burnham was elected in 2024 to do a job that runs to 2028. At the end of that period he is free to decide what else he wants to do. To ditch the job now disrespects those who voted for him.

Aye, but the right thing for Burnham isn’t necessarily the right thing for the UK.

In case you missed it: My suggestion that Farage was whispering to Trump behind the scenes while Trump was going after Greenland has been essentially confirmed.

As @jamesdaustin.bsky.social notes: Working against your country's interest with a semi-hostile state - there's a word for that.

#AlphabetChallenge
#WeekCforCloseUp
Day 6 Chimney breast

Glamorgan Birders...could you give up a few hours each year to help with the UK's most valuable bird survey.

Training event on February 28th morning at Kenfig NNR. There are lots of vacant BBS squares, even in the Kenfig area!

Book at www.bto.org/cymru-events

#birdingWales

🌱 New resource alert! We’ve launched the Beginner’s School Garden Calendar, designed to make growing easy, fun, and fuss-free. Plus, brand-new how-to videos on leaf mulch and mini ponds!

Everything schools need to get growing all year round.

Absolutely spot on. I worked for an organisation that claimed to work across Britain. It lost Scotland after devolution largely because it couldn’t demonstrate the value it brought to Scotland.
It’s only when you live and work in devolved nations you realise how little they mean to (SE) England.

Wake up, Westminster:after May, the Scottish and Welsh parliaments will likely be for independence | Will Hayward With Plaid Cymru and the SNP leading polls in their respective nations, can the United Kingdom continue in this – or any – form, asks Guardian columnist Will Hayward

My latest piece for the Guardian:

Wales is on course to have a majority of parties in the Senedd who support Welsh independence.

The best way to secure the future of the UK is to make it work for the people of the UK.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

In their "contract to the people" Reform UK said that St George's day and St David's day should be a bank holiday.

They then added that: "English national identity should be officially promoted and celebrated, no ignored and banned".

No mention of Wales at all.

1/2

#AlphabetChallenge
#WeekCforCloseUp
Day 5 the coming of spring

To be fair, Farage probably hasn’t been in the country

Shouldn’t @andyburnham.bsky.social just get on with the job he was elected to do?

#AlphabetChallenge
#WeekCforCloseUp
Day 4 snake - eyelash viper

Later we would hear from the President, explaining that all he wanted was “a piece of ice, cold and poorly located”. There’s something mesmeric about Trump’s mumbling, rambling stream-of-consciousness speeches, bouncing from subject to subject like a ball in a pinball machine, occasionally hitting a hot-button subject and lighting up the entire board as he remembers how much he hates windmills, or what an amazing state the US economy is in, or some misunderstood fact from a CIA briefing or the back of a cereal packet. We learned that during the Second World War, America had defended Greenland, seeing off “the Germans, the Japanese, the Italians too”, that the First World War (1914-18) had been ended by the Spanish Flu of 1919. Without America, “right now you’d all be speaking German,” he told his audience in Switzerland. He said he wasn’t planning to use force to take Greenland, but seemed to refer to it as “Iceland”. It would be a fitting next step in humanity’s dumbest century if Wo

Ice Cold In The Far North: my SKETCH of PMQs and Donald Trump.

thecritic.co.uk/ice-...

Petition: By-elections to be called automatically when MPs defect to another party When an MP decides they want to defect to another party a by-election should be automatically triggered to allow the constituents the opportunity have their democratic right to agree or not with their...

As principled politicians are few and far between, this is precisely why whose decision should be taken out of their hands. petition.parliament.uk/petitions/73...

When Christian Wakeford MP defected from the Tories to Labour in 2022, Nigel Farage was outraged.

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Welsh charities call on UK Government to enable Wales to move forward with Deposit Return Scheme - Keep Wales Tidy

We wrote to UK Government calling for Wales to be allowed to proceed with its proposed #DepositReturnScheme.

A comprehensive #DRS, including glass, is most common and effective, and international examples show that variations between nations can work well.

Please visit bit.ly/4qB9mlY for more!

Kemi fails to resist the cheap shot as she backs Trump on Chagos Islands | John Crace Tory leader tries to score points by siding with out-of-control president hellbent on destroying Nato and Europe

Kemi fails to resist the cheap shot as she backs Trump on Chagos Islands | John Crace

“Reporters Without Borders said Israeli forces had killed at least 29 Palestinian journalists in Gaza between Dec 2024 and Dec 2025
Nearly 220 journalists had been killed since the start of the Gaza war”
“Israeli forces have killed 466 Palestinians in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect in October”

#AlphabetChallenge
#WeekCforCloseUp
Day 3 standing firm

We’re all friends really? Trump’s not so useful idiot Mike Johnson drops in on MPs | John Crace Everyone was trying not to mention the one thing on everyone’s mind as they welcomed the US House speaker

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

Something the UK might want to consider when the USA turns off our planes, nuclear deterrent, SatNavs etc.

As he went on, another possibility sprang to mind. Perhaps Johnson has recruited some of the sarcastic writers who used to work for his British namesake Boris, filling his speeches with lines that were best understood as jokes against their employer. How else to explain the complaints that Russia was “more emboldened”, the warning against “the indulgence of self-interest” or the injunction to “call evil and madness what it is”? Hoyle looked round the room like a hawk when Johnson came out with that last line, daring anyone to laugh. It was the kind of speech that would have been largely anodyne at many other points over the last century. As it was, it was like a toast to your parents’ long and happy marriage delivered while your father was loudly banging his secretary in the next room. “We see the UK and Europe stepping up as faithful partners today,” Johnson said, speaking on behalf of the unfaithful partner currently posting screenshots of private messages from fellow leaders. He w

US Speaker Mike Johnson has been sent to win Britain over. But can he hear the words coming out of his own mouth? My SKETCH. thecritic.co.uk/calm...

The Carney doctrine Open comment thread on the PM's Davos speech

Mark Carney's speech really is terrific: full text is here and very much worth your time.

Pax Americana - they invaded Granada when Reagan and Thatcher were best mates 🤔