evan

Carney, Trump and the power of a good speech Leaders don’t need to write every word themselves, but they do need to make sure it clearly represents their vision

Subtly brutal from @stephenkb.bsky.social

www.ft.com/content/1b23... Carney, Trump and the power of a good speech

Treat the US government and ICE claims like you'd treat a Russian government claim after they've shot down an airliner or bombed a hospital. America 2026.

christ, at least Chamberlain rearmed

For those keeping score, Bellingcat, The New York Times Visual Investigation Team, & Washington Post's Visual Forensic team have all published analysis showing the ICE shooter wasn't in the path of Renee Nicole Good’s vehicle when he shot her, contradicting statements by the President & his cronies

Not the most important thing. But this contract was - probably unlawfully - awarded without competition. But the Court of Appeal, under pressure from the Tories over our VIP lane judicial reviews, said there was no public interest in who Government awards contracts to so there can be no challenge.

One example of how Grok is being used to target women. Swedish Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch being sexualised, degraded, and humiliated step-by-step by Grok. All the images accurately reflect the prompts provided.

Great powers have always, to some extent, written the rules for themselves. But this should be a reminder that for all we might lament the “rules based order”, it’s largely gone, if it ever existed. Hard power is the only thing which matters now. Europe needs to wake up to the new realities.

Keir Starmer should condemn Trump’s illegal action in Venezuela.

Maduro is a brutal and illegitimate dictator, but unlawful attacks like this make us all less safe.

Trump is giving a green light to the likes of Putin and Xi to attack other countries with impunity.

Think twice about doing it themselves?

Whatever you might think of Maduro, the seizure and kidnapping of a head of state takes us to a very dark place. Vast, arbitrary, extra-legal power, which could be exercised almost anywhere, regardless of the character of the target government.

Trump isn’t predictable or consistent, but this particular action *would* be consistent with the emergence of a G2+1 order where Washington and Beijing, with Moscow as a junior partner, give each other free rein in their purported spheres of influence.

Exclusive: CIA carried out drone strike on port facility on Venezuelan coast | CNN Politics The CIA carried out a drone strike earlier this month on a port facility on the coast of Venezuela, sources familiar with the matter told CNN, marking the first known US attack on a target inside that...

Exclusive: The CIA carried out a drone strike earlier this month on a port facility in Venezuela, sources told CNN, marking the first known US attack on a target inside that country. This is the attack Trump has repeatedly alluded to in recent days. www.cnn.com/2025/12/29/p...

This sounds like defensive briefing straight from a Morgan McSweeney Whatsapp group in denial about how an ineffective leader unwilling to face the breakdown of US-Europe relations might not be the best figure to lead the UK into a post-American order

From kellnerp.substack.com/p/the-majori...

I’m so sorry.

my lanyard.

it’s desecrating the working class😔

The Home Secretary says "we have become the destination of choice in Europe, clearly visible to every people smuggler and would-be illegal migrant across the world"

That is a factually untrue claim: the Home Office shows that the UK is fifth, getting 1/10 claims, while Germany gets 1/5 claims

YouTube video by Refugee Council Refugees from 7 decades gather to commemorate 70 years of refugee in protection in the UK

"The era of permanent protection is over"

Is this Labour government really saying it was wrong in principle to let these refugees of the last 75 years to stay, settle and become British - and they believe that should NEVER happen again in principle or practice?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiuR...

Cambridgeshire council's four-day week criticised by minister Steve Reed says there has been a decline in key housing-related services.

Sorry, but there's something so ineffably depressing about ministers spending their time on this kind of stuff. Not as if there aren't real problems that central government should be getting on with while letting local government make its own choices (and even its own mistakes). #GetAGrip

Good to see the Conservative Party committed to keeping the deficit down by *checks notes* spending £2 billion giving tax breaks for private education, creating a massive new deportation force and pledging to maintain pensioner benefits.

I'm getting really really fed up at constant reassertion that welfare spending is "out of control" when it is the same as the average for the past few decades.

One reason disability benefit costs have risen is because core support has fallen.

This is really good, it explains the govt’s lack of a compelling narrative/ vision very well.

Ok. They’ve pissed me off.

I’m back to tell you 3 things about ID cards:

1. Migrants ALREADY HAVE biometric ID cards & govts have been trying to digitise them for years w repeated fuckups & failures causing complete chaos - they don’t work, you do not want that system for you.

Picked up some Lib Dem stats at conference. Some of these surprised me (especially given media coverage):

1. The Liberal Democrats now control more councils than the Conservative Party

2. In May's local elections in England, the LDs elected more councillors than either Labour or the Tories.

(1/x)

Politico: on US TV yday Farage "praised the MAGA president (in ways he is unlikely to in front of a British audience) for being “brave and true and right” in his actions at the southern border to “keep your American culture”"

He won't say that here as Trump is deeply unpopular in the UK

Polling from @Moreincommon_ on Lucy Connolly

More than half think her sentence was too lenient or about right. Only a third that it was too harsh.

Only 18% think politicians should associate themselves her, while 51% think they should actively distance themselves from her.

Pritzker is describing Trump’s fascist invasion of Chicago with total moral and political clarity. It’s an example that every other Democrat in the country should follow.

A major buildup of U.S. naval forces is underway outside Venezuela’s waters as the administration has stepped up belligerent rhetoric about fighting drug cartels and labeled Mr. Maduro a terrorist-cartel leader. All that raises the question of whether the end goal is just to counter drug-smuggling boats, or a potential regime-change war. President Trump signed a still-secret directive last month instructing the Pentagon to use military force against some Latin American drug cartels that his administration has labeled “terrorist” organizations. Around the same time, the administration declared that a Venezuelan criminal group was a terrorist organization and that Mr. Maduro was its leader, while calling his government illegitimate. Since then, the Pentagon has been moving U.S. Navy assets, including warships, into the southern Caribbean Sea. In response, Mr. Maduro announced on Monday that he was deploying 4.5 million militiamen around his country and vowed to “defend our seas, our skies and our lands” from any incursions. The administration has said little about its intentions. On Tuesday, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, was asked about the movements and whether the administration was considering putting forces on the ground in Venezuela. She responded by calling Mr. Maduro illegitimate and invoking his indictment, late in the first Trump administration, on U.S. drug trafficking charges.

Mr. Trump, she said, is “prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country and to bring those responsible to justice. The Maduro regime is not the legitimate government of Venezuela. It is a narco-terror cartel.” The Pentagon declined to comment publicly about the specifics of the deployment. But Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said that cartels “have engaged in historic violence and terror throughout our hemisphere — and around the globe — that has destabilized economies and internal security of countries but also flooded the United States with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs.” He added that the Defense Department would “undoubtedly play an important role towards meeting the president’s objective to eliminate the ability of these cartels to threaten the territory, safety, and security of the United States and its people.” U.S. officials said that up to three guided-missile destroyers would soon arrive in the region. The naval warships will target boats operated by drug cartels transporting fentanyl to the United States, the officials said, but have not said how they will do so. Also headed to the region is the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group — including the U.S.S. San Antonio, the U.S.S. Iwo Jima and the U.S.S. Fort Lauderdale, carrying 4,500 sailors — and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, with 2,200 Marines, Defense Department officials said.

The administration’s specific operational intentions are being unusually closely held, even inside the executive branch, according to several officials. It remains unclear what criteria or rules of engagement the administration is considering for any operations using armed force. But the recent developments invite comparisons to the provocative conditions that preceded two important American military episodes in the second half of the 20th century. The first was the Gulf of Tonkin incident, where aggressive U.S. naval activity off the coast of North Vietnam led to a confrontation that President Lyndon B. Johnson cited to get a congressional resolution he used to expand direct U.S. engagement in the Vietnam War. (The government cited two supposed engagements, on Aug. 2 and 4, 1964; years later, it came to light that most likely the latter attack never happened.) In the second incident, in December 1989, the administration of President George H.W. Bush sent more than 20,000 American troops to invade Panama and arrest its strongman leader, Manuel Noriega, who had been indicted in the United States on drug trafficking charges. He was convicted in 1992 and died in Panama City in 2017.

The New York Times reporting that the president might be trying to Gulf of Tonkin his way into an actual regime change war seems like it should be a topic of more discussion than it is right now.

🚨An important reminder of the trauma faced by asylum seekers.

Not just in fleeing persecution abroad.

Not just in the perilous and desperate journey to these shores.

But by the hatred and vitriol put on them by the right wing in this country for callous political gain.

The people are demanding we disband the public and elect a new one.