Michael Warhurst

It’s the Epstein files deja vu: how many more powerful men knew about his crimes, and helped him out anyway? | Marina Hyde I’m sorry, but this is not just a political scandal. Time to refocus on the horrific mistreatment of women and girls, and the role of these ghouls, says Guardian columnist Marina Hyde

It’s the Epstein files deja vu: how many more powerful men knew about his crimes, and helped him out anyway? | Marina Hyde

Ultra-processed foods should be treated more like cigarettes than food – study UPFs are made to encourage addiction and consumption and should be regulated like tobacco, say researchers

‘marketing claims on the products, such as being “low fat” or “sugar free”, are “health washing” that can stall regulation, akin to the advertising of cigarette filters in the 1950s as protective innovations that “in practice offered little meaningful benefit”’

www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

📣 Today the UK Government published it’s action plan on PFAS.

The actions outlined do not meet the challenge of the forever chemical pollution crisis.

Exclusive: Despite new curbs, Elon Musk’s Grok at times produces sexualized images - even when told subjects didn’t consent Elon Musk’s flagship artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok, continues to generate sexualized images of people even when users explicitly warn that the subjects do not consent, Reuters has found.

New: Together with colleagues I’ve been testing Grok.

The chatbot still produces sexualized images —

even when told the subjects don’t consent.

even when told the photos will be used for public humiliation.

even when told the subjects are survivors of abuse.

www.reuters.com/business/des...

Musk's X office in France raided by Paris prosecutor The Paris prosecutor says its cyber-crime unit is conducting a search of X's offices.

The raid is part of an ongoing investigation into X's algorithm for potential algorithmic bias. It expanded to include Grok after reports of deepfakes, explicit content, and data issues. X calls it an attack on free speech.

www.bbc.com/news/article...

“We will be assessing if in the light of these newly available documents if there might be breaches of the rules with regard to Peter Mandelson,” a European Commission spokesman said

Thinking about lying Climate denial taught our leaders shamelessness

Brazen lying is now the go-to move for Republican Party and the Federal Government. Years of practiced climate denial may have convinced them that deceit can work
@billmckibben.bsky.social
billmckibben.substack.com/p/thinking-a...

"Schemes of so-called reform of the Lords should be distrusted, since they are likely to bolster up that irresponsible assembly.
If the government by the people is to be made a reality, the House of Lords must be entirely abolished.
Nothing less will suffice."

- Labour Party Manifesto, 1910

Banning lead in gas worked: The proof is in our hair Prior to the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, Americans lived in communities awash with lead from industrial sources, paint, water supply pipes and, most significantly, tailpipe emissions.

Analysis of hair samples spanning a century shows lead concentrations have dropped by about 100-fold since environmental regulations began, highlighting the impact of reducing lead in consumer products.

The note included some pretty candid and specific thoughts from Mr Summers on the precise form the new rules would take. i.e. this was live, sensitive financial regulation, of obvious interest to Wall Street.

(Emails found by Gary Gibbons and the Channel 4 News team)

Europe just started building a ‘kill switch’ for U.S. tech — and the market isn’t priced for it, says this strategist — MarketWatch Zoom and Microsoft are among those companies that could lose business, says Matthew Tuttle

“The main event is this: the world is building optionality away from U.S. policy and platform dependence. And once you see it, you can’t unsee it — because it’s showing up in procurement decisions, supply chains, defense budgets, and capital flows”

Stephen Flynn of the SNP demanded to know whether the police were investigating. Usually, this kind of thing is that most appalling cant, especially coming from members of a party whose leaders have more experience than most of the inside of a police interview room. But in this case it was absolutely fair enough. Was Epstein the only wealthy man exchanging favours with Mandelson, or simply the only one we know about? It is impossible to write about Epstein, including here, without mentioning his crimes, but even if the financier had been a saint, Mandelson’s decision to forward him confidential government information would still have been a scandal. Get caught doing that in any other job, and your feet wouldn’t touch the floor. It seems reasonable to ask whether Mandelson should still receive a ministerial pension.

The awfulness of Epstein risks overshadowing the fact that what Mandelson did would have been wrong whichever financier he was sending stuff to. thecritic.co.uk/pete...

See this really useful blog by @ciel.org about chemicals discussions happening in Geneva this week.

And then look at the briefing we have published together today outlining industry's 'pollution playbook'. It's time for #ToxicFreePolitics!

corporateeurope.org/en/2026/02/p...

There's more.

On 31 March 2010, Lord Mandelson's principal private secretary sent him a note of a meeting between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Larry Summers, US Treasury Secretary.

Lord Mandelson forwarded it to Jeffrey Epstein five minutes later.

UKICE Lunch Hour: UK politics in flux - UK in a changing Europe Join UK in a Changing Europe experts as they discuss the high levels of volatility and fragmentation in UK politics.

🌀 Events in British politics are moving at a staggering pace 🌀

So what are the prospects for UK politics? And what are the major drivers of the phenomena we’re witnessing?

💻Join our expert panel online as they grapple with all this and more

📆 Tues 10 Feb, 1pm GMT

🔗 ukandeu.ac.uk/events/ukice...

Alistair Darling and the official Treasury were always aware that investment banks had an inside track to Number 10. But the brazen nature of that inside track is rather breath-taking.

The EU Commission has sacked Henrik Hololei, its former top transport official 👏

Hololei accepted free flights, gifts and hospitality from Qatar while negotiating a transport agreement with the Gulf state that benefited the country’s airline ⚠️

The Commission should learn a deeper lesson from this

New Epstein emails show Peter Mandelson secretly advising JPMorgan’s CEO on how to fight Labour’s 2009 bankers’ bonus tax - even suggesting he “mildly threaten” the Chancellor.

Mandelson was Business Secretary at the time.

A year later, he was seeking work with JPM.

It's rare to see how lobbyists operate. But the Epstein-Mandelson correspondence shows us what happens all the time: plutocrats and government ministers conspiring against the public interest. This is why all lobbying should be in the public domain, but despite Labour and Con promises, it's not. 🧵

Interesting contrast in coverage: a misleading, vested-interest report suggesting heat pumps raise UK bills made headlines.

Our peer-reviewed UK research showing high real-world efficiency across hundreds of homes was largely ignored by the media.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

graph tracking democratic backsliding is occuring more quickly in the US than elsewhere.

New from me: It is not just that the US is experiencing democratic backsliding. Authoritarianism has emerged more quickly than in other benchmark countries.

This graph from John Burn-Murdoch sums it up. 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/autocracy-...

It is beyond naive for Democrats – and Europe – to think Trump’s retreats are real. He never backs down for long | Jonathan Freedland Whether it’s Minneapolis or Greenland, the US president will do just enough to get through a damaging news cycle, then carry on as before, says Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland

“volunteers have taken to discreetly delivering bags of groceries to their door…

a handful of dissident Germans used to perform the same act of kindness for the hidden Jews of Berlin under the Third Reich”

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Ecotricity recently published a report saying heat pumps are expensive to run.

But Carbon Brief exposes that is cherry-picks assumptions to reach a predetermined conclusion.

Who secretly owns Britain? Map of hidden UK property owners Explore an interactive map of nearly 100,000 UK properties owned by offshore companies. In over 40% of cases, the real owner is hidden.

Amazing new tool on offshore property ownership from Dan Neidle and co. Found a few interesting results near me...
taxpolicy.org.uk/2026/01/29/w...

🇪🇺 @ec.europa.eu released their report on the cost of forever chemical pollution.

💶 The study found that if emissions continue as usual, Europe is on track to pay a minimum of €440 billion to address PFAS pollution and related health impacts over the next 25 years.

The UK was a founding member of the European Environment Agency over 30 years ago, yet left in 2021. Rejoining would enable the cooperations needed to tackle environmental threats - five of the EEA's 32 member countries are not in the EU, and the UK should be one more.

Deregulation Watch | Corporate Europe Observatory Check out our new posts on Deregulation Watch which helps civil society monitor new developments in the deregulation agenda, assess what’s at stake, and organise in defence of strong social, environme...

Red Alert: mid-February EU summit aims to accelerate EU deregulation 🚨

EU "Leaders' Retreat" on 12 February, in rural Belgium, will discuss radical proposals to accelerate the #deregulation of EU & national level legislation ⚠️

Read more at #DeregulationWatch

➡️ corporateeurope.org/en/deregulat...

Good job he's white, or the story about a man with homemade explosives, and actually using them, would be the lead for a whole week, and lead to questions in the house.

I did 1984 & Brave New World for O level, and they continue to be relevant in so many (disturbing) ways

Sadly this hasn’t got less apt since last I posted it.