Matt Cavanagh

Reform’s Sarah Pochin forced to apologise after claiming adverts 'full of black people' drive her 'mad’ | LBC The Runcorn and Helsby MP was responding to a viewer live on air who complained about the demographics of advertising.

Nothing on the BBC Radio news this morning. Nothing I could find on their website. This is an MP from the party whose lead in the opinion polls normally ensures them wall-to-wall coverage. She spouts racist nonsense for which even she feels obliged to apologise. What on earth are they playing at?

Gordon Brown blasts return of 'poverty of 60 years ago' as he makes demands Former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned the Government must act now on the two-child benefit limit and said he's seen a return to the poverty of 60 years ago

“We must win the war on child poverty” Gordon Brown via Ash Cowburn & @daveburke12.bsky.social @mirror.co.uk. Gambling tax reform could raise enough to scrap the two-child limit and benefit cap, lifting 500,000 children out of poverty: www.ippr.org/media-office...
www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...

I mean, this is bad enough on its own terms. But when you remember very senior civil servants apparently still think X is an appropriate channel for government communications it becomes grimly hilarious

Support this, both for 'why do we have a civil service internship scheme if NOT to broaden the talent pipeline for it' reasons and for 'this is going to produce some truly amazing takes' reasons.

I think European leaders - both national and in the EU - are underestimating what it will do to their publics to be humilated by Trump.

Like the NATO summit and Rutte's 'Daddy' strategy, mabye the outcome could have been worse. But losing pride and being humilated is also a price that is paid.

Sure, the US is different. But there’s a lot of complacent assumptions around in the markets - that underneath the anarchy these are our kind of people, pro-business etc - and I could see it being the same with a Farage-led government.

But look at how soft the bond markets have been on Trump. Sure, they reined him in on tariffs, but they seem relatively unbothered by the general anarchy - compared to how ready they have been to jump on left governments at other times and places.

Covid: Women fined for going for a walk receive police apology Derbyshire Police apologises to two women fined £200 for driving five miles for a countryside walk.

I think we should remember cases like this before we implicitly mock those who answered yes to that first question (or express surprise that so many did): www.bbc.com/news/uk-engl...

The UK’s F-35 capability - NAO report This report examines the performance of the Ministry of Defence in delivering the F-35 programme compared to its aims.

Read this and ask yourself if it really makes sense for the UK to double down on the F-35 - even before we get to the questions about the reliability of UK-US defence cooperation.
www.nao.org.uk/reports/the-...

How fake-will fraudsters steal millions from the dead A trail of suspicious wills led to an organised gang committing fraud and stealing millions from dead people's estates.

Another bit of the British state that was cut for no reason and now only works if you're a fraudster
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

And if they’ve done history but not economics, The Worldly Philosophers by Robert Heilbroner.

Mortal Questions by Thomas Nagel. In my view a better bet than all the “Short Introduction to” books (including his). And easier to pick and choose as a set of standalone essays.

When someone of Louise Casey’s stature recommends one as the conclusion of a report the government commissioned, then you can’t say just say, no thanks

Go on, someone do a list…

Carlos Alcaraz wins 4-6, 6⁴-7⁷, 6-4, 7⁷-6³, 7¹⁰-6² against Jannik Sinner

The best win of his entire career, the first 2 set comeback of his entire career. MORE Grand Slam Finals between them please and thank you

📸 Thibault Camus/AP Photo

Stupendous win by Alcaraz - especially since it looked like he’d stopped believing in his backhand half an hour in

But I agree that anything that might be “agreed” is not worth very much

Interesting more for the signals we see from Merz, than for the noise from Trump.

RIP Alasdair Macintyre. Good thoughtful piece. (Though I would contest the comment that by the 90s he wasn’t on undergrad reading lists. He was certainly on mine, though I guess I have @severson.bsky.social to thank for that.

All those who were citing the need for care workers while laying into Starmer / the White Paper yesterday should read this thread:

As for those bandying about words like “dog-whistle”, or even comparisons with Powell - it’s absurd.

… but it’s far from straightforward: the right wing media and parties would fill the void, presenting quietness as not caring, or worse, covering things up.

And those hyperventilating about the language need to get over themselves. Sure, a case can be made for an alternative approach: stay quiet and try to get on top of the mess they inherited, hope to reap the benefits later on and avoid alienating the left in the meantime. That *might* work…

This is a perfectly defensible view. But so is the opposite view that we should decide the objectives or parameters we want on immigration, and if that exposes problems with our care model, higher ed model, even our economy, then we should tackle those, rather than reaching for the immigration valve

Most people on here think it’s natural and logical for immigration to be a secondary consideration. If our economic model, or our care model, or our higher ed model, are messed up, and immigration is the pressure valve that can mitigate that, then of course we should use it.

Wading through the reaction on here to Starmer’s speech and the White Paper, I’m reminded again that a large part of the disconnect is not people’s views on immigration - though it is true they are more liberal than the average - but how important they think it is.

IMO, both Starmer's recognition that migration is part of Britain's national story, and the warning that without more control "we risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together" does a pretty good job of capturing where most Brits are on immigration.

It’s a great system, but it is rather labour-intensive…

I was a late convert to the art of Nicolas Cage. But I think he has mastered the portrayal of mid-life masculinity in meltdown - in the way Michael Douglas did in the 90s, in Falling Down, The Game, and others. First ‘Dream Scenario’, then ‘The Surfer’, in cinemas now. It’s a great film. Go see it.