Steve

Tony Blair’s never-ending legacy tour A new documentary reminds us of what a consummate politician he was - and how much his achievements are tarnished by Iraq

Watched the Blair docs. Here's the quote – from Cherie – that has stayed with me:

“He is an amazing politician. As a husband and as a human being, that’s a different matter. But that’s really between me and him.”

What does she *mean*?
www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-t...

People arguing that this u-turn isn’t a u-turn actually as though that’s going to magically make Starmer look competent. Bless.

When are they going to train a dog that growls angrily in the presence of AI generated content.

Blimey, sounds scary, look after yourself

Palestine Action saga shows dystopian doublethink is now UK Government policy Doublethink is no longer the preserve of dystopian fiction, it is UK Government policy ...

A simple summary of the Palestine Action latest - it's illegal to show support for Palestine Action ... because of the unlawful decision to label it a terror group ...

Political Editor Xander Elliards digs into the contradictions in today's ruling

www.thenational.scot/news/2585407...

The proscription of Palestine Action was unlawful, but we also shouldn't forget that the manner in which the proscription was enforced was blisteringly stupid. Continuing to arrest grandmothers for holding signs was a massive waste of police resources and did nothing to deal with the supposed threat

!! … ah

I only met Matt once and he was on his way to meet Liz Truss's team in No 10 to advise them....

I was born and raised in Gorton and Denton, and I absolutely guarantee you Reform won't put it first.

They won't even put Britain first.

They'll put Russia first. We LITERALLY jailed one of them for doing that.

Fair enough that she stuck to her guns in terms of supporting a vulnerable person but she should have realised that was incompatible with her job. Plenty of carers will be able to relate to that dilemma.

Gandalf really is heroic when you consider that there were originally five wizards and one of them turned evil, two of them fucked off and went out east to have orgies, and one is just super into talking to gophers. The one last hope of free peoples was the stoner and that crazy mfer did it.

'UK has been colonised by immigrants', says INEOS boss and Man Utd co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe In an interview with Sky News's Ed Conway, Sir Jim says Britain faces profound political, social and economic challenges, among them an unprecedented rise in immigration in recent years.

Disgusting remarks, and that’s before you note this is someone who moved to (colonised as he would put it) a tax haven news.sky.com/story/the-uk...

Yeah no one bad ever got an honour

Far be it from me to question the wisdom of that illustrious pollster, but: I don’t find it surprising at all. The problem Starmer has is that almost nobody likes him. That is not the same as saying people dislike him: certainly they do, but that is essentially always true of Prime Ministers. The difference with the incumbent is that, aside from the aforementioned squad of online Starmtroopers,3 there are seemingly no Starmerites. That is a crucial difference from Blair or Brown or Johnson, even Truss, all of whom had a faction. Almost nobody is going to go out to bat for Keir Starmer. A bluesky post from Sam/@spinebusterkeaton.bsky.social‬: I think there’s also an element that you need to make it palatable for people to defend the party (in the manner of “They’ve done X and Y” as above). People don’t want to say, “Yes, they’ve made it harder for your spouse to settle here and your trans friends are afraid to use the loo — BUT!” A big reason why. Image: Bluesky. The crucial difference, in other words, is not that Starmer has made enemies, but how much effort his government has put into kicking its friends. The performative harshness of policies towards immigrants or trans people; the ministers or spokespeople who’ve noisily attacked universities, welfare claimants, public sector workers, social liberals – almost anyone, in short, who might be naturally minded to support a Labour government.

No, it is not surprising that Keir Starmer is so unpopular.

jonn.substack.com/p/everybody-...

Interesting, my instinct is that it is, but I’ll reflect on that.

I just think football is more interesting when there are goals sorry

Yep, it’s find more money to build more houses. People like to make out that everything is complex and nuanced and stuff, but some of our problems really can be solved with a bit of money and a bit of effort. And in those circumstances pretending things are complex is just a drag on progress.

Is it build more houses?

Scottish Labour all over the place at the moment.

Well they do very strongly believe in racism, unfortunately that does seem to appeal to some people.

Douglas Ross 🤝 Anas Sarwar

Accidentally keeping an ailing PM in place for 6 months longer.

People like a party that appears to have something it actually believes in. A lesson for Labour there, not that I expect them to learn it.

right so in order to galvanise everyone around Keir, we need someone naive enough that we can convince them the dam is about to break and opportunistic enough that they'll be desperate to be the first to call for his resignation but where could we possibly find someone that gormless and unprincipled

Look for a Claire's Accessories
A simple Claire's Accessories

If everyone apart from the person who appointed them all leaves then that will sort it.

Good of Wes Streeting to help shore up Starmer’s position by making himself look like an unappealing opportunist.

TheNational.scot Wes Streeting defends Lord Peter Mandelson's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein... Sep 9, 2025 The Independent Streeting says Mandelson 'not guilty by association' over Epstein birthday book, Streeting says. Sep 9, 2025

more ppl need to be pointing out that wes streeting is peter mandelson's protege and that he defended mandelson remaining friends with epstein after he was convicted.

How extraordinarily fortunate for Wes Streeting that the only text messages he sent Peter Mandelson just happened to be exactly the sort of things other Labour MPs want to hear from a potential leadership candidate

"I back the PM. Also, unrelatedly here are my WhatsApp messages viscerally criticising my government and dubiously 'exonerating' me."