Mr Pecksniff's Diary

Is the Brexit tide turning? East Anglia prepares It’s been 10 long years, but the signs are growing that you can’t keep a good idea down for ever

Ten years after Brexit, even its loudest cheerleaders are falling silent.

From stalled growth to a £20bn-a-year hit to the economy, “Project Fear” is starting to look a lot like Project Reality.

With the US turning inward, Britain’s isolation feels sharper than ever.

Read why it matters ...

The US is a rogue state that murders innocent men women and children. It is about time world leaders stood up and said it loud and clear.

Nissan ‘says Sunderland plant could close’ if UK excluded from Made in Europe rules Reports of carmaker’s warning come as lobby group says EU proposals could damage £70bn cross-channel trade

Ooooooops!

www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Press Association comment from Quakers in Britain This evening, for the second time in a year, the Metropolitan Police raided a Quaker Meeting House and arrested a number of young nonviolent activists who were meeting there on the grounds that they were conspiring to commit a criminal act. The room in Westminster Quaker Meeting House was let to Take Back Power to hold nonviolent direct action training. Quakers support the principle of nonviolent direct action, which aims to protest without harming people. Oliver Robertson, head of witness and worship for Quakers in Britain, said: “For Quakers, faith and action are inseparable. Peaceful protest, prayer and nonviolent action are integral parts of many Quakers' religious life. “Whilst we take the planning of criminal acts very seriously, we believe that this incident is a deliberate targeting of committed young people who want to make our country a more equitable place. This raid is part of a systematic stifling of dissent. “That this is the second time in a year that the police have raided our meeting house dramatically illuminates the broader trend in the UK of cracking down on those who disagree with the government. The right to protest is fundamental to our democracy. It's a key part of how people make their voices heard between elections.”

Statement from @quaker.org.uk about tonight's police raid on Westminster Meeting House. Guys, I don't think they're buying the Met's line about it all being a cover for plotting "mass shoplifting"

It should not be possible for MPs, elected to work to represent us to do this.

Kanwal Sibal says US ignored India’s sensitivities; IRIS Dena was defenceless and without ammunition Former Indian Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal says the Iranian warship IRIS Dena was defenceless and carried no ammunition when it was sunk by a US submarine during the Milan naval exercise hosted by I...

The Iranian warship sunk off Sri Lanka by US sub was returning from a joint training exercise with Indian navy & carried no ammunition. The US was originally to take part in the unarmed naval exercises but cancelled at last minute - as planned to attack Iran.

english.mathrubhumi.com/news/india/d...

Oh noooooo. Any choice swears in Welsh, @swearyspider.bsky.social?

WAR CRIME BY THE US.

An unarmed Iranian ship was takIng part in an Indian naval exercise, alongside the US.

The US withdrew and torpedoed the Iranian ship.

THEN the US refused to rescue the sailors, letting them drown.

This is treachery, cowardice, cruelty and a war crime of the highest order.

This is what any sensible politician should be saying in the face of Labour's hostile policies against those seeking safety. Home Secretary, and others in Labour, have flat out lied today, and previously. They've lied about those seeking asylum, migrants in general and those defending their rights.

Again, Farage, Badenoch and their fellow travellers on X are wildly out of touch with the public on Iran.

Even the majority of Reform supporters oppose their position.

BREAKING: Kemi Badenoch says the Tories will vote for Labour’s immigration reforms “in the national interest” if Labour MPs try to vote them down

Shabana Mahmood accused of mimicking Trump as she announces asylum plans Home secretary’s proposals to overhaul immigration system include end to permanent refugee status

The Home Secretary has made claims which are not true regarding migrants to push policies which will devastate lives, while increasing exploitation and people forced into becoming undocumented. These are not policies of "fairness", but instead of discrimination.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

In pushing Labour's extreme and hostile anti-asylum and anti-immigration policies the Home Secretary has lied. She has, deliberately or through ignorance, misled the public on fundamental aspects of both. That alone should surely be a resigning matter

Abolish the Home Office

South West Water admits criminal offence over Devon parasite outbreak Firm admits supplying water unfit for human consumption after nearly 150 people fell ill

South West Water admits criminal offence over Devon parasite outbreak.

Water unfit for human consumption, 150 people fell ill.

SWW already has nearly 200 criminal convictions. Licence not cancelled, no exec prosecuted, record high customer bills, sewage dumped in rivers.

Privatisation is a scam.

Harsh. I believe his mum thinks the world of him.

This probably gets close.

Actually, time to be competent would help...

UK to further curtail rights of asylum seekers Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will tighten rules on access to accommodation and financial support

I see lessons have not been learned from the spectacular loss of Gorton and Denton.

If Labour insists on continuing down this route, then they do honestly deserve to lose the next GE.

Utterly infuriating.

Migration is part of what makes this country great.

We're not an island of strangers - we're an island of neighbours.

The Green Party will always support fair & managed migration.

Reform fury as someone else wins by Our By-election Editor Tim Shipsink The losing candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election, Matt Goodwhinge, has demanded an immediate re-run of the election on the grounds that he lost comprehensively to someone else. "It's totally unfair and rigged," said Goodwhinge. "I shouldn't be required to sit there and suck it up, just because I lost." Mr Goodwhine continued, *I can't believe that all those voters I demonised failed to back me. Especially after I was endorsed by Tommy Robinson and ten million Russian bots on X. "We have clear evidence of family voting, where people voted in order for me to stop deporting their families." Mr Badloser concluded. "I'm the victim of colour prejudice. They didn't vote for me simply because I'm not green." Reform leader Mr Farage, speaking from a sun lounger on a rock near the Chagos Islands said, "It's a tragedy that the people of Manchester won't see Matt in Westminster, but my constituents don't see me in Clacton either." PLUMBER DEFEATS MATT GOODWIN Photo of Hannah Spencer with speech bubble saying… I've stopped the cock

Beautiful from Private Eye on the massive toddler-tantrum that Matt Goodwin and Reform are having, because they got whooped in Gorton and Denton.

Is the BBC biased against Keir Starmer? Polls suggest that people think that this government, and Keir Starmer, are in permanent crisis. Is that because the BBC told us this?

A new analysis of 95 posts by BBC political editor Chris Mason suggests the issue may not be accuracy – but framing.

No single headline is inaccurate. Impartiality rules appear unbroken. But repeated talk of “predicament”, “backlash” & “U-turn” frames a misleading story of permanent crisis..

In the by election, everyone was looking for clues as to the outcome - including me. Then I found it: just one passing reference to where the Greens were placing their canvassers.

Most Westminster political hacks would hardly know what a canvasser does.

It's probably because they only see politics from top down, which tells you nothing except about the egos of those who want power, and what they want to happen. Whereas from bottom up you see the machinery of democracy, how it works and what is actually happening.

Political journalists often give the impression of never having heard of demographics. It seems so rarely to appear in their calculations.

But it's in the nature of an ageing population that many of them die. In fact, if the referendum were re-run now, on the same electorate, Remain would win, because so many Leavers are no longer with us.

Added to which, the present electorate has been rejuvenated by reducing the voting age to 16.

Or we could just write off Lincolnshire as a hopeless case.

I'm sure you're right. The problem is ignorance, especially promoted ignorance.

given her answer does Isabel bravely report what the authorities do in Dubai, is that what she does, have I missed that

The curious snd overlooked point about Farage is that, over the past 10 years, when asked to score him out of 10, the electorate have never given him more than 3 or 4.