Paul Flower

Today's migration stats illustrate the migration doom loop in action...

(from my presentation at the IMF last week)

It's #CarbonMonoxideAwarenessWeek, and we are working with @nea.org.uk on their Warm Homes, Healthy Futures Project helping vulnerable residents be safer in their homes & more aware of the dangers of unsafe gas boilers.

Find out more here: actonenergy.org.uk/news/warm-homes-healthy-futures

100x this

Good. I live in Cov and see no point in attending, particularly not at that price.

300,000 complaints, 64 prosecutions. I think I see a discrepancy.

New Ways November - Day 2: Respond to a difficult situation in a different way actionforhappiness.org/new-ways-nov... #NewWaysNovember

This is a great & frightening episode of an exceptional podcast #QuestionEverything

A comic from 2022 I think, Halloween week - here's the script: The scene is a darkened woods, at night. All is depicted in dingy blues and purples. In a lonely moonlit clearing we see a CABIN. its windows are dark, clearly unoccupied. A lone figure runs towards it, from the trees. Closer in on them now - we see they are terrified. The race for the door of the cabin, desperately trying to enter. They rattle the door, frantically. It is locked. They look behind them. We see the darkened, black trees of the woods. In amongst the forest, we see the black silhouette of a figure. It walks closer. Closer still. Closer - and now we see it is holding a chainsaw. It emerges into the light, slowly the shadow lifts from its face. It is wearing a mask. The victim silently screams in a rictus of horror. This can't be happening, no, no, no. Closer, closer now it lifts the chainsaw high above its head as it speaks: MURDERER: This murder is brought to you by MeUndies. VICTIM: What? MURDERER: If you're like me you'd kill for comfortable underwear - VICTIM: Sorry - VICTIM: Are you... doing a *podcast*? MURDERER: I knoooww... It's such a cliché Everybody's got one these days! VICTIM: But I thought you were trying to murder me? MURDERER: Indeed! I'm a true crime podcaster driven mad by having to change gear between horrific human tragedy and adverts for MeUndies. MURDERER: So just tap in offer code I'M BEING MURDERED with your bloodied, trembling hand for 20% off some pants! MURDERER: Now, back to the murder- [he revs up his chainsaw again] [ends]

Posting old halloween comics, #2

Next week starts the first or our Into the Warmth events!

We have got 4 events coming up, where we will be hosting a one-stop-shop for support this winter!

27 October - Birmingham
28 October - Wolverhampton
5 November - Stratford
6 November - Solihull

1 Nurse: It’s become a real problem in this area 2 Nurse: We’ve seen the whole community lost to addiction 3 Show a building sign posted: Westminster ‘X’ Addiction Clinic With various Westminster people or looking at their phones outside it Nurse: Ministers, Spads, Researchers… 4 Nurse: Most mornings we’ll get a call about someone acting strangely [Nurse on phone taking a call] Ok - we’ll be right over 5 Nurse: We just have a gentle chat [Nurses approach a minister –Robert Jenrick? - standing in the Palace of Westminster Minister: I understand your concerns… 6 Nurse: Are you OK love? Minister: Yes I’m just hearing legitimate concerns from real voters 7 Nurse: That’s a robot, a Nazi and a poorly-disguised Russian [Show that the people he is talking to are precisely these characters] Nurse 2: Give us your phone, love 8 Nurse: At the clinic we put them in a Grass-Touching Pod, with a real voter to talk to [We see them back at the clinic, holding the minister's head and pushing him into a glass isolation booth with a grass floor. And it is a baffled looking woman, on a chair, ready to talk to him.] 9 Minister: YOU MUST BE WORRIED ABOUT THE COMING CIVIL WAR [woman looks baffled] 10 woman: I just want a bus service Minister: LOOK AT MY FLAG [produces a St George's flag] [ends]

Rachel Reeves’ budget must reduce inequalities and increase spending capacity of the masses This is how to secure sustained economic growth

Judge the next UK budget by how much it improves the purchasing power of the bottom 50%.

Can't revive economy without that.

16m live in poverty. 34% of universal credit claimants are in work. Millions rely on food banks.

Bottom 50% of population has 5% of wealth; the bottom fifth has only 0.5%.

A photo including text of a question with an incorrect answer

@hiddenbrain.bsky.social the brain bit is even more hidden than usual.

Nigel Farage is owned by Russia. Vote Leave was illegally financed by Russia. Brexit was and is a Russian active measure to harm Britain and its home in Europe.

"I hope Starmer wakes up tomorrow morning and feels ashamed about what he has done," says man who unveiled this poster the day Jo Cox was assassinated by a far-right terrorist.

The truth is horrific

House of Guinness, Peaky Brewers or Drinky Blinders?

Walking with James “What are you rebelling against?” – “Whaddya got?” (Rebel Without A Cause)

Walking with James yorkshirebylines.co.uk/society/poet...

Only got it by process of elimination, and thinking that the connection was 'wheels', fortunately had 'lives' to play with.

Fascinating data. There are three things here that really matter to people, and they think matter to everyone:

Healthcare
Economy
Prices

There is ONE thing that they assume matters to everyone, because it dominates so much of the narrative, but it is NOT affecting them personally:

Immigration

Some people are happy to instigate a fight but would run a mile from the actual violence.

If you vote Reform you will be voting against women’s equality, for more harassment in the workplace and beyond (as if there isn’t enough)

Remember 41% of the Farage Foot Soldiers arrested in last summer’s disgraceful riots had already been REPORTED FOR DOMESTIC ABUSE

Duolingo British Idiom Unit 26:

“He tells it like it is”

Translation: He panders to my prejudices and tells me exactly what I want to hear.

If Rayner had set out to minimise her tax bill, she could have waited til her son turned 18 before buying the Hove house. She didn't because she wasn't trying to minimise her tax bill.

Nigel Farage uses private company to pay less tax on GB News earnings Exclusive: Reform leader’s use of personal services firm is a practice criticised across the political spectrum

Nigel Farage uses private company to pay less tax on £400,000 GB News earnings.

Poor attendance record in parliament, collects £94,000 salary+expenses.

Has used a trust fund in an offshore tax haven.

Previously described people who try to avoid tax as the “common enemy”.

A further reminder to know your place and not get ideas above your station. 'Patriot' Jenrick deprived a council of £30-50m as a favour to a friend and donor. Did anyone vandalise his house?

Childhood cancer awareness month

There’s a skyline of Gaza that extends across all four images - coloring pencil on paper. The text reads “this drawing is based on photos of…

Gaza from early 2023. 92% of these homes

Have now been damaged or destroyed by the

Israeli military. Source: UN, April 2025

This is called domicide

Compelling and crucial journalism. Certainly not easy listening.

'May not survive contact with reality'

I feel privileged to have been at one of those with you!