Adam Squires

‘You weren’t free’: Iranians party in London and Manchester after strikes against regime The diaspora hope the death of Ali Khamenei will bring change – and peace – even as fears remain over Iran’s future

This is quite surreal - an area of N London I know very well.
(NB it is not Finchley Road as the article claims - which is several miles south - "Little Tehran" is Ballard's Lane, in Finchley. The constituency has the UK's largest Jewish AND Iranian communities)
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

Not sure that's true of Bush Sr.
Unless you count Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait as "America starting a war". Which ... would take a certain mentality.

YouTube video by Cinema shows Ray vs Therapist [ Mr Inbetween ]

1/ In thinking about the events of the last few days, vigilantism and international law, I can't get this scene from Mr Inbetween out of my head.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0_e...

Also Trumpy. Who also plays well with the 20% base, but not with most people, and is, I think, a Farage weak spot.

"Would you aim for a Farage govt to be similar to a Trump presidency, and if not, what would be the main differences?" is a question Farage should be asked more often.

“We should restrict the franchise to people who would vote for me” is not, I suspect, the winning response Nigel thinks it is

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Finchley residents celebrate following death of Iranian leader Members of the Iranian community celebrated in Ballards Lane last night after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed during a US-Israeli attack

Me neither.
barnetpost.co.uk/2026/03/01/f...
(Friends were there. There were even some Israeli flags. The Persian supermarkets there all stock Israeli pickles - I'm sure they're still no fans of Netanyahu, but by no means anti-Israel / pro Ayatollah)

Yeah - there have been increasing numbers of pre revolution Iranian flags in Finchley (largest Iranian ex-pat community in UK) and street parties last night.

Presumably a wind-up / engagement farming but I'm certainly inspired to record a similar video next time I'm in a supermarket outside the UK. Or even the M25.
("Henderson's ree-lish? What would you even do with this stuff?")

French style curry powder does, to be fair, sound revolting. Like British style tagine mix.

Also: are we *sure* this isn't a deliberate wind-up / engagement farming?

Other answer is that cause / effect are the other way round - prices are going down because it's hard to sell (for some other reason)

Well, pure homo economicus should say that as the price gets lower, there should be more demand and less supply.

But if people see prices going down they think - reasonably enough - that they may carry on going down. So sellers panic sell, and buyers realise they can just wait a bit.

Board of Deputies statement

Aside from the loathsome content why are @boardofdeputies.bsky.social issuing a statement about this? It has nothing to do with British Jews. If you can’t bring yourself to condemn such blatant military aggression don’t say anything.

Polanski is Jewish, while Farage is an unrepentant antisemite. She missed that one.

I think most of us are capable of spotting the fairly facile things they have in common in the article, so they have exactly as much in common as most of us think.

It's always the comparison with what you "might think".

They have a lot less in common that you might think if you're Laura Kuenssberg.

At uni we had three Andy's - one got called "Mandy" (because his surname began with M), another "Shandy" (whose surname also began with M, but was from Sheffield), and one "Blandy", which either stood for blond or bland depending on who you asked.

The govt's hard-line immigration reforms are unpopular (as well as unfair, and cruel, and pointless)

Agree. Definitely odd.

Also odd to think that a verse about how to treat the stranger in your midst has no relevance.

Better or worse than the "imaginary friend" thing?

...and if it wasn't for that, the oppressed muslim women would definitely have voted for the islamophobe with weird views on women.

I think essentially, even now enough of Labour’s lost voters say they are open to a return. Do I think a fresh leader who disavows the blunders and goes “we need to seize our European destiny” can repair enough of the damage for Labour to survive as bloc leader? Yeah, absolutely.

This 'correction' from @lewisgoodall.com regarding accusations from Reform and the Conservatives that the Greens engaged in sectarianism, deserves to be widely read.

#c4news

This is not a reasoned political response. Labour has spent two years making all the voting groups who backed the Greens feel unwelcome and unheard, and now attacks them for daring to back someone else. They believe Labour isn’t listening and Starmer seems determined to prove them right

Yeah - I don't know enough to comment on the validity of that, but thought should clarify that he only used "divisive/sectarian" to refer to Galloway, not the Greens or their campaigning, as Ref/Con have, and the OP from Zoe could have read as implying.
(Still shouldn't have used the word)

To be (slightly) fair to Starmer, it was "Galloway's divisive, sectarian politics" he was referring to, although given what Reform and Conservative have been saying, he should have steered clear of the term.

Right.
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He is also being a spectacularly bad loser.
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Bit late to tell me that now