"...the deployment of a British spy team in Israel since 7/10, the dozens of flights by UK military aircraft to Israel in this period, the surveillance activities in support of Israel and the training of Israeli military personnel in the UK. Almost none of these have been followed up in broadcast bulletins and articles"
There have been stories covering arms sales to Israel, but 85% of those appeared after three UK citizens got killed
A total of 350 environmental groups came together to pressure the government to act more robustly and decisively against the biodiversity crisis. Charities including the National Trust, the Wildlife Trusts, the RSPB and Friends of the Earth stood side by side with direct action groups such as Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion and Animal Rising.
"I was once hopeful about politics. Under Corbyn, I believed a better Britain was possible. As a person who grew up working class, I found that his desire to scrap tuition fees really spoke to me.. Nationalised railways would have meant I could afford the commute to work. What’s more, he had a clear stance on Gaza.
With Starmer, I haven’t felt remotely the same"
Shania Odulawa on young people abstaining from voting in the #GeneralElection
"The Israel lobby exists, is real and is coming to a Parliament near you"
Corruption, weapons industry, illegal wars, illegal settlements ... that's what the Israel lobby protects by funding our politicians. So, it's not just The United State of Israel, because we also have the United Kingdom of Israel.
"If disabled people were represented in politics according to their proportion of the UK population, there would be about 136 disabled MPs. There were, in fact, just five in 2021."
For UK political types interested in the big scale /modelled MRP constituency level polls (becoming a feature of the 2024 GE) Peter Inglesby is consolidating them, so you can get a snapshot. Both by poll, and by electorate and well worth a look
iNews UK: "Rishi Sunak’s public humiliation is as mortifying as it is satisfying" (by Ian Dunt)
"In each case, Sunak could have attempted to do something about the problem... He could have shown a desire to address the conditions that gave rise to food banks. He could have tried hard to secure an agreement in the various NHS disputes... He could have provided a functional asylum policy... He could have thought about how to help young people rather than providing policy punishments in a bid to placate the jealousies of the old"
"He had done none of these things. At best, as with NHS waiting times, his policy solutions were non-existent. At worst, as with Rwanda, they were actively harmful. And today, he faced the music"
"It is amusing and satisfying. But it is also something else: it is democratically necessary. The public humiliation of the Prime Minister is a demonstration of the free society working"
In lighter news, GB News' pet pollster, #PeoplePolling has come out with a corking outlier of a poll showing Labour on 35% and Reform UK on 24% of the vote (mindblowingly out of step with every other pollster), which would make Nigel Farage the leader of the opposition with over 100 seats in parliament.
I am feeling very vindicated about my decision to not report seriously the findings of this 'pollster'...
Sunak would be the first PM in history to lose their seat. Most of the cabinet would too. The Tories would have their worst result ever. Labour would win the biggest victory in Parliamentary history.
Stonehenge is literally just some old stones yet you will sincerely get people who care more about that than the lives of millions of currently existing people.
Just Stop Oil today sprayed a couple of the stones with harmless orange cornflour which will wash off without any damage at the first rain but there are people genuinely apoplectic about it.
We are a totally fucked species. Totally gone. Dead.
I moved to the UK in 2010. I lamented to a colleague that the most frustrating thing about being an immigrant was not being able to vote.
My friend put me straight. Commonwealth citizens legally resident in the UK (regardless of how long we've been here) are allowed to vote. You just have to register.
Are you Canadian? Australian? Indian? Nigerian? If you're allowed to live here, you're allowed to vote.
The Critic (UK): "The Conservatives deserve to be taught a lesson"
"Bad behaviour has to come with consequences"
"... let me offer a different counterargument: it would be very good for our democracy for the Conservative Party to suffer a crushing defeat. The Conservatives have behaved terribly in government, and politicians, like children, need to know that their actions have consequences"
"I want the Conservative Party from 2015 to 2024 to be a cautionary tale that politics professors whisper to terrify their students. Because if you can govern this badly, behave this badly, without any consequences, that would bode very ill indeed for our democracy"