Paul

This.

🚨This is a HUGE escalation and a deliberate effort to use the government against Trump's enemies. Weaponizing the Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification against Harvard to punish them for pushing back is a new low — and needlessly punishes thousands of innocent students.

@danburton96.bsky.social

@danburton96.bsky.social

Hopefully will prompt a return to, yknow, journalism..

The thing about Rachel Reeves I really don’t understand is a seeming total lack of interest in system-wide tax reform. UK tax system is riddled with cruft, Labour needs money, UK needs growth.

Quite possibly the biggest climate story of the year (especially when we look back on this in a few years' time)

For the first time on record, China's emissions are falling due to clean energy growth, not slow power demand...

Thames Water executives to receive bonuses from £3bn emergency loan Utility’s chair tells MPs that retention payments are needed to prevent rivals ‘picking off’ staff

extraordinary that Thames Water executives are getting *new* bonuses, this time as a result of the £3bn rescue loan from the spring - which loads the company with interest rates of nearly 10%

via me and Gill Plimmer

www.ft.com/content/1f6d...

In Britain, the fast-rising minimum wage is catching up with the bottom rungs of white-collar work. In fact, it appears that a rising number of people who earn annual salaries & don't work in low-paid sectors are now being paid below the legal minimum... www.ft.com/content/5f69...

Is the UK paying the price for world’s most expensive visas? | The Observer Competing political and economic goals on immigration are resulting in the loss of valuable skills and talent in the UK

Is the UK paying the price for world’s most expensive visas?

Competing political and economic goals on immigration are resulting in the loss of valuable skills and talent in the UK.

✍️ @rachelsylvester.bsky.social

Read more:

London Stock Exchange puts value of global green economy at $7.9tr Report confirms global green economy has enjoyed a compound annual growth rate of 15 per cent over the past decade, putting it second only to technology as the world's fastest growing sector

Those lentil-weaving hippies at the London Stock Exchange Group reckon the global green economy is worth $7.9tr, is the fourth largest sector in the world, and has grown faster than every industry barring technology over the past decade.
www.businessgreen.com/news/4413438...

Ministers demand BBC World Service plan for cuts as aid budget slashed Exclusive: David Lammy asks BBC bosses to draw up tightened budget amid criticism move could harm UK’s global influence

www.theguardian.com/media/2025/m... in very not good news and I thought this party was about restoring these cuts?

Foot and mouth?

Time for someone to log-off me thinks.

Early signs of anti-reform voting in light of the locals?

Banning algorithmic feeds would be immensely unpopular with those companies but probably positive for our information environment

And it wouldn't even be a free speech limit

@danburton96.bsky.social

TVCA auditor writes to Angela Rayner criticising 'limited engagement' from Ben Houchen authority Auditors into TVCA write to government over concerns surrounding Ben Houchen-led TVCA

EXCL: Auditors for Ben Houchen's TVCA have written to Angela Rayner after it had "limited engagement" from the authority when trying to complete its audit.

It comes only a month after Rayner's department issued TVCA with a Best Value Notice.

Every new car park may have to be covered with solar panels Solar canopies would be compulsory under proposals estimated to save £28,000 on electricity bills at an 80-space car park

“Right now, the sun is shining on hundreds of thousands of car parking spaces across the country which could be used to power our homes and businesses” - Miliband

Gov to launch a call for evidence on requiring solar canopies to be built over outdoor car parks.

A critical point in today's post. A lot of people assume that Labour places going Reform mean Labour voters are going Reform. But it doesn't.

So, yes, Labour are not losing no voters to Reform, but Reform having already use up about two-thirds of that potential. By comparison, Labour are losing more voters to progressive parties, but those parties have only squeezed about 25-30% of their potential gains out from Labour so far.

As I've said before, everything about current British politics can be summed up by 'the (electoral) beatings will continue until morale improves'.

What makes it so enraging is there’s a vision Labour is already committed to that would transform the UK’s infrastructure, upgrade its homes, reindustrialise, and improve health and well-being. Net zero should be the overarching strategy, and yet it’s rarely positioned in those terms.

Morgan: hear me out guys, what if we do badly among both our old base AND our new base?

The other hand to Reform's gains are the Tories' horrific losses (41% of all seats). Not just poor for the opposition, but relative to total seats, it is the worst set of local election results for any party in British history, surpassing the Tory result in 1971 (losses at 38% of all borough seats).

It's peculiar how for each issue the order of the parties is nearly the same.

Should be taxed into oblivion.
Dangerous, so heavy they damage roads, and don’t even fit on certain roads.

‘Alarming’ bug splat decline on UK cars raises fears for flying insect numbers Annual survey of numberplates from more than 25,000 journeys reveals 63% fall in squashed bugs since 2021

‘Alarming’ bug splat decline on UK cars raises fears for flying insect numbers

- Annual survey of number plates from more than 25,000 journeys reveals 63% fall in squashed bugs since 2021

Story by @patrickbarkham.bsky.social
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Is there a way of halting the BBC's gratuitous use of American English? It's getting rediculous.

The New Observer seems to be part of a predominant paradigm among UK centre-left media and politics in which punching out at its core supporter base is seen as an edgy way of gaining acceptance among the commentator cool kids rather than as an act of political and commercial suicide.