We are a country of light and (very) dark animal stories: Black Beauty (a harder read than many will recall); Wind in the Willows and Beatrix Potter; Watership Down and Plague Dogs (gulp); Tarka (by a fascist) and Animal Farm (by an anti-Fascist); Kes.
I think we can cope with animals on banknotes.
Daily Mail Headline: Pupils' drawings could be blasphemous under Islamic law, Labour councils tell schools - while music and dance classes may go against the teachings of Islam
Oh boy! What a headline...
Ask yourself:
"What am I being asked to believe?"
"Who am I being told to blame?"
Take a few seconds to imagine what the Daily Mail (And Telegraph, GB News and Express) WANT you to think is going on.
Let's see what's ACTUALLY happening...🧵
1/21
"Whatever problems Keir Starmer’s Government may have right now, facing an effective leader of the opposition certainly isn’t one of them."
open.substack.com/pub/adambien...
There's no need for any further analysis on any topic because Robert Jenrick has found the thing that explains everything.
Utterly baffling briefing just now with Kemi Badenoch’s spokesman in which he repeatedly insists that “we’re in the war” with Iran and that she supports it, while simultaneously denying she ever said she wants to join the war she thinks we're already in
When I said 'Kemi Badenoch is so partisan, under her the Tories would oppose puppies and kittens if Labour said something nice about them', I didn't mean it literally.
Keir Starmer: "Kemi Badenoch and the Reform UK leader have been spooked because they
realise they've jumped into supporting a war without thinking through the consequences."
An actual statement from the one-time natural party of government.
Adult social care privatised since the 1980s. Local councils spend 70% of budget on it.
83% of social care controlled by private equity, 20%-40% profit margin.
Will Govt end profiteering, ensure only not-for-profit entities, including local councils, provide care.
Watch the Minister's reply.
According to the New Yorker, Donald Trump and his family profited off the presidency by an estimated $4 billion in 2025 — mostly through shady crypto deals.
That amounts to $456,621 per hour.
But how are you doing?
There's a bunch of Chevening Scholars in my Masters classes and they massively enrich it. Impressive people and also so obviously wedded to going back and improving their own countries.
This very straight news piece buried deep within the FT never uses words like corruption or insider dealing but every detail is quietly devastating. Why is the FT virtually alone in the UK media in covering this important story?
The Lords really has behaved abysmally this parliament so far
Farage delivers energy sermon at the pump – just don’t mention the war
It's no longer OK for you to sit in the house of Lords because your dad did.
But if your mate put you there?
That's fine.
Neither of these really feel like democracy to me.
The hand-wringing over the lack of American strategic coherence should not distract from the likelihood that Israel as the other key actor in this war most likely has quite clear strategic intentions
BREAKING: As many as 150 U.S. troops have been wounded in the war with Iran, according to sources familiar—far higher than the Pentagon’s publicly disclosed figure of just 8 seriously wounded troops. The true toll of this war is already far worse than the public has been told. (Reuters)
When Robert Jenrick was Housing Minister, he rolled out a “Green Housing Revolution”:
www.gov.uk/government/n...
It includes Heat Pumps, reducing fossil fuels, solar, preventing climate change etc.
He’s now pretending he’s Mr Reform anti-Net Zero.
#BullshitBobby
Badenoch and Farage would have had us bending the knee to war criminals. They should never be allowed to forget that.
NEW: Before the Iran War, Trump ignored warnings that Iran could retaliate across the region and stop oil shipments. Now, with energy markets in chaos, some aides are pessimistic about the lack of a strategy to end the war. But they haven't told Trump. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/03/10/u...
4/ Ok, so what ARE the goals? It seems, primarily, destroying lots of missiles and boats and drone factories.
But the question that stumped them: what happens when you stop bombing and they restart production?
They hinted at more bombing. Which is, of course, endless war.
I was in a 2 hour briefing today on the Iran War. All the briefings are closed, because Trump can't defend this war in public.
I obviously can't disclose classified info, but you deserve to know how incoherent and incomplete these war plans are.
1/ Here's what I can share:
Iran is laying mines in Straight of Hormuz
Chris Wright will have a hard time navigating that little blip.
www.cnn.com/2026/03/10/p...
👇😂
Farage standing in front of petrol forecourt sign 25P OFF WITH FARAGE REFORM UK All this fawning over Donald Trump - where has it got Nigel Farage?
Today, he is back in the rainy old UK, standing on a petrol forecourt in his faux-toff outfit, whingeing about Rachel Reeves putting fuel duty up by a few pennies - a tax that has been frozen since 2011. Besides, his mate Donald has done more in the past week to put up the price of petrol, with his continued bombing of Iran, than the chancellor. Tell that to White Van Man, Nigel.
“Farage… helped fool everyone about Brexit - which he wants to renegotiate, naturally. Surely the British people can't take this absurd man seriously again? After all, even Trump doesn't.”
Beyond time to boot Farage and his stale band of Tories off the stage.
www.independent.co.uk/voices/nigel...
Some good news in these dark days
One of the things that really trips a lot of analysts, including ones with real skin in the game, is that they refuse - absolutely refuse - to accept how stupid Trump very obviously is. He has no knowledge of anything, is incapable of learning, and only remembers the last thing to happen to him.
At the most basic level of 'have some self-respect', Conservative MPs should not put forward someone who visibly is not intellectually equipped to be prime minister as their candidate to be prime minister.
The Iran war should be a lesson for Keir Starmer's Government. If you take a clear line on an issue where the public agree with you then it's your opponents who end up having to back down, not you
PM Must Read: The Worst Cabinet in American History (And it's not even close.) >>> "Comically unqualified, intensely partisan, and unflaggingly devoted to whatever ridiculous thing bubbled out of Donald Trump’s mouth five minutes ago". h/t Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-cabi...
