bsky.app/profile/theb...

The case is a catalogue of unforced errors by the police and the CPS. They only have themselves to blame for what is a clustermuck of a prosecution. And rather than accept that errors were made, the CPS used considerable public resources to reverse the chief magistrate’s decision, resorting even to upending decades of settled case law in a way which the chief magistrate rightly described as defying logic. There was nothing the CPS would not do to give the impression that no mistake had been made. The facts of the case are simple. On 21st November 2024, the defendant—a member of the famous rap group Kneecap—displayed a flag at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town, London. The flag was that of Hezbollah, a proscribed terrorist organisation. The intended charge was that he displayed this flag in a way or in such circumstances that he was a supporter of that organisation. This is a serious allegation of an offence under what should be serious terrorism legislation. One would think that the police would act urgently and diligently when faced with such alleged facts. But the police did not act urgently and diligently. Indeed, for days and weeks and months, the police did nothing at all. November turned to December, and 2024 turned to 2025, and winter turned into spring and almost summer. And then on 21st May 2025 there was apparent panic at the Metropolitan Police, exactly six months after the alleged offence. And the reason for this panic was simple: the offence in question was summary only, and thereby triable only in the magistrates’ courts, and such offences have a strict six-month time limit.

“She’s the exception, I am the rule.”

Such articulate cutting through of the nonsense around puberty blockers and eg Keira Bell’s detransitioning from Stephanie Lynnette on GMB this morning. It is also a refreshing relief to see a trans person actually being allowed to speak for once!

Don’t really like the look of the gilt market today.
What’s the assumption here? That the UK is especially exposed to rising energy prices? Or that the BOE has a more extreme reaction function nowadays?

Hannah Spencer MP in her maiden speech in Parliament:

"Our struggles may be different, but our humanity is the same. We always stick together, we always fight for each other.

"And that is what I want us to take forward from International Women's Day and to do that every single day."

FWIW - I’m feeling memories of Vietnam. Starting with the US trying to help their French ally maintain a colonial asset - selling US action as a fight against global communism. Now the US supporting their Mideast ally, Israel against the “global” threat of Iranian Islam

Trump is upbeat while the stock market is trading, but suddenly pessimistic when it closes.

This is brazen market manipulation.

IEA's BIGGEST Move EVER FAILED! 400 Million Barrel Release, Oil JUMPS to $100 Anyway YouTube video by House of El

The world’s most powerful economies just pulled their largest energy lever in history — and the market barely blinked.

A 400-million-barrel emergency oil release was meant to calm markets. Instead, crude surged toward $100, revealing how fragile global energy has become

youtube.com/watch?v=vk9p...

I suppose it’s blindingly obvious. But to state. We’ve already tried this exercise.

If we spent $500bn on building a new green energy industry instead of bombing Iran we’d have a much greater impact on the energy markets. With the side effect of jobs for USans, broadly distributed & env benefits.

MAGA's rhetoric of western civilizational emergency is so weird. They look at ICE arresting grandmothers and they see the ancient Greeks defeating the Persians or the Franks stopping the Islamic invaders in 732.

Everyone else sees ICE arresting grandmothers.

newrepublic.com/article/2076...

We're working to disaffiliate entirely in my union, Labour deserve nothing.

Sigh.

The Greens. Labour are a hard right party now, and far right on some issues.

Unite can see what the electorate sees. The Labour Party is no longer a labour party.

It should be cut by 100%

Labour is not the party of working people under Starmer.

I will be voting to disaffiliate unless the whole cabinet and NEC is replaced with people who aren't intent on punishing migrants, disabled and trans people.

Unite were present at protests in Wales last April after the SC ruling and were very vocal in their support of trans rights. I can’t imagine that’s changed.

(cartoon Adam Zyglis)

Starbucks 'failing it's hometown' as it shuts five more stores Starbucks is facing backlash from the union representing its organized stores after the company announced that four of the five shops it plans to close are unionized.

4 out of 5 Starbucks shops closing in Seattle are unionized. "...Starbucks shut roughly 400 stores across the US last year – including 59 unionized locations. ....The company announced last week it is opening a new corporate office in Nashville..." www.dailymail.co.uk/yourmoney/ar...

Josh Simons MP O @joshsimonsmp X.com This is an imp thread by @adamlangleben who gave a lot to expelling antisemitism from @UKLabour. I was 22 when I went to work for Corbyn - angry about class, privatisation, agency work. I never thought being Jewish was relevant. Eve since, ppl around Corbyn have been after Jewish friends and colleagues who worked to bring the EHRC case. They want to rewrite the history of what happened. Here is the truth. The EHRC investigation had to meet a high legal bar to even happen. The Met Police was the only other organisation who met it. That is the depths to which the Labour Party sank. The oldest hatred is never far from the surface. Most journalists, politicians, and citizens in this country know that.

Trust me bro, nothing suss happened here - The MP that just had to resign for setting investigators on a bunch of journos who wrote about Labour Together taking big bungs; told the spooks that they were working with the Russians, and quietly told MPs and other hacks those journos were traitors.

You've justified, defended & been complicit in A FULL-SCALE GENOCIDE IN PALESTINE for around 29mths now, @australianlabor.bsky.social, but suddenly Labor MPs are "quietly alarmed"—what, their electorates are waking up that thanks to you, "Australia is at war with Iran"? Cry us a river to the sea.

Which effectively means that if the UK tells the UN that Scotland is a self-governing territory (so cannot then be a colony), we can show them this note from Starmer which proves Scotland (and Wales) absolutely ARE NOT self-governing territories. If they can over-ride us, we're colonies of England.

Starmer has given the UK cabinet permission to ignore the ELECTED devolved governments of Scotland and Wales and ride roughshod over devolution in both countries.

Devolution is DEAD.

#IndependenceIsNormal

Can they override the Scottish parliament's decisions on devolved issues?

There are times when the Union feels like being shackled to a decaying corpse.

I’m sure this be very useful for Scotland at the UN when the English Gvt tells them Scotland isn’t a colony because it has self governance.

Trump likes his name on everything. I suggest that the age old "Murphy's Law" should henceforth be "Trump's Law" because everything that goes wrong generally can be attributerd to Trump.

Nigel Farage breaks with his Welsh leader over insurance system for the NHS Reform UK’s Welsh leader Dan Thomas told POLITICO he would rule out moving to an insurance-based system after Nigel Fara

🚨 The NHS must always remain free.

"Farage has not ruled out other reforms, such as moving funding of the NHS from general taxation to an insurance system."

https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-nigel-farage-breaks-with-his-welsh-leader-over-insurance-system-nhs/

It's being presented by e.g. Goodwin as part of a 'war against the past', but these people evidently don't know much about the past: as a boy I used to collect old farthings (yes, I was a peculiar child) which had had a wren on them from 1937, replacing, gulp, Britannia!

Why are there debates, online and in the media, about whether Trump can win 2028? There is no entertaining that, not even as a theoretical, and if he mentions it, that’s heretical.

Hey all can we keep in mind that the people who are having to be in harm's way in places like Iran and Iraq because they signed up to serve their country don't deserve any of this and can we remember that when we're replying to news about them getting bombed? Let's not lose our humanity in all this.