Jon Roberts

Anyone would think that US profiteering, Trump-donating, mega-lobbying fossil-fuel corporations had a vested interest in increasing oil prices.

The Land of the Free seems to have a big issue with actual freedom.

The UK Guardian newspaper reports that Starmer raised Jimmy Lai's case with President Xi on his visit on 29 January. On 20 January, Starmer approved the controversial Chinese mega-embassy in London. On 9 February, Jimmy Lai received a 20 year sentence. Starmer gave away his only bargaining chip.

If breaking the law with impunity works for Trump........

They have made no bones about it - they imported a former Tory councillor from Barnet to lead Reform in Wales and have announced their intention to abolish Welsh language targets. They wish to abolish the Welsh Senedd and won't seek the Welsh share of HS2 money. Wales will just be part of England.

There's a right-wing myth that government bodies are stuffed full of highly paid people doing nothing. The reality is that the majority are low-paid people working very hard indeed, doing indispensable jobs. That's why the pipedreams of Kent Reformers have come to nothing - there's no fat to cut.

Surely, time she jumped ship to Reform?

Recent history has taught his family that no-one will challenge this corrupt profiteering - all sense of morals has been abandoned. Jesus would have wept.

It's the deportee's equivalent of the last meal of the condemned man before execution. She's just all heart!

Weren't there families of Reform voters crowded into a single voting booth, allegedly because:
a) one didn't know which end of the pencil to use;
b) another couldn't spell "X", and
c) another couldn't find Farage on the voting slip?

Reform UK says the voting machines were rigged.

17% rates increase over two years? Where's the evidence? Even if it's true, one outlier of mismanagement (rather like Tory Thurrock's £1 billion debt) does not alter the position that Reform promise cuts, but don't deliver.

All Councils face funding problems after the 17% cut in funding during the Tory "austerity" years - so it is not surprising that they need to raise them. But Reform campaigned on cuts not the biggest rises - Worcestershire's 9% easily surpasses Birmingham's 4.99%.

On one level, of course you're right. But if we want to see meaningful change from this Labour government, a Green win will send a strong message. Otherwise it will be ineffectual business as usual.

Reform promise the earth and deliver the same old.

He's a friend of those who fund him. Who are they? We don't know - it's a secret he won't reveal. Wonder why?

No awkward journalists asking questions he'd rather not answer in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

What he says is irrelevant. It's what Farage's backers say that will count, and they won't want that!

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I visited Kiev & Luhansk in the 1980s, when still part of the Soviet Union and spoke to people with excellent English language skills, who had never spoken to a native English speaker, and had honed their proficiency through the BBC World Service. It really does project soft power across the globe.

Thanks Gillian - I'm relieved. My local airport gets frequent visits from USN and USMC C-130s, and the occasional anonymous-looking 737. I should hate it if we were party to such despicable trafficking.

US military Hercules and 737s often transit through UK airports. Other than seeing prisoners, what are the signs that they may be ICE flights? Not expecting the UK government to do anything about it, but we should know and make our feelings known.

Is it true that as a homage to Wales and his happy time as Secretary of State for Wales, he has chosen the title Lord Redwood of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch?

Absolutely - it's the disaffected older Labour voters who Plaid are treading gently with. Many young people would have voted PC or Green when national politics was a two horse race, but felt their vote would be wasted and would only benefit the Tories. May will be very different.

And there's a resignation honours list coming up!

Indeed - Andrew RT Davies's desperate attempts to equate a vote for Plaid as a vote for Welsh independence is a clear indication of the threat they now pose.

It will take a miracle to turn round Welsh public opinion in time for the Senedd election. Conceivably, a new PM could hit the ground running with some real Socialist policies and compensation for the poor hand Wales has been dealt, but I'm not holding my breath.

In the era of blatant political blackmail, why did we give up our only bargaining chip? We are great at fine words, but the Chinese sneer at paper tigers.

My daughter did an Erasmus year in Leuven - a very happy time for her, seemingly much of it spent in Cafe Belge on Oude Markt, working her way through the beer menu. She lived close to the Groot Beguinage and the sound of the carillon has fond memories - on concert nights they played pop tunes.

Exactly - Hugh Grant is also mentioned, but only in the context of publicity surrounding his legal action against Murdoch newspapers

That means absolutely nothing without context - go to the DOJ website and search for yourself. There are people referred to by Epstein that he clearly dislikes and never went anywhere near Epstein Island - it's wrong to equate a name in the papers with the known abusers. Facts matter.