The Tories oversaw the degradation of UK gas storage capacity - 2010 to 2017.
Thatcher privatised the gas and oil industry - 1982 to 1986.
Thatcher closed the collieries - 1986 to 1991.
This woman is an idiot - 1960 to 2026
NEW STUDY: “Thanks to the influence of the road lobby, the harms of driving are underestimated & overlooked, while measures that make walking, cycling, & public transport the easiest option are viewed with suspicion. Policy responses to reducing population-level driving…can create positive change.”
Boris Johnson says Keir Starmer has made us an irrelevance on the world stage...
I thought the best person to talk to Laura Kuenssberg about the important moral and ethical issues of the day would be Robert Jenrick, the man who overruled a planning decision to save a billionaire pornographer £45m in exchange for a £12,000 donation.
![As the [UK-EU strategic] partnership continues, the Government should also look at what more we can do to support our creative industries.
We need specific commitments on touring to allow artists to travel visa free and to carry their instruments and equipment without prohibitive bureaucracy.
Catherine West MP, Hornsey and Friern Barnet](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:bnuqsmli2rmtqcha6emaedr3/bafkreiamdd6wlylq5bepy65fftabjzgztnvzr4bodiydfj2nxk7k7omchm)
As the [UK-EU strategic] partnership continues, the Government should also look at what more we can do to support our creative industries. We need specific commitments on touring to allow artists to travel visa free and to carry their instruments and equipment without prohibitive bureaucracy. Catherine West MP, Hornsey and Friern Barnet
The music industry is one of the UK’s strongest creative exports, yet the average musician has lost £11,545 of their income since we left the EU. European Movement UK are campaigning for reciprocal access for British contractors, musicians and performers travelling to the EU for work.
Andrew and Sarah royal wedding press cuttings my parents saved, for some reason.
Going through the incredible amount of stuff my parents kept, I found these. Would any Royalists out there like them? They seem like a lovely couple.
Paging @whatafuckingrecord.bsky.social you missed this one from a very high quality March 7th list!
As I was saying...
Are you sick of all these Norman's swanning around bringing in their Norman Law and customs?
Vote Reform and bring Wakefield back to the good old days.
Billboard ad for public transit visible from a freeway filled with cars and congestion, that says “You are not stuck in traffic. You ARE traffic.”
One of the best of all time.
“You’re not stuck in traffic. You ARE traffic.”
Wish we had come up with that one. #UrbanTruth
Driving that, it was no wonder why your mates saw you coming out of a Styx gig. #hmhb
It's a common refrain for ministers to note Nigel Farage's absence from the Commons, but the stats do seem to back it up. So far this year he has spoken five times and voted seven times. As a very rough, smaller-party comparison, Ellie Chowns of the Greens has spoken 46 times and voted 24 times.
Asked if MPs should get a vote on UK military action, Badenoch says that given the number of left wing MPs with "silly views" she thinks it's best if not. 14:08 • 2 Mar 2026
Kemi here saying the quiet part out loud: the business of parliament is ensuring that the great looting and death machine rampages on, unimpeded by the views of silly people who don’t matter and must be ignored.
Christopher who? In May, a party founded eight years ago, with no record in national government and only eight MPs, will fight elections in Wales and Scotland, and for control of councils across England, with every chance of winning many of them. British politics is being reshaped by Reform UK. This is a result of Nigel Farage's personality and of Christopher Harborne's money - £9m, from a fortune amassed largely through cryptocurrency investments. The party would not be able to field candidates, run social media operations or door-to-door campaigns if it weren't for the Harborne war chest. There is a template for crypto-funded campaigning - in the US, where it is viewed as having led to securing crypto-friendly legislation and sweetheart deals to enrich crypto charlatans and undermine transparency and accountability in politics. Reform threatens to destroy the Conservatives as a party of government and divide communities, increasingly along ethnic lines and with overtly racist arguments. It also poses the most serious threat to Keir Starmer's government, Harborne lives in Thailand and owns a 12% stake in the Tether stablecoin. Little else is known about this intensely private man. Yet he can influence the course of politics, seemingly without either much of a business or life in the UK. It's a lot like overseas interference in British democracy. Didn't someone once say: "Take back control"?
From yesterday's Observer.
OK, the Gorton and Denton by-election, I have some thoughts!
Let's take a look at some of the FACTS and burst a few of the more ridiculous takes doing the rounds
But first up, can we acknowledge just what bad losers Reform are?!🤣
Right, let's get started...
🧵 1/
As Nigel Farage is now so concerned about the influence of "foreign-born voters" can he finally explain why a Kazakhstan-born billionaire appears to be bankrolling his own political party?
Picture of Marjane Satrapi alongside a quote from her. The quote reads: The world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don't know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same... - Marjane Satrapi, Iranian-French graphic novelist
Thinking about this quote from Persepolis creator Marjane Satrapi again.
Donald Trump has explained that the attack on Iran was necessary to protect US citizens from the dangers of paying too much attention to the Epstein files.
Now that the by-election is over, perhaps we can get back to ignoring my racist bullying at school, Russian infiltration into my party, me lying about who paid for my house in Frinton and Reform run councils putting up council tax.
Reform, which spent its by-election campaign warning about the UK's "Christian heritage" being under threat, while proposing a ban on visas from predominantly Muslim countries, now accuses their opponents of engaging in "sectarian politics"
the party that wants to require ID to vote abruptly invalidating a thousand people’s IDs overnight seems like a pretty giant flashing red light
🗣️"When we fail to make sure we all have a decent home that we can afford, we’re failing in our most basic responsibility to protect people’s dignity."
Lead Analyst @jelliott94.bsky.social in @the-independent.com on the two abysmal new records in today's homelessness stats
https://bit.ly/4sa931L
Millions of young people are now facing the consequences of a referendum they were too young to vote in. If we truly care about future generations, we owe it to them to rebuild our ties with Europe and reopen the opportunities that Brexit has taken away.
In honour of the Sunday Telegraph's editor and offical maddest columnist, we have created the Allister Heath headline generator...
stirring-fox-7e1fab.netlify.app
🧵Reform's Matt Goodwin has said he is “not part of the establishment”, and criticised the “elite class”. But we found that his definition of “the elite” excludes the bankers, asset managers and global real estate executives who pay him /1 bylinetimes.com/2026/02/25/r...
With so much AI-generated imagery about, being a self-employed illustrator can feel a bit daunting.
To support someone who takes a couple of days to produce each illustration, please head over to matthewjiwood.com and take a look, or simply share this post - both hugely appreciated.
Matthew
A reminder, one day ahead of a by-election in which the Greens are favourites to defeat Reform, that the Daily Mail owner's wife recently donated £50,000 to Nigel Farage's party
