Michael

Finally, a newsletter I want to sign up to!

Good representation on the back row from the worst sixth formers you know.

Reform UK now in third place in four out of the last five UK polls bsky.app/profile/youg...

When I think about Brexit harms I think about @gailmyerscough.co.uk and the damage it did to her ability to sell to customers in Europe. She has exactly the sort of small business politicians all love to say they support.

So here it is, why Made in Europe and the general air of major power coercion are key to Andy Burnham's rejoin and free movement talk. A world about as far as possible away from the Brexit vision as it could be - and an incentive for the pro-EU side. rejoinrejoin.substack.com/p/made-in-eu...

I get that the media is slow to catch up with things. I'm in the media, I am slow to catch up with things. But the week Reform's crowd looks like this, the BBC chooses _this week_ to go live to Farage's endless remarks on the budget; makes absolutely no sense

As in Hungary, the authoritarian regime in Serbia is being dismantled . “For years, we failed to fulfill our duty. We kept silent, turned a blind eye, reported events one-sidedly, and failed to ask the necessary questions. For that, we owe our viewers an apology,” news anchor Goran Eror said.

What’s that you say? Liz has a new book out which even the Telegraph is saying is even more unhinged than the last one? Wonderful, I’ll post this then.

Oh boy, are the Right excited by this graph recently published by The Economist! And of course none of them has bothered to read the article itself (TBF, it is behind a paywall!). So as always, let's add a little context and explain why these kinds of comparisons are so problematic 🧵1/25

Solar has overtaken nuclear. A decade ago it supplied 1% of the world's power. In 2025 it met three quarters of global demand growth. Almost nobody saw it coming. I spoke to Jocelyn Timperley at BBC Future about why. www.bbc.co.uk/future/artic...

A 2025 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, Omar Yaghi is the son of Palestinian refugees who grew up in Jordan. He just left the US to move to China after raising concerns about rising anti-immigrant sentiment, like the kind shown here. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/china-than...

A slowly-dying Far Right party.

Glad to see a government finally attuned to my priorities.

1. Lose election 2. Assume Trump will steal election for him 3. Trump is flailing around and failing to steal his own election 4. Oh shit oh fuck

Stop what you are doing and look at this lovely story. A photography student in the 80s took pictures of punks and mods on the street in Preston. He’s now tracked them down and photographed them again. The pictures and stories are really ❤️ www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Michael Atiyah 🇪🇬: Fields Medal 1966 (also Abel Prize 2004), for K-theory. Ahmed Zewail 🇪🇬: Nobel for Chemistry 1999, for his work on femtochemistry. Omar M. Yaghi 🇯🇴: Wolf Prize 2018, Nobel for Chemistry 2025, for his work on reticular chemistry Naguib Mahfouz 🇪🇬: Nobel for literature 1988

Jenrick has set out how Reform would maximise our “Brexit freedoms”. And this is their list. This is the very best they can come up with. “Re-legalise imperial units” It’s truly pathetic that this is the pinnacle of their Brexit fever dream. And that anyone would still back this ruinous idiocy…

This is just the maddest argument. These people would trap us in poverty to keep a decade old commitment, which no one ever actually made, to an electorate which no longer exists.

The cuts being made at the BBC are unforgivable. They are putting it into a death spiral. The weaker it gets, the less people will want to support it. And yes, this is an issue for the Government, which likes to pretend it's not their problem. It is.

Really pleased to start my first day as Senior Content Editor for Ballon d’Or!

Left: President Trump insults Norway calling it a sh*thouse country Right: Visit Norway, the tourism board, trolls President Trump, displaying some of their best toilets on their Instagram 😅

If the UK and France can't or won't hold the line against a Victor Orban Secretary-General bid, they should give up their Permanent Seats on the Security Council. No shame in no longer being globally relevant, but if it really has gotten that bad it would be humiliating to keep pretending.

The 'Narrator About to Ruin Your Audiobook Book' Talent Agency (Prints of this one and many others available in my shop! Link in bio)

Attended a Tony Benn speech and he said the main function of a government was to make people feel safe. Farage is doing the opposite. The UK ISN'T broken. Farage needs to attend, say, a Park Run and see decent people getting on with their lives, not obsessing that others are having a better time.

UK Establishment Press boosting the Far-Right the exact same way the US media did in the mid-2010's by treating any time Donald Trump spoke as live breaking news

The British syndrome, summarised: 78% of us say our high streets are important to us. But only 28% of us actually use their local high street even once a week – and only 53% of people said they used theirs *once a month*. We won't use it, and we won't lose it.

Sorry, let's just get this out the way. YOUR CHANCELLOR SIGNED THE FECKIN LETTER APPROVING THE BOE'S QT DECISION, LIZ. THE. DAY. BEFORE. THE. MINI-BUDGET. Jesus Christ.

me: mom, what was I like as a little girl? my mom (completely fucking braindead): hey alexa describe a human kid or something

Hey Gemini what is my kid's name and what does she look like, I'm at her school play and I can't figure out which one it is

The shift away from the US continues. Ten countries have now signed on for Macron’s Forward Deterrence initiative, including the UK, Germany and Poland, WSJ reports. Under the plan, France would station nuclear-capable fighter jets across Europe as trust in the US erodes.

Naomi has polling evidence, I have trade policy evidence that Made in Europe means the UK being further squeezed out of manufacturing supply chains, and that talking about Freedom of Movement is a response to that.

Lula Goes HARD

My pal Danielle Koenig shared that her father Walter Koenig passed away last night at age 90. A performer whose kindness and warmth shone through the screen. He will be well remembered.

The correct legal approach to this seems to be that when platforms start favouring some content over other, they don‘t deserve immunity for third party content on the basis that they are just platforms. They should become liable. finance.yahoo.com/media-advert...

Yissss

“Digital crimes must be dealt with like real-life crimes.” 💯

Still going on. Twenty minutes uninterrupted coverage so far. Robert Jenrick is currently talking about sex chat bots.

Victory for Lula, who has already reduced Amazon deforestation by 70% since 2022, means there is now a chance of ending deforestation of the rainforest entirely I’m weeping with joy for Brazil, for the Indigenous peoples of the Amazon, and for life on Earth 🇧🇷🌳🌎 www.theguardian.com/world/2026/o...

A new survey of 1,000 American adults found that the strongest supporters of transgender sports bans are not the people who admire women most: they are the people who hold the most hostile views about women. www.helenwebberley.com/news/transge...

cool, cool

This went on for the rest of the full hour, at which point the BBC apologised for having to go to the weather and urged viewers to follow continuing live coverage on iPlayer. Forty-one minutes of unfiltered, unchallenged propaganda by a far right party with 8 MPs, now third in the polls. Discuss.

I’m not a political journalist, so was gladly surprised at the community I found here last night. To Americans anxious about the upcoming elections, a key thing we learned in Brazil that might help you: DO NOT engage with the far-right online. Don’t share rage bait. Amplify your people. Ignore them.

BBC News just interrupted its coverage to go, live, to Nigel Farage - a man with no contitutional standing in our setup - responding to the budget - a document which nobody has seen yet. WHY