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Lizzie Dearden @lizziedearden.bsky.social · 20h

If you wondered why Nigel Farage turned up in US Congress in September speaking about "freedom of speech", this story has the answer

His appearance was orchestrated by a powerful American anti-abortion group that is trying to increase its influence in the UK by influencing the free speech debate

Jane Bradley @bradleyjane.bsky.social · 1d

NEW: How a U.S. anti-abortion group has quietly positioned itself as a powerbroker between the Trump administration and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

Latest investigation w Elizabeth Dias.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/w...

They Helped Topple Roe v. Wade. Now Their Sights Are Set on Britain.

www.nytimes.com

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Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 10h

Just in case the dramatically low Leni Riefenstahl-style angle was too subtle, they used a word from her most famous movie

Time magazine cover featuring a photo of Trump from a dramatically low angle

HIS
TRIUMPH
by ERIC CORTELLESSA
THE LEADER ISRAEL NEEDED
by EHUD BARAK
HOW GAZA HEALS

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Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 10h

Carole Cadwalladr was right and we’d be in a better world if more people had listened.

Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 15d

This tweet has been doing the rounds on Twitter now that Nathan Gill has pleaded guilty.

If only someone had tried to investigate UKIP & Russian interference 🧐

There’s another timeline where the Guardian supported me, doubled down on the investigation & I look 5 years younger ..

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Best for Britain @bestforbritain.org · 9h

As so often, @laylamoran.bsky.social finds gracious, unifying words.

"I choose to believe that peace is possible. Everyone who went on a protest, wrote to their MP, cares about it, shouted at their TV - from whatever point of view - what were those deaths for, if not for a sustainable peace?" ~AA

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Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 9h

I really don’t know how a British-Palestinian like @laylamoran.bsky.social, someone so close to and personally affected by everything that happened, finds those reserves of empathy, while people with much less skin in the game take it upon themselves to strike the most strident pose.

Best for Britain @bestforbritain.org · 9h

As so often, @laylamoran.bsky.social finds gracious, unifying words.

"I choose to believe that peace is possible. Everyone who went on a protest, wrote to their MP, cares about it, shouted at their TV - from whatever point of view - what were those deaths for, if not for a sustainable peace?" ~AA

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Farrukh @implausibleblog.bsky.social · 13h

BBC News's John Simpson hitting the nail on the head:

"What this doesn't do in any way is sort out the Palestinian question"

"What it does is stop the agony that people in Gaza have been suffering for two years"

"But it doesn't create a future path for them"

"Maybe that can come"

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Chris Grey @chrisgrey.bsky.social · 20h

This deserves more attention than it has received.

Gove: "we were too anxious as a government to secure those deals in order to show that Brexit was working".

Exactly as so many of us warned at the time, and as the government denied at the time.
www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/country-and-...

Michael Gove admits that post-Brexit trade deals were bad for farmers

Michael Gove has admitted for the first time that the Australia and New Zealand trade deals negotiated by the former Tory government did not protect Britain’s farmers.

www.yorkshirepost.co.uk

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Lawrence Freedman @ldfreedman.bsky.social · 1d

With Farage’s former colleague Nathan Gill guilty of taking money from Russia to promote its propaganda Sam looks at the wider connections between the radical right and Russia. (£/free trial), samf.substack.com/p/russia-and...

Russia and the rise of the radical right

Marine Le Pen meets with Putin before the 2017 French Presidential election (Photo credit Mikhail Klimentyev/AFP via Getty Images)

samf.substack.com

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Peter Jukes @peterjukes.bsky.social · 1d

For more on Nadia Sass/Borodi's role at the heart of a pan-European Russian influence machine, read more here

desk-russie.eu/2024/09/08/n...

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Rachel Maddow @maddow.msnbc.com · 1d

“With your patient and rigorous work, you can act as a barrier against those who, through the ancient art of lying, seek to create divisions in order to rule by dividing,” he said. “You can be a bulwark of civility against the quicksand of approximation and post-truth...”

apnews.com/article/pope...

Pope urges news agencies to stand as bulwark against lies, manipulation and post-truths

Pope Leo XIV has encouraged international news agencies to stand firm as a bulwark against the “ancient art of lying” and manipulation.

apnews.com

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Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 19h

Tens of thousands of people killed. An entire state reduced to rubble and he acts like it's the Apprentice final.

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Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 19h

Watching the Bibi & Don Show treat this like some grand victory, while people returning to northern Gaza dig the rubble for loved ones' remains, is pretty revolting.

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Peter Jukes @peterjukes.bsky.social · 2d

Most people seem to have missed who retweeted this picture of Farage in Gill’s office a few days after Gill began receiving his first bribes from Oleh Voloshyn (Oleg Voloshin). None other than…

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Lewis Baston @lewisbaston.bsky.social · 1d

It’s infuriating that so mediocre and crude a power as Russia is running rings round European democracies and that they have so many willing collaborators.

Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 1d

New post just out:

The relationship between Russia and the European radical right goes well beyond Reform's Nathan Gill being bribed.

In this post I trace the history back to the 1990s and look at the threat it poses now.

(£/free trial)

open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/r...

Russia and the rise of the radical right

Marine Le Pen meets with Putin before the 2017 French Presidential election (Photo credit Mikhail Klimentyev/AFP via Getty Images)

open.substack.com

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Seth Abramson @sethabramson.bsky.social · 2d

(🚨) BREAKING NEWS: Donald Trump No Longer Remembers That He Was President and Controlled the FBI on January 6, 2021, Confirming Americans' Worst Fears About His Advanced Dementia

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Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 1d

Epstein files giving House Republicans over two months paid vacation and counting.

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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 1d

New post just out:

The relationship between Russia and the European radical right goes well beyond Reform's Nathan Gill being bribed.

In this post I trace the history back to the 1990s and look at the threat it poses now.

(£/free trial)

open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/r...

Russia and the rise of the radical right

Marine Le Pen meets with Putin before the 2017 French Presidential election (Photo credit Mikhail Klimentyev/AFP via Getty Images)

open.substack.com

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 1d

“I’m old enough to remember when mainstream British politicians, who should know better, stirred up racial hatred as a path to power. You’re old enough to remember too because it was last Tuesday. And it was Robert Jenrick”

Cathartic anger at flag-flying racism.

www.thenerve.news/p/stewart-le...

Stewart Lee: The thugs have taken my flag. So I’ve taken theirs

What do you do with a lot of cheap banners hanging from motorway bridges once you’ve torn them down?

www.thenerve.news

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Andy Wood @andyatnanyuki.bsky.social · 1d

Cutting

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Jonathan Calder @lordbonkers.bsky.social · 1d

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices" - Adam Smith.

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Patrick Dunleavy @patrickdunleavy.bsky.social · 2d

A study in @nature.com shows the world’s biggest oil & gas companies contribute less than 1.5% to renewable energy capacity — despite claiming for years to be leading the energy transition.
www.exxonknews.org/p/study-oil- www.exxonknews.org/p/study-oil-...

www.exxonknews.org

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Adam Parkhomenko @adamparkhomenko.bsky.social · 2d

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Peter Jukes @peterjukes.bsky.social · 3d

Same day. Same plenary session. Same visit to Gill’s office. Same Farage, Same Gill, same wife of sanctioned pro Russian agent.

Six days after the first bribery charge

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Dr Stylite @columnist.bsky.social · 2d

This is an out of the money but good take.

Rob Ford @robfordmancs.bsky.social · 3d

Among the many possibilities for the next few years, the scenario of swapping one pair of dominant parties (Lab and Con) for another (Reform and LD) is intriguing, under-discussed and, in English elections, not entirely implausible either (several county councils made this leap in May)

Election Maps UK @electionmaps.uk · 3d

Aggregate Result of the 122 Council By-Elections (for 125 Seats) since the 2025 Local Elections:

RFM: 47 (+40)
LDM: 32 (+10)
CON: 13 (-15)
LAB: 12 (-30)
GRN: 11 (+3)
Ind: 5 (-4)
Local: 3 (-3)
SNP: 1 (-1)
PLC: 1 (=)

Explore: electionmaps.uk/byelections-...

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Andy Wood @andyatnanyuki.bsky.social · 2d

Watching MAGA cleaving from Trump in real time.