Lee
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justlee.bsky.social
Lee
@justlee.bsky.social
Mostly reasonable, but with a dash of snark.
Not really a squirrel.
Pinned
Unfortunate realities:

1. Climate change impacts are here, and getting worse
2. Brexit is damaging and will continue to be so
3. Our population is aging
4. Our fertility rate is dropping
5. The US President is authoritarian, quite mad, and rapidly deteriorating
Reposted by Lee
November 27, 2025 at 8:44 PM
Reposted by Lee
The "don't have an extra kid if you can't afford it" brigade get awfully upset when you suggest they don't stay in their £2m house if they can't afford it, don't they?
November 27, 2025 at 6:09 PM
Reposted by Lee
Today's 70% fall in net migration to 205,000 was not one of the six stories in BBC ten o'clock news.

Ta massive assymetry in whether rises in immigration and falls in immigration are considered newsworthy by broadcasters

Down by 140k isn't thought to be.

Up by 140k undoubtedly would be.
November 27, 2025 at 10:05 PM
Reposted by Lee
This is the first Thanksgiving for Sophie & Colin Hortman without their parents, Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and Mark Hortman who were assassinated along with the family dog in an act of political murder. National guards troops were not deployed to the state in response.
November 27, 2025 at 5:24 PM
Reposted by Lee
The UK, where the day after a decision to take half a million children out of poverty, the media & political world has been full of sneering at those same children & their families, labelling them as ‘Benefits Street’, while the same people are moaning about a tax on £2m mansions. Shameful stuff.
November 27, 2025 at 8:22 PM
Reposted by Lee
Abysmal, mindless, utterly zombified. You can't even call it policymaking because that implies a degree of thought which simply isn't present. Pretty soon they might actually hit Cameron's 'tens of thousands' target and then they'll shit themselves with horror at the consequences.
PM describes net migration of 205k as "a step in the right direction". His govt has no public position on a sustainable level of immigration is, nor any known process to decide what, why & how. Starmer is now implying he wants it significantly lower
www.standard.co.uk/news/politic...
Net migration drop ‘step in the right direction’ – Starmer
Net migration peaked at a record 944,000 in the year to March 2023 but has fallen sharply since then.
www.standard.co.uk
November 27, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Reposted by Lee
The government figuring this out slowly over the coming two years is going to be quite something to behold.
I think the government meant to cut net migration but have accidentally overshot the target by a lot. They haven’t realised this yet.
November 27, 2025 at 4:14 PM
Reposted by Lee
‼️‼️ Newly released emails show the FBI spent almost $1 million in overtime analyzing the Epstein files as part of an effort dubbed the “Special Redaction Project."
FBI’s Frantic Scramble to Redact Epstein Files Revealed
A trove of emails shows all-nighters and almost $1 million in overtime as Trumpworld debated releasing the Epstein files.
www.thedailybeast.com
November 27, 2025 at 3:51 AM
Reposted by Lee
Serious howls of outrage in the media this morning at what is a relatively modest Budget from Labour that does nothing more than fiddle around the margins.

It does highlight the missed opportunity. If you’re going to get this reaction anyway, why not at least get it for attempting a big swing?
November 27, 2025 at 7:41 AM
Just plain weird how we never saw, or now see, any similar reporting about those who trusted Farage and co about the great Brexit betrayal.
November 27, 2025 at 9:22 AM
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I think Starmer's Labour actually intend to outright destroy British universities. I don't understand *why* they're doing it but it's definitely what they're doing
November 26, 2025 at 9:22 PM
Reposted by Lee
This is very much not what students were told when they took out their loans. But very much the signature of a government determined to squeeze ordinary people rather than taxing the very wealthy.
November 26, 2025 at 9:32 PM
Reposted by Lee
Jesus CHRIST
November 26, 2025 at 8:04 PM
Reposted by Lee
Imagine if they forgot one year
Big news, income tax is being charged this year.

(It has to be renewed each year or it ceases to apply. Because it's a temporary tax, introduced to fund the Napoleonic wars)
November 26, 2025 at 10:20 PM
Reposted by Lee
On Truss & Kwarteng in ‘22. Allister Heath, Telegraph: “the best budget I have ever heard a British chancellor deliver". Alex Brummer, Mail: “a genuine Tory package elbowing to one side the Treasury's fiscal conservatism".
These men will now be paid actual money for their analysis of today’s budget.
November 26, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Reposted by Lee
Good morning to Brazilian reporter Manuela Borges, who’s been waiting eleven years for this petty moment. ❤️ 🇧🇷
November 26, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Reposted by Lee
the decline and fall of the american republic in two headlines
November 26, 2025 at 4:52 PM
Reposted by Lee
If Rachel Reeves gets challenged about this bullseye on Farage being a Russian asset, she should simply reply that it was not meant in a hurtful way.
"We are freezing known Russian assets" says Rachel Reeves

"But let me be clear, I don't actually mean the member for Clacton"
November 26, 2025 at 3:11 PM
Reposted by Lee
On the one hand, this is the perfect end to an amazingly chaotic Budget process. On the other, it makes it much easier to cover than having to actually listen to the speech.
BREAKING The entire Budget has leaked early

- £22BN of headroom
- £26bn tax rises
- Freeze on tax thresholds
- Pay per mileage confirmed
- Changes to capital gains
November 26, 2025 at 12:11 PM
The ability to politicise our legal system is one reason our juries remain quite so important to anyone interested in justice.
The judge due to rule on the proscription of Palestine Action is swapped last minute for a panel that includes a judge with a history of working for the government and another who ruled in favour UK selling jets to Israel.

Accusations of a “stitch-up”.

novaramedia.com/2025/11/25/a...
A ‘Stitch-Up’: Palestine Action Case Gets New Judges | Novara Media
The judicial review of Palestine Action’s proscription has been thrown into turmoil by a last-minute change. A new panel of judges includes one with a long history of working for the government and an...
novaramedia.com
November 26, 2025 at 7:24 AM
Reposted by Lee
Very succinct WSJ summary of the staggering migration shock that successive Tory governments inflicted on Britain as they tried to mitigate and hide the economic consequences of the Brexit disaster
August 28, 2025 at 2:22 PM
Reposted by Lee
'He's got to sell Ukraine to Russia' - Freudian by the President on that Air Force One clip.
November 26, 2025 at 7:18 AM
Reposted by Lee
A small but significant step: Dutch national broadcaster NOS is leaving X.

“The volume of hateful comments and disinformation on X is enormous and flows freely. This also applies under our own posts, meaning we unintentionally contribute to their spread”

over.nos.nl/nieuws/nos-p...
NOS plaatst vanaf vandaag geen nieuwsberichten meer op X - Over NOS
De NOS en Nieuwsuur (NOS/NTR) zijn gestopt met posten op X. Het platform past niet meer bij onze visie op...
over.nos.nl
November 25, 2025 at 11:13 AM
Reposted by Lee
This would be a reasonable policy if the new limit was set at say, £10k or even £20k, but it wouldn’t raise very much.

As it is, this is just deeply stupid policy making that discourages responsible pension savings, because the government is scrabbling for change rather than grasping the nettle.
November 25, 2025 at 11:27 PM