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Reposted by Kev Shaw

Ed Wilson @eddwilson.bsky.social · 14h

"During the first 10 years of the spending cuts that began in 2010, councils’ funding for youth services in England and Wales suffered a real-terms cut of 70%. By 2023, about 1,200 publicly run youth centres had closed, and more than 4,500 youth workers had lost their jobs."

#r4today

Britain's youth clubs have been quietly decimated. What's most revealing is that few seem to care | John Harris

These vital spaces have been the first targets of cuts in a nation that favours age over youth – despite being the remedy for blights such as social division, polarisation and loneliness, says Guardia...

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Kev Shaw

JWexTheSpa @jwsidders.bsky.social · 11h

A ban on borrowing to fund government expenditure surely means huge cuts to all public services on a scale never seen before. The NHS could not survive this. Neither could the Triple Lock.

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Kev Shaw @kevshaw99.bsky.social · 9h

Yup.

The amount saved by cutting education for those in prison will be tiny in comparison with the amount of money to cover the policing/court/prison costs of having more people re-offend.

I just don't understand why this isn't obvious to politicians, advisors and civil servants.

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Kev Shaw @kevshaw99.bsky.social · 11h

Let's hope the racists, religious loons and fascists in both Hamas and the Israeli government will stop trying to kill everyone on the other side.

Sadly, I don't think it will last.

I hope beyond hope that I'm wrong.

Kev Shaw @kevshaw99.bsky.social · 1d

👏👏👏👏

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...

Reposted by Kev Shaw

Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · 2d

“We can give $20 billion to Argentina but we can’t afford the CDC’s measles experts” is a hell of an argument

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JWexTheSpa @jwsidders.bsky.social · 1d

Reservoirs are now fuller in Spain than they are in South West England. And South West England is probably in a better position that much of the rest of the country. Across England, there is no meaningful rainfall in sight.

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Reposted by Kev Shaw

Ed Wilson @eddwilson.bsky.social · 1d

Ceasefire withdrawal

#bbclaurak

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Dave Vetter @davidrvetter.bsky.social · 1d

Every day is a good day to point out that 92% of Reform's donations were found to come from figures and groups linked to the fossil fuel industry. @desmog.com

Nigel Farage’s Reform Party Has Accepted £2.3 Million from Fossil Fuel Interests, Climate Deniers, and Polluters Since 2019 Election

Reform UK has received more than £2.3 million from oil and gas interests, highly polluting industries, and climate science deniers since December 2019, amounting to 92 percent of the party’s donations...

www.desmog.com

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Paul Marshall @pmarsha11.bsky.social · 2d

"I have worked with Nathan Gill over a period of years and he's been terrific, he's never, ever, let me down. He's as honest as the day is long."
Nigel Farage
BBC News 2016

Welsh election: UKIP's Farage backs 'terrific' Gill

UKIP leader Nigel Farage backs the party's Welsh leader Nathan Gill as

www.bbc.co.uk

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Ed Wilson @eddwilson.bsky.social · 1d

Israeli deputy foreign minister Sharren Haskel on BBC World Service says Israel has accepted "Trump's 20 point plan" but Hamas has not.

She's dodging all questions about tomorrow's conference and falling back on the old scripts. It's Israel against the world.

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Josiah Mortimer @josiah.writes.news · 2d

Politico: "Boris Johnson breached anti-sleaze rules (again) after failing to come clean about work he is said to have done for two firms without consulting regulators...Johnson sought to link firms up with foreign government representatives & entered into contracts without consulting the watchdog."

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Kev Shaw @kevshaw99.bsky.social · 3d

👏👏👏👏

Twlldun @twlldun.bsky.social · 3d

The speed and booze addicted dressed in black playing raw live shows in prisons with a voice like god almighty himself guy is “deeply uncool”? What

The Wall Street Journal @wsj.com · 3d

Compared to Dylan and Springsteen, country-music legend Johnny Cash can seem deeply uncool. It took time for me to appreciate his profound, plainspoken strength, writes Jon Fasman.

Kev Shaw @kevshaw99.bsky.social · 3d

More Brexit benefits.

European Movement UK @europeanmovement.co.uk · 3d

From Sunday, travelling into Europe gets tougher for Brits.

New EU border rules mean fingerprint scans, photo registration and longer queues.

This is the real-world cost of Brexit - more hassle, more red tape, more delays.

Kev Shaw @kevshaw99.bsky.social · 3d

Exactly.

But a decade of relentless lies, unchallenged by most of the mass audience media, will change that I'm sure.

mimij9.bsky.social @mimij9.bsky.social · 3d

Numerous polls have been conducted on withdrawing or not from the ECHR.

The more recent polls have given a clear majority (over 50%) staying in the ECHR.

The evidence is clear, withdrawal commands neither majority support nor political urgency.

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Kev Shaw @kevshaw99.bsky.social · 3d

Maybe 9 months ago a you might have said it's just because Reform are new and interesting.

That's no longer possible.

It's so obvious, so out of keeping with majority opinion (outside of X and the Telegraph/Mail), that it's obviously deliberate bias.

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Kev Shaw @kevshaw99.bsky.social · 3d

It's also a clear indicator the basic editorial values now in place at the BBC, and not a good one.

It's why we see the constant non-critical lionising of Farage from the BBC politics editor (Mason), reflected on the key political/news broadcasts and content online.

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Reposted by Kev Shaw

ProPublica @propublica.org · 3d

Kristi Noem, while governor of South Dakota, supplemented her roughly $130,000 salary by secretly accepting $80,000 donated to a political nonprofit she was affiliated with, records show.

She never disclosed this income on federal ethics forms.

(Published June)

Kristi Noem Secretly Took a Cut of Political Donations

A dark money group paid $80,000 to Noem’s personal company when she was governor of South Dakota. She did not include this income on her federal disclosure forms, a likely violation of ethics requirem...

www.propublica.org

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Kev Shaw @kevshaw99.bsky.social · 3d

Completely agree.

In hindsight, the central party's approach to the Uxbridge by-election should have alerted us to the self defeating caution/cowardice in taking on the populist right that seems to be core to the messaging and some elements of policy now in government.

Kev Shaw @kevshaw99.bsky.social · 3d

That's a tactical vote result if ever I saw one - big drop in Greens as well as Labour, supporting the increase in LibDem vote, I think.

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Kev Shaw @kevshaw99.bsky.social · 3d

Polanski is a great communicator, in charge of a party with a clear platform.

His ability to take on the bollocks pushed by Reform and the Tufton Street bro's is refreshing.

It also makes Labour's abject failure to communicate the positive things it's doing and attack the right seem cowardly.

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Kev Shaw @kevshaw99.bsky.social · 3d

I have to say we should not be convicting people of saying mean things about a religion, or for mistreating or destroying a religion's symbols.

This guy was creating a public nuisance, and such a charge would be sufficient.

Adding a religious element to his charges is a slippery slope, imo.

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Kev Shaw @kevshaw99.bsky.social · 3d

Absolutely spot on.

Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 3d

It's never the comms. Labour's comms is grey because in the absence of a clear strategy for what the government wants to achieve, no-one can defend or articulate what the government says in an interesting or exciting way.

Lewis Goodall @lewisgoodall.com · 3d

I do wonder if Labour might look at the sorts of people dominating the discourse and dominating the content wars and maybe, just maybe, rethink the sorts of grey figures they routinely put up for interviews, instructed at that to be as cautious as possible. Things have changed. Their comms hasn’t.

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Kev Shaw @kevshaw99.bsky.social · 3d

Exactly this.

JWexTheSpa @jwsidders.bsky.social · 3d

Brexit is irreversible until those who want to reverse it decide defeating the anti-EU right is more important than anything else. Until the EU sees that, and then the defeat, there is no chance it will countenance initiating a rejoin process.

Anthony Painter @anthonypainter.bsky.social · 3d

It's national broken clock being right day.

Totally right.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

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Kev Shaw @kevshaw99.bsky.social · 3d

Yup.

But the politics of replacing it with a property tax are .... challenging.

To raise more money overall,.most people would pay more than they are now - obviously.

FT Edit @ftedit.ft.com · 4d

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, what's the most unfair tax of them all?

An #FTEdit 🧵on the madness of council tax 👇

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