Becket McGrath

Just a reminder for these quieter afternoon hours, handling EU matters might be too complicated for Andy Haldane, but Andy Burnham has no choice if he wants to achieve his wider aims particularly on industry than to look again at freedom of movement.

Europe is the future now www.arguably.uk/p/europe-is-...

I was having conversations with journalists just a few months ago about whether democracy was doomed. Look at this year: Orban defeated. Vukic defeated. Bolsonaro Jr defeated. Trump heading to likely defeat in midterms. That’s the beauty of democracy. Voters can respond. Don’t count it out yet.

Charging for things is so so so so underrated

By trying to appease Putin, Trump is also weakening America’s relationships with our democratic allies and partners in Europe. In this new era of great power competition with China and Russia, our democratic allies are America’s greatest comparative advantage.

⬇️ A heartbreaking story. Brexit is continuing to tear families apart. EU membership would return our freedom to live wherever we wish in Europe. It is about regaining all the opportunities we have lost as a country.

PS if you are ever called upon to defend or explain the ECHR in public, I thoroughly recommend these materials published by @bonavero.bsky.social. For experts, they pull the key points together with loads of supporting detail; for non-experts they are crystal clear. www.linkedin.com/posts/examin...

Brexit was the greatest act of economic self-harm in our country’s history, leaving Londoners nearly £3,400 worse off on average.

Good morning dear friends, I wish everyone happy, healthy, productive, safe and peaceful day. Lviv, Ukraine 🇺🇦

It is crucial to call things by their proper names:call the aggressor an aggressor and help Ukraine protect lives. When supplies of missiles for Ukraine’s air defense are blocked while Russia receives sanctions relief or postponements,this unfortunately amounts to a denial of reality by our partners

The descent of the once great Newsnight into farce.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... "The biggest problem, though, is Germany’s belief in the enormity of its problems....the extreme right has a brief and simple story to tell." - yes absolutely and the root of that story is xenophobia. That will take decades to fix, decades we don't have.

Gah. Stop this nonsense. FOM is a benefit. Stop framing it as a negative. Also, FOM is one of the four freedoms. Without it, you can’t be in the EU and can’t even be in the single market. This isn’t difficult.

Burham is establishing Brexit as a negative before blowing the horn for the wonderful EU is the right way. We need to ensure soft/swing leavers they were not stupid/guilty, that UK isnt a pile of crap & that "Europeans arent laughing at us". In short we need to remove "I told you so" from this.

Crypto is one. A large personal fortune can certainly be made which can be turned into large political donations and influence policy. Much easier for crypto billionaire X to make donations to UK politicians than large global financial institution Y. Y matters more economically, X gets a voice.

Much of the coverage today is absolutely nuts. The facts are on Wikipedia. The full Intelligence and Security Committee (Russia) Report is online. Tory media & politicians once again banking on their average consumer/voter being too daft/busy/blinkered to notice...

A sustainable closer relationship for UK-EU works better with broad + sustained consent - aiming around the 60% line, not trying to win/lose 52-48. If there was a solid 6/10 for single market, or a solid 6/10 for full membership then or later, a referendum ratifies the consensus & is nothing to fear

Lots of encouraging signs in the Commons debate in relation to the UK's relationship with the EU. One point has been annoying me though. It is not 'this Brexit deal', or 'the Tories' Brexit deal', which is the problem. It is the decision to leave the single market. 1/2

EU Foreign Ministers just adopted nearly 1,600 new sanctions listings targeting Russia’s military-industrial complex. This is the single largest expansion of our sanctions list since Russia started its war. Europe is again showing a united front.

If Americans view, clip, share, and permanently enshrine an American public killing in a million ways on the internet, we will move towards fascist rituals of violence. snyder.substack.com/p/four-wrong...

Those who were old enough to vote in 2016 but didn’t also now break heavily Remain. So three forces all steadily pulling electorate in same direction. The politics which makes sense in a 52/48 nation may not make sense in a 40/60 nation. And we are 40/60 nation now.

This is... bold I did not have London passengers getting onto Platform 5 Köln Hbf on a new bridge on my #CrossChannelRail bingo card 😄 But something is happening re. Köln - London direct trains, so that is welcome I suppose? www.ksta.de/koeln/eurost...

If an election were held tomorrow for Britain to rejoin the EU, how would you vote? Rejoin: 52% Remain outside: 27% Don't know: 15% Would not vote: 7% 22% of Leave voters would now vote to rejoin yougov.com/en-gb/articl...

Chancellor Merz has welcomed Prime Minister Andy Burnham to Berlin for his official visit. The PM was greeted with military honours. The visit underscores the strength of 🇩🇪🇬🇧 ties, which reached a new high point last year with the signing of the landmark #KensingtonTreaty.

About ten years ago, my "Britain Stronger In Europe" mug broke off at the handle as I was drinking from it, smashed onto the kitchen worksurface, and splashed tea all over my biography of Edward Heath. It was the most perfect metaphor for the Remain campaign imaginable.

Danny Thomas where he belongs: in custody.

Why do people keep falling for russian propaganda? No, Ukraine’s self-defense isn't driving up oil prices, a war in Iran is. And it’s far worse for Ukraine than for any of you, because higher oil prices directly fund russia's ability to keep killing us.

I would love to ask a prominent BBC journalist to give me an example of an illegitimate concern. Is seems to me that it has become a question not of fact, logic, or ethics but of volume. If a big enough proportion of a village was anxious about Bigfoot or Chemtrails, BBC would cover it in a way...

Completely unacceptable that the incredibly brave and dedicated RNLI volunteers are being treated in this way. They are the best of us and truly represent the country I know and love.

Sabina Ciofu of Tech UK launches their report with the clear message that Europe is stronger when we work together. The obvious message not nearly heard enough from UK politicians in Brussels (right now far too much "yours wrong over Made in Europe)

Here @stephenkb.bsky.social seeks to remind the Labour government, old & new, that the point + purpose of recognising "legitimate concerns" about immigration was to understand how to differentiate these from *illegitimate concerns* rooted in intimidation + xenophobia www.ft.com/content/2279...

New guidance to ministers on • consultations: there are to be fewer of them • legal risk: ministers are to be “empowered to accept higher levels of legal risk” • judicial review: further limits to JR of big infrastructure projects www.gov.uk/government/p...

This is serious. If Reform blatantly, intentionally and knowingly broke election law, they should be held fully accountable. Liberal Democrats have asked the Police and the Electoral Commission to investigate.

"I want your children's lungs to be smaller and less functional" is a bold electoral strategy.

Wow. If anyone asks what the European Convention on Human Rights has ever done for anyone, show them this👇 🔗 www.modernslaverypec.org/informing-th... Brilliant new explainer on how Hillsborough families have used the ECHR, through the Human Rights Act, to fight for truth and state accountability

It’s just depressing. Further education has been cut to ribbons. Higher education is in crisis. Labour turns its eyes to the bit of the education system which is turning out the highest literacy rates in the western world and goes “that’s the bit that needs to change”

Excellent piece by @samfr.bsky.social. If you're using the term "Boriswave", you're doing the work of the alt-right. The Starmer-McSweeney leadership took this up as an attack line. But as they so often discovered, if you adopt your opponents' diagnosis, it becomes hard to avoid their solutions.

To stop it, we need 1) leaders to make better choices; 2) the media to recognise their enabling role in normalising this escalation cycle and stop doing so 3) a significant civil society effort in support of 1) and 2). In my view, we are failing on all three currently. /end

Few people understand that the UK university system is in crisis, but even fewer realise that many of the people losing their jobs are amongst the best in their fields