James O’Brien

An exciting* development. *For me, obviously, but hopefully for you too!

All those scandals are starting to stick.

By all accounts this is what most of the recent Reform media events have looked like. Bubble well and truly burst

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…

Back in the US after a long break in the UK, I am suffering from total sticker shock after visiting a couple of DC supermarkets. I have never seen prices like it. Inflation numbers here are going to soar & are not yet telling the full story. The difference between late May & today is staggering.

"Suicidal provocation of Russia while our armed forces are at their most woeful state since WW2". Mate, the Russian army is currently pulling T-55's out of storage and losing ~1,800 men a day in foot and motorcycle assaults that achieve nothing. This is "poke the bear" nonsense.

Incredible. Student List are candidates selected by groups of students to form an anti-corruption party. Another youth-led movement overthrowing an authoritarian government in Europe.

Serbia: The Serbian Progressive Party (SNS-EPP) has admitted defeat in today's parliamentary elections. The Student List (SL-*) has won a majority of votes. #Serbia #Srbija #Izbori2026

The toilets on my train aren’t working but if you need to go, let the guard know & they’ll hold the train while you do your business in Leamington Spa. I feel like I’m in a Victoria Wood song.

[And the stuff on interest payments was even worse. The UK does face significant fiscal constraints. This utterly economically illiterate rubbish does absolutely nothing to illuminate them. ]

This is just dreadful stuff from Kuenssberg: "What has the government done to cut the national debt?" ONS: "Public sector net debt was provisionally estimated at 94.0% of GDP, 0.7 percentage points lower than a year earlier"

Yes, but your two big ideas so far have been police and crime commissioners and Brexit. Shall we check on them first?

Apologies, there was a third idea

Grok fact-checks its master 👇🏽 👀

The kindest thing to do now would be to ignore her, but she makes it very difficult.

"The generalised miasma of Team Trump’s conflicts of interest and complex business deals has been there for a long time. Even if absolutely everything is within the letter of the law, many Americans decided they’d had enough of such self-enrichment long ago."

In his Daily Mail column today, describing Trump as "toast," Richard Littlejohn mocks the President's attempted annexation of Greenland as being mad, using the phrase "nurse!" Here's what Littlejohn wrote about it when Trump first suggested it

I guess that, unlike with Brexit where daft fantasy seems endlessly sustainable, Trump’s awfulness becomes objectively undeniable at some point. Notable how many reverse ferrets involve zero self-examination or remorse. This is very good…

Yes, yes, yes. In our pod chat, Jim Swift and I make a related point: You can't really bottle Trump's magic hate potion, so Ramaswamy is trying to get Trump involved, because only he can bring in the genuine article:

The fall in immigration is mutilating Healey’s Budget iandunt.substack.com/p/the-fall-i...

Someone gave Kemi a taser and she's literally never been happier

Slamming into reverse so fast you can hear the gears crunch

You don’t fight fascists by pretending their ‘concerns’ are ‘legitimate’.

Rent-free!

@mrjamesob.bsky.social Oh!

Not that 'c' word, you filthy so and so!

There's a podcast!

“Quick! Do some racism, you’re losing the crowd.”

If there was ever a day for doing parking tickets on the radio... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Humiliating and dangerous: Trump has now finally just made America an ally of the Kremlin and is aiding Putin in his war against an American friend and partner. Shameful betrayal of a US friend, and pathetic submission to a US enemy. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/1...

Oh well, no harm done, eh?

Note: TikTok - 15% owned by Musk pal Larry Ellison - permanently banned our "Musk" the movie account on the platform. www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/politic...

The SNP conference has supported a motion calling for the SNP & the Scottish government to leave the X platform owned by Elon Musk www.thenational.scot/news/2664596...

Hiding in plain sight.

Can the denial and wishful thinking about Trump and Russia finally stop now? But he’s trying for peace! (Telling Ukraine to surrender, trying to enrich his cronies) But he told others to sanction Russia! (Just a show—no follow up) But he’s sanctioning Russia! (No, Congress did and he removed it)

The slithering back to even vaguely positive or optimistic analyses of Trump’s second term after the abominations of January 6th cleared the way for today’s abject betrayal of the Ukrainian people. It’s astonishing how many public figures on both sides of the Atlantic are complicit in the crime.

Sad. But at least she can go back to not being a lawyer.

Many warned about Farage when he was racist to Romanians in 2014 on @mrjamesob.bsky.social show, referring to Muslims as a fifth column and defending Chinese racist slurs. Thats over 10 years ago. The system and people building careers have contributed to this being normalised. It’s no surprise.

One distinctive feature of Trump's second term is that it's become impossible to differentiate when he's being stupid and when he's being mendacious. But on this it hardly even matters—his conduct on Ukraine in the last week alone would be grounds for impeachment in any functioning political system.

Shocking undercover footage of Reform!

And in the Black Sea currently. Seafarers are under attack and this needs to be bigger news everywhere. If your workplace were being blown up I think you would be shouting about it too!! 7 seafarers are currently missing from these vessels. #SAR #seafarersafety

Best news in ages.

Trump breaks completely with Zelensky and Zelensky calls it betrayal. All while Trump conspires to ease sanctions on Russia to America's financial benefit while the war on Ukraine continues. Plus a Zacharia update. Mine with @mrjamesob.bsky.social earlier @lbc.co.uk www.youtube.com/watch?v=whc5...

I'm hearing breaking news that somebody in Reform hasn't said something racist. More as I have it.

Trump’s a Russian asset, Farage’s party is a racist enterprise, Putin wanted Brexit & if you tried to make a list of all the UK politicians & pundits who’ve backed all three, you’d be here for hours.

Kemi Badenoch spent most of PMQs pouring doubt on Andy Burnham's claims about Russian interference in our democracy, yet her spokesman can't tell me whether she has yet read the Russia report, which was published some six years ago during her own time in Government