Paddywack Dave

This morning on BBC Breakfast, Nigel Farage said he had received “zero help from the state” with his security. Yet reports say he had previously received publicly funded protection and was offered a taxpayer-funded package including a bodyguard, a secure car and a trained driver.

Can we please make him pay for lying? It's the only way this nonsense stops.

This went on for the rest of the full hour, at which point the BBC apologised for having to go to the weather and urged viewers to follow continuing live coverage on iPlayer. Forty-one minutes of unfiltered, unchallenged propaganda by a far right party with 8 MPs, now third in the polls. Discuss.

Lib Dems, third for most of my life, have never had anything like this. The party currently has over 70 MPs but is almost invisible. Yet when they do a stupid stunt for attention, the media gets very angry. Maybe, you know, stop just platforming Farage all the bloody time?

HSBC made £900 every SECOND over the last three months. The case for taxing these bumper profits to support people with the cost of living crisis is overwhelming. Great to see our analysis featured in @mirror.co.uk 👇 www.mirror.co.uk/money/hsbc-b...

Is that £77,760,000 A DAY or is my maths off?

So, a reminder that anyone can become disabled in a moment. Of course it helps if you’re a rich “businessman” with a stately-home resident and mother-of-the-heir for a partner. No problem with PIP Or Motability here then. #TheArchers

Wow! Still recovering from Friday’s episode. I’m shocked. “Iceland” “Kit-Kat” “Penguin” 😮😮😮 Does this mean no more “Games Console” and that it’ll be possible to get a pint of Guinness in The Bull!? #TheArchers

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

Muslims and immigrants, despite all the lies we're told about them, have never presented a systemic threat to Western security, let alone to "Western civilisation". Instead, the threats come from our governments, especially in the US, and their grim alliances with capital and overseas dictators.

Thought for the day.

As @lukepiper.bsky.social points out bsky.app/profile/luke...

is the *Labour* party really going to let its Home Secretary argue for semi-permanent indentured servitude?

How can parts of the UK still be in drought even if it's raining? 🌧️ Jasmine Hughes, from the @ukceh.bsky.social, explains why it takes more than a downpour to replenish our soils, rivers and groundwater.

Weirdly the pensioners most at risk from the impending 2027 heatwave will be the ones cheering this on in your comments section

Will this ‘transition away from fossil fuels’ last until they’ve sucked up the very last drop of oil and the planet is in flames? #r4today

The problem is not really Jackdaw, which is pretty small. The problem is the UK's plan to transition away from fossil fuels is still not ambitious and detailed enough. The problem is if Rosebank follows. The problem is if every country develops one last fossil fuel project we're all screwed.

Our real tomorrow gets more scary when climate vandalism gets the green light. Shame on this government. #Jackdaw

@greenpeaceuk.bsky.social Was that Areeba Hamid on #r4Today? Very impressive in the face of Government stupidity. #Jackdaw #RoseBank #Inflation

The usual driver of inflation is an overheated economy. The defence: Interest rates; a heavy and blunt tool at the best of times. But raising them now isn’t going to influence Trump, Putin, Iran, Israel or any other world vandal. What options does the #UK have? #Economics #Budget #R4Today #Healey

Carpet is tasked with saving Mince from being bored to death by Josh. He’s screwed isn’t he. #TheArchers

Moomins creater Tove Jansson created illustrations for 'Garm', an anti-fascist Finnish-Swedish satirical magazine between 1929 (age 15) and 1953 #WomensArt

Mask up even if you're an athlete. Covid is far from over.

Putting creativity at the heart of the curriculum: What the government needs to do now. Sign Arts and Minds latest Open Letter to the government. actionnetwork.org/forms/puttin...

A chat with the band Studio Morocco from the 19 March 1986 edition of the Northampton Chronicle and Echo. Towards the end, there is a mention of the band being linked to the Piddington studio of the same name, where Spacemen 3 (who get a namecheck) had recently recorded their second demo tape.

AT LAST THE MONEY THING HAS BEEN NOTICED. It’s the most fun part of the Tregorran story. #TheArchers

Hahahaha This is just so precisely what all listeners predicted. Alan’s had a right rollercoaster of a 13 minutes. #TheArchers

Precisely! #TheArchers

This! #TheArchers

that's about £28m a day renewables have saved the UK sending to petrostates since the start of the US-Israel war in Iran

Sad to hear of the death of Dame Esther Rantzen yesterday. After writing about her daughter’s ME in the 90s, she received 4,000 letters from distressed patients and their families. She described treatment resembling methods “used in mediaeval days to punish witches”.

Found Lynda in the paper #TheArchers

Yes Jane! I had to check what he said there. Don’t the SWs live with a family tree on the wall above the typewriter!?!? Who is it this week? … and who’s the Editor!? 🙄🙄🙄🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️ #TheArchers

“Freddie would HAVE!!” Idiot aristos! #TheArchers

Yes Alex! Quite. For @unitesharon.bsky.social to talk about morality is a stretch given that Unite maintains that its primary duty is to protect the livelihoods of its members working in the manufacturing, maintenance, and security of the UK's nuclear fleet and defense infrastructure. #TripleLock

“They’re the victims of this, but then they’re victimised for the sin of having this illness.” George Monbiot on why government and society as a whole need to stop gaslighting people with #MECFS and making them feel they’ve done something wrong.

New polling: climate change is back in people’s top priorities

I know there is a hell of a lot going on right now. But not all of it is bad. Some is astonishingly good - like the results of this study from June. Cervical cancer is a terribly cruel thing. This might, at long last, be the beginning of the end of it. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

"One person from UKHSA then told me that even if clean air was cost effective it still might not be beneficial as preventing infections in children might shift infections to the vulnerable and elderly." 😱

It will never not be wild to me that the Russians attacked Keir Starmer's home, successfully spread falsehoods about Starmer's love life, and this didn't changed British politics and British political elite behaviour *at all*.

Bad news for Nige 👀

"Vaccines work" isn't a political statement. "Immigrants do not increase crime" isn't a political statement. "Climate change is real" isn't a political statement. "Genocide is bad" isn't a political statement. Stop neutralizing the power of facts by framing them as "politics." Reality matters.

There may be one or two patriotic millionaires, but there sure as hell aren’t any patriotic billionaires.