Saul Staniforth

Jon Kay to Jonathan Reynolds: "You're planning to remove import taxes from products like chocolate, gherkins, marmalade. Your own figures say that will save the average household 40p a week. At a time when [bills] are going up, do you really think people are going to notice 40p a week?"

"... people were like, f**k that, we do not want the Bolsonaro family coming back to power, recognis[ing] this fascist project not as some high abstract concept but as an existential threat to life & livelihood for them" David Adler on @novaramedia.com on the result in Brazil

#GMB on the banks: "£45.9bn profit in 2024. They've already generated £21.4bn in the first half of [this] year" "And on a personal level.. executive bankers are earning in 2 days what it takes a lot of people a year to [earn]"

Ali Fortescue to Ellie Chowns on the group Greens4Palestine: "This group obviously has a big influence over your partys direction... do you think they should be kicked out of the party?" Can you imagine a journalist asking, should Labour Friends of Israel be kicked out of Labour? Of course you cant

"What's happening with the election, in terms of Flavio Bolsonaro trying to get it annulled, its just him taking another leaf from the far right playbook.." Mara Nogueira doesn't think it will work.

I watched the PM on #GMB this morning & both Gillian & Kevin are right, he comes across as very likeable. But as Kevin says, he's got to walk the talk. And whether its on taxing wealth, nationalising water, an ethical foreign policy, & so on, he's given every indication he's not going to.

The PM is asked if he supports Shabana Mahmoods plan to increase the amount of time people who come to the UK to work have to wait before they can claim indefinite leave to remain to 15yrs Burnham says he supports the principle but appears to avoid endorsing the specific policy.

Susanna Reid asks the PM if he's going to help people with their energy bills. Burnham: "I've already done something to cut peoples energy bills.. & I'm determined to do more"

Deborah Barros Leal Farias explains that Flavio Bolsonaro is saying the Brazilian presidential election should be annulled because voting hours were extended by 2 hours. But what he's not saying is that his own party was one of those asking for the extension!

Kevin Maguire is spot on, all this talk about people stocking up is part of a wider lobbying campaign to increase defence spending. And as Kevin points out, the UK is already the 6th biggest defence spender in the world.

Sometimes you wake up to very good news!

Terri White: "I'd quite like people to stop spitting their dummies out because they've been asked to pay their fair share" Super rich Brent Hoberman: "Fairness is for kids.."

The ex director of communications for David Cameron pushing the narrative that the welfare budget is out of control. Not true of course.

Neal Lawson: "I couldn't live on the meagre benefits people are getting. To suggest that we have to cut those.. actually that's where the engine of growth is, that's the people who spend.. how do you get people out spending.. not by cutting benefits of people at the bottom"

"He promised change, he promised something very different from Keir Starmer, & if he doesn't deliver eventually something very different from Keir Starmer then he's going to be in trouble" Neal Lawson from Compass on Andy Burnham & next weeks budget

The UN found Israel killed 35 Palestinian children during the 2018 Gaza protests. At the time Lisa Nandy asked the govt how it could continue justifying arms sales to Israel For over 2yrs Nandy has been part of a govt thats armed Israel while its killed tens of thousands of Palestinian kids

A favourite argument of Israeli supporters is, the issue is Netanyahu, not Israel "When it comes to this election, how much real difference is there between the major parties when it comes to Palestine, Palestinian rights.. a Palestinian state?" Xavier Abu Eid: "There's not much difference"

According to international law people living under occupation have the right to resist their occupiers (& that includes armed resistance). If Britain was under brutal occupation would we be condemning attacks on occupying soldiers or supporting those fighting back?

Ranvir Singh this morning: "9 million people in the UK, I find it obscene, in 2026 are on the verge of or already using foodbanks" Meanwhile the richest 50 families have more wealth than half the population. The levels of inequality in this country are staggering.

@daliagebrial.bsky.social : "What [the govt] didn't anticipate was that the people who would break the law because they found that law to be unjust wouldn't just be the people the govt felt they could easily demonise, it wasn't just Muslims.. black & brown people, it was old white ladies.."

"[they] hope the courts get [them] out of it, but I don't think thats good enough.. the Labour Party have got to take accountability.. they should apologise & they should be the ones to deproscribe Palestine Action" @daliagebrial.bsky.social on the govts proscription of Palestine Action

@daliagebrial.bsky.social : "Sally Rooney.. was also making a point about the proscription of Palestine Action as an unprecedented overreach of govt power, an abuse of govt power.. [that] the actions of PA do not fit any conventional respected intl definition of terror.." 🎯

"anyone who the govt has reasonable suspicion to believe is sympathetic to or supports that group.. faces severe punishment.. it was an intended consequence to create an air of stigma & suspicion around Palestine.." @daliagebrial.bsky.social on the proscription of Palestine Action 🎯

Someone on #PoliticsLive said 'genocide' Cue the host:

@daliagebrial.bsky.social "We are captured by the interests of oil/gas who want to maintain the status quo & structure of our economy, we are being prevented from pursuing a path that would not only help prevent the excesses of climate breakdown but make us more energy & financially secure"

"It feels like we are dodging the elephant in the room, which is about distribution of wealth.. we have severe inequality.. we are still in a moment where we're trying to tinker on the edges.. not meeting the structural crisis of the moment" @daliagebrial.bsky.social spot on (as usual)

"Daily standing charges, they're one of the most controversial elements of households rising energy bills.. now the PM has asked if they can be removed from gas bills" How long does it take for someone to say yes?

"We're always.. told we're going to have to add to your bills to pay for them, but then they look at the profits that water companies make, or the dividends that are taken out of those companies to pay their shareholders.." Gareth Barlow sums up 35+ years of water privatisation

"What does this tell us about the limits of international law when a state can withstand any potential political & legal consequences?" Xavier Abu Eid explains that intl law requires political action, and its that action that has been lacking. But things might be changing.

On going ahead with Jackdaw "@zackpolanski.bsky.social.. says this is a betrayal of all of our futures.. do you really think this is the right thing to do?" Miatta Fahnbulleh: "Well look I do.. we have seen that climate change is here.. heat waves, wild fires, drought.. its a pragmatic decision"

Sally Nugent: "We know though, don't we, that Jackdaw actually only reduces the need for gas imports by 2% over 10 years. That does not seem like very much" Energy secretary: "Look, it isn't"

On going ahead with Jackdaw: Sally Nugent: "For people who are going to be struggling to pay their energy bills this winter, what difference will this make?" Energy secretary: "its really important to be clear that this project does not have an impact on affordability & bills"

"Do you support plans for people to have to have lived in the UK for 15yrs before they can get perm residency?" Miatta Fahnbulleh dodges "Do you support [the] plans?" Dodges "I'm going to ask.. a 3rd time" Dodges "Do you support the plans?" Dodges "Do you support the plans?" Dodges

Sophy Ridge: "@zackpolanski.bsky.social's also said [going ahead with Jackdaw], its only going to create 27 jobs. Is that right?" The energy secretary confirms that is correct

Ashok Kumar is asked, "What's the strategy the Greens for Palestine have, & where does this motion sit within it?" Watch the full @novaramedia.com interview here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqEj...

Kevin Maguire on the Royal family: "It beats me why anybody puts them on a pedestal and thinks we should look up to them"

Boulton: "Clearly there is a difference between being Jewish & being pro Israeli, those things inevitably do get conflated in peoples minds" Theres nothing inevitable about conflating Jews with Israel. Its being done deliberately by people like you to smear critics of Israel as antisemitic

"Almost 9m people.. are at risk of needing a food bank.. that includes 2.9m children.. 1 in 5 people saying there household has run out of food & couldn't afford to buy more.." As one food bank user explains: "The gap between what we earn & what we need is ever increasing" #GMB

Israel continues murdering Palestinians in Gaza.

"The UN's World Food Programme says funding cuts have forced it to sharply reduce food aid in Gaza. It will affect 500,000 Palestinians across the strip" Hind Khoudary reporting

"In the occupied West Bank a group of masked & armed Israeli settlers surround a convoy of European diplomats.. they're getting the Palestinian treatment.. Palestinian villages have endured years of settler attacks which start to intensify.. as the annual olive harvest begins"

Navi Pillay on #C4News: "The Genocide convention, which was passed in 1948, places a peremptory obligation on every state.. they are obliged to take action to prevent genocide wherever it is occurring or is about to happen.. its time now that they carry out these obligations"

".. violent incidents in the West Bank.. injured during an attack last Friday in the West Bank.." Meanwhile the chyron reads "US journalist attacked in West Bank speaks to BBC" Not saying 'occupied West Bank' is a deliberate choice.

"The World Food Programme says its being forced to drastically reduce live saving assistance to Gaza due to funding shortages. The number of people the UN agency helps in the Palestinian territory will be slashed by half a million people.."

Haynes: "I do feel I have become the wargame correspondent, haven't I?" 'Ratcheting up to war' correspondent, certainly.

Dale Vince: "The application of zionism is racist. What we see in the world today, in Israel & the Middle East, that's an application of zionism.. that, what we're seeing, is racism"

Jo Coburn: "He also said no state has a right to exist" Dale Vince: "That was a strange thing" Coburn: "Well its nonsense" Do Jo & Dale think Rhodesia had a right to exist? Apartheid South Africa had a right to exist? The UK has a right to exist?

Dale Vince: "We have double standards in the west.. we allow the genocide & the ethnic cleansing, the apartheid state of Israel, we trade with them, supply arms to them.. contrast that to how we treat Russia for its invasion & occupation of Ukraine.."

@zackpolanski.bsky.social : "Andy Burnham.. needs to explain to communities their bins won't be collected, social services will collapse, libraries will be closed, because he's more worried about defending the genocide he's arming than working with Green councillors" Well said Zack.

Well done to @zackpolanski.bsky.social for refusing to be put onto the defensive. Zack (and the Greens) have nothing to apologise for. If 2015-2019 taught the left anything, its that these people are not operating in good faith. Don't give them an inch.