Ian Birrell
@ianbirrell.bsky.social
Foreign correspondent, columnist, campaigner, co-founder Africa Express, citizen of the world and a bit more besides…
Reposted by Ian Birrell
This bungled budget build-up exposes a floundering, hypocritical and useless chancellor who serves as a depressing symbol of Westminster’s collective failure. My @theipaper.com column inews.co.uk/opinion/reev...
Reeves is flailing - but she is a symbol of a deeper rot in Westminster
Bungled outsourcing, vulnerable citizens left in need, tough decisions ducked: the list of the state's failures is endless
inews.co.uk
November 17, 2025 at 8:35 AM
This bungled budget build-up exposes a floundering, hypocritical and useless chancellor who serves as a depressing symbol of Westminster’s collective failure. My @theipaper.com column inews.co.uk/opinion/reev...
Reposted by Ian Birrell
Mexico City is suffering an ‘invasion’ of migrants that started during the pandemic and is sparking growing concern - but they are coming from America. My report for @unherd.com unherd.com/2025/11/amer...
America’s invasion of Mexico
unherd.com
November 17, 2025 at 8:37 AM
Mexico City is suffering an ‘invasion’ of migrants that started during the pandemic and is sparking growing concern - but they are coming from America. My report for @unherd.com unherd.com/2025/11/amer...
Mexico City is suffering an ‘invasion’ of migrants that started during the pandemic and is sparking growing concern - but they are coming from America. My report for @unherd.com unherd.com/2025/11/amer...
America’s invasion of Mexico
unherd.com
November 17, 2025 at 8:37 AM
Mexico City is suffering an ‘invasion’ of migrants that started during the pandemic and is sparking growing concern - but they are coming from America. My report for @unherd.com unherd.com/2025/11/amer...
This bungled budget build-up exposes a floundering, hypocritical and useless chancellor who serves as a depressing symbol of Westminster’s collective failure. My @theipaper.com column inews.co.uk/opinion/reev...
Reeves is flailing - but she is a symbol of a deeper rot in Westminster
Bungled outsourcing, vulnerable citizens left in need, tough decisions ducked: the list of the state's failures is endless
inews.co.uk
November 17, 2025 at 8:35 AM
This bungled budget build-up exposes a floundering, hypocritical and useless chancellor who serves as a depressing symbol of Westminster’s collective failure. My @theipaper.com column inews.co.uk/opinion/reev...
Reposted by Ian Birrell
This piece on Kenyans abused in Saudi Arabia, and government complicity, is a shocking read. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/14/w...
November 14, 2025 at 2:41 PM
This piece on Kenyans abused in Saudi Arabia, and government complicity, is a shocking read. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/14/w...
Reposted by Ian Birrell
As I wrote earlier this year, the BMA is a disgrace - as so often in its abysmal history - that needs to be defeated for national well-being ianbirrell.com/doctors-unio...
November 14, 2025 at 7:18 AM
As I wrote earlier this year, the BMA is a disgrace - as so often in its abysmal history - that needs to be defeated for national well-being ianbirrell.com/doctors-unio...
Reposted by Ian Birrell
Today is the 50th day of strike action by junior doctors over the past two years, despite their 28.9% pay rise, while the NHS remains trapped in permacrisis and patients suffer
November 14, 2025 at 7:18 AM
Today is the 50th day of strike action by junior doctors over the past two years, despite their 28.9% pay rise, while the NHS remains trapped in permacrisis and patients suffer
Today is the 50th day of strike action by junior doctors over the past two years, despite their 28.9% pay rise, while the NHS remains trapped in permacrisis and patients suffer
November 14, 2025 at 7:18 AM
Today is the 50th day of strike action by junior doctors over the past two years, despite their 28.9% pay rise, while the NHS remains trapped in permacrisis and patients suffer
Reposted by Ian Birrell
Has there ever been such a bungled budget build-up? Utterly absurd kite flying exposes a clueless government…
Starmer and Reeves ditch Budget plan to increase income tax rates on.ft.com/4oCJdlA
Starmer and Reeves ditch Budget plan to increase income tax rates
Chancellor explores alternative ways to raise revenue to fill fiscal hole estimated at up to £30bn
on.ft.com
November 13, 2025 at 11:03 PM
Has there ever been such a bungled budget build-up? Utterly absurd kite flying exposes a clueless government…
Reposted by Ian Birrell
What is wrong with these people. They just spent two weeks rolling the pitch for a U-turn on a policy they didn’t even do yet?
November 13, 2025 at 10:50 PM
What is wrong with these people. They just spent two weeks rolling the pitch for a U-turn on a policy they didn’t even do yet?
Has there ever been such a bungled budget build-up? Utterly absurd kite flying exposes a clueless government…
Starmer and Reeves ditch Budget plan to increase income tax rates on.ft.com/4oCJdlA
Starmer and Reeves ditch Budget plan to increase income tax rates
Chancellor explores alternative ways to raise revenue to fill fiscal hole estimated at up to £30bn
on.ft.com
November 13, 2025 at 11:03 PM
Has there ever been such a bungled budget build-up? Utterly absurd kite flying exposes a clueless government…
Reposted by Ian Birrell
The mistaken release of prisoners exposes a profound crisis far bigger than simply Labour ineptitude - my @theipaper.com column on Westminster’s complacency, collective political failure and our decaying public services inews.co.uk/opinion/mist...
The mistaken prisoner release exposes a crisis far bigger than Labour ineptitude
The criminal justice system is among the most blatant examples of British state failure
inews.co.uk
November 10, 2025 at 8:16 AM
The mistaken release of prisoners exposes a profound crisis far bigger than simply Labour ineptitude - my @theipaper.com column on Westminster’s complacency, collective political failure and our decaying public services inews.co.uk/opinion/mist...
The BBC has made mistakes and is often its own worst enemy - allowing it to come under attack from Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, two of the biggest liars to hold the highest office in their lands in recent times.
November 10, 2025 at 1:50 PM
The BBC has made mistakes and is often its own worst enemy - allowing it to come under attack from Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, two of the biggest liars to hold the highest office in their lands in recent times.
Reposted by Ian Birrell
Excellent, excellent column this by Martin Wolf - capturing a neglected truth, which is this government is an 'Old Labour' one, not in the way it was useful for Blair and Corbyn to caricature, but in the 'how those governments actually governed (and mostly lost):
The disturbing victory of Old Labour over New Labour
In education, labour and housing we risk going back towards what we know will not work
www.ft.com
November 10, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Excellent, excellent column this by Martin Wolf - capturing a neglected truth, which is this government is an 'Old Labour' one, not in the way it was useful for Blair and Corbyn to caricature, but in the 'how those governments actually governed (and mostly lost):
Certainly the demolition of the BBC would please Farage's political pin-up Vladimir Putin and his former paymasters at the Kremlin's propaganda unit RT
Mail Online reports Nigel Farage says that the BBC may have no future.
He imagines bringing to an end century of public service broadcasting in the UK - because the populist politician and his US political ally Donald Trump do not want the BBC to survive
No thanks, Nigel.
No thanks, Donald
He imagines bringing to an end century of public service broadcasting in the UK - because the populist politician and his US political ally Donald Trump do not want the BBC to survive
No thanks, Nigel.
No thanks, Donald
November 10, 2025 at 1:20 PM
Certainly the demolition of the BBC would please Farage's political pin-up Vladimir Putin and his former paymasters at the Kremlin's propaganda unit RT
The mistaken release of prisoners exposes a profound crisis far bigger than simply Labour ineptitude - my @theipaper.com column on Westminster’s complacency, collective political failure and our decaying public services inews.co.uk/opinion/mist...
The mistaken prisoner release exposes a crisis far bigger than Labour ineptitude
The criminal justice system is among the most blatant examples of British state failure
inews.co.uk
November 10, 2025 at 8:16 AM
The mistaken release of prisoners exposes a profound crisis far bigger than simply Labour ineptitude - my @theipaper.com column on Westminster’s complacency, collective political failure and our decaying public services inews.co.uk/opinion/mist...
Reposted by Ian Birrell
It’s so grim - and a depressing sign of the times - that Reform UK bigots are putting this absurd and offensive suggestion into the public arena
November 4, 2025 at 10:56 PM
It’s so grim - and a depressing sign of the times - that Reform UK bigots are putting this absurd and offensive suggestion into the public arena
It’s so grim - and a depressing sign of the times - that Reform UK bigots are putting this absurd and offensive suggestion into the public arena
November 4, 2025 at 10:56 PM
It’s so grim - and a depressing sign of the times - that Reform UK bigots are putting this absurd and offensive suggestion into the public arena
‘They take the money and go’: why not everyone is mourning the end of USAID www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
‘They take the money and go’: why not everyone is mourning the end of USAID
The long read: When Donald Trump set about dismantling USAID, many around the world were shocked. But on the ground in Sierra Leone, the latest betrayal was not unexpected
www.theguardian.com
November 4, 2025 at 5:28 PM
‘They take the money and go’: why not everyone is mourning the end of USAID www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Reposted by Ian Birrell
My daughter died a year ago. Mexico's Day of the Dead helped soothe my pain - my @theipaper column reflecting on grief and differing attitudes to death, now posted on my website ianbirrell.com/my-daughter-...
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ianbirrell.com
November 3, 2025 at 5:38 PM
My daughter died a year ago. Mexico's Day of the Dead helped soothe my pain - my @theipaper column reflecting on grief and differing attitudes to death, now posted on my website ianbirrell.com/my-daughter-...
My daughter died a year ago. Mexico's Day of the Dead helped soothe my pain - my @theipaper column reflecting on grief and differing attitudes to death, now posted on my website ianbirrell.com/my-daughter-...
Bot Verification
ianbirrell.com
November 3, 2025 at 5:38 PM
My daughter died a year ago. Mexico's Day of the Dead helped soothe my pain - my @theipaper column reflecting on grief and differing attitudes to death, now posted on my website ianbirrell.com/my-daughter-...
Weird how Max Hastings claims to be a hawk on Russia today given his calls to appease Putin in the initial weeks of the full-scale invasion
November 3, 2025 at 5:17 PM
Weird how Max Hastings claims to be a hawk on Russia today given his calls to appease Putin in the initial weeks of the full-scale invasion
Reposted by Ian Birrell
Ian’s previously written compassionately about Alice. Here he writes on his own grief, as the first anniversary of his daughter’s death approaches, and how he found solace in Mexico, where Día de Muerto is much more than a tourist attraction, a day of remembrance and celebration of those we mourn 🩷
My daughter died a year ago. Mexico's Day of the Dead helped soothe my pain - my @theipaper.com column reflecting on grief and attitudes to death inews.co.uk/opinion/daug...
My daughter died a year ago. Mexico's Day of the Dead helped soothe my grief
Britons find death a difficult issue to discuss, but it's a central part of human life
inews.co.uk
November 3, 2025 at 3:47 PM
Ian’s previously written compassionately about Alice. Here he writes on his own grief, as the first anniversary of his daughter’s death approaches, and how he found solace in Mexico, where Día de Muerto is much more than a tourist attraction, a day of remembrance and celebration of those we mourn 🩷
This is really sinister kowtowing to China by a British university.
www.theguardian.com/education/20...
www.theguardian.com/education/20...
UK university halted human rights research after pressure from China
Exclusive: Leading professor at Sheffield Hallam was told to cease research on supply chains and forced labour in China after demands from authorities
www.theguardian.com
November 3, 2025 at 2:30 PM
This is really sinister kowtowing to China by a British university.
www.theguardian.com/education/20...
www.theguardian.com/education/20...