This quote (from an interesting @politicshome piece on immigration policy) does feel like it sums up govt at the moment: we can see stuff going wrong but we’re not really sure what to do about it

Off to interview @tommctague.bsky.social and @jeremyhuntmp.bsky.social at Wimbledon Book Festival, and wondering if we’ll ever really stop re-litigating Brexit (on the day Rachel Reeves is blaming it for putting up taxes)

This is the line I’ve been waiting for Labour to articulate clearly on flags - yes as a symbol of unity, no as an attempt to exclude & divide; yes to inclusive patriotism, no to nationalism (it’s Shabana Mahmood to the Sun)

We’ve just moved into an old house where the carpet underlay seems to consist entirely of copies of the Times 1965-1970, and it’s kind of reassuring to find the headlines (arms sales to Israel, teachers’ strike, rows about some MP calling another MP a drunken buffoon) are so utterly relatable

Is it very bad that my main thought (after wtf) is about where she got those trousers

‘Other people probably like you more than you think’ is possibly the single most helpful message you can get across to a self conscious teenager, so this piece from Women’s Health mag is worth shoving under the nose of any teens you have around the house (sorry, no link, but current print issue)

Either a typo or a big career pivot here for the Home Secretary

This time 18 years ago I was giving birth to a baby boy, who we have somehow managed to keep alive all these years with only a few trips to Minor Injuries. If you’re in the trenches with small (or even big) children, hang on in there, you’ll be amazed and delighted by the adults they become

Reform in Runcorn quote on their target voter which is basically…anyone, but made to sound fancy? Yeah, leave the people who don’t either work or not work to the other parties

From a Sunday Telegraph story about people who have inherited houses while already owning one, complaining that having to pay double council tax on this second home (if they keep it) is ‘extortion’ and I just…cannot

Emotional launch party tonight for colleague @johnharris1969.bsky.social’s lovely book about how he and his son James, who is autistic, bonded through music. Joy and tears and everything in between. (Buy now, stash for Father’s Day, congratulate yourself later for getting organised ahead of time)

Offspring’s 17 year streak of religiously avoiding reading anything I’ve ever written finally broken and it was of course by accident

Don’t want to sound like anyone’s mother but the sky is blue again, the sun is warm, dogs don’t walk themselves and you are going to feel considerably better for getting outside than for doomscrolling.

Honestly? The angry Halloween pineapple (forgot to buy my kid a pumpkin, this was cack-handed emergency substitute)

Mmm okay

Went swimming in the rain in Pembrokeshire & as we ran shivering up the path afterwards, a German tourist asked my son & me if she could take a photo because ‘people don’t do this in Germany, in this weather.’ If you were wondering what British seaside holidays are like.

Unsure what I’m loving more; peaceful counter protestors vastly outnumbering far right in Brighton & Walthamstow (see below) or Times reporting a woman in a nightie marching up to the half-arsed Blackpool wannabe protest & demanding that her kids get home to bed