Story on why the UK govt wants to do the Chagos deal, why Diego Garcia is so important, and the agreement secured with Mauritius that officials say would keep China out >>>

Exclusive: Control of US-UK Military Satellite System Is Key to Chagos Deal

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

We can't let British democracy turn into a plaything for overseas billionaires with short attention spans.

At PMQs, I urged the Prime Minister to work with us to make sure power always sits with the voters, not wealthy foreign oligarchs.

I wonder how many people who are condoning the murder of Brian Thompson are members of a universal healthcare advocacy group or have taken part in any protests...

I missed this at the time, but just saw the strange Politico article from Thursday about Nigel Farage's view that - and you'll be shocked by this - the UK shouldn't have authorised Ukraine's Storm Shadow use and that Ukraine can't win.
www.politico.eu/article/uk-n...

‘Since 2019, the average time between a crime happening and the Crown Court case ending has gone from 16 months to 22 months.’ So many depressing statistics in this @henrymance.bsky.social piece on the failing legal system
on.ft.com/4eG5bzk

I hope I can say this on here and not be fearful about the responses that may follow.

This Wednesday I am, as part of my role on the Foreign Affairs Committee, going to be questioning the Foreign Secretary.

My topic is sanctions

I am open to hearing from experts and academics

Please get in touch

Unidentified drones spotted over three UK airbases, US air force confirms

This is really getting quite remarkable

• BlueSky user numbers have doubled in the past week and now total 3.5 million across US & UK 🚀

• Number of people deleting their X/Twitter account remains way up

And the next chart is particularly notable...

"If it wasn’t plain before, recent years have brought home that Britain is an inescapably European country." Terrific column by Janan Ganesh on a disastrous decade for UK foreign policy:

Snow is falling in London (son sent us a video!) so thought you might like a reminder that here in Scotland we name the gritting machines and there’s a site that tracks where they all are!
My favs are Gritty Gritty Bang Bang and Spready Mercury ☃️😂
#writingcommunity #scotland

Death of a Talking Point

As we approach the festive season, I give you my annual reminder not to put Christmas lights on palm trees.

This 6-year-old map from Reddit is doing the rounds again. How hard accents are to understand from the perspective of a Londoner.

(Comments on Reddit note that the creator has probably never encountered US Cajun or Southern Appalachian, as these are just about as unintelligible as Glaswegian.)

This is plausible because if there's one thing you associate with ballet stars it's clumsiness.

A guide to migrate your follows from Twitter to Bluesky
dmuth.medium.com/how-to-migra...

An interesting report from the New Diplomacy Project and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation on the impact of a potential Trump presidency on European security. Not sure the recommendations beyond the obvious point 1 are very meaningful?

static1.squarespace.com/static/5f913...