David Aaronovitch
@DAaronovitch
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Presenter of BBC Radio 4's Briefing Room, author of Voodoo Histories, now Substacking with Notes from the Underground. Instagram: david_aaronovitch
Joined May 2010
If you miss me in the middle of The Times.You can't find me nowhere.Come on over to the Underground.I'll be writing right there.
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I’m beginning to confuse the honours list and the sanctions list. But I suppose it doesn’t matter.
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Bollocks to all the Lord Frost resignation ‘reasons’. He’s going because he crowed, threatened, struck stances and FAILED.
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This could quite easily have been the front of a National Front flyer from the 70s. I’d like to see Truss and her supporters asked to disavow it.
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In my new book "How to clutter", I recommend having a minimum of 30 books by your bed. Otherwise you can't be certain of having something good to read.
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To have two children in a top London private school will cost their parents over £60k a year (ie more than £100k net income). This is NOT about aspiration. It's about wealth.
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I hadn't been following it, partly because Piers Morgan is such a tawdry waste of space. But having just seen a compilation of his Meghan-hating pieces in the Mail I think there's something vaguely deranged about him.
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If you're wondering why British covid rates are so much higher than, say, German ones, just travel on a train in either country or go into a crowded shop.
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Off to work. Keys, phone, notebook, bottle of red wine….
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Le Pen didn't win. She didn't nearly win. She didn't remotely win. She won as well as Jeremy Corbyn did in 2019. To analyse this result as a victory for her is just perverse.
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Surely if we could land a man on the moon 50 years ago we should have managed to find someone to be prime minister who knew wtf they were talking about.
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The Queen of Denmark invites the president of the United States to visit her country. He accepts but then abruptly cancels his trip because the Danish government won't sell him Greenland. And there are still some people who think this is not a problem.
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These are who our friends are.
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One thing that will happen as a result of these riots is that some really stupid people (the looter without a mask wearing the St George's Cross shirt?) will end up going to prison and the guys who have stirred this up will sitting pretty in their TV studios and behind their.
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I am made disgusted and despairing by the resignation of Kim Darroch. What message does this send to our best civil servants, trying to do a job on behalf of our country? What message does it send to foreign bullies & domestic shit-stirrers? Which has the support of our next PM?.
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It worked with nanny, it worked with his housemaster, it worked with his tutors, it worked some of his wives, it worked with most of his editors, it almost always worked with the TV presenters. So why shouldn’t it work with citizens? Because charm once lost is rarely regained.
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It’s true that it’s quite likely to be illegal, that it will certainly be incredibly expensive and that it probably won’t work. But worse than all this is that the Rwanda plan is shaming. Britain is better than this.
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Why were Prince William and the Duchess even in Jamaica on a 50s style ‘royal’ progress? It’s baffling.
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I guess this teacher who has been suspended for showing a completely unremarkable representation of a religious leader in a discussion about blasphemy has pretty much had his point made for him.
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Reminder. In the 77 years since 1945 the Conservatives have held government for 47 of them.
Britain is in ruins thanks to the failed dogmas of our permanent Leftist elite
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I have absolutely no desire to deny the suffering and death in Gaza in the last two months, but for a UN employee to call it the ‘worst in 50 years’ is in effect to deny the Rwandan genocide of 1994 in which the world watched as up to 800, 000 people were slaughtered.
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Chris Philp: ‘we only came into office 2 1/2 weeks ago’. Philp has been a government MP since 2015 and in government since 2017. Liz Truss has been in government since 2012.
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It's pretty obvious that Elon Musk exercises immense power and uses it with complete irresponsibility. He is accountable to no one, it seems. We need to think seriously about how we as a country respond.
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I don’t understand it. When a statesman might make a push for unity, the PM instead insults half the population and Britain’s European allies. And for what?.
Boris Johnson appeared to compare the British people’s vote for Brexit to the fight for freedom in Ukraine. The prime minister was speaking at the Conservative Party’s spring conference.
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Anyone wondering what British Trumpism looks like, here it is.
The Partygate probe is clearly rigged. It is a jury comprised of highly partisan, vengeful & vindictive MPs, nearly all of whom are already on the record viciously attacking the person they are judging. It is an obscene abuse of power.
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@nadhimzahawi @MayorofLondon Odd tweet really. Is the problem the rough sleeping (which as Nadhim will know increased significantly after 2010) or it happening in Mayfair?.
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At a purely personal level I could never vote for any party or individual that endorsed the shameful Rwanda deportation policy. Or even have any respect for anyone who did.
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I’m seeing people I respect suggesting that there might be something inherent to Islam or to being a Muslim that lends itself to the massacres of the innocents by Hamas. This is profoundly and dangerously wrong. Most Muslims want what most Jews want and what I want. A good life.
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I won’t share the anti Semitic tube incident video, not least because of the kids involved and because I’m not sure the abuser is quite well. But the woman in the hijab is the kind of person you most want around if you’re in trouble.
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It is hilarious that the section of Twitter most upset by the defection of a Tory MP to Labour is the Corbynite Left.
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I am wondering who Elon Musk's audience for all this absurd anti-British stuff is. It makes him look ridiculous here, so I imagine it must be some of America's more stupid citizens.
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Contrary to the "clever Farage really won that battle on Marr", I gather the man and his entourage were furious after the interview. So much so that one of Farage's male team called a woman BBC producer a "cunt".
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If this was indeed an inside ‘hit job’ on Sunak I think it’s the most effective I’ve ever seen.
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Honestly, the Trumpian hold that Johnson has over my colleagues in the media is extraordinary.
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It is so obvious that the UK needs a party/alliance in which Rory Stewart, Jo Swinson, Mike Gapes, Luciana Berger, Jess Phillips, Dominic Grieve, old Uncle Keir Starmer and all can make an appeal to the voters. The need for it is yelling at us, desperately.
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15 years ago this morning I walked down to Finchley Road and saw that they had closed the tube station. ‘It’s a power surge’ someone explained. It wasn’t, of course. And dozens of my fellow Londoners had been killed and terribly hurt. Today we should remember them.
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Lord Frost was elevated to our second chamber in order to serve the government over Brexit, not because of what we now discover his views to be on combating the pandemic or low tax governance. No one elected him. Why should he still sit in the Lords?.
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Been in ICU, intubated and critically ill. Didn’t like it but the people who work there are usually incredibly skilled and have seen it all. Can’t run a country from there, but the odds are he’ll be out in days.
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Listening to the ridiculous arrangements being made for MPs to vote while physically distanced rather than voting electronically is a horrible reminder of just how absurd and wilfully incompetent our rulers can be.
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The question is WHY does Matt Hancock think the country needs to know what he ‘is like as a person’?.
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I think the level of coverage of the Philip Schofield story - which has almost no importance whatsoever - is totally weird.
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Exemplary interview by @bbcnickrobinson with @MattHancock just now on @bbcr4today. Clever, robust, courteous and forensic. And, I think, devastating. What a hole the government dug for itself and, alas, for all of us.
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Your reminder that neither the Conservative Party nor Reform UK called for a new inquiry into grooming gangs in their manifestos just six months ago. I won’t bother searching for editorials from the same period but I don’t imagine such calls were there either.
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Let’s state what should be obvious about the resentment of asylum seekers living in hotels - that this is a product of past government’s total failure to process claims and that successful applicants want nothing more than to work for their living.
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No Michael Gove, Boris Johnson did not move from ‘square one to a deal’ in 90 days. That’s pretty much a fib. He largely took the May deal and gave in on a border in the Irish Sea.
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@OwenJones84 Hold on. You’re not a lesbian. You’re not trans. You’re not a Jew or a Palestinian. You’re a middle class white guy. Yet you clearly believe your opinion matters on EVERYTHING. Not even an opinion: your talent for outrage. So yes, my opinion on ‘rights’ does count. Ciao.
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Good. A far better class of guest.
Yesterday I tried to book a room at the 4 Star Bromsgrove Hotel & Spa, but it was closed to the public. Turns out it’s accommodating 147 illegal migrants and we’re all paying for it.
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Things are worse than I realised. When does the trial start?.
PM has just arrived in The Hague.
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A 21 year old terrorist drives 600 miles to fire a legally held military assault rifle at as many unarmed Hispanic looking people as he can because of the ‘Hispanic invasion of Texas’. And the atheist President who supports him having that gun asks God to bless the victims.
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Someone just sent me a screenshot of a fraction of the violent and misogynistic abuse sent to @jk_rowling in the last week. Their language reminded me of the way the most militant racists and whites supremacists have long responded to black leaders and writers. Most are men.
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Nice line from @rafaelbehr today: "The Zahawi episode is a symptom of long Johnson, the chronic, recurrent debilitation of government by a pathogen that still circulates in the ruling party long after the original infection has been treated.".
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I gather from Jacob Rees Mogg just now that the Nissan decision, contrary to what the company says, is nothing to do with Brexit, but is the fault of internal Nissan problems and the BBC.
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The Michelle Mone story is scarcely believable and genuinely disgusting. There doesn’t seem to be any doubt that a legislator belonging to the governing party and claiming to have performed no services made millions from her country’s plight.
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‘However No 10 declined to specify what evidence it had against the MPs’. Making the headlines and apparent direction of the story effectively into fake news. The Mail on Sunday should be ashamed.
🚨NO10 LAUNCH ‘FOREIGN COLLUSION’ PROBE INTO REMAINER PLOTTING WITH FRANCE 🚨
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The idea that Chris Whitty is singlehandedly responsible for "frightening" people out of normal life is a Conservative backbench fantasy. It's the numbers of omicron cases people actually see around them that is doing that.
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Had Shaun Bailey won the London mayoral election, he would be resigning tonight. Staggering.
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Anyway, just back from being jabbed. I felt quite emotional in that sports hall turned immunisation centre. The sense of unshowy common purpose among the staff and volunteers was rather wonderful. My thanks to them. And to the scientists and researchers the world over.
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If I were Boris Johnson I’d be looking for Gavin Williamson’s resignation today.
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Not something anyone had to even think let alone say last Saturday.
If you’re a Brexiteer protesting outside Parliament today, PLEASE don’t shout abuse or turn to violence. We have the ballot box and we WILL deliver Brexit through democratic means. We don’t throw things or set fire to cars or attack the police. We’re not French, FFS.
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I am worried about a lot of things at the moment. Boris Johnson's bike ride is not one of them.
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Walking the dog round Highgate ponds this morning made me want to cry. The absolute lack of respect shown by some people to beautiful public spaces and therefore to their fellow citizens is criminal.
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Ffs. Do you STILL not know that the ECHR is not part of the EU?.
EU judges 'treading on our sovereignty', blasts Home Secretary via @mailplus.
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Coming back to London next week. Looking forward to seeing the grand-kids, walking in the parks, seeing a movie, using the Underground, getting a coffee, going in to work, meeting colleagues, hoping that tomorrow doesn’t belong to people like this….
Back to the UK tomorrow. I’ve never had such dread about Britain. Coming back to London and knowing how unpleasant it’ll be. The demographic changes and feeling that 🇬🇧 is most against Brits. The lack of functional media. The feeling something big has to happen to restore order.
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One by-election out of three and all of a sudden we DO want shit in our rivers, crap in our air and our grand-children to fry?.
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Whatever their views on Gaza people need to understand that many in the Jewish community are frightened and feel attacked right now. They are hurting and hoping that as an act of solidarity many will attend the demonstration against antisemitism on the 26th.
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It is hard to stress enough how important it is for the opposition parties that the any general election is held in university term time. Only an idiot would agree to one before mid January.
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If I were a moderate, sensible Conservative I would be so depressed at the moment.
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Today I am scared. I am worried that we are complaining and condemning ourselves into a possible second wave. While people were observing lockdown (or the essence of it) and the message was blunt, we managed at huge cost to get the infection rate down. I fear us losing this.
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And thus ends one of the most damaging and self-indulgent experiments in British post-war political history. We’ll be living with its consequences for decades.
As I stand down as Leader, I also want to thank you for all the support you have given the party, and me personally, over the last four and a half years.
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There’s one trade with New Zealand that would be very popular in Britain.
I’m proud to call the United Kingdom a friend of New Zealand, and am thrilled that we now have the opportunity to strengthen our alliance by negotiating a new free trade agreement. 🇬🇧🇳🇿
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Even in such troubling times, there are consolations.
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Time for the policy specialists to step up and the political correspondents to retreat. We need to understand what’s being proposed and whether it’ll work, not endlessly opine on whether Labour will face threats in 2029.
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On Newsnight just now the minister Paul Scully has placed ALL the blame for partygate on No 10 staff because, apparently, the operation there had become "bloated". It just disgusts me. Who would work for such people?.
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I don’t see how Gavin Williamson can honourably survive this morning’s @thetimes front page story of how he knew at least six weeks ago about the coming exam results debacle.
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The outrage against the Sue Gray appointment is truly pathetic. I wonder if the real objection to her appointment is that she doesn't appear to have gone to to school with Starmer, isn't a banker and hasn't lent him any money.
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Anyone should have the right to ‘defame’ the Prophet Muhammad, Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, Moses, the Buddha, the Ayatollah Khomeini, Thomas a Becket, Joseph Stalin and Abraham Lincoln. To criminalise such speech is an attack on liberty.
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To state the obvious, this result is either fatal for Johnson (ie he resigns after a few months) or utterly catastrophic for the Conservatives. It’s one or the other. Though quite possibly both.
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Not for the first time I’m left feeling that my fellow journalists should refuse to quote anonymous “senior Downing Street sources” sledging opponents. The public should know who has spoken and If they cannot say it in their own names they don’t deserve to be quoted.
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This is so utterly pathetic. I really despair.
I have ordered this new face mask. I have to obey the law but I don't agree with the law. I'm thinking of bulk buying and selling these online and giving the proceeds to charity. Would you buy one? Retweet to show interest.
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But the twin towers were attacked two years earlier. The US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania 3 years earlier than that. The jihadis involved with bin Laden were likely to blame Western inaction in Bosnia. Strangely none of this features here.
Sixteen years ago, I warned the invasion and occupation of Iraq would set off a spiral of conflict and hate that would fuel the wars, terrorism and misery of future generations.
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The @thetimes story about Shamima Begum is a brilliant scoop. My very first reaction was punitive. My second was one of deep sadness. She was 15 when she was seduced into IS. At 19 she has seen two children die. She's British and we must try and rehabilitate her.
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You’re going to leave London? Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Four more years of the divisive and hate-filled Sadiq Khan. London will continue its rapid decline. Many folk, including me, won’t be here by the next election. Why stay for no go zones, exploding crime, anarchists running riot on the streets, a war on cars and dying nightlight.
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With all due respect to those whose week has been ruined by the Gatwick drones, the resignation of General Mattis is by far the biggest story this morning. The effective withdrawal of the US as a reliable ally under this President is a growing disaster.
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You’re part of it. Now look around you and see who’s on your side.
Could @Keir_Starmer please define far right?.
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Things that are not a big problem for Britain: a few thousand migrants coming here on little boats.
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Listening now to the full account of the "openly Jewish" incident it is apparent that Gideon Falter was angling for an incident just like this. And an officer eventually provided it. Worth looking at the @CST_UK statement.
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Just passing through, but a read of the Conservative manifesto makes it clear that the ‘oven ready deal’ did indeed refer to the EU trade deal and not the withdrawal agreement. To state otherwise is pretty much a lie.
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Someone should sink the bloody barge before anyone is forced to live on it. I am ashamed.
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You have to be impressed (or shaken) by the anti and non government voters in Amersham and Chesham. They combined to do what FPTP and partisanship makes so difficult. There’s a model there if centre and centre left parties care to see it.
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Anyone spotted @Nigel_Farage filming himself down by the thousand-lorry queue in Kent? Or, having trolled the hotels and beaches is he giving that one a miss?.
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Listening to the excellent @tortoise podcast on the bizarre rise of Lord Lebedev and it honestly makes me want to hurl. The casual venality of parts of the establishment which culminated in Johnson making him part of our Parliament is appalling.
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"If you don't do as we say then we'll stop governing the country" seems to be the threat as delivered by the chancellor of the exchequer just now. This is utterly pathetic.
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@nadhimzahawi @MayorofLondon Sure. I don’t think a day has gone by walking in central London in the last decade when I haven’t seen this. How did you miss it till now?.
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This is a new one on me. You are now not permitted to criticise someone who is receiving medical treatment but who is still in post. At least, not if she’s an old mate of Len’s.
I’ve said it today at the Durham Miners Gala so I’ll repeat it here. Attacking a woman going through chemotherapy - @tom_watson you are a fucking disgrace. @JennieGenSec.
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Reading and listening this month this is what I think: the Corbyn moment is over. Whatever scare stories Tories use to frighten up electoral support the truth is that he’s finished. The only question now is whether Labour lets him take the party down too.
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It is absurd that I have to congratulate my @thetimes colleague @iainmartin1’s piece on the obvious failure of Brexit as courageous. But it is.
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Another Farage party organised on the basis of one member one vote: he's the member and he has the vote. And all the usual bleaters, talk show gobshites and low budget contrarians will gather round him to be wrong about everything again. So boring.
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I have a million things to do today but can anyone fill me in on the formal process whereby Dido Harding was selected for her new role?.
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Boris Johnson’s reply to Keir Starmer was a low, low point. Snake belly low.
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