Very good speeches by all the party leaders in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Parliament as John Swinney is voted in as First Minister. His own speech was very moving at times, especially with regard to his wife’s illness and the discussions he had with his family before deciding to step up.

🔴 NEW 🔴

Ofcom has refused to investigate GB News after one of its guests claimed (without being corrected) that “half of the population of the world will die” if we reach net zero emissions by 2050.

📝 DeSmog report 👇
desmog.com/2024/05/07/ofc…

Rishi Sunak's spokesman hails a 'significant fall' in the family members of healthcare workers coming to the UK.

So celebrating making the country an even less attractive place for foreign healthcare workers, at the same time as NHS staff shortages go through the roof.

. I’m just staggered that this came into force last week and hardly anyone (especially none of the political parties) are talking about it! Food is going to become even more expensive than it is already and supplies of certain products may become more difficult to get hold of.…

The The Telegraph @YorkshirePost have raised alarms over Simon Clarke's donations.

He took thousands from a company AFTER Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 raised 'significant national security concerns' about it.

He thinks he can buy your vote- and he doesn't appear to care where the money comes from.

I was really shocked to discover that the Murdoch papers and the Mirror titles carried on committing crimes for years after we thought they had stopped. So reckless, so sure that their power put them beyond the law (and they were mostly right). prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/media/ph…

Tree of the Day

'Liz Truss said that you were her favourite conservative leader.'

'Who?'

She really can't can't catch a break.

Hmmm. He’s visited quite a lot of league grounds too including Accrington, Carlisle, Port Vale, Stevenage, Walsall & Wycombe. As an Arsenal fan, he’s gone to at least a dozen more. So I wouldn’t get carried away with the idea of some cynical non league strategy. Laura Kuenssberg

Saturday: voters reject the hard right.
Sunday: the BBC platforms it.
#bbclaurak

Celebrations in Gaza of Hamas acceptance of Qatar/Egypt ceasefire plan may be premature. No sign that that Israel have agreed to this at all.

New The Rest Is Politics LEADING with the formidable, indefatigable Nancy Pelosi - definitely the first of our guests who attended JFK inauguration and whose massive experience and strong views are worth an hour of anyone’s time alastaircampbell.org/2024/05/72-nan…

If like me you’ve had enough of UK News shows giving these crazy’s huge amounts of screen time whilst failing to explain to viewers the utter insanity of leaving the ECHR & the absolute boll**** they are spouting RT this widely

Here's what's gone wrong for the Conservative party.

They didn't adopt austerity in 2010 because the economy needed it. They adopted it because it allowed them to do an ideological shrinkage of the state, while blaming Labour. Austerity wasn't economics, it was pure politics.

One of the reasons that local democracy has been undermined during the Austerity then Brexit then JohnsonTrussSunak years is that the same media ecosystem which helped breed and support these disasters treats millions of votes in local elections as little more than a giant…

The Brexit/Johnson/Truss cheerleaders turning on Sunak are, in a crowded field, the worst. Reaching desperately for the nonsense that their mess is all his fault. We would all benefit from seeing less of them on air/in print. The ‘problem’ is the ecosystem they all helped create.

It's striking how little analysis there's been of what the local elections mean for [*checks notes*] local government: what all those mayors & councillors might do, or why it matters who runs the West Midlands.

I get the reasons why, but it's a real problem for 'local democracy'

Is Suella Braverman the story of the moment? What does it say about political journalism in this country that they think she is?

You have to admire the sheer chutzpah of a “ newspaper “ that leads with these stories after Saturday’s events. It’s like the Beijing Daily - in limbo until the party decides the line to take. Embarrassing for all journalists of whatever political hue.

A few nice Northumbrian trees … pic 1 Tree of the Day