Ben Kentish

@AnnieLeveckis @natscs29 Thank you 🙏 I’ll be back soon!

@natscs29 @BenKentish I've been thinking the same. He is one of the best on LBC. Hope all is well with him and he is back soon.

@BenKentish Hope you're ok. We miss you in the pm. x

Thank you for all the kind and concerned messages - they really mean a lot. We lost my wonderful Mum a couple of weeks ago so I’m taking a short period of time off. Back on air @LBC very soon 💙

“Apprehending violent and dangerous criminals is a full contact and messy task which may appear shocking to observers with little experience of policing in the real world.” Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley writes to Zack Polanski.

I am, like most British Jews, growing really frustrated with this vague talk about “division and unity and hate.” We have a very specific problem here. An IRGC cut out is recruiting disaffected Islamist-radicalised men, many long known to the police and negligently left ambling about, to a conduct a targeted intifada against the London Jewish community. And both our counter intelligence and counter terror forces are failing to intercept them. I don’t need a mass London rally of well wishers or cultural luminaires to post their wishes — nice as that is — I need an actual security strategy to clamp down on this so my community can go about our lives in peace as is our absolute minimum right. And I need politicians to call the problem for what it is — not good vibes.

Green Party leader Zack Polanski's retweet here suggests he thinks police were too heavy-handed with a suspected terrorist knifeman who had just been on the rampage and refused to drop his weapon...

Nearly 24 hours on and neither the Prime Minister nor the Home Secretary has visited the scene of the apparent terrorist attack just half an hour away from their offices in Westminster.

Here come the cliches….. ‘This is not who we are as country’ ‘this has no place in british society’ and the rest…. Aptly done @JewishNewsUK

Our Chief Executive, @KarenPollock100, on today’s antisemitic attack in Golders Green.

I know there are ongoing court cases but I do think this series of attacks, with some linked to an Iran-linked Islamist terrorist group, should be a higher order of government and public concern that it currently appears to be.

Any chance of anyone in power taking this problem seriously any time soon?

“He was a very credible candidate and one that we gave serious weight to” says Morgan McSweeney of that man whose atrocious legacy as Chancellor Labour spends much time highlighting. And politicos wonder why trust in the Westminster system is so low…

How on earth do you reconcile the PM constantly highlighting the immeasurable damage done to the country by austerity with that very same PM wanting to reward the man single-handedly responsible for it with a plum government job?

That Starmer wanted give Britain’s most important ambassadorial job to George Osborne - the person more responsible than any other for the mess the country is in - raises as many questions about his judgement as the decision to appoint Mandelson. Truly staggering.

‘What is the basis for this new inquiry other than to muddy the waters before our local elections?’ Deputy PM @DavidLammy speaking exclusively to LBC's @BenKentish.

A strong message from Lammy to Labour MPs ahead of tomorrow’s vote on a possible Privileges Committee probe: “It is crystal clear that the Prime Minister did not mislead Parliament. That has already been established. What is the basis for this new inquiry by the Privileges Committee? Other other than a political, deliberate attempt to harness a committee on to this issue to muddy the waters before a local elections. “It's crystal clear to me what's happening, and I hope no Labour MP joins in this one….I'm not clear on what the whipping arrangements are. There is a matter for the whips, but I am clear that no Labour MP should fall into this trap.” Listen to the full exclusive interview on @LBC from 10pm

Lammy also admits that there was “a pressure and a desire to have an ambassador in place” quickly but denies that this contradicts Keir Starmer telling Parliament last week that “no pressure existed whatsoever in relation to this case”.

EXCL: David Lammy confirms that there were “worries” about Peter Mandelson’s appointment at the time, telling me in an exclusive interview for @LBC that there was “a discussion within government” about it but “ultimately it was an appointment by Number 10” (though says he takes responsibility too).

The House of Lords has disgraced parliament. Their existence is based on trust, now roundly abused by a small group of unelected zealots. Time for a serious look at who these people are, and how they are allowed to govern us. The X trolls will be jubilant, but we will be back.

The truly preposterous thing about the Daily Mail story about the landlady of the “Rat Inn” complaining about an MP ordering a starter is this: It is not exactly a slow news week. We have a war in Ukraine and Iran.  Plenty of serious issues here at home. So do read on, because I am about to reveal something possibly even more shocking about myself. Apparently we now have a culture where MPs cannot even have a quiet drink or bite to eat without it becoming a national incident. Well, in the interests of full transparency, I can exclusively confirm: I have been into a pub and not ordered a starter. Nor even a pudding. Not even asked for the food menu.  On one particularly egregious occasion, I even had just one pint and nothing else.  I know. Please try to remain calm. Daily Mail, feel free to report this. Front page if you must. For the record, this shocking episode took place at the Marcia Inn in Bishopthorpe, a fantastic pub in York Outer. Lovely place.  Lovely people. The serious point is this. If our politics ends up obsessing over what someone ordered in a pub, rather than the cost of living, fixing the NHS, or defence, then we really have lost the plot. Most people I meet in York are not lying awake at night worrying about appetisers.  They are worrying about their bills, their kids, their parents.  So yes, have a chuckle at the silliness of it all. I certainly have. But to the landlady of the Rat Inn, well done for achieving the truly impossible. Uniting the whole of social media in recognising this as the utter absurdity it is.