Jack Bond

Mandelson phoning into his old Times Radio podcast in January 2025 to complain about the security vetting. Stick around for Hugo Rifkind’s penetrating follow up question

Outside court, @johnmcdonnellMP reacts to the news that @STWuk Chris Nineham and @PSCupdates Ben Jamal have been found guilty of trumped up charges around a pro-Palestine protest last year. The law is an ass.

Eze’s goal from every angle

Mark Clattenburg… how have you just said that?! Vinicius Junior hasn’t “made it difficult” He can celebrate in front of the crowd as much as he likes, that does not under any circumstance legitimise alleged racist abuse from Prestianni.

Mark Clattenburg, get a clue. Saying Vinicius Junior has 'made it difficult'. He can celebrate scoring in front of the crowd, there is NOTHING wrong with that. In no way does it justify or legitimise alleged racist abuse from Gianluca Prestianni. This shouldn't have to be said.

Lab MP @Georgia_Gould is asked if theres a problem with how everyone in politics seems to be interconnected Gould, the daughter of Lord Gould (a key figure in NewLabour), who as a child used to go on hols with Alistair Campbell & his family & Mandelson, says there isnt a problem

Since we’re allowed to noooootice these things now, this was from 2023 and hardly got any traction at the time Tom Dewey won his seat with Labour AFTER the police raided his house for possessing child abuse images novaramedia.com/2023/08/31/hac…

Jeremy Corbyn doesn't share Peter Mandelsons politics & has never had anything to do with him. Keir Starmer kicked Jeremy out of the party (and then gave Peter Mandelson a top govt job) And he actually thinks this is something to boast about? #PMQs

Perhaps the most important piece you read today, this week, this month… 👀

Gabriel gets a lot from one particular ‘source’ regarding this stuff. Once they started briefing against Zarah, and others, to the Sunday times (which I enjoy, good reporting!) should have been clear party was kaput. If someone did that to nm colleague, they’d be fired.

Believe it or not, I had an old school friend on today’s marches in London. He sent me some photos from the crowd. We went to middle school together and grew up on the same Eastern District council estate in Northampton. I asked him why he was there. He gave me two answers: 1.“The government doesn’t listen to us.” 2.“I want to feel proud of my country again.” He wore a Union Jack, not a St George’s Cross as he said that one had been hijacked by racists. He wasn’t there for Hopkins, Musk, or any of the professional ‘grifters’ as he put it. He was there to feel part of something bigger, though he admitted there were a lot of, in his words, “assholes” there. He’s an electrician. He’s smart. He’s not racist, but he’s not “PC” either. He’s not a fan of Keir Starmer but he also believes Farage would be a disaster. Oh yes, he’s a bundle of contradictions! But aren’t we all? I don’t know what ‘box’ we put him or the millions like him in. And I think pretending they’re all racists or fascists would be a massive mistake. Some were. But not all. This is about something bigger than immigration slogans or GDP numbers. For decades we’ve hollowed out our national life, underfunding and undermining the very institutions that once brought us together. Karl Polanyi, writing in The Great Transformation, argued that when markets are “disembodied” from society, when land, labour, and life itself are treated as commodities society pushes back. He called this the “double movement”: people seeking to protect themselves, to reclaim dignity and meaning when everything solid seems to melt into air. That’s what I saw in my friend’s photos. Not just anger, but a demand for belonging. We’ve replaced collective experience with atomisation. Without getting too nostalgic, programmes like the BBC’s Generation Game once pulled in millions every Saturday night, giving us something we could all talk about on Monday morning. Now we watch Netflix, Disney+, Prime, or Paramount, alone, in algorithmic silos. Football used to be affordable and rooted in community; now it’s millionaires playing for the profitability of billionaires. The NHS, the post office, the railways - all chipped away, run down, sold off or centralised, leaving people feeling powerless and disconnected. And don’t get me wrong: some kind of “Hovis Labour” nostalgia for the 1950s isn’t the answer. The country back then was often intolerant, grey, and deeply unequal. But what we’ve built since is a society that gives people little to hold in common, no collective story about who we are or what we’re for. I reckon that’s partly why my mate marched. Not because he wants to turn back the clock. But because he wants to feel pride again. Pride in a country that is inclusive, fair, and offers a role for everyone. Pride in a nation that has a respected place in the world, tackles grotesque inequality, and gives people something real to believe in. Polanyi warned that when democracies fail to provide a humane alternative, the backlash can turn authoritarian. This is how fascism grew in the 1930s, not because everyone became a true believer, but because millions felt abandoned and looked for strength, identity, and meaning wherever they could find it. If Labour and progressives don’t offer that story of renewal, if we don’t rebuild our national institutions, restore collective pride, and re-embed markets within society, the far right will do it for us, in their own image. And by then, it will be too late.

Great explainer from the RMT’s Eddie Dempsey. Engineers who work through the night have been painted by right wing pundits, whose hands are silky smooth, as work-shy! Unreal. The tube works constantly, with 2000 fewer staff than before.

Because people like you spent two years 'both-sidesing' what was obviously a genocide from the beginning.

🚨The UK government should not use Palestinian statehood as a bargaining chip to end Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza Full statement from our co-CEO here: actionaid.org.uk/latest-news/pa…

"We don't need socialism. We need public-private partnerships." After Mamdani's primary victory in New York, establishment Democrats are already copying his signature videos. Zeteo produced our own (fake) centrist Democrat featuring Zeteo senior producer @heycappello.

I wrote about Jess Carter and why statements from the FA aren’t enough metro.co.uk/2025/07/22/jes…

Full quote from ActionAid UK co-CEO @h_rbond on the government's decision to cut the ODA budget: "Today the UK Government confirmed its reckless decision to cut the UK’s already depleted ODA budget. Raiding ODA to increase military spending only worsens global instability and deepens humanitarian crises. It is also a huge betrayal for women and girls around the world who are at the sharp end of conflict and the climate crisis. There is no doubt that this decision will lead to fewer services for survivors of violence, reduced access to education for girls, and diminished maternal healthcare. As these cuts come into force in the coming weeks, the government must ensure that women and girls don’t bear the brunt of its broken promises."

Pedro Pascal at #Cannes: "I want people to be safe and protected. I want to live on the right side of history. I am an immigrant. My parents are refugees from Chile. We fled a dictatorship and I was privileged enough to grow up in the United States after asylum in Denmark. I stand by those protections, always." variety.com/2025/film/fest…

People looking back on this period will never understand, because there is no way to understand, how Israel deliberately starved Palestinians in Gaza, how food aid piled up at every border of the Gaza strip and the entire world could not compel Israel to let it through

"The Nakba continues until today." 77 years ago today, Huda's father was one of more than 800,000 Palestinians forced from their homes when the state of Israel was created. Today, Huda's neighbours and community in Sheikh Jarrah are threatened with eviction by the Israeli authorities from the place they sought refuge after 1948. #NakbaDay77 #NakbaDay #Nakba