Russell Willis

I have marched against Nazis. I mean genuine 'blood and soil' Nazis: skinheads, bomber jackets, Doc Martens, National Front types. The people on the 'Unite the Kingdom' rally are not Nazis. And if you think they are, you need to give your head a wobble.

"The Prime Minister is going, no Prime Minister can survive this... It's time to be real, he's going. No doubt about it." Labour MP Jonathan Hinder describes Sir Keir Starmer's speech this morning speech as "tone deaf" and "at its worst, downright insulting". #Newsnight

Blisteringly good, this. @Jonathan_Hinder is one of Labour's finest MPs.

Some wonderful sense from @PCSnow1604 about the best environment for students with trauma: calm, predictable, adult authority, routine. But ‘trauma-informed’ so often dissolves into endless permissiveness, low expectations, and inconsistency. Which is the *opposite* of what they need. pamelasnow.blogspot.com/2026/05/cognit…

@muttonshunter @Keir_Starmer Once somebody's proven they're too frightened of being called 'bigot' to defend the most vulnerable, they've shown who they are.

I reviewed Russell Brand’s new book about finding god for the corrupt mainstream media. @RobbieTimes Link below!

@charlesmurray After I had lived in Japan for 20 years I realised I couldn’t tell the difference between Anne Heche, Cate Blanchett and Gwyneth Paltrow etc.

This is true. I've had many Asians point that out to me. In fairness, however, I can't tell those actors apart either. Perhaps explained by not being able to recall seeing any of them in anything.

Ask yourself why you didn’t give a damn about October 7th. Ask yourself what you’d have done, if you were prime minister of Israel on that day. Ask yourself what it might be like to live next to people who voted in a government of terrorists whose manifesto was literally to kill Jews (not Israelis). Ask yourself why there are no mass protests worldwide that bring universities to a halt for far bloodier situations in Sudan, Nigeria and China. Ask yourself if - as rightly horrified as you are by death and war - the amplification of the actions of the one tiny Jewish state might come from a place of Jew hate (even if that is not the case with you personally). Ask yourself why you’re siding with people who hate everything about you and would make you cover yourself…who hate gays, women, Jews and dogs…against the one democracy in the Middle East where multiculturalism and progressive politics actually thrive. If you’ve asked yourself all of the above and answered them satisfactorily, then, by all means, protest. Many figures have done this with nuance - for example, very few called Thom Yorke anti-Semitic for his extremely anti Netanyahu comment. In fact, Yorke got most hate from your pro pally side for not demonising the Jews enough. The fact that even mentioning there might be another ‘side’ is seen by you guys as heresy is why it’s anti semitic. Because it makes the Jews (most of whom support Israel) out to be uniquely evil, monstrous and unfeeling as a race. This is obviously not the reality. Unless you think it is … and then, well, what could be more antisemitic ?

Even if you think that what Israel is doing in Gaza is a genocide (it’s not), even if you think Israel is a genocidal society (it’s not), even if you think the IDF is deliberately targeting children (it’s not), even if you don’t think the state of Israel should exist, it’s no justification for killing, attacking, insulting, or harassing Jews in Europe, the US, Australia, or basically anywhere. And the people that suggest that Israel’s actions are part of the explanation for rising antisemitism are very likely antisemitic themselves.

Que miles de docentes de Historia diseñen miles de materiales distintos sobre la Revolución Francesa es de una ineficiencia absoluta. ¿De verdad somos tan egocéntricos para creer que nuestra ficha hecha en una tarde es mejor que un manual revisado y estructurado?

In 10 years, we'll realize young adults can't read, write, or think as well as they should. We'll wonder how we allowed students to offload huge chunks of their learning to AI. Today we're just watching it happen. This is the most obvious unforced error of our time.

📣🚨GRAHAM LINEHAN ACQUITTED OF CRIMINAL DAMAGE “The decision of the Court to throw out this case , is very welcome – but this case should never have got to court. There has been a troubling pattern of police forces around the country to ‘believe’ trans-rights activists, time and time again, even when there has been overwhelming evidence that complaints have been made against gender critical campaigners, in bad faith. The police have failed in their duty to properly and fairly investigate – preferring instead to support one side over the other in a debate. All this has done is erode the faith the public should be able to have in the police. We are sick of two tier policing and I hope with today’s verdict it will end. I have suffered greatly in my fight to protect women and children from what I believe to be a dangerous ideology. But I am proud that I have never given in and I will not do. I have been lifted through support from friends and strangers, from women’s rights groups to London cabbies who have taken the time to stop and shake my hand. I am very grateful to my legal team; Daniel Berke and Sarah Vine KC and to the team at the Free Speech Union”.

This is fantastic news and absolutely the right decision. A huge safeguarding leap forward.

BART spent $90 million on new fare gates. They're recovering about $10 million a year in fares. That's a 9-year payback on paper. The actual return hit in six months. Embarcadero station went from 112 hours of corrective maintenance in the six months before installation to 2 hours after. Daly City saved 109. Balboa Park saved 75. Across the system, 961 hours of cleanup work disappeared. Corrective maintenance is the term BART uses for graffiti, heavy soiling, vandalism, the damage that needs a crew not a janitor. At several stations it dropped to zero. Crime fell 41% year over year. Riders who reported seeing fare evasion on their trip dropped from 22% to 10%. Citations issued by BART police went from 2,200 in January to under 1,000 in July, because there was nothing to cite. The gates were a filtering project disguised as a revenue project. Old BART gates were waist-high orange fins designed in the 1970s. You could hop them in under a second. That made the station effectively a public space, and the rider mix reflected that. The new gates are 72 inches of polycarbonate with 3D sensors that detect tailgating. You either pay or you don't enter. Once you don't enter, you also don't smoke on the platform, sleep in the elevator, or harass other riders. BART tried hiring more police for years. Blitz operations at high-traffic stations. Increased patrols. Dedicated transit cops. None of it moved the numbers the way six feet of polycarbonate did. The $10 million in recovered fares is the smallest line in the return. Fare revenue used to cover 70% of BART operations. After the pandemic it collapsed to 22%. The gates won't fix that gap directly. They fix the precondition for fixing it: a system that office workers, families, and tourists are willing to use again. Ridership growth at stations with new gates outpaced ungated ones before the rollout finished. A $400 million annual deficit is heading to voters in November as a sales tax measure. Voters don't approve sales taxes for transit agencies they don't feel safe in. The $90 million on gates is buying BART the right to ask the public for more money. That's the real return on six feet of polycarbonate.

@KirstieMAllsopp Sticky-backed plastic was a real thing used for covering and other creative endeavours , not Sellotape!

This ⬇️

Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson's ALIEN: THE ILLUSTRATED STORY (1979) might just be the greatest comic book adaptation of all time. And the closest I'd get to seeing the film when I was 9. Happy #alienday!

@soniasodha Why wasn’t he aware of the red box form at all let alone that it contradicted the briefing he was given? That doesn’t seem like someone who is on top of things.

Have to say, Olly Robbins is coming across as way more on top of his brief than Keir Starmer.

@EmilyThornberry The fact that Oliver Robbins has never seen the red box form which contradicted the briefing he received speaks to his incompetence — why not? Why was he not aware? If he was, why did he not question it? Was The vetting service at fault?

“I have just been informed that I was prime minister all along. I am furious with my officials for not telling me.”

Keir Starmer on the telly this morning