Slakin

I have an elderly friend who is in her 80s. She lives in Cornwall. Mary is very switched on but she struggles with new technology a bit - especially parking apps. All she wants to do is put her car in a space for a couple of hours and pay. She does not want to sign up for a new app. She does not want to verify her device. She does not want to save her credit card information. She does not want to figure out why the app thinks she is in Devon and cannot geolocate the car park she is standing in. She wants to take a few coins and put them in a machine and do her shopping/meet her friends. Now, she finds excuses not to meet friends or shop because she is so worried about the parking situation. It is a disgrace that parking has become so discriminatory and this is just the start. When Digital ID is introduced, her whole world will feel like this.

World leaders have united to condemn Israel’s bomb attack on Hamas officials in Qatar, saying the strike was in breach of international law and have warned the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that they are prepared to do absolutely nothing in response. From the new Private Eye, out now.

In a world first we will broadcast over 100 untruths back to back, with each extensively fact checked. Donald Trump v The Truth. Wednesday 10pm.

theguardian.com/music/2023/sep… My album Hit Parade came out 2 years ago today, in the middle of a controversy. Having been told previously by music journalists that it was already “album of the year” when the controversy broke I was instructed by the same people to admit “ignorance” and apologise or face a drop in scores. These messages were passed on to me by my then record label, Ninja Tune. I have the receipts. This is not journalism or criticism, it’s authoritarianism. The record did indeed suffer revised scores across the board and was left off the end of year lists. It wasn’t just upsetting for me but also very frightening to see how the whole of the music media, in tandem, were able and willing to punish a work of art for the sake of activism. To say I’ll never be the same again is an understatement. Props to The Guardian for not changing the 5 star score. But the piece itself is rotten to the core. And the record was never again mentioned by them, I really hope one day that changes.

The Clacton house ‘owned’ by @Nigel_Farage’s girlfriend is now under scrutiny. They will be keen to paint her as just ‘his girlfriend’ but they will omit her history in politics and as a politician. And her history of helping Nigel move cash about. She was originally a ‘professional acquaintance living at his bachelor pad’ who he denied he was having an affair with. Well we know how that turned out: mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/n… (And he then had a relationship with a vulnerable aide: dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4…) Farage and Paul Nuttall (yes now Deputy Chair of Reform UK) were then sanctioned and ordered to repay £200k of EU funds due to misusing them: theguardian.com/politics/2019/… Ferrari was of the Institute for Direct Democracy in Europe (IDDE), a eurosceptic thinktank. The IDDE and the Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe (ADDE), the political party it is affiliated to, were accused of misspending taxpayers' money. An audit by the European Parliament found the ADDE and IDDE used more than £400,000 of EU grant funding for the benefit of UKIP, in breach of its rules. news.sky.com/story/who-is-n… She was at the centre of it. She had her money frozen by OLAF (European Anti-Fraud Office) for the channeling money into UKIP. Since then, she’s not had a notable job LF Consultancy and the new name Baxter Laois haven’t done much. …te.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/098053… Which makes buying a £850k house in Clacton, that she has no connect to, very surprising.

@WaterwaySophia 😔🌈hope it's sorted soon🖖🏻

On 2 September 1973 J.R.R. Tolkien died aged 81. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is the best-selling book of the 20th Century, and is joined by seminal works The Hobbit and The Silmarillion. He may have died 52 years ago but his influence and legacy lives on in us all. Namárië.

I see Nicola Sturgeon is once again complaining that I posted a picture of myself wearing a T-shirt with her name on it and the legend 'Destroyer of Women's Rights.' Apparently this didn't 'elevate the debate.' Is there a clinical term for an individual who has extreme thinness of skin when it comes to their own perceived hurts, coupled with a rhino-hide when it comes to the fear and suffering of others? I'm thinking in particular of the two women Isla Bryson raped, who had to watch their First Minister squirm and smirk on TV as she tried to avoid admitting he was a man; of the five survivors of male violence who were ready to give evidence to Sturgeon's committee on gender self-ID, but were told to put their concerns in writing while seventeen trans-identified people appeared in person; of the mother of a young girl with a learning disability who campaigned against self-ID because she wanted her daughter to be guaranteed same sex intimate care, should she need it (the mother was presumably one of those female opponents Sturgeon calls 'shrill' and 'hysterical' in her memoir); of the ten-year-old girl sexually assaulted in a public bathroom by a 6'5" paedophile who served his jail sentence in a women's prison because he called himself 'Katie'; of Sandie Peggie, forced to discuss her own menstrual history in public to justify not wanting to undress in view of a 6ft straight cross-dresser in the nurses' changing room; of Marion Millar, dragged into court because she tweeted a picture of suffragette ribbons; of the Scottish rape crisis centres reliant on government funding who were pressured to admit trans-identified males into their services if they wanted funding to continue. When Sturgeon refers to an 'elevated debate', she means a discussion that takes place within a tiny, smug bubble from which regular women suffering real life consequences of her policies are firmly excluded. These faceless ants are loftily dismissed as bigots, or, to be more precise: 'transphobic, misogynistic, homophobic, maybe racist as well.' Nicola, you hated the T-shirt picture because you couldn't ignore it, as you'd ignored so many other women trying to make you understand their concerns. Appeals to your empathy, your intelligence and your compassion all failed. Apparently the only way to get through to you is through your vanity.

Nick Clegg made a reported £100m from Facebook. And now the reputation laundering begins. Congrats to him on this magnificent PR coup. Nicely played, Clegg. A glossy magazine profile AND extract in the paper that created the Facebook PR crisis that led to his hiring. 1/

So non-doms aren’t fleeing in record numbers. Another fabricated myth?

Our new home. 🏡 We're delighted to announce the Alexander Stadium has been named our home venue for the 2025/26 campaign! 🏟️ @alex_stadium | @BhamCityCouncil

On this day in 2007, Brunty became a Baggie. The rest, as they say, is history. 🫡

95% of ocean plastic originates from these 10 rivers

Based on 2025 data from Ofcom, Reuters, and Statista, X is a popular news source (5th online in UK), but not the most used app—BBC News leads at 59% direct usage, with Facebook topping social news. The "3x preferred" claim lacks evidence; it's overstated. X has ~18M UK users, but mainstream still dominates.

100% agree

"Mitchell And Webb Are Not Helping", a new sketch show featuring @arobertwebb, @5teviem, @kfRedhot, @lararicote, Krystal Evans and me, starts NEXT MONTH on @Channel4! Here's a little taster to get you in the holiday mood.

The birthplace of Black Sabbath Closed for 11 yrs by developers The UK's oldest working cinema Closed for 18 months by developers trying to knock it down The UK's first Rep Theatre Fighting on One Street Station Street Should be owned by Brummies. For Brummies. Forever.

Ozzy Osbourne was appalled the birthplace of Black Sabbath & Heavy Metal, The Crown on Station St had been left to rot. And that Glenbrook Property want to demolish the UK's oldest working cinema The Electric. Save Station Street. Honour Ozzy & the UK's most historic arts street.