Will Heaven

Huge congratulations to Bodhana Sivanandan on becoming England’s top female chess player at just 11 years old. We once played each other in the Downing Street garden. Let’s just say her success has not come as a shock!

@BathRugby @TimesSport The full story here... thetimes.com/sport/rugby-un…

Breaking: @BathRugby owner Bruce Craig has sold 50% of the club to Sir James Dyson, whose family wealth hit £21bn last year. More @TimesSport soon on: 🛁 Bath's settled debt & stadium £ 🛁 Dyson's plan to pass the club to his kids 🛁 But doesn't want The Rec named after him

@holland_tom @LauraCummingArt I hugely enjoyed this series - thank you both.

Today, @LauraCummingArt concludes our series on GREAT ART with one of the most enigmatic of all paintings: Millet's THE ANGELUS What light does it shed on tensions in 19th C France? How come it almost ended up in America? Does it actually show a coffin? therestishistory.com

A lovely curious thing about my home of Barnet. It is home to the UKs largest Jewish community as people know, less well known is that its also home to the largest Iranian diaspora population too. For all the noise, these two communities have always got on, even more so recently.

@RossKempsell Correct again

President Trump has continually made geopolitical interventions when US markets close on a Friday

@Tony_Diver @Telegraph Congratulations, Tony - great news.

Some news from me: I’m delighted and honoured to be made Political Editor @Telegraph from next month. Very exciting time to be taking the helm of the best lobby team on Fleet Street.

@HugoGye @TheEconomist Congratulations Hugo! Great move

Some news... I'll be joining @TheEconomist later this year as political correspondent Will still be around Westminster covering government, opposition, elections and public opinion Very excited to join a newspaper I've always loved

'How the world’s antisemites turned on me' │ ✍️@Dannythefink #Echobox=1770714351" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">thetimes.com/uk/religion/ar…

During an injury break at the Italy v Scotland game in Rome, the camera switched to show Princess Anne and the crowd erupted with cheers for her! She didn’t realise the cheers were for her until someone told her 🥹👏

@alexmassie Condolences to you Alex and your family. He was a dream to commission on the Telegraph comment desk. Perfect copy, punctually delivered, on almost any subject. A huge pro.

Allan Massie, 1938-2026 open.substack.com/pub/alexmassie…

The images emerging now from Iran of young people, older people, boys and girls, who were murdered in the last few weeks by the Iranian Islamic dictator, the Islamic Corps of Revolutionary Guards, Basij militia and imported killers from Iraq, are heartbreaking but also enraging. Some depict beautiful people at play, at the gym, dancing, on motorbikes; some makeshift morgues full of bodies; some streetscenes where killers shoot down unarmed protesters; and many show families opening bodybags to find their dead children shot in the head; others discover bodies of protesters wounded then executed in hospital beds and particularly women with uteruses removed or other horrors to conceal brutal rapes... Many are not young but it looks like the slaughter of the best and brightest of Iran Gen Z. Ive tried to repost these here. I dont want us to tire of theses or look away. So many are these images that it is hard to open the images or repost them. I have been contacted by people in Iran (who weirdly read my books in pirated Farsi editions) who manage to come online in various ways and they beg me to keep posting these images and faces and keep talking about them. Embarrassingly they thank me just for doing this! That is why i am writing this now. We must keep going and keep doing so. The numbers killed are astonishing: based on sources within the murderous dictatorship, it may be as many as 36000 were murdered just in the first days of the terror 8/9 January and more later - making it likely that 40,000 is a horribly plausible estimate. This makes this event the most greatest massacre in modern Iranian history by far, the greatest single event slaughter in modern MIddle Eastern history since 1900 - along with the Assad's liquidation of an entire town, site of Islamist insurgents, Hama, in 1982 when around 30,000 were killed. Both of them not taking place in wars but in cold blood - and this Iranian atrocity being far more terrible since none of the protesters were armed. We live in a time of egregious comparisons to the Holocaust when the Holocaust is repellently abused and minimized by cynical cretins - radiohosts, podders, politicians- to criticize anything from vaccination to ICE raids. But here is a comparison that stands in its scale and horror: in size and horror this does resemble the two days of Babi Yar near Kiev in Sept 1941 where 33,000 Jews were killed. It is also worth pointing out that an entire progressive movement arose against the autocracy of the Shah. And his was an autocracy. But in his forty year one reign, only around 3000 people were killed, mainly in the last year before his downfall. This week alone would have murdered in the streets, torturechambers, hospitals of Iran. It is very striking that the UN has barely commented on this; its sec-general has been shamed publically by dissident @AlinejadMasih; many countries have refused to vote against Iran; many of those formerly known as 'progressives' are silent or supporting the regime - incredibly; some famous so-called 'humanitarian' NGOs - many of them organizations i revered since my childhood; hello Amnesty where is your other ball now - are silent. In doing so, they have discredited any claim to humanitarian credentials and exposed themselves. Many Iranians dissidents have asked where are all the 'humanitarian' protesters who filled our streets, where are the righteous actors and other boobies now? It says alot that a comedian @omid9 is still doing more than BBC or Sky to cover this story. There are a plethora of great Iranian writers historians activists on X covering this. The killing is still going on. The tyranny is fatally damaged, it may fall on its own ultimately, it is now even more tainted, more likely metamorphose into an ICRG dictatorship. But history shows declining damaged regiimes can survive for years. Britain - as usual desperately doing a lamely virtuous catchup following more determinated players in foreign policy, sometimes sensible things, othertimes foolish - is i think banning ICRG but when the lumbering EU is ahead of you, we should worry; it should also seize the properties owned by Khamenei family and dynasties; and do more. For now all depends on the US President; depending on the details, a US strike might make its downfall more likely or it might not. What can we do? Not enough but keep posting the pictures for a start....

Alireza Golchini, a surgeon from Qazvin, has been sentenced to death for treating injured protesters in Iran. Doctors are being arrested and executed for doing their jobs. This is state terror. Don’t believe the regime’s claim about stopping 800 executions. When this regime says “execution,” it means execution. Just this morning, its own judiciary confirmed, Hamidreza Sabet Esmailpour, a political prisoner was hanged at dawn on fabricated charges of spying for Israel. Doctors of the world please unite against this crime.

Mark Tully was a giant among journalists and the greatest Indophile of his generation. He was also a uniquely warm, generous, gentle, kind and helpful man, at whose feet I was honoured to sit for many years as he patiently explained the subtleties & nuances of India. As the voice of BBC India he was irreplaceable, a man prepared to stand up to power and to tell the truth, however uncomfortable. Both privately and professionally, he will be much, much missed.

Erfan Soltani is scheduled to be executed by hanging in Iran in 48 hours. He was arrested in Karaj on January 9 for taking part in the protests. His family was given just 10 minutes to say goodbye. No lawyer. No fair trial. Days later, the Islamic regime sentenced him to death. Reports now warn the regime is preparing public hangings to terrorize the population. More than 10,000 protesters have been arrested since the start of the 2026 uprising. Many could face the same fate. The only thing this regime fears is global scrutiny. Be their voice. Share their names. Expose these crimes. Silence is a death sentence.

“Nothing About This Is Accidental!” A stark warning from Britain’s leading historian of Nazi Germany and the expert witness who defeated David Irving, Sir Richard Evans. In this interview, he unpacks the new wave of revisionism that is spreading online. From Hitler revisionism to Churchill smears… from Pat Buchanan to the rise of figures like Nick Fuentes, Norman Finkelstein, and Darryl Cooper, Evans explains how the war on historical truth is nothing new and why it’s always threatened the moral foundations of the West. Podcast out now on all platforms | Links in replies

Heavens, this is incredibly moving.