Connor French

God Save The King

Personal View: BBC journalism is disgracefully maligned by my old newspaper world, by Trump and commercially-focussed idealogues, yet here at home I just watched @BowenBBC on Iran, followed by @FrankRGardner, followed by the wonderful @VitalyBBC from Kyiv…. I was in US last week… let me tell you NO news organisation is as good as this, no journalists as clear and free, the new DG needs to fill the newsroom with confidence and….defiance…. it is time to wave the BBC flag.

Look at how those supposedly progressive Greens use pictures of Starmer with Modi to exploit Muslim-Hindu tensions and of Lammy with Netanyahu to exploit Muslim-Jewish tensions.

Being Jewish in Britain is to pray or drop your kids off at site barricaded like a fortress as you scroll past news clips like this almost every day of random Jewish public figures or businesses with no real links to Israel being picketed or harassed.

One of the founders of Gails was born in Israel. Although she has long since sold the chain it's regularly attacked by people answering to a higher morality than you or I can understand.

Gails is owned by Bain Capital; has nothing to do with Israel other than the fact that it was founded years ago by an Israeli. But that doesnt get in the way of these poisonous idiots mobilising the classic antisemitic trope of " Jews vs locals".

@hikingshawty Lancastrians will have something to say about Pendle Hill being in Yorkshire!

the yorkshire dales at dusk

There’s only 1 person in Congress who doesn’t trade stocks, doesn’t take corporate PAC money, and has a public schedule. That’s me. And it should be the standard.

-30°C. 200 miles above the Arctic Circle. In the strategically vital High North, Britain’s Surveillance and Reconnaissance Squadron train where few others can. Minister for the Armed Forces, Col @AlistairCarns, joined them in Norway. 🇳🇴 If you can operate here, you can operate anywhere. Watch on YouTube 📺

The best TV drama ever made. A masterpiece.

Left politics 1925: can miners have Sunday off pls Left politics 2025: Charlotte and Jasper posing in keffiyeh saying boycott the jews

i love england

@connor_naismith Congratulations!

🚨 PERSONAL NEWS 🚨 My wife and I are absolutely over the moon to welcome our 2nd daughter into the world. A huge and sincere thanks to the amazing NHS staff at Leighton Hospital. I will be spending several weeks away from Parliamentary duties while I look after my family ♥️

@siennamarla It’s also awfully written, I honestly struggled to get through half of it.

Something big *is* happening but that’s no excuse for sharing a really long ad for AI tools as if its content is revelatory.

Morning! What do you enjoy doing on Saturdays? It’s watching half-hour interviews with random backbench MPs on YouTube isn’t it… Admit it! youtu.be/78kEUtnMvyk

Why Al Carns is gaining ground as MPs mull Starmer’s replacement ft.trib.al/HC6yy8f

From Saturday, the sun won’t set until after 5pm and it’ll stay that way right through to October ➡️ bbc.in/4r0YUob

If Labour want to start afresh and reconnect with voters, they should go for Alistair Carns MP as their next leader. He’s a former Royal Marines Colonel who is down to earth and unlike so many Labour politicians, has experience outside of politics.

Sky’s @SophyRidgeSky reflects on her first meeting with Peter Mandelson and takes a look at how he has been able to use his connections and his ‘charming’ behaviour to get himself into high places ⬇️ trib.al/c6yVGEE

Peter Mandelson is obviously a very charming man. Funny, well connected, gossipy, you hear a lot of people talk about him with affection in Westminster. My own stand out memory of him is a little different. The first time I met him was at my first ever Labour Party conference, I was a trainee reporter in my early twenties.  In other words, I had no status or any connections really at all. And I guess the best way to put it, is that Peter Mandelson was dismissive rather than charming. The reason I'm saying this is because I think it goes to the heart of Westminster's problem, a problem that I believe is deeply connected to the Epstein scandal (in Epstein’s world status - connections - and money - was everything.) Because people who look at Westminster - in the same way as they might look at Washington - and think, this is a closed group of elites, who all know each other, who go to the same parties, and share the same in jokes... well, to a large extent, they are right. There are too many people in Westminster who look over the shoulder of the person they're talking to see if there's someone more important in the room. Status is everything... what stories can they give me... how can they further my career? The personal and the professional become blurred.  And Peter Mandelson is the embodiment of that. Charming, well connected, gossipy. In the inner circle.  If we're honest with ourselves, that's the reason he's been allowed to fail and then be rehabilitated so many times. It's the reason he was given the best job in politics - US Ambassador - despite being friends with a paedophile. And it's the reason he's had a softer landing than many others would have in his position.  A softer landing... until now. Because after the latest dump of Epstein emails, there really is no coming back. Not even for the most charming man in Westminster.