Kate Ardern

As promised here is the link to my recent & positively received honorary prof lecture @SalfordUni tx @SalfordPH @MargaretRoweUoS #citizenledpublichealth one for @wesstreeting @GwynneMP @LaylaMoran @annalouisedixon @AndyBurnhamGM @LCRMayor vimeo.com/1026581234

بيان مشترك من البطريركية اللاتينية في القدس وحراسة الأراضي المقدسة. Joint Press Release: The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the Custody of the Holy Land. lpj.org/en/news/joint-…

The decision by Israeli police to bar Jerusalem’s Latin Patriarch from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Palm Sunday constitutes a violation of religious freedom and long-standing protections governing holy sites. Freedom of worship in Jerusalem must be fully guaranteed, without exception, for all faiths. Jerusalem’s multi-religious character must be protected.

Italy’s PM Giorgia Meloni has condemned Israeli police actions preventing Jerusalem’s Latin Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa from celebrating Palm Sunday mass. 🔴 LIVE updates: aje.news/anhgt5

I am disappointed with the decision by the Israeli police to prevent the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Christian Communities of the Holy Land from marking Palm Sunday at the Holy Sepulchre.    These actions further violate the longstanding status quo of Jerusalem’s Holy Sites. People of every faith in Jerusalem should be able to worship freely, fully, and without fear. I am pleased that President Herzog has contacted the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, His Beatitude Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, to reaffirm this.

83% of Britain’s electricity is currently zero carbon. This is an incredible achievement of which we should be rightly proud and motivated to go further, faster. Instead, we’ve got fossil fuelled politicians telling us we should be focusing on 93% depleted North Sea oil & gas.

sadiq khan has beaten nick timothy, nigel farage, robert jenrick and matt goodwin to posting anything at all about the beginning of Holy Week today

Today is Palm Sunday, marking the beginning of Holy Week as we approach Easter. Today's procession across Trafalgar Square to St Martin-in-the-Fields is a powerful retelling of the story of Jesus’s arrival in Jerusalem.

Boss out this morning for snackies and a fur off with my mate.

Just in case anyone missed it, yesterday, Reform UK took a local Ipswich artist's work, plagiarised it with Ai and posted it as their own. So instead of artist, @louisecobbold79 having her art proudly displayed for being on the match day programme, Farage has hijacked her limelight. As he does … with everything. It's utterly shameful and should be called out for what it is … IP theft. @IpswichTown and @ITFCWomen should publicly condemn this.

The Vatican was in no mood to play games with the would-be prophet from Palantir and Nigel Farage’s “friend”, Peter Thiel. Paolo Benanti, a priest who has advised Pope Francis and Pope Leo on AI and tech ethics, called out Thiel as a “political theologian operating at the very heart of the Silicon Valley ecosystem” and delivered a scathing rebuke of Thiel’s religious delusions: “Thiel’s entire action can thus be read as a prolonged act of heresy against the liberal consensus: a challenge to the very foundations of civil coexistence, which he now considers outdated.” Benanti hit Thiel where it hurts, zooming in on his persistent efforts to pervert religious ideas into justifications for greed, monopoly, and authoritarianism. He exposes Thiel’s obsessive focus on achieving “the pathological radicalization” of “competition, technology, the individual” to argue against democratic society itself. thenerdreich.com/peter-thiels-a…

NEW: No modern pope has sustained a campaign of this scope against an active American military operation. In twenty-five days, the U.S.-born Pope Leo XIV has told Christian soldiers to promote peace, ordered Catholic politicians who perpetuate war to go to confession, called for a permanent ban on aerial bombing, and demanded a ceasefire — repeatedly, publicly, and without apology. thelettersfromleo.com/p/hatred-is-in…

I regret to inform you that Liz Truss has gone full conspiracy tonto. Here’s what I saw at CPAC…

Even I was shocked by what I heard at CPAC. MAGA has evolved and radicalised yet further. It’s convinced it must not only save the US but Western civilisation. Because in their mind, the UK and Europe has already “fallen” to Islam. Our special report 👇 youtu.be/t3Y_ozT_p3g?si…

Truss Attempts Trump Style Revival Despite Collapse in Credibility It takes a remarkable level of detachment from reality for Liz Truss to believe she has any authority left to lecture the country. This is a Prime Minister whose time in office collapsed in little over forty days, not because of political opposition, but because her own decisions detonated confidence in the economy. Markets did not hesitate, her own party did not defend her, and the public paid the price. That is her record. It is not contested. It is not forgotten. And yet, rather than reflect on that failure, she now seeks to parade herself at the head of a Trump style political circus, aligned with Donald Trump, as though importing American grievance politics will somehow restore her credibility. It will not. There is a reason her name provokes such a reaction across the United Kingdom, and it is not partisan. It is because her time in office left a lasting mark on people’s finances and on trust in government. That does not simply fade because she chooses to reappear. To now attempt to position herself as a serious voice in British politics is not just misguided, it borders on absurd. The country has already delivered its verdict, and it was decisive. This is not a comeback. It is a refusal to accept political reality. And it raises a very simple question. If your leadership ended in failure on that scale, why would anyone take instruction from you now.

It is difficult to accept the basis upon which these so called facts are presented. In modern times, the two most demonstrably unsuccessful Prime Ministers this country has endured are Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. No other Prime Minister, including Sir Keir Starmer, approaches the scale of those failures. What has followed is a narrative constructed and sustained across major broadcasters, including the BBC, ITV, Sky News, and GB News, alongside sections of the wider press, the persistent chorus of voices from within the Conservative Party, and the influence of Reform UK. Within that narrative, criticism of Sir Keir has been constant from the moment he assumed office. That scrutiny stands in stark contrast to the latitude afforded to his predecessors, particularly at times when serious errors were made and rules were plainly disregarded. The effect is cumulative. A narrative is repeated, reinforced, and amplified until it presents itself as established fact, regardless of whether it withstands scrutiny. It is this constant echo that many have grown weary of, particularly when it appears so plainly unbalanced in its application. It is not unreasonable to conclude that such imbalance reflects editorial inclination rather than objective assessment. A Labour Prime Minister does not sit comfortably with certain proprietors or institutions, and that discomfort appears to shape the tone of coverage. Yet one fact remains beyond dispute. Sir Keir secured a decisive electoral mandate, a landslide victory that confers both authority and responsibility. Those who supported him expect that mandate to be honoured through steady and effective governance. To date, there has been no failure of the kind so readily alleged. What we are witnessing instead is the noise of political transition. Meanwhile, the Conservative Party finds itself diminished, its relevance increasingly in question, and its future uncertain. It would therefore be welcome if sections of the press returned to the task of reporting events as they are, rather than seeking to shape them into something they are not.

A case study in racist smearing. Claims of "family voting" were all over media the morning after the Gorton and Denton by-election. The police conclusion there was no evidence to support this buried. You have to go to the "Manchester" page of BBC online to find it. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

London rejects the far right! 💪

Don’t forget, the clocks spring forward at 01:00 GMT this Sunday morning. More here: bbc.in/4thRoWE

Reform candidate for Swansea in the upcoming Welsh elections steps down. Very strong statement. "Politics is a dirty game, but Reform has sunk deep into the sewer when it should have been a beacon of decency." This tallies with what many long-term Reform members have been telling me for some time regarding frustration at what they see as an increasingly dictatorial style from Farage and those close to him. These are the people Reform are going to need to be out knocking doors over the next six weeks.