mickmca32

🗣️ “Ordinary people being impoverished by Donald Trump's war, still the Taoiseach couldn't condemn even that aspect,” says @RBoydBarrett. #TonightVMTV

"He didn't say anything when Trump called Catherine Connolly a man." Social Democrats Senator Patricia Stephenson has criticised the Taoiseach for "choosing not to interject". More on #VMNews

Israel’s attack on 30 fuel depots outside Tehran disregarded civilian welfare. Whatever ostensible military justification for the attack was vastly overshadowed by the toxic fumes and soot that drenched Tehran’s 9 million people. trib.al/uQdjNlr

Absolute bombshell. A former CIA officer confirms the intel community is about to be grilled under oath about the fake "imminent threat" used to start the Iran war. He exposes that Steve Witkoff's claims about Iran's nukes are considered preposterous and likely fed by Israel.

Ban corporate donations to UK political parties to protect elections, says thinktank. Must ban all political donations. Anything less is unenforceable. It is bribery by corporations and the super rich. They buy power. Any ceiling will favour the rich. theguardian.com/politics/2026/…

Lindsey Hilsum: "Despite the destruction, many people are not leaving Tyre.. Israel has said that everyone in this city of 200,000 should evacuate.. but many say, they've got nowhere to go & anyway, this is their land, why should they leave"

💢 Iran FM warns Americans of looming trillion-dollar “Israel First tax” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned Americans that the Pentagon’s reported $200B request for the war on Iran is “just the tip of the iceberg,” arguing the true cost could reach into the trillions. “We’re only three weeks into this war of choice, imposed on both Iranians and Americans,” he wrote. “This $200b is the tip of the iceberg. Ordinary Americans can thank Benjamin Netanyahu and his lackeys in Congress for the trillion-dollar ‘Israel First tax’ that’s about to hit U.S. economy.”

Watch as Anas Sarwar suggests journalists should not use footage of him joking about 'a stroke pose' at a press conference 👇 The comments made by the Scottish Labour leader were described as a 'disgraceful joke at the expense of stroke survivors' by a leading charity

Very revealing isn’t it 🤔

BREAKING : Spanish 🇪🇸 PM Pedro Sánchez refused to bow down in front of Trump's warning "My stand is clear, i can't support war and i am with people of Gaza & Iran. I am getting letters from across the world praising the stand of Spain" 🔥 He goes on to showing messages he got from the US and European countries. The world is recognizing his leadership. BRAVO 🫡

Lynn Jamieson, chair of @scottishcnd, said Labour receiving money from Stonehaven “adds to the suspicion that heads have been turned by the deep pockets, relentless lobbying, and untruths” of the nuclear industry theferret.scot/scottish-labou…

BOMBSHELL: Iran offered to give away ALL of its enriched uranium during peace talks in Geneva. The British thought it was a credible offer. Hours later, Trump started bombing Iran anyway. The US didn't want peace, they wanted war.

The government claims that nationalising water would cost >£100 billion. That figure has been repeatedly dubunked - by Professor Dieter Helm, & Professor Ewan McGaughey at the People's Commission for Water, among others. Water belongs in public hands. vist.ly/4vetf

An Israeli newspaper has described the actions of settlers in the West Bank as 'Jewish Terrorism'.

Israel says it is bombing bridges to disrupt Hezbollah supply lines. But on the ground the reality is stark: entire routes into southern Lebanon are being severed — effectively cutting off around 1 million people from their homes. Families who have lived on this land for generations now face the very real risk of permanent displacement, unable to return, rebuild, or even reach what remains of their communities. What is being framed as a military tactic is also reshaping the map of civilian life

Zack Polanski, "A wealth tax won't fix everything but it would be a very good place to start" "1% on £10 million, and 2% on £1 billion, would raise around £15 billion a year" "A clear message that those who have accumulated the most money will pay a little bit more" "For a truly progressive government a wealth tax needs to be a day one priority" "And to get our economy moving we much look at all the levers we can pull" "That must include equalising capital gains tax with income tax" "Close down tax avoidance loopholes" "And to expand National Insurance to cover income from investment as well as earned income"

“Political unionism is a study in small man syndrome” ~Andrée Murphy @ATownNews [OUCH!! that had to hurt] ☕️🥐

Disgraced Labour veteran Peter Mandelson made over £1.5m selling his stake in his lobbying firm before it went bust over his links to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein – while staff received zero compensation. The payout reportedly included £250,000 that he received just days before Global Counsel went bust last month. He made between £1.3m and £1.4m in a 2024 sale of shares to friends and associates, former colleagues told the Financial Times. More than 100 staff members lost their livelihoods when clients, including Barclays and Tesco cut ties with Global Counsel, forcing it into administration on 19 February. A batch of the Epstein files released in January contained documents showing that the former UK ambassador to Washington sought Epstein’s advice when co-founding Global Counsel in 2010. Last month Mandelson was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office for allegedly leaking market-sensitive secrets to Epstein around the same time that he founded the firm. He has denied any criminal wrongdoing and said he never acted for personal gain. Global Counsel CEO Rebecca Park bought Mandelson’s remaining shares for £250,000 in February, as part of a bid to save the company’s reputation, the Financial Times reported. But staff received no paid consultation period, leaving them thousands of pounds out of pocket, according to Politico. “It’s a shame for all the Global Counsel people who were impacted by this – a team of 120 brilliant people who lost their jobs while the one person who benefited was him,” a person close to the situation told the Financial Times. When Mandelson was fired as the US’s ambassador to Washington this September over his friendship with Epstein, he took home a £75,000 taxpayer-funded payout.

I don’t get it. If Hezbollah had flats in this block (unlikely in central Beirut but not impossible) why did the Israelis give everyone inside an hour to get out — including those they wanted to kill? And if there weren’t any Hezbollah people there, why destroy a building with dozens of civilians in it?

This is probably the most important article of the month: an op-ed by Oman's Foreign Minister, who mediated the talks between the U.S. and Iran, in which he writes that the U.S. "has lost control of its foreign policy" to Israel. He repeats that a deal was possible as an outcome of the talks (something confirmed by the UK's National Security Advisor, who also attended: x.com/i/status/20341…) and that the military strike by the U.S. and Israel was "a shock." Interestingly, given he is one of Iran's neighbors and given that Oman has been struck multiple times by Iran since the war began (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Iran…), he writes that "Iran’s retaliation against what it claims are American targets on the territory of its neighbours was an inevitable result" of the U.S.-Israeli attack. He describes it as "probably the only rational option available to the Iranian leadership." He says the war "endangers" the region's entire "economic model in which global sport, tourism, aviation and technology were to play an important role." He adds that "if this had not been anticipated by the architects of this war, that was surely a grave miscalculation." But, he adds, the "greatest miscalculation" of all for the U.S. "was allowing itself to be drawn into this war in the first place." In his view this was the doing of "Israel’s leadership" who "persuaded America that Iran had been so weakened by sanctions, internal divisions and the American-Israeli bombings of its nuclear sites last June, that an unconditional surrender would swiftly follow the initial assault and the assassination of the supreme leader." Obviously, this proved completely wrong, and the U.S. is now in a quagmire. He says that, given this, "America’s friends have a responsibility to tell the truth," which is that "there are two parties to this war who have nothing to gain from it," namely "Iran and America." He says that all of the U.S. interests in the region (end to nuclear proliferation, secure energy supply chains, investment opportunities) are "best achieved with Iran at peace." As he writes, "this is an uncomfortable truth to tell, because it involves indicating the extent to which America has lost control of its own foreign policy. But it must be told." He then proposes a couple of paths to get back to the negotiating table, although he recognizes how difficult it would be for Iran "to return to dialogue with an administration that twice switched abruptly from talks to bombing and assassination." That's perhaps the most profound damage Trump did during this entire episode: the complete discrediting of diplomacy. If Iran was taught anything, it is: don't negotiate with the U.S., it's a trap that will literally kill you. The great irony of the man who sold himself as a dealmaker is that he taught the world one thing: don't make deals with my country. Link to the article: economist.com/by-invitation/…