Will Mapplebeck

We got there eventually...a magical day. Thanks to my amazing wife @LyndseyPotts #mapplepotts @wylambrewery

When the world seems impossibly grim, @PrivateEyeNews always helps...

Ukraine, every day for four years.

Me when people who’ve spent years boasting about not paying any UK taxes say they want the British embassy to help evacuate them from Dubai.

@v_j_freeman Don't tell me, it's all our fault? 🙄

Oh lordy, Bluesky.

Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post offering “financial runway." This month it gutted its newsroom—more than 300 layoffs. Whatever you think of legacy news, the hard data shows us that newspaper closures hurt Americans. Here's how: 🧵

Shocking detail in Baroness Amos report on maternity - the NHS is "incentivised" to record a baby as being born stillborn rather than having signs of life - because if a baby is born dead then coroners cannot legally investigate

I've just had a NE cultural senior moment. I always thought Daniel Craig was walking over the High Level at the end not the actual Tyne Bridge.

Why I’ve read @PrivateEyeNews since I was 15. I got my copy on Tuesday, Andrew arrested Thursday. Inside it reminds us it raised concerns in 2009 about Mandelson discussing affairs of state with Epstein and a news item on Charles saying he would assist police with their enquiries. All for £2.99

⚽ fans who oppose racism and support HRs are right to criticise the selective outrage of football journalists, who while correct to criticise Ratcliffe's racist comments say nothing about the actual racist, misogynistic & homophobic policies of @NUFC & @ManCity owners in govt.

Billboard and banner outside Old Trafford

Sir Matt Busby was born to an Irish immigrant family in Scotland. He gave everything to Manchester United. He survived the Munich Air Disaster. He lost players he loved as sons. He rebuilt the club from the ashes. An immigrant son who defined the greatest club in the world.

Without immigrants Man U’s starting line up last night would have been three players and the bench would have consisted of just two. Ratcliffe doesn't seem to understand the contribution they make to his own team, let alone this country - but then as he is an immigrant himself being resident of monaco rather than manchester there's obviously a lot of things he's not thought through...

Sometimes I miss life in a local authority press office...

The level of personal hostility directed at Keir Starmer over the last week deserves scrutiny in its own right. Not because he should be immune from criticism, but because the tone and intensity of the attacks tell us something unhealthy about the state of democratic politics. 1. Starmer is a conventional political figure. Cautious, legalistic, incremental. He frustrates people precisely because he is managerial rather than messianic. Yet the reaction to him often goes far beyond disagreement, tipping into visceral hatred more commonly reserved for authoritarians or demagogues. 2. Much of this hostility is disconnected from concrete policy. It is not about specific votes, proposals or outcomes, but about projection. A belief that Starmer embodies betrayal, bad faith or hidden malice. That kind of politics runs on suspicion rather than evidence. 3. This matters because democracy depends on the assumption of good faith among opponents. You can think a leader is wrong, timid, or misguided without believing they are fundamentally illegitimate. Once politics becomes moralised to the point of demonisation, compromise is reframed as treachery and pluralism as weakness. 4. The pattern is familiar. In fragmented, polarised systems, anger concentrates not on extremists, whose intentions are clear, but on moderates, who disappoint maximalists on all sides. The centre becomes the lightning rod precisely because it resists totalising narratives. 5. There is also a media and online dynamic at work. Incentives reward outrage, not proportionality. Algorithms favour contempt over analysis. Over time, this creates a political culture in which relentless personal attack feels normal, even virtuous, rather than disgusting. 6. None of this is a defence of Starmer’s decisions, instincts or record. Those should be argued over robustly as you do in a democracy. The problem is the substitution of critique with hostility and the quiet erosion of democratic norms that follows when political opponents are treated as enemies rather than rivals. 7. A democracy cannot function if every election is framed as an existential struggle against internal evil. At some point, the target may change, but the damage to trust, restraint and culture remains.

This is the sound of a almost completely EV city in Shenzhen, China. We need to step it up.

@carolecadwalla @ZackPolanski Mandelson also appeared as a pundit on the world at one! Staggering!

Since #bbclaurak is trending, let’s remind ourselves that ONE MONTH ago, the BBC invited Mandelson on for a soft-ball interview on her show. While his client, Palantir’s Louis Moseley appeared as a pundit Both, as I wrote at time, were ‘abject failures of journalism’ 1/

BREAKING: The Epstein survivors are releasing this ad on this Super Bowl Sunday to send the message that they will not “move on” from the largest sex trafficking scandal in the world. #standwithsurvivors

Just saw a newly birthed Metro in the sidings outside York station and was so stupidly excited I took a picture...i'm stuck here due to train delays so might borrow it to get home. @Metro_Manners

I bet this is my one post they don't turn into clickbait! Whatever you call it, the misleading headlines, innaccurate reporting and scaremongering is a canker on the journalistic trade I'm proud to be a part of. Thanks to @PrivateEyeNews for highlighting.