Roger Tomlinson

Follow me Roger Tomlinson to bsky.social to keep in touch. For now my tweets as @BrandinyourHand are active on X and are also posted as that on bsky.social. I’ll be trying to track those that I follow across if possible.

Sophy Ridge calls out President Trump's lies, "In journalism it's important reflect both sides of an argument.. But it's also important to call out statements which are untrue" "Donald Trump said Ukraine should never have started the war, that is not true, and it should be called out" "On the 24th of February 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine" "Facts matter. We have a responsibility to be clear when something is not true" "Boris Johnson says Donald Trump's statements are not intended to be historically accurate" "It seems to me, if you're trying to end a war, firstly, you have to face up to the truth of how it actually started"

Reagan was a woke liberal socialist leftie

@BylineTimes I remember Hugh Grant’s post about why he settled. Basically if the amount awarded was £1 less than the offered settlement he would have had to pay their costs, about £10M. It’s a rigged system and needs to be demolished.

🚨Statement on behalf of the Duke of Sussex and Lord Watson 22 January 2025 In a monumental victory today, News UK have admitted that The Sun, the flagship title for Rupert Murdoch’s UK media empire, has indeed engaged in illegal practices. This represents a vindication for the hundreds of other claimants who were strong-armed into settling, without being able to get to the truth of what was done to them. After endless resistance, denials and legal battles by News Group Newspapers, including spending more than a billion pounds in payouts and in legal costs (as well as paying-off those in the know) to prevent the full picture from coming out, News UK is finally held to account for its illegal actions and its blatant disregard for the law. It has also specifically admitted wrongdoing against Tom Watson, and admitted unlawful acts by The Sun, as well as by the News of the World, against Prince Harry. The truth that has now been exposed is that NGN unlawfully engaged more than 100 private investigators over at least 16 years on more than 35,000 occasions. This happened as much at The Sun as it did at the News of the World, with the knowledge of all the Editors and executives, going to the very top of the company. What’s even worse is that in the wake of the 2006 arrest of a Royal correspondent, there was an extensive conspiracy to cover up what really had been going on and who knew about it. Senior executives deliberately obstructed justice by deleting over 30 million emails, destroying back-up tapes, and making false denials – all in the face of an on-going police investigation. They then repeatedly lied under oath to cover their tracks – both in Court and at the Leveson Public Inquiry. At her trial, in 2014 Rebekah Brooks, said “when I was Editor of The Sun we ran a clean ship”. Now, 10 years later when she is CEO of the company, they now admit, when she was Editor of The Sun, they ran a criminal enterprise. Far from being relics of a distant past, many of those behind these unlawful practices remain firmly entrenched in senior positions today, both within News UK and other media outlets across the world, wielding editorial power and perpetuating the toxic culture in which they continue to thrive. It’s perhaps no surprise that all of their senior executives and editors refused to turn up to court to give evidence. The failure of each of these key individuals to come and answer questions under oath spoke volumes in itself, but their collective silence is deafening. Today’s result has been achieved only through the sheer resilience of Prince Harry and Lord Watson, whose willingness to take NGN to trial has led directly to this historic admission of unlawfulness at The Sun. It has only been by taking NGN - not just to the steps of court but inside the court room itself - that these Claimants have finally managed to extract this historic admission of guilt. As a direct result of him taking a stand, Prince Harry and his immediate family have also had to repeatedly withstand aggressive and vengeful coverage since starting his claim over five years ago. This has created serious concerns for the security of him and his family. The rule of law must now run its full course. Prince Harry & Tom Watson join others in calling for the police and Parliament to investigate not only the unlawful activity now finally admitted, but the perjury and cover ups along the way. Its clear now this has occurred throughout this process, including through sworn evidence in inquiries and court hearings, and in testimony to Parliament, until today’s final collapse of NGN’s defence. Today the lies are laid bare. Today, the cover-ups are exposed. And today proves that no one stands above the law. The time for accountability has arrived.

Another turd washes up on an English beach.

@Aiannucci Well said Armando! Wealth sadly no guarantee of intelligence, moral standing, or even moderately good information. Particularly in Elon’s case!

You are a dangerous fool.

Still, it is welcome that the Welsh Government is once again increasing its investment in culture after a significant cut last year.

Once inflation is taken into account, the increase in the overall culture budget is £4 million (4%). That means that, in real terms, next year's budget is £11 million (10%) smaller than it was in 2023-24.

The overall culture budget will increase by £6 million (6%). There will be an extra: 💸 £1.2m for the Arts Council of Wales 🖼️ £2.1m for Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales 📚 £1.7m for National Library of Wales 📍 £1.2m for local culture & sport 🏛️ £1m for the historic environment

Oh what a surprise, Farage is being an enormous hypocrite once again.

BREAKING: President Biden delivers a brilliant response to a question about how he'll react when Donald Trump falsely takes credit for all of his accomplishments. This is what a real leader sounds like... "What are you going to do when the other guy goes out there bragging about accomplishments under you?" Ben Meiselas of MeidasTouch asked in a new interview. "The Medicare $2,000 cap, its going to kick in in 2025. He’s going to be out there saying, 'I did this.' How’s that going to make you feel when that happens?" he asked. "Look: I’ve invested more in red states than in blue states with all these programs we just talked about," said Biden. "The reason for that was that the red states didn’t operate very well, and they really hurt their constituents so those factories closed and the like." "The fact is that I represent all of America, not just Democrats," the president continued. "And I think what it’s going to do is bring the country more together than separate it." "And for example, you already have folks like Marjorie Taylor Greene and others saying, 'Don’t eliminate the factory,' after talking about how the proposal to build it was the worst idea anybody’s ever had," Biden continued. "She didn’t vote for it." "So I think there’s going to be a bit of a comeuppance here but the bottom line is I'm convinced that over time the American public will respond to what is the intention of the party to try to help ordinary people," he went on. "And the fundamental change I made — and I made a speech at Brookings Institution about it recently — was on the economy," said Biden. "The fact is that we had a long time this idea of trickledown economics," he said. "Let the wealthy do very, very well. They'll have so much money it'll trickle down on people's kitchen tables and coffee tables and the like and everyone will benefit. I never bought that theory!" "And so what I've decided to do is to change it to build the economy from the middle out and the bottom up," explained Biden. "The wealthy still do very well but the middle class and the working class people do much, much better. "And that's exactly what's happening and so I think the long term prospects for the country are very good," he added. Please retweet and ❤️ if you think that Biden's legacy will far outshine Trump's — and consider joining the growing exodus to Tribel, a new pro-democracy social network that is exploding in popularity because Twitter and Facebook are trying to stop its growth — which is only making Tribel grow even faster. Please follow us on Tribel to get all of our breaking news alerts sent straight to your phone or computer by clicking the following link: tribel.app.link/okwPIHYCIqb

On the train and 4 ‘lads’ sit down…. I let the ‘Bants’ go and then one of them throw a bit of rubbish at some passing women. So I say, ‘fellas let me just manage your expectations… I’m a cop and I won’t stand for that behaviour’ 1/2

A word on @AllisonPearson free speech row and what she describes as a ‘Kafkaesque’ threat to it. Today on @TheNewsAgents, we asked her to appear. She said ‘No. And if you get any aspect of the story wrong my lawyers will be watching.’ You gotta love a free speech warrior

People on both sides of the political spectrum need to listen to this. Please!

NEW: The great Trump-Musk crackdown is coming. And it will hit hard & fast. Journalists will be first. But everyone else is next. I urge you to read my 20 lessons in How to Survive the Broligarchy, inspired by & featuring the great @TimothyDSnyder. 1/ theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

BREAKING: scientists hold back tears and shake their heads sadly as they explain utterly compromised COP29 climate conference was meant to be the last chance to organise rapid and deep emissions cuts for any chance of staying well below essentially unsurvivable 2°C 🧵