Really is incredible to think that the Tories announced compensation for victims of two scandals, then did nothing to arrange the money. Labour has had to put aside a massive chunk of the money they secured yesterday to fulfil a promise the previous government made. You can criticise Starmer and Reeves for all sorts of things - insufficient honesty at the election, insufficient bravery now - but it is astonishing how comprehensively the last government ran the country into the fucking ground.

Here we go. Budget is go, people. parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/f2… OBR document unveiled by Reeves says the previous govt "did not provide the OBR" with all the information available to them and their spring Budget forecast would have been "materially different" if they had.

The amount of shit reporting is really off the scale at the moment, coupled with hysterical analysis.

https://twitter.com/ProfTimBale/status/1846076217415364857

I suppose there's a smell of blood, so journalists are circling for it. But if there's anyone in the world who gives a genuine dried fuck about Taylor Swift's driving arrangements I'd be astonished.

For fuck sake. On the basis of what? Nothing at all. Why in God's name would they take this decision.

https://twitter.com/BloombergUK/status/1842907988387922401

There'll now be an awful lot of talk about becoming-the-story and lack-of-narrative and press relations. Fine. Whatever. But that wasn't her role. It was to unlock the machine and get things done. The current noise is just the daily nothing-clatter of Westminster life.

There's no intellectual debate to be had about what's happening. It's not about immigration, or integration, or Islam. It's about a bunch of violent thugs blaming Muslims for a terrible crime, being instantly disproved, and then continuing with their bullshit anyway. If you start saying we need to change policy, or reconsider an approach to anything at all on the back of this violence, you are basically legitimising it. You are laundering the reputation of Nazi thugs.

Lots of things can be true at the same time. 1) In opposition, Labour knew the Tories were playing a stupid, irresponsible little game with their future departmental spending & tax cuts. And yet they played along anyway, because it was inconvenient to do otherwise. 2) The figures, particularly on asylum housing costs, were worse than we realised. Labour said wonk and wonk-adjacent critics would change their tune after the statement. They were right. Conservative irresponsibility was, as Reeves says, worse than we thought.

Let's have an honest conversation about the election result: No party should secure 63.2% of MPs on 33.7% of the popular vote. And that's as true for Labour as it was for the Tories. shorturl.at/Yl3FK
Many seemingly contradictory things can be true at the same time. 1) the election result is a triumph for the forces of reason and progress 2) The Labour vote is the consequence of a conscious and extremely efficient campaign 3) this result is democratically intolerable.

First, we've no idea if that Reform number is right. Second, come on people what's the matter with you. After 14 years of the most egregious reactionary horror, we're about to get one of the most progressive parliaments in history. Everything changes now. Everything. Not just the policies, but much deeper than that.

Right. TV debates. Basically the worst possible way to spend an evening. I'm starting with this. I do not rule out escalating to rum and possibly arsenic. Are they in some kind of 90s video game?

So here's a nice story, in case you needed one.

A little while back, Gary Frank, one of the greatest superhero artists alive, put my book on the cover of his comic. My brain basically collapsed with joy. When I had put it back together, I asked him if I could buy the original art.

He said yes - except that he refused to sell it to me and instead asked that I make a donation to Veterans Aid.

Fucking hell is he really going to rely on furlough. Might as well admit he's accomplished nothing in No.10. It's raining on him. It's like an ITV drama about a doomed campaign.

I'm very sorry to hear Andrew Mitchell sell his soul on the radio right now. A formerly decent man with knowledge of his subject area who must know the nonsense he is spewing. He should hang his head in shame. He insists there are functioning safe passages for Afghans to the UK through ARAP. Wrong. In reality, countless thousands of Afghans have been let down and betrayed by Britain. But even if it was true, you could then easily accept the amendment.

Once again, the Lords fight back against Rwanda. I thought they'd resist a couple times then let it go. I was wrong. The Lords is consistently attacked by left and right. On weeks like this, you realise how utterly essential they are. The Commons is powerless against the government. The Lords are not.

The Commons rejected all Lords amendments on the Rwanda bill last night. This is actually relatively surprising. There was an expectation that the government would accept at least some of them. In particular, we thought they might accept an amendment protecting victims of modern slavery and another exempting armed forces personnel & their families from removal. We assumed that on the basis of basic decency. And were therefore predictably wrong.

Nothing is going to take place over the next 6 months. No meaningful legislation, no attention to public services. Each in-depth weekend newspaper article will essentially say the same thing, which is that the Tories are fucked and don't know what to do about it. MPs will go to parliament & ministers will make Commons statements, but it'll all be pointless. The machinery of govt has stopped. Power has drained from No10. Only activity left is people figuring out which post-election leadership candidate they want to hitch their wagon to.

Everything about this is fucking disgusting.

https://twitter.com/Independent/status/1754497606611316795

Those are people, god damn you. When we actually process the claims, the majority are granted asylum. That means they are fleeing torture, war and oppression. They're not something for two rich men to do a bet about, like it was a harmless fucking game.

TRAITORS. FUCK ME . It's pure drama. Just the just preposterous fucking full bore goddamn drama.

It's really good to see the interviews with postmasters and what they've been through. It would be nice if we could have seen just one interview with an asylum seeker this week while we talked about Rwanda. Just one. What would happen if we covered this story as we are now covering that one? The government says Rwanda is a deterrent. Perhaps they could tell us if that was likely to work. How other measures sold as deterrence impacted them.

I'm sorry to inform you that MPs have now started debating the Rwanda bill. If you are not interested in the bill MUTE THIS THREAD NOW. Because I am going to be reporting this thing throughout the day and night. God help me. Foreign secretary James Cleverly starts by telling the house that there has been a death on the Bibby Stockholm punishment accommodation barge. He doesn't say this reports from the BBC indicate it was a suicide.

So the Rwanda bill is here. A day of absolute chaos and indignity. Johnson trying to evade blame for hundreds of thousands of deaths at the covid inquiry. Braverman making a Powell-like speech in the Commons. Sunak trying to placate the 1922 committee. Now this. A party in a state of nervous implosion, falling apart while still in government.

We should call this what it is: an assault on mixed-nationality British families. The income requirement for a British citizen to bring their foreign partner to live with them is rising from £18,600 to £38,700

freemovement.org.uk/government-att… These despicable cold-hearted Kafka fucking monstrosities. It's not a family income threshold - it's for the British citizen and applies regardless of how much their partner earns.