Lord Castle of Novigrad retweeted
This guy utterly dismantles the populist politics of Reform and Restore in 90 seconds. It’s actually quite beautiful.
Take decades of deep-rooted problems in Britain and convince people that a relatively tiny proportion of the population is responsible for all of them. Housing, the NHS, crime. Blame illegal migrants for everything.
Suddenly, you don’t need credible solutions to the housing crisis, NHS waiting lists or crime. You just need increasingly extreme policies on immigration.
And by the time people realise you never had meaningful answers to the vast majority of Britain’s problems, you’re already in power, handing out tax cuts to your donors.
Lord Castle of Novigrad retweeted
Nigel Farage says that Andy Burnham is a liar,
"The Prime Minister is a liar. Yes, a liar"
"Boris Johnson when he became Foreign Secretary one of the questions he asked was was there seen to be Russian interference in the Brexit referendum campaign, and the answer was no"
But Stewart Hosie, who sat on the UK's Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament 2017-2019 observed,
"The UK gov actively avoided looking for evidence that Russia interfered in Brexit. We were told they haven't seen any evidence, but that is meaningless if they hadn't looked for it."
My view: That is the point Farage’s argument skips over.
“We haven’t seen evidence” is not the same as “we investigated thoroughly and found no evidence”.
So Johnson’s question about what had been “seen” does not settle what the committee said had never been properly investigated. It cannot turn an absence of a full assessment into proof that nothing happened.
Burnham should be pressed to explain what evidence he was given and what “interference” means in this case.
Calling him a liar does not answer the committee’s findings.
Nigel Farage is doing what Boris Johnson did, using a “no evidence seen” position to dismiss a question the government had failed to properly investigate in the first place.
Lord Castle of Novigrad retweeted
Do your jobs @premierleague - you’ve found @ManCity guilty of all 115 charges, making them the biggest cheats in football history. So now announce their punishment immediately, act on it, and save this season from being an irrelevant farce.
Lord Castle of Novigrad retweeted
Six-time French champions Bordeaux, sanctioned in the summer for financial irregularities, will play in the sixth tier of French football this season, the Nouvelle-Aquitaine league confirmed on Thursday.
Over to you, Premier League.... – at La Mirada, CA
Lord Castle of Novigrad retweeted
Manchester City Breaking rules.
It has taken the authorities over years to conclude that Manchester city are GUILTY of breaking rules.
However the authorities have NOT imposed the punishment.
When Spurs were found guilty of breaking rules the punishment was imposed immediately. 12 point deduction, a ban from the FA Cup and a £600,000 fine.
My point being is that Man city have not had any punishments imposed and are free to carry on playing. In the case of Spurs and Everton the points were immediately deducted in the appropriate season.
Its simple. The rules are you are guilty and here is the punishment. The punishment should be implemented immediately . The process of appeal can then follow.
Lord Castle of Novigrad retweeted
“I would be really concerned to lose them.” Prime Minister Andy Burnham on the possibility of Manchester City’s owners selling up. What?! These are owners found guilty of serial breaches of the Premier League rule-book by three judges on an independent commission after a lengthy investigation. Owners who outraged other clubs and countless fans by flouting the rules and inflating sponsorship income with the Disguised Funding Scheme.
Owners who misled auditors and regulators, who threaten to bring this Premier League season – and, potentially, future seasons - to a standstill by their appeal, deny, delay tactics. Owners who are patently not proper custodians of a famous, historic club. Owners who many hope will sell up and ship out after bringing such shame and sham contracts to the game.
So these are astonishing, alarming comments from the PM. “I do actually thank the City Football Group and the wider ownership for the money that they didn't just put into the Etihad and the campus around it but also into the city," Burnham told the BBC’s Chris Mason.
Come on, PM. Read the room. Read the commission’s report. Read the belligerent statements from the Abu Dhabi owners and their chief executive like Ferran Soriano. Rather than thank CFG, perhaps thank the diligence of the Premier League in seeking to enforce its rules and protect the national sport. Perhaps thank the three judges for their pain-staking work in sifting through reams of evidence and coming to their considered conclusion.
Burnham spoke as a politician seemingly with one eye on diplomatic and trade links. He spoke as a former mayor whose city benefited from investment in east Manchester by Abu Dhabi. “They've been such a huge partner in the building of modern Manchester and obviously the building of Manchester City into the global force that it is.” And how was that building financed?
Burnham spoke as a politician and not the football fan that he truly is. The lifelong Evertonian is usually pretty sound on football matters. He misread the mood of many fans not wanting the possible return of drinking in Premier League stands but that was a rare misstep. This is far worse. This makes him look out of touch with the prevailing mood. He was speaking at Hill Dickinson Stadium. Maybe he should head to Anfield on Sunday week and witness the anger felt towards City.
Burnham did add that he wasn’t getting involved in the process and that City had a right to appeal if they felt harshly treated. But how does the PM’s sympathetic words for controversial owners help the independent football regulator charged by Government with leading the fight against those who risk the credibility of their club, who play fast and loose with the rules and who damage the integrity of the national sport?
How frustrating if Burnham’s words embolden City's owners and Soriano further. Bit of an own goal by No 10.
Lord Castle of Novigrad retweeted
I suggested associate membership of the EU for the UK back in 2020.
Had we pursued that pragmatic route, an agreement could have been concluded by now giving British businesses better access to our largest market and strengthening our hand in the face of US tariffs.
Independent modelling suggests this closer integration with the EU could boost UK GDP by around 1.5 - 2.1%, c. £45 -£63 billion a year - precisely the growth our stagnant economy desperately needs.
As Canada the EU discuss associate membership, the clear message for our politicians - reflected across all polling - is: stop turning away from our nearest partners and start pursuing the alliances that serve our national interest.
Canada’s Mark Carney addresses European Parliament politico.eu/article/canada-m…
@politico
#Brexit
Lord Castle of Novigrad retweeted
Hey @BBCNews -
Can you please actually do your job and report how everyone, including Reform, were told in March the law would be retroactive.
Heres the wording:
“The cap will therefore apply retrospectively, so it will include all donations from overseas electors received from today and all regulated transactions entered into from today.”
Hansard, 25th Mar 2026
Tice says government wants to 'retrospectively change rules' after Reform's £72m in donations bbc.in/4AcSSpd
Lord Castle of Novigrad retweeted
Like Ukip and like Brexit, Reform is fundamentally a scheme hatched and backed by very rich men who are peeved that they don't run the country. Surely even their own voters have to grasp this eventually.
Lord Castle of Novigrad retweeted
We Must Pace the Frontier: I’ve written a new essay on why the AI industry should slow down, with a three-part plan for doing so.
Anthropic is unilaterally committing to the first of these steps. We’ll provide third-party evaluators with permanent, employee-level access to our systems, so that they can verify adherence to our safety measures, report on incidents, and assess models’ alignment during training.
You can read the full post here: darioamodei.com/post/we-must…
Lord Castle of Novigrad retweeted
If Channel 4 is successful in bringing down both Reform UK and Tommy Robinson, we're going to have to ask some very difficult questions about the BBC, and why its news team failed to use its resources to investigate, scrutinise and challenge the far right, in the way Channel 4 has.
Lord Castle of Novigrad retweeted
Alice Weidel becomes the first leader in the world who is anti-immigration but has an immigrant wife, is anti-LGBTQ+ but is a lesbian herself, opposes LGBT adoption but has adopted two children, and is a hardcore German nationalist but lives in Switzerland
Lord Castle of Novigrad retweeted
Farage and Reform UK are in deep trouble. However, after 3 days, @Verbatim_Media's 37 minute video of their extraordinary year-long undercover investigation into Reform UK's illegal foreign donations has only got 161k views. It should have several million.
So please repost this and then share the video.
youtu.be/RugPik-G1Jw?is=-ikY… – at Brighton, England
Lord Castle of Novigrad retweeted
I, Kevin Rowland (the son of Irish immigrants) and the main songwriter of ‘Come On Eileen,’ am disgusted to learn that Nigel Farage has used our song to make his entrance for his party conference. Myself, and all of Dexys are passionately against Farage’s politics.
@ByDonkeys .
Lord Castle of Novigrad retweeted
“It worked, boom.”
That’s Nigel Farage celebrating a Reform UK plot to break election law - by having a US company secretly pay for three influential political polls that benefitted the party.
Earlier in the investigation, Reform’s Head of Policy James Orr and senior advisor Dan Jukes arranged for a Verbatim reporter to pay for the polls through a US company. Orr and Jukes believed the firm was run by the reporter’s American father.
Mr Farage was filmed by undercover reporters from @Verbatim_Media as part of a year-long investigation that Channel 4 News has thoroughly checked and verified.
This meeting took place in his Clacton constituency in July - when Mr Farage was fighting a by-election he called after separate allegations about his finances.
Watch the full investigation on YouTube.
Lord Castle of Novigrad retweeted
🚨🚨 Viktor Gyökeres was reportedly left out of Arsenal’s last two games as the club worked to facilitate Gabriel Jesus’ move to the No. 9 shirt.
Arsenal were keen to ensure the No. 9 shirt remained vacant for Gyökeres rather than having him registered with another number. Had Gyökeres featured in any @premierleague game wearing the No. 14 shirt, he would have been required to keep that number for the rest of the season.
The decision now appears to have been carefully planned, despite some of us calling for Gyökeres to feature in those matches.
Sometimes, decisions are made wisely behind the scenes. 🔴⚪
#Arsenal #AFC #ViktorGyokeres #GabrielJesus #PremierLeague #Gunners #COYG #ArsenalNews #TransferNews #Football
Lord Castle of Novigrad retweeted
Dear reader, Iceland is a member of the Single Market, EEA, EFTA, and the Schengen Area, and also an independent sovereign nation. We could have all those advantages too. But Reform won’t dare to even whisper it.
Lord Castle of Novigrad retweeted
🇮🇸 Iceland: NO 52.8% / YES 47.2%
🇬🇧 Brexit: LEAVE 51.9% / REMAIN 48.1%
At first glance, Iceland’s vote looks remarkably like Brexit - an even bigger Eurosceptic majority, in fact.
But calling this "Iceland’s Brexit" is misleading.
Britain voted to leave the EU and, ultimately, the Single Market and Customs Union, putting new barriers between itself and its biggest trading partners. The OBR estimates Brexit will leave UK productivity around 4% lower and trade intensity around 15% lower in the long run.
Iceland has done nothing of the sort.
It remains in the EEA and the Single Market, retains free movement and deep economic integration with Europe, while staying outside key EU policies including the Common Fisheries Policy and much of the Common Agricultural Policy.
In other words, Iceland is keeping many of the benefits Britain actually surrendered through Brexit.
That makes the really curious part of this referendum something else entirely:
Why did 52.8% of Icelanders vote not even to explore whether they could negotiate a better arrangement?
A Yes vote would not have meant joining the EU. It would have allowed Iceland to reopen negotiations, discover exactly what protections or exemptions it could secure - particularly over fishing and agriculture - and then hold another referendum on the actual deal.
Instead, enough voters were persuaded that opening negotiations itself represented a danger.
Fishing rights, farming, sovereignty and fear of losing control dominated the No argument. Iceland already has a comfortable relationship with Europe, so the potential benefits of full membership were uncertain, while the perceived risks were much easier to understand and campaign on.
So this isn't Iceland following Britain out of the European economic system.
It's arguably stranger:
Iceland watched Britain spend a decade discovering the economic cost of leaving the Single Market - then voted overwhelmingly to keep its own Single Market access, but refused even to find out whether negotiating full membership could produce something better.
Not Iceland’s Brexit.
If anything, it’s Iceland choosing to protect the advantages of its current European Union relationship - while refusing even to test whether a better one could be negotiated.
It’s like having a good room in the hotel - and deciding not even to ask whether an upgrade is available, or what it would cost.