Farrukh

Good morning, opening with the Eurofighter, Fursan Al Emarat and a Chinook at #FIA2026 We fly into the show with Blade, meet Joby's test pilot Buddy, chat to a Black Hawk pilot encouraging girls into STEM, and test Soundcore's ANC earbuds with the very loud air display ✈️🚁

Rachel Reeves blames President Trump for attacking Iran for causing global uncertainty and worsening the cost of living. She then continues to blame President Trump for tariffs which have also made trade more difficult. Reeves is right to call this out. Trump’s decisions have consequences far beyond America: war brings insecurity and disruption, while tariffs put obstacles in the way of trade. People who had no say in those decisions end up paying the price. There is something particularly obscene about wealthy politicians treating the global economy as an arena for displays of strength, while households worry about their next energy bill. What looks like a power play from the White House becomes another financial pressure around somebody’s kitchen table. But recognising that damage must lead to a change in Britain’s approach. If an American president makes our prosperity more precarious, we should strengthen cooperation with our European neighbours and accelerate the transition away from exposure to fossil fuel shocks. Condemning Trump is justified. Building greater protection against the consequences of his decisions is the responsibility of government.

Rachel Reeves, "At the 2024 general election the Labour opposition promised change, that was on our manifesto and all over our campaign" "People were crying out for change that's why Labour secured a landslide" "People wanted that change to come and be quicker than we could deliver" My view: Actually, Rachel, people weren’t simply demanding change faster than you could deliver it. They were watching you reject changes you had the power to make. A landslide gave Labour an extraordinary opportunity. What followed reflected political choices, and you cannot explain those away as public impatience. You could have introduced a wealth tax and a windfall tax on excess bank profits. You did increase the oil and gas profits levy, but you could have chosen to go further in making those with the greatest resources contribute more. The balance between taxing wealth and squeezing everyone else was yours to decide. You could have prioritised scrapping the two-child benefit cap from the outset. Instead, seven Labour MPs had the whip suspended for voting to end it in July 2024. That wasn’t a government struggling to move quickly enough. It was a government disciplining its own MPs for demanding action against child poverty. Starmer could have brought people together and celebrated the contribution of migrants. Instead, he warned about an “island of strangers”. He later expressed regret, but that language was a choice too. And a former human rights lawyer should have championed civil liberties. Instead, his government’s proscription of a group left a legacy of peaceful demonstrators being arrested under terrorism legislation, with more than 4,000 arrests for non violent protest. Respect for the rule of law must include protecting the freedoms that give democracy meaning. Starmer squandered the opportunity to be the change the country needed. The jury is still out on Burnham, but continuing arrests of peaceful protesters and approving Jackdaw give serious grounds for concern. I wanted a government putting its political weight behind civil liberties, green jobs and a faster transition away from fossil fuels. Changing the prime minister only matters if it changes the choices.

Rachel Reeves, "Andy Burnham deserves credit for facing reality head on" "I firmly believe that Britain's future lies inside the European Union" "Europe represents the single biggest opportunity to boost living standards and generate the revenue to invest in public service, while also deepening our security" "The British government must prove to the public the benefits of a closer relationship" "And it must prove to Europe that we are serious and open to compromise" My view: I agree with Rachel Reeves that Britain’s future belongs inside the European Union. Closer cooperation offers a route to greater prosperity, stronger public services and greater collective security. I welcome her support for making that argument. But there is considerable irony in hearing her praise Andy Burnham for “facing reality head on” after spending six years helping Labour avoid that same reality. Her own record deserves a little attention: • October 2020, at a LabourList event: “We won’t be back in the EU.” She also said: “I don’t think we have to rejoin the single market and customs union.” • 12 October 2021, writing in the Guardian: “You need a plan to make Brexit work.” • 11 January 2022, in the Commons: “We want to make Brexit work.” • 20 January 2022, in her Bury economic speech: “The first step is to make Brexit work for the British people.” • 20 January 2022, reporting her Financial Times interview: “I don’t want to go back to a system of free movement.” • 18 May 2022, in the Commons: “We will make Brexit work.” • 26 September 2022, at Labour conference: “If you are remotely serious about growth, then you have got to make Brexit work.” • 24 May 2023, in her Washington speech: “While there’s no going back into the single market or the customs union”, Labour would improve trade with Europe. • 22 September 2023, on Radio 4’s Today programme: “We don’t want to rejoin the EU in name or any other way; we accept the result of the referendum.” • 9 December 2024, after meeting EU finance ministers, she reiterated Labour’s commitment to “not rejoining the European Union, the single market or the customs union”. • 16 May 2025, in a Guardian interview, she again defended excluding single market membership, a customs union and free movement. • 23 June 2026, in the Commons, she acknowledged that Britain was poorer outside the EU, yet reaffirmed the restrictions on rejoining: “Those red lines stand.” That last example is particularly revealing. She recognised the economic damage while defending political commitments that limited how far Britain could go to repair it. The economic warning signs were already there in 2022. The OBR was forecasting that Brexit would leave long-term productivity 4% below what it would otherwise have been. This was evidence available while Reeves was insisting that anyone serious about growth had to make Brexit work. I’m glad she has changed her position. But welcoming that change does not mean overlooking her responsibility. Reeves and Starmer helped entrench a policy that accepted avoidable economic damage, spending years promising to make Brexit work while ruling out the relationships that could help repair it. If we already knew in 2022 that Brexit was making us poorer, and global insecurity was already plain to see, why did she and Starmer waste years trying to make it work?

With each wave of COVID more fall ill. It's an astonishing dereliction of duty by the @UKHSA driven by failed public health messaging from @UKLabour and a PM @andyburnham who hasn't showed public health leadership by making vaccines readily available to anyone who wants one, nor rolling out clean air across schools, workplaces, health settings. We can massively reduce the impact of repeat COVID infections and keep more of society healthier. A genuine Shane there is little political leadership to do this.

Fire alarm outside the shop I was about to go to. Next door is a drama school. The street is now full of teenagers hopping around, some practising their dance, while they wait for the all clear 🕺💃🧑‍🩰👯 At least I have entertainment while I wait for the shop to reopen 🤭

Good morning, vivid petals with raindrops from yesterday ☺️ Have a good Thursday 🙏

The Guardian: UK appoints world’s first special representative for climate security My view: Labour has approved Jackdaw, is considering Rosebank, and now appoints a special representative for climate security. Is their job to warn ministers about the consequences of their own decisions? There is something absurd about recognising climate breakdown as a threat to national security while giving further fossil fuel extraction the green light. Ministers apparently understand the danger well enough to create a job devoted to it, but still struggle to let that understanding govern their choices. The representative’s first briefing should be to the Cabinet: you cannot keep congratulating yourselves for recognising a crisis while approving decisions that make it worse. A new appointment is easy. Having the political courage to act on the warnings is the real test. theguardian.com/politics/202…

If leaving the EU was a mistake, why should reconsidering that decision be off the table? Rejoining deserves scrutiny, including the terms and trade-offs. Ruling it out in advance avoids that scrutiny altogether. Rejoining won’t solve every problem Britain faces. But “we made a mistake, now we must live with it indefinitely” is hardly a serious argument for the country’s future.

When a former prime minister puts ideology ahead of what's in the best interest of the country, it's genuinely quite sad.

Will be good if @andyburnham can find time to right Keir Starmer's shameless wrong of rejecting compensation for WASPI women despite campaigning with the support of WASPI women.

Soldier shouts, “All visitors will maintain an atmosphere of silence and respect at all times!” After Pete Hegseth and his guests were heard laughing by the Tomb of the unknown soldier at today's Veteran Day's Ceremony. Hegseth likes to cosplay as “Secretary of War”, yet his own group needed reminding of the most basic duty when visiting a military grave: show respect for the dead. You don’t need military training, combat experience or a Pentagon title to understand that. Families visit this place to mourn people whose bodies never came home to them. Their loss deserves more dignity than becoming the backdrop to a laughing photo opportunity. The soldier guarding the tomb understood the responsibility of the occasion. It is shameful that the man running the Pentagon needed his group to be reminded.

Fascinating conversations on NDAs on #Newsnight For another angle @vicderbyshire you may want to interview @SangitaMyska on the LBC NDA

The White House How it started - How it's going

Ciaran Jenkins, "Will Andy Burnham be the Prime Minister who will finally fix adult social care after all these years?" Baroness Casey, "I do have a real sense of hope that Andy Burnham is the prime minister who will fix social care once and for all, and is willing to spend political capital on doing so" My view: Baroness Casey’s most damning point is that we simply don’t care enough about older people, those who need social care, or the workers supporting them. During Covid, people were discharged from infected hospitals into care homes without adequate protection. That failure should weigh heavily on every politician responsible for putting things right. Her hope that Andy Burnham will finally commit the political capital to fixing social care is welcome. But the questions about residential care costs remain. Families facing bills of thousands of pounds a week need to know what support they can expect and how it will be funded. A promise of reform cannot pay those bills. Casey is also right to emphasise support at home. Helping people live safely and independently, and preventing avoidable hospital admissions, should be central to a National Care Service. We should value the care that keeps someone well as much as the treatment they receive after something goes wrong. The test now is whether that political commitment produces a service people can actually rely on. Older people and their families have spent years carrying the consequences of delay. They deserve dignity, security and practical help while they are still here to benefit from it. And unpaid carers must be central to that reform: the partners, children, relatives and friends whose care often comes at the expense of their own health, income and careers. Love should never be treated as an unlimited supply of free labour. They need financial support, reliable respite and somewhere to turn before they reach breaking point.

C4News, "Donald Trump says Ukraine will end up being a different shape after a peace deal. Ukraine rejects seeding territory" "Does the UK support the US or Ukraine?" Ed Miliband, "The UK supports the people of Ukraine" My view: Looks as if the UK and the US have different views of what Ukraine should accept in terms of a peace deal. This divergence reflects Trump and his administration constantly siding with Putin's Russia in the most mind numbingly surreal way where even the idea of ceding territory ought not to be on the table. And let us never forget that it was Russia who attacked Ukraine, Russia that continues to attack Ukraine, and that this war can end whenever Russia stops attacking Ukraine and returns Ukraine's land back to Ukraine.

Ed Miliband, "The scientists saying that we're going to overshoot the 1.5° target doesn't mean that we give up" "But it does mean we redouble our efforts. That's what the world needs to do, that's what the UK needs to do" "We absolutely need to be persuaded to do more"

Ed Miliband, "What Russel Brand did was horrifying" "It was horrifying" "And all of my sympathies are with the victims" "If I had known then what had come to light, I would not have done that interview, and I deeply regret doing it"

That @UKLabour @andyburnham are not renationalising water is a scandal.

Jean-Luc Picard, "If we're going to be dammed. Let's be dammed for who we really are" I’ve been catching up on the first series of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and this line from JLP, after being threatened by Q, stayed with me. I took something quite personal from it: whatever we do in life, someone, somewhere, will judge us. We can spend years trying to win everyone’s approval and still fall short of somebody’s expectations. There’s a certain freedom in accepting that. Be yourself, live by the values you believe in, and take comfort in knowing you’ve been honest about who you are. Peace is much harder to find when you’re constantly trying to become whoever other people want you to be. In the scene, Picard takes that idea a step further: being judged or threatened shouldn’t make us abandon our principles. Whatever judgement awaits us, we should face it as ourselves, with our values intact.