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Tom Baldwin @tombaldwin66.bsky.social · 1d

My piece for @thenewworldmag.bsky.social on how Labour can still be a coalition which stretches from Hampstead to Hull. app.thenewworld.co.uk/story/143155...

Starmer’s problem isn’t just Reform

If you want to understand the true depths of Labour’s electoral challenge, pay a visit to Hampstead

app.thenewworld.co.uk

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Reposted by Tom Baldwin

The New World @thenewworldmag.bsky.social · 1d

The former political editor's YouTube show is struggling to pull in the viewers

✏️ Rats in a Sack 🐀

Sun fails to sell Cole to Washington

The former political editor's YouTube show is struggling to pull in the viewers

www.thenewworld.co.uk

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Reposted by Tom Baldwin

Rupert Stubbs @rupertstubbs.bsky.social · 3d

David Gauke is just one of the many thoughtful, principled and decent Tories eviscerated from our politics by Johnson (and their mad old constituency parties) in what may well be the most damaging legacy of Brexit (the same happened to Labour under Corbyn).

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Tom Baldwin @tombaldwin66.bsky.social · 3d

At least one Conservative still upholds his party’s traditional respect for human rights and the rule of law. He even still believes in evidence-based arguments. This week he will be the exception, not the rule. www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

Leaving the ECHR won’t fix illegal migration

Half-baked tales of rulings turning on chicken nuggets are no basis for cutting Britain adrift

www.thetimes.com

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Barry Howard 🔶 @barryhow2c.bsky.social · 4d

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Ian Bond @cerianbond.bsky.social · 5d

Just heard Chris Philp on BBC’s Today programme explaining why the Tories want to leave the ECHR. He claimed ECHR isn’t mentioned in Belfast Agreement - which is simply untrue. The UK govt agreed to incorporate it into NI law & give direct access to the courts (Strand 3). Why no BBC fact-check?

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Tom Baldwin @tombaldwin66.bsky.social · 4d

Presumably Nigel Farage wants the UK to join Russia and Belarus as the only European countries outside the ECHR because he admires Putin so much. I guess Kemi Badenoch wants to leave only because Farage has already promised to do it.

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Tom Baldwin @tombaldwin66.bsky.social · 8d

Starmer’s aides have been worrying all week about his sore throat and whether he might lose his voice. But, as he took Farage on over division and racism, he
found it.

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Tom Baldwin @tombaldwin66.bsky.social · 10d

The media is obsessing over the PM using the word “racist” to describe Farage’s policy. That doesn’t mean anyone who supports Reform is racist. Nor is it patronising to tell them straight this plan is racist, immoral and unpatriotic because it will tear Britain apart.

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Tom Baldwin @tombaldwin66.bsky.social · 10d

Keir Starmer’s clarity today about a “very different fight” against Reform shows he’s resolved one dilemma - they’re not the “same old Tories”. But the next one is harder because the best proof of the harm Farage would do is Trump, with whom the UK cannot afford to fall out.

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Tom Baldwin @tombaldwin66.bsky.social · 11d

Farage has gone strangely quiet today. Probably makes sense to keep his head down after Reform’s boss in the last set of Welsh elections admitted taking bribes to peddle Russian propaganda. Especially awkward because Nige once said he admires Putin above all other world leaders.

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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 12d

No 10 contradicted by No 11 - "simplistic" is a more accurate critique than plain "wrong" - because of a repeat of the White Paper comms mistakes.

There are social democratic (authentic) arguments for much of govt policy in the white paper but it is inauthentic & inaccurate to exaggerate this

Matthew Holehouse @matthewholehouse.bsky.social · 12d

Rachel Reeves, at IPPR, says the idea of the populist right that foreign workers depress domestic workers’ wages is simplistic and wrong…

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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 12d

We have 20 years of UK evidence that says Rachel Reeves is correct about this.

Deeply depressing that some in government (let alone other parties) seem incapable of grasping it.

migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/br....

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D.Moore @d-moore.bsky.social · 12d

bsky.app/profile/d-mo...

D.Moore @d-moore.bsky.social · 12d

Try to imagine the headlines if Starmer appeared on Russia Today so many times they offered him a job, lied about meeting a high ranking Kremlin chief, voted against plans to stop 🇷🇺 propaganda, called Putin his favourite leader & then his best mate was found guilty of accepting Russian bribes.

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D.Moore @d-moore.bsky.social · 12d

Anyone at the BBC or Sky or LBC going to wheel Farage out to question him on this blatant example of Reform undermining the UK in favour of Russia?

Thought not.

bsky.app/profile/d-mo...

D.Moore @d-moore.bsky.social · 12d

Farage & Nathan Gill have been very close friends for over a decade. Worked together since the pre-Brexit UKIP days.

Gill has just been found guilty of accepting Russian bribes.

Surely Farage must have known.

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Tom Baldwin @tombaldwin66.bsky.social · 12d

This is a very important story in the context of Nigel Farage’s publicly expressed - if apparently unconnected - admiration for Putin and other links with a regime that only wants to harm our country.

Ex-Reform UK Wales leader Nathan Gill pleads guilty to bribery charges

Nathan Gill admits eight charges of bribery while being a Member of the European Parliament.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 17d

We know who made this number up - it was the Centre for Policy Studies.

However, after I pointed out two major errors, they have admitted it is completely wrong and have withdrawn it - see note on their webpage here.

cps.org.uk/research/her...

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Tom Baldwin @tombaldwin66.bsky.social · 17d

I’ve written this for @theobserveruk.bsky.social on how Labour intends to show that loving our country does not - must not - mean hating others.

To take on Reform, Labour needs to fly the flag for an in...

Challenging the narratives of the populist right means offering a unifying vision grounded in respect, writes Keir Starmer’s biographer

observer.co.uk

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Tom Baldwin @tombaldwin66.bsky.social · 17d

I’ve written this for @theobserveruk.bsky.social on how Labour intends to show that loving our country does not - must not - mean hating others.

To take on Reform, Labour needs to fly the flag for an in...

Challenging the narratives of the populist right means offering a unifying vision grounded in respect, writes Keir Starmer’s biographer

observer.co.uk

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Reposted by Tom Baldwin

Tom Baldwin @tombaldwin66.bsky.social · 25d

A deeply misleading headline in the Sunday Times above a story saying the information provided on Epstein was a summary of “what was known at the time” - in other words the documents revealed by Bloomberg on Wednesday represented materially new information. www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Ethics advisers told Starmer about Mandelson’s Epstein links

A two-page document shared with the prime minister before Labour peer’s appointment detailed his friendship with the convicted paedophile

www.thetimes.com

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Tom Baldwin @tombaldwin66.bsky.social · 25d

At last, some decent reporting on the ECHR. observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Misinformation and myth: the UK’s phoney war over human r...

The debate over the future of the European Convention on Human Rights will shape conference season and beyond

observer.co.uk

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Tom Baldwin @tombaldwin66.bsky.social · 25d

A deeply misleading headline in the Sunday Times above a story saying the information provided on Epstein was a summary of “what was known at the time” - in other words the documents revealed by Bloomberg on Wednesday represented materially new information. www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Ethics advisers told Starmer about Mandelson’s Epstein links

A two-page document shared with the prime minister before Labour peer’s appointment detailed his friendship with the convicted paedophile

www.thetimes.com

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Tom Baldwin @tombaldwin66.bsky.social · 26d

Of course, they didn’t know what they know now (thanks to Bloomberg) but the same applies to Keir Starmer who moved swiftly to sack him when it became clear the available facts had changed.

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Tom Baldwin @tombaldwin66.bsky.social · 26d

There is an awful lot of hindsightery on display from journalists about Mandelson today who, with honourable exceptions, stampeded to present his appointment as ambassador as a masterstroke. This includes broadcasters who regularly interviewed him without mentioning Epstein.

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Ed Hammond @se13ed.bsky.social · 29d

One of the things that annoys me most about the BBC is watching a package from Mark Easton, which *always* involves him going to a market town in the E Midlands and asking four people their opinions, bookended by a couple of meaningless pieces to camera

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