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josephstrummered.bsky.social

@josephstrummered.bsky.social
345 followers 106 following 975 posts
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brendanamartin.bsky.social @brendanamartin.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
“…They do not want the USA to somehow collapse or fail completely, they want it to weaken itself but keep spending. As this person said—they want the US to be happy, fat, and weak—but still consuming.”
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The London Economic @thelondoneconomic.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
French president Emmanuel Macron has labels Brexit the “biggest lie of the last 30 years."
thelondoneconomic.com
Macron slams Brexit as the 'biggest lie of the last 30 years'
French president Emmanuel Macron has labelled Brexit the "biggest lie of the last 30 years."
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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
It will never not be wild to me that the Russians attacked Keir Starmer's home, successfully spread falsehoods about Starmer's love life, and this didn't changed British politics and British political elite behaviour *at all*.
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Sasha Talebi @sashat.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
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Zoë Grünewald @zoegrunewald.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
If Burnham is going to make a bargain with pensioners on the triple lock and social care, perhaps he should also throw in immigration and care workers?
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James O’Brien @mrjamesob.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
It never stops being important that, no matter what the subject, politicians like Farage, Trump & Rubio are entirely untethered from the most basic requirements of honest discourse. They might turn out to be telling the truth sometimes but only ever in the spirit of stopped clocks.
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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Burnham edges Labour closer to finally, maybe, being sane about Brexit. Over 10 years, £Billions of cost, thousands of business failures, mountains of red tape, wasted resources and lost opportunities later…. our govt may, at last, cautiously, start to be honest about the Brexit moronathon. Yay.
The Independent front page headline: 

Burnham edges Labour closer to rejoining EU
After Ed Miliband tells party conference Britain's future is at the heart of Europe, ministers say it is 'not if but how' prime minister will include Brexit reversal in next election manifestoThere is growing optimism that a way back into the EU could be put to voters at the next election after the prime minister and senior ministers made it clear they believe Brexit has been a failure at this year's party conference.
When The Independent asked Mr Burnham about whether Rejoin would be in Labour's next election manifesto on his recent trip to the UN in New York, he refused to rule it out - having said a year ago when he was
Manchester mayor that he believes the
UK should rejoin the EU.

Andy Burnham has already warned about the 'drift and division' in the decade since Brexit (Getty)
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Anonymous @youranoncentral.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Donald Trump has invited Vladimir Putin, wanted by the ICC over the mass kidnapping of Ukrainian children, to December's G20 at his Miami golf resort. The Kremlin says it is grateful. A bipartisan group of 14 US senators demand the invitation be withdrawn.
yacnews.com
US Senators urge Trump to withdraw Putin's G20 invitation as Kremlin says it is grateful
14 Republican and Democratic senators are urging Trump to withdraw his invitation for Vladimir Putin to attend December’s G20 summit at Trump’s Miami golf resort. Putin is wanted by the ICC over Russi...
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Disillusioned With Conservatives @neverevertory.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The Police specifically told everyone not to speculate on the incident at RAF Fairford. So what does the moron Farage go & do? Post on X speculating.
Post from Nigel Farage on X
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Anonymous @youranoncentral.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
US Ambassador Guilfoyle allegedly boasted the US can topple allies while discussing Romania with Greek officials: “We can do that to any country we want. We can do that here.” Pushed allies toward Aktor energy deals while its paid lobbyist accompanied her on official meetings.
yacnews.com
Trump's ambassador to Greece told Greek officials the US could topple allied governments if it wants
US Ambassador Guilfoyle allegedly boasted US can topple allied governments while discussing Romania with Greek officials: “We can do that to any country we want. We can do that here.” Also pushed alli...
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European Movement UK @europeanmovement.co.uk · 28/09/2026
Ed Miliband, speaking at the Labour Movement for Europe rally at Labour Conference in Liverpool, spoke in favour of a closer relationship with Europe.
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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
This was an entirely predictable act of economic self-harm - both the Sunak and Starmer government decided that the priority was to cut migration *when it was already falling fast*. ukandeu.ac.uk/immigration-...
ukandeu.ac.uk
Immigration is falling but the economic cost may be high - UK in a changing Europe
Jonathan Portes analyses the latest immigration figures from the Home Office and Office for National Statistics.
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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Good thing that this couldn’t have been predicted almost a year ago <runs bitter victory lap> and the government didn’t just blithely carry on doing the same thing. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/718...
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The Bear @bearlypolitics.co.uk · 28/09/2026
Well, well, well - if it isn’t the consequences of our own actions. It would appear that migrants are not, in fact, the fiscal drain we’ve been told they are by years if we go by the £4bn to £6.5bn shortfall that’s been caused by the precipitous drop in numbers under this government. Funny that.
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Times this morning. Me in December last year. It was pretty damn obvious this would happen to anyone who did the maths. samf.substack.com/p/the-oversh...
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Parody Nigel Farage @parodypm.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
"Dear Diary, I'm still furious about Burnham's plan to tackle disinformation. Doesn't he know that one man's disinformation is another man's essential stream of bollocks and lies to spread hatred and division in order to fuel his rise to power?"
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Parody Nigel Farage @parodypm.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Don't worry Jess, once Reform are in power you will have no employment rights at all, which should make the process of sacking you much simpler and less upsetting. 😁
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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Sure. Brexit meant we huffed out of our agreements on managing the flow of asylum seekers. The boats symbolise “taking back control” by going it alone. But it’s only a “crisis” because politicians and media choose to blame immigrants for their own failures. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...
independent.co.uk
Burnham blames Brexit for small boats crisis - but rules out early general election
Burnham lamented a ‘loss of collaboration with neighbours’ following Brexit but has ‘knocked dead’ the idea of an early election before 2029
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
One more example of how a personalist regime they cannot conceive of a bipartisan institution to the point they would prefer to destroy it if they cannot repurpose it to their ends. See, also, much of the rest of the federal government, our military, science, higher education etc.
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Alex Hall Hall @alexhh.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
My latest piece argues that Canada’s approach to the EU could prove productive, because unlike the UK’s high-handed, entitled attitude, it is not based on an assumption that the EU “owes” it a good deal, or that Canada holds all the cards, lingering fantasies about the US relationship etc etc.
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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
This is from the newsletter which has done most to uncover what's going on.
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Chris Grey @chrisgrey.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Really interesting to hear @rafaelbehr.bsky.social - pretty much the best commentator on UK politics IMO - given the chance to expound at length on the current situation (and credit to @nickcohen.bsky.social for creating the frame for it - an under-rated skill).
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Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 14/09/2026
Kremlev, the Russian who sponsored Don Jr's wedding, is a former member of the Night Wolves biker gang, went to China with Putin and is personally sanctioned by Ukraine for his role in abducting children. He praises Stalin on social media www.propublica.org/article/dona...
propublica.org
Donald Trump Jr.’s Wedding Bankrolled by Putin-Linked Russian Oligarch
The oligarch, Umar Kremlev, spent hundreds of thousands on expenses like renting out a private island. He appears to have met Trump Jr. only recently, but he attended the intimate wedding with a large...
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WarTranslated (Dmitri) @wartranslated.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
"If our partners are prepared to ensure that Russia genuinely has no intention of targeting our electricity supply, our other energy facilities, critical infrastructure, or food supplies, then we are, of course, prepared to ensure that we do not carry out any such strikes." - Zelenskyy.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
There is no moral equivalence between bullies and the bullied, between tyranny and democracy, or between brutality and decency. No individual can be free in a society devoid of justice. There can be no liberty where brutality reigns.
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Seth Abramson @sethabramson.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
The video of this is genuinely unsettling. He literally appears to have no idea what the journalist is talking about when she mentions January 6—even when she clarifies that she is talking about 2021 and about the rioters at the Capitol that day. He looks at her blankly. Scary.
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Kat O’Brien @lavidagata.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
A clan of predators, supporting revolutionary allies from illiberal parties and nations, and getting rich in the process. A must-read @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu on this new, far worse United States.
administration's reckoning, he had two strikes against him: First, de Moraes's court was trying Bolsonaro; second, he had provoked the ire of Elon Musk, Trump's largest election donor. De Moraes "needs to leave," Musk said, comparing him to Voldemort, after de Moraes threatened to fine X and ordered it to block accounts accused of spreading disinformation.
The crisis was novel in other ways too. In normal times, the Brazilian government is reasonably well connected in Washington, regardless of who runs either country. The tenth-largest economy in the world, Brazil cooperates extensively with U.S. law enforcement and regional organizations. Yet at this crucial moment, with billions of dollars in the balance and Brazil's sovereign democracy under attack, Brazilian officials suddenly found that nobody in the Trump administration would speak to the formal representatives of their left-leaning president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Brazil's ambassador to Washington found herself isolated. The foreign minister, a diplomat who had known U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio for decades, could not get through to anyone. A junior official told me that even his graduate-school classmate at the U.S. Treasury would not answer his calls.A truce was finally arranged, multiple people told me, with the help of Joesley Batista, a billionaire whose meatpacking company does business in both the U.S. and Brazil, and whose American subsidiary had donated $5 million to Trump's inauguration (more than the contributions of Amazon, Meta, and Google combined). Batista had no official government role, but his money may have given him the clout to influence Trump's meetings with Lula at the 2025 United Nations General Assembly, in New York City, and at a summit in Kuala Lumpur, where the two elderly populists, each with grievances against their respective establishments, hit it off. The tariffs were reduced.
The détente was temporary. When I visited São Paulo and Brasilia this past spring, the State Department had just appointed a new senior adviser on Brazil policy. Before working for the administration, Darren Beattie founded Revolver News, a website that promoted the "Fedsurrection" conspiracy-the belief that federal agents were behind the riots on January 6, an obsession that would naturally appeal to Brazil's election deniers and displease the elected president. When Beattie asked to visit Brazil for a minerals conference, the Brazilian government refused to grant him a visa, in part because it suspected that his true purpose was to visit Jair Bolsonaro,Slowly, the Brazilians were learning the same lesson as other American allies around the
world: The United States of America is no longer the entity they knew. And American power is no longer deployed solely by trained diplomats and reliable officials, working through state channels. Informal envoys, private companies, online grifters, and hardened ideologues both inside and outside the government matter more.
Unlike their predecessors, these people do not talk about spreading democracy, and don't want to build long-term relationships.
They don't care about America's reputation.
They are deploying the tools of American diplomacy and government for their own purposes, to promote their own business interests or their own ideological goals, because, suddenly, they can.
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Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 14/09/2026
Trump's foreign policy is not isolationist. On the contrary, his ideologues want to build an international empire run by far-right political movements who serve American crypto, mineral and tech companies, many with links to the president. Read more here: www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
theatlantic.com
Empire of Grift
Far-right ideologues have transformed American foreign policy into a tool of private gain and antidemocratic reaction.
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Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
A *second* federal judge has blocked the U.S. Postal Service from implementing Trump's executive order limiting mail balloting. "Plaintiffs have demonstrated … there is an increased risk that a significant number of otherwise appropriate absentee or mail-in ballots will ultimately not be counted."
ms.now
Second federal judge freezes Trump mail ballot order with U.S. Supreme Court poised to weigh in
The nation’s highest court already is considering the administration’s appeal of an order by U.S. District Court in Boston.
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 14/09/2026
Look at this photo we found from Donald Trump Jr.’s lavish Bahamas wedding. Can you spot the Russian oligarch close to Putin who bankrolled the event? 🧵
A group photo shows about 35 people, including Donald Trump Jr.; his wife, Bettina Anderson; Ivanka Trump; Jared Kushner; Tiffany Trump; and Russian oligarch Umar Kremlev.

Little Pipe Cay/Lux Hospitality Bahamas; Laura Gordon Photography via Instagram; Laura Gordon Photography
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Sam Coleridge @samcoleridge.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
A thread 🧵, on Ben Delo and his one successful idea, on Bitmex, the vehicle, and a short history of #Bitcoin bsky.app/profile/samc...
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George E. Osborn @georgeosborn.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I think we're at the point where we can incredibly comfortably say that your attitude towards Reform, Restore, MAGA, the AfD etc is how you'd have responded to fascism in the 1930s
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Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 14/09/2026
There's always a new grift www.propublica.org/article/dona...
propublica.org
Donald Trump Jr.’s Wedding Bankrolled by Putin-Linked Russian Oligarch
The oligarch, Umar Kremlev, spent hundreds of thousands on expenses like renting out a private island. He appears to have met Trump Jr. only recently, but he attended the intimate wedding with a large...
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 14/09/2026
Swedish centre-left opposition widens lead to three seats with 95% of votes counted – Europe live
theguardian.com
Swedish centre-left opposition widens lead to three seats with 95% of votes counted – Europe live
The parliament isn’t set to meet until late September to elect a new speaker, and then prime minister Senior figures in the Social Democratic party are meeting this morning with party leader Magdalena Andersson to discuss next steps. The party topped the polls – that is certain – and is most likely to have a first go at forming the next government, but it will have to navigate the complex and often openly contradictory demands of the left-leaning bloc. Continue reading...
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Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
I predicted a month ago that Trump was going to say exactly this. I said he was going to try and blame Ukraine for diesel prices and tell Zelenskyy to stop. And here it is. bsky.app/profile/atru...
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Lewis Goodall @lewisgoodall.com · 13/09/2026
Any political party which tells you money doesn’t buy influence is either lying to you or has never attended a political fundraiser. Currency is access- and that’s for everyone. My opener to Sunday with Lewis Goodall @lbc.co.uk this morning. youtu.be/uLMuirAe--I?...
youtu.be
'This is the Americanisation of British politics' | Lewis Goodall
YouTube video by LBC
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David Corn @davidcorn.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
So the best dealmaker in the entire world cannot make a deal when the other side is dying to make a deal and is calling constantly? Does Trump know this makes absolutely no sense?
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
He defends Russia for helping Iran kill Americans. He defends China for helping Iran kill Americans. He pretends Iran hasn’t killed Americans. And his strategy for the clearly failing war he started is to lie about it. He says Canada is bad, an enemy, while North Korea is good. What can’t he do!
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Femi @femi-oluwole.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Has anybody else spotted the word Reform UK keep using to defend taking £36 million from convicted criminal Ben Delo? Also, have you wondered why so many convicted Criminals billionaries seem to love giving money to Reform UK?
youtube.com
Reform UK defends £36 million CRIMINAL donation - Ben Delo
YouTube video by Femi - F Politics!
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David Darmofal @daviddarmofal.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Mike Johnson lies like a 1980s TV evangelist. It was his true calling in life.
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Sam Bright @writesbright.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Not to be pedantic but Christopher Harborne has already given £25 million to Reform and Ben Delo £8 million. So the figure isn’t £72 million - it’s £105 million.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
A recurrent theme in this excellent story about China’s progress is that people there regard Trump as essential to their success, including his ability to drive scientific talent from the US www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
In Beijing, a think tank at Renmin University recently published an assessment titled
"Thank Trump," which wryly hailed his efforts to hasten the "twilight of an empire," by undermining America's alliances, civil service, scientific institutions, and democratic credibility. In the past two years, the international approval rating of the U.S. has dropped nearly forty points, according to a worldwide survey by the Alliance of Democracies; in multiple polls, China now rates higher than the U.S.
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James O’Brien @mrjamesob.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
It would be more helpful for him to acknowledge and explain the role that his austerity policies played in encouraging people to vote for what he correctly critiques here.
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Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 13/09/2026
This is a major escalation - Russian drone attacks on trains right at the Polish border
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The Bear @bearlypolitics.co.uk · 13/09/2026
Two billionaires: £72 million in 24 hours. Millions of trade-union members: £200 million across two decades. Apparently these are now being presented as roughly the same thing. Just fucking marvellous the heroic amount of heavy lifting that’s happening here.
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Roland Smith @rolandmcs.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
And good evening to you too.
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MeidasTouch @meidastouch.com · 12/09/2026
Not so sure Ireland is the biggest fan of Donald Trump (REUTERS/Natalia Campos)
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Savchenko Volodymyr @savchenkoua.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
☠️ Rutte: Russia is suffering enormous losses, now estimated at more than 40,000 killed or seriously wounded every month. Think about it for a moment. Over 40,000. Every month. Despite those heavy losses, Putin shows no willingness to bring the war to an end.
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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Ffs. Well, it’s up to us to make sure that their grubby ‘investment’ is a phenomenal waste of money. Reform is a shitshow of crooks and idiots who have no idea how to behave, let alone govern. The majority of us who loathe them must unite to keep them out of power forever.
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Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Britain is just looking on as a handful of tax hating billionaires buy our political future.
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