Gillian Brown

[Tim Stanley @timothy_stanley]

RIP

[Lachlan Goudie @lachlangoudie]

High Atlas, watercolour on paper, 40x28cm

[Lachlan Goudie @lachlangoudie]

'The pines', 40x40cm, OIl on board

[Colin Parry OBE @ColinParryPeace]

Today is the 33rd anniversary of the day the IRA bombed Warrington town centre and killed my son Tim and 3 yr old Johnathan Ball. Words can never describe how losing a child leaves a huge hole in your heart and your family. Eternal love Tim ❤️❤️

[Maria Avdeeva @maria_avdv]

The attack began at midnight and is still going in the morning. Kyiv is burning in multiple districts.
At least 2 killed, 15 injured. Parts of Kyiv are completely without power and water.

[Matthew Syed @matthewsyed]

The BBC is a HUGE asset to the UK. Yes, it would benefit from more viewpoint diversity (like every other cultural institution) but I utterly disagree with those who wish to destroy it. Remember the words of the great Joni Mitchell: “You Don't Know What You Got Till It's Gone”

[S Sebag Montefiore @simonmontefiore]

This on the BBC:

"This" writes the sensible @matthewsyed "is why I’d argue (perhaps optimistically) that this week offers a window of opportunity for the BBC. The courageous move would be to acknowledge Prescott’s findings, perhaps even to admit what is, I think, undeniable: that the corporation suffers from institutional bias. I mean, it is not as if it is alone in this. A survey last month by Electoral Calculus showed that 75 per cent of what it called “the establishment” voted for left-of-centre parties at the general election. The think tank More in Common found that many institutions are dominated by “progressive activists” who constitute just 13 per cent of the population.

And it is worth briefly noting how we got here. Perhaps the original sin was the progressive march through our universities: since the 1960s the ratio of left-wing to right-wing academics has shifted from 3:1 to 8:1. This has not just tilted young, often impressionable minds in a decisively more liberal direction but had further consequences too. It is striking, for example, that graduates today migrate in huge numbers to metropolitan areas (nearly 40 per cent of Russell Group graduates with firsts and 2:1s are living in London within six months of leaving uni), where they join narrow friendship networks connected to the institutions at which they work, creating a double whammy of social convergence.

This is why ensuring true diversity of views at an elite institution like the BBC is about far more than diversity of colour, class or gender. It is about appointing senior editors who (wait for it) are sympathetic to Reform UK; hiring many more who are super-bright but didn’t go to university; constantly encouraging new recruits to express their opinions rather than converge on the predominant ones; perhaps above all, recognising that impartiality is not a destination but an orientation requiring a disciplined awareness of one’s limitations and an insistence on transparency, method and the humility to constantly test assumptions against alternative ones.

The BBC will instinctively feel defensive this week and may be tempted to argue that it has all the necessary policies in place. I’d humbly retort (as a friend) that this would be a terrible strategic error. The role of the BBC has never been more important and it is not too late to preserve it from those who wish to bring it down. But all executives should remember that while a liberal world-view predominates within the walls of the organisation, a majority of licence fee payers believe in the following heresies (ie, common sense): national borders matter; love of nation is admirable; biological males shouldn’t compete in women’s sport; people should be judged on merit, not colour; western history is broadly admirable, not shaming.

Indeed, how about reading out the previous paragraph at the outset of every editorial meeting? It might help mitigate the otherwise irresistible tendency towards elite groupthink."

https://t.co/CIwF7UDvHG

[Ryan Saavedra @RyanSaavedra]

This is actually a good statement from Bernie Sanders

Worth the watch

[Ricky Gervais @rickygervais]

If you don’t believe in free speech for people who you disagree with, and even hate for what they stand for, then you don’t believe in free speech.

[Yaroslava @strategywoman]

Greetings from Kyiv,
where I am having my warcoffee.

Last night in Ukraine:
- over 580 drones & missiles launched
- Zaporizhzhia was hit hard: 1 person killed, 28 injured,
and 25,000 without power in the region.

[Yaroslava @strategywoman]

Evening in Kyiv.
I went out and bought some chocolate.
I’m not really into chocolate,
but I today I needed to sweeten either my body or my life.

The death toll in Kyiv has risen to 19.
People may still be trapped under the rubble.