Ali WHITE💙

Lactation consultant specialising in prem babies, Mother of two, chocolate lover, prosecco occassionalist, all my views my own but often stolen.

[Peter Jukes @peterjukes]

It is almost the greatest political scandal

But I’d rate Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson seeking a backchannel to Putin by attending bunga bunga parties with (not so) ex KGB colonel Alexander Lebedev without his security detail after the Skripal attack a ‘Profumo on Stilts’

[Anna Yearley Carreira @AnnaYearley]

A reminder that Gordon Brown is one of the most decent and principled politicians we have ever had. A man with a strong moral compass & more compassion in his little finger than certain people have in their whole body.

[Chris van Tulleken 🏳️‍🌈 @DoctorChrisVT]

Why is it in the milk? because the companies decided to add an ingredient called Arachidonic acid (ARA) which is an omega-6 fatty acid found in human milk.

The tragedy here is that this is not a mandatory ingredient - ARA is an optional ingredient which the manufacturers claim helps brain development despite the fact that after a review of the evidence the European Food Safety Authority @EFSA_EU do not require ARA to be added to formula. So when companies add it they do it for commercial reasons. If ARA helps brain development it should be in all infant formula. If it doesn’t, it should be in none.

[Chris van Tulleken 🏳️‍🌈 @DoctorChrisVT]

At the moment the regulations around formula are harmful for all parents whether they want to breastfeed or exclusively formula feed.

The first step to protect parents and children is to bring into law the WHO Code around Breastmilk Substitutes.

Additionally the UN Codex Alimentarius and WHO food hygiene guidelines are over 20 years old. They pre-date today’s infant & child food market. Public-health rules shouldn’t lag two decades behind industry practice.

https://t.co/RBZ5Df72kO

[Chris van Tulleken 🏳️‍🌈 @DoctorChrisVT]

I want to tell you about an emerging scandal about the infant formula industry reported in the @bmjlatest and the @FT.
https://t.co/4dJMMK2RBL

[Don McGowan @donmcgowan]

🏝️A Chagos Islands Deal Mini Explainer🏝️

Since Trump lobbed one of his defective disinformation grenades into the previously settled argument around this deal, I thought it might be worth a little factual background to counteract the nonsense.

The Chagos Archipelago is a group of seven atolls in the Indian Ocean. Discovered in the first instance by Portuguese explorers in the 16th century, it remained uninhabited until France settled it in 1715 after their colonisation of Mauritius.

The very first recorded claim to the islands was by King Hassan IX of the Maldives in 1561.

After some toing and froing between France and Great Britain and a defeat of Napoleon, the entire region became part of the British Empire, including Mauritius and the Maldives.

As with most of colonial Britain, we treated the islanders and native people terribly, enslaving them and forcing them to work on plantations and coconut groves.

Fast-forward to the 1960s.

At this point, we had struck a deal with the US to lease Diego Garcia to them for a proposed military base. The deal would run for 50 years, with carve outs for automatic extensions in perpetuity.

In order to achieve this, the UK forcibly removed the entire Chagossian population — around 1,500–2,000 people were deported to Mauritius and the Seychelles.

This is widely considered to be an act of ethnic cleansing and one for which the UK should hang its head in shame.

Before this horrific act took place, the UK had agreed a deal to give Mauritius its Independence and offered £3 million in compensation. A take it or leave it offer that brought further shame to the British side.

The base in Diego Garcia was completed in the 1970s and has been pivotal for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, among others.

There has been ongoing legal disputes since the early 2000s with Chagossians claiming their legal rights to the land from which they were expelled — in 2016, the British government asserted that this would never happen.

In 2019, a UN resolution was unanimously passed to force Britain to return the islands to Mauritius … within six months.

We did not.

Even after a UN tribunal hearing in 2021, the UK still refused to grant sovereignty to the Chagossians and return the islands to their original ownership.

It wasn't until 2022 that then Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly, announced that he was starting negotiations with Mauritius and intended to allow the resettlement of the Chagossians.

When Cleverly left government a year later, his successor, David Cameron, backtracked and cancelled the resettlement of the islanders.

After Labour came into power, in October of 2024, they finalised the deal started under the Conservatives but held off on ratification until the new president, Trump, had taken office and had a chance to look across the proposal.

On 27th February 2025, Trump agreed to support the deal which ensured long term [read permanent] military presence in Diego Garcia, and signed off on the deal officially in April.

Whilst the deal is still subject to challenges by the islanders and some in Mauritius, there has been widespread misreporting of the details.

One of the well-known tropes is that we are giving our territory to a foreign nation and paying them for the privilege. If you've read the paragraphs above, then you will perhaps begin to understand why the UK has to cede control of this island group.

We are no longer hold an Empire or are colonialists — it is the correct thing to do.

The costs involved are wildly misreported up to the eye-watering sum of £35 billion pounds, but this is wrong.

The most recent figures are that we will lease the land for $101 million per year for 99 years — a grand total of £3.4 billion over that period.

The right-wing media will have you believe that we are paying for nothing but, in reality, this is a modest outlay for a hugely strategic military presence and … the US pays for the base on Diego Garcia.

The US avoids any legal or colonial ramifications but pays for the base.

The UK pays for legitimacy.
The US pays for capability.

Secondary claims about the Chinese involvement are limited and don't really hold much water. China does have trade agreements with Mauritius but absolutely nothing militarily. The same as the UK does.

That holds no water at all in the arguments.

That's my mini explainer on where we stand, I hope it is helpful. But before I sign off, there is one more thing I have to point out … à la Columbo.

About 98% of this deal and all the legal wranglings took place under the Conservative government. Ask yourself why we are all just hearing about it now.

Why was this not across our media ecosphere when James Cleverly and David Cameron made the actual deal?

Why, since Labour took power and finalised the deal the Tories made, are the media up in arms about it? I think we all know that answers to that little quandary.

Trump's latest interjection means nothing. He won't renege on the deal he signed. All he wants to do is sow chaos and uncertainty.

As I wrote yesterday, it's just noise and distraction from the President, nothing more, but our small-minded press lap it up and spread their lies to belittle the Prime Minister.

[Nerine Halton @NerineHalton]

Keir Starmer’s proved his value one million percent today.
Calm , articulate and politically astute. His approach to the Trumpian dystopia is unarguable IMO. Starmer’s clear ; we’re not able to stand alone but we’re not without morals or values.
I applaud Starmer today.

[Vala Afshar @ValaAfshar]

This is the type of content that brings me to this platform. This is what matters.

[(TCAG) Командир Бред Кроуфорд (CDR Brad Crawford) @evo1tactical]

On my flight to London, coming back after 20 days of leave after working 11 straight months in Ukraine, something went very wrong in the cabin.

A woman fell and struck her head hard on a metal rail. Blood was running down her face and onto the floor. The flight crew called out asking if anyone had medical training. No one else stood up, so I did.

I told them I was trained in Tactical Combat Casualty Care. The crew and the captain came to me immediately. I told them she needed to be laid flat and stabilized, so we moved her into first class and got her horizontal so I could work.

They brought me the emergency medical kit. I applied direct pressure to control the bleeding, cleaned the wound, dressed it, and monitored her closely for shock and changes in consciousness. She had a two inch laceration that went almost to the skull. She was in pain and shaken, but she stayed alert.

I stayed with her for the rest of the flight. The crew gave me the seat next to her so I would not have to leave her side. They checked in constantly, and we worked together to keep her stable until landing.

Because we were able to control the bleeding and keep her stable, the plane did not have to divert. When we landed, I met the EMTs at the airport, explained everything that had happened, and handed her over so she could get proper medical care.

That 20 days of leave was to see my family after 11 straight months in Ukraine. I was tired. But in that moment, the training I have from the war zone mattered. Not in combat, but in keeping a stranger alive and safe at 30,000 feet.

Some skills never turn off. And some days, they save someone’s life.

[sue#NHSLove💙💙💙#FBNHS suesuezep.bsky.social @SueSuezep]

If nothing else, watching the U.S. under Trump is a stark warning: we must never allow that here in the UK. It is the No. 1 reason Farage must be kept far from power. He mirrors Trump at every turn, & given the chance he’d drag the UK down the same path

[Dale Vince @DaleVince]

You might miss it, mainstream media aren’t talking about it - but Labour have delivered a shed load of things already - more to come.

[. @jdpoc]

So ... wait a minute.

Since the Budget, inflation has fallen, mortgages are going to be cheaper, business confidence & orders are up to the highest since the Tories were kicked out of office.

That was a /bad/ budget, was it ?

Or was it just the bullshit news from the right?

[𝙋𝙝𝙞𝙡 𝙈𝙮𝙚𝙧𝙨 @PhilMyers53]

I see "worst PM ever," I read, "Starmer's got to go." I hear what does he stand for?

Under very difficult circumstances, Keir has started to turn things around

You can sneer, you can shout, but the reality is Britain is on the *long* road to recovery

Labour #FixingBritain

[Nick Reeves #RejoinEU #NAFO #FBPE @nickreeves9876]

Please repost if you agree that British TV News is betraying our democracy by giving Farage what looks like more coverage than all the other opposition parties combined.

[John Smith (son of Harry Leslie Smith) @Harryslaststand]

Just a quick reminder to society. The left brought you public Healthcare, the 40 hour work week, maternity leave, old age pensions, the right to strike for better wages, regulations to protect food & water supplies to name a few. The right has brought you eternal war & discord.

[Dale Vince @DaleVince]

What did we learn from Reform’s conference?

First, delegates seem not to realise we have a king now, not a queen - as they ‘mis-sang’ the national anthem. We won’t be taking lessons in patriotism from them then.

Second, Nadine Dorries is a catch - who knew? Farage bigged up this latest defection of, frankly, a nobody, like it was really something. Her only claim to fame seems to have been as an architect of Britain’s online safety act - the same act Farage has vowed to scrap. Does Dorries or Farage care about that lack of consistency or integrity - I suspect not.

Third, Reform is a party that welcomes and celebrates criminals - in this case someone just out of jail for inciting racial hatred and extreme violence (arson in fact). I’m all for rehabilitation, but this was not that.

Fourth - Reform is the home of quack science. The person helping them write their Health policy - is an anti-vaxxer, who claimed that the Royal family’s recent cancers were caused by the Covid vaccine.

And finally - we shouldn’t overlook the rank hypocrisy of Farage having been in the US just days earlier claiming the UK has no free speech - while his party bans journalists they don’t like and others, like me - from attending their conference.
This is Farage’s free speech Britain.

[Jamie Daltry @JamieDaltry]

@g_gosden You don’t debate gravity. You don’t debate the shape of the earth.

Scientific facts are not debated, except by those too stupid to understand the proof.

And this wasn’t a debate it was a platform for a charlatan to spread lies. Though quite fitting for Reform Ltd

[Ed Davey @EdwardJDavey]

The BBC are constantly fawning over Farage's every move despite Reform only having four MPs. Our national broadcaster should reflect the whole country, not just one man’s ego.

[Harry Eccles @Heccles94]

Let's make this video famous.

Let's make sure @Nigel_Farage is shown to everyone be the fraud he is.

Let's make sure @BBCNews @SkyNews @Channel4News @itvnews allkeep showing this on repeat!

Retweet! Retweet! Retweet!

[Alex Taylor @AlexTaylorNews]

Newsnight to Greens just now : "You're on 9% in the polls, Reform over 30%. Why is your message not cutting through ?"

MAYBE BECAUSE EVERY SINGLE UK NEWS BULLETIN (& @BBCNewsnight ITSELF!) AND EVERY FRONT PAGE DOES NOTHING BUT BIG UP, DAY IN, DAY OUT REFORM'S AGENDA !!!
Hello ?!