Anish Kumar

[Rishi Sunak @RishiSunak]

I was a very fortunate kid. My dad's GP surgery sat between the Dell and Hampshire's County Ground, so at weekends I could go to a game and get a lift home afterwards. It left me with a passion for both sports and a belief that sport opens a window onto who we are.

When I was growing up, the Tebbit test was a matter of intense debate. Which side did you cheer for at the cricket? For all the criticism it received, it was a test anyone could pass. If you supported England because you saw it as home, you were part of the team regardless of the colour of your skin. Born in Southampton, 10 year old me passed it without even knowing about it.

Giving the @MCCOfficial's Cowdrey Lecture on Thursday made me think about cricket's place in our national life and the current arguments about identity.

In Britain we've built the world's most successful multi-faith, multi-ethnic democracy. I was a beneficiary of it. Whatever issues people had with me as PM (and there was no shortage) my race and religion weren't among them. I could read a lesson at the King's coronation or light Diwali diyas on Downing Street with my daughters without controversy. Foreign leaders assumed these must be huge symbolic moments. For most Brits, they just weren't that big a deal.

But Britain's democratic achievement is now under strain. Some of the challenges are ones I've written about before, like Islamism, and the failure of governments, including the one I led, to adequately control immigration. But something else is going on - a risk that we start equating skin colour with nationality.

After I left office, a debate kicked off here on @X about whether I was English at all, because I was a "brown Hindu". During the election campaign I'd been shocked when footage was broadcast of someone calling me a "Paki." It was shocking precisely because it was so unusual. That kind of abuse had simply not been a feature of my political life. But the Englishness argument was stranger still. Call it the reverse Tebbit test. If you're not white, it no longer matters who you support at the cricket, because you can never be English. It's a test no non-white person can ever pass.

I have no truck with people who offend our sense of fairness and come here illegally; I spent half my premiership trying to deport them to Rwanda. I think the bar for legal migration should be high. It is entirely possible to want a radical reduction in immigration and a far more robust approach to integration, and still totally reject the attempt to turn Britishness into a DNA test.

If you're born and brought up in England and view it as home, what are you other than English? Denying people their Englishness or their Britishness because of the colour of their skin is a recipe for alienation and a two-tier society. How are children who hear this meant to feel?

Sport can play a small but significant role here. Cricket is played by nearly every major ethnic group in this country. Ask what my largely white rural constituents in the Dales and the British-Asian kids in Bradford have in common, and the answer is cricket. If cricket can produce England teams in which every kid can see themselves, the impact reaches far beyond the boundary.

As I write in @thetimes today, we must all be on the same side, cheering for the same team.

We cannot allow race to be reintroduced into our politics. We cannot allow Briton to be set against Briton.

[Tom Harwood @tomhfh]

Every time I pass a gorgeous GWR train I feel a twinge of sadness that this classy and timeless design is about to be extinguished by a senseless and tacky Scooch rebrand, thanks to nationalisation.

[space cadet 🇪🇺🌐🇩🇪 @actsmaniac]

Truth nuke in the FT comment section on Berlin rent control

[𝗙𝗜𝗔𝗚𝗢 🇩🇪 @fiago7]

Just rewatched the scenes after the final whistle. This Argentina team showed the entire world what they really are today. A bunch of thugs with little to no dignity. Some of these players really shouldn’t be on a football pitch.

[mary beard @wmarybeard]

University degrees are not all about salaries. They are about learning to think differently and more carefully. Dispiriting discussion on bbc politics live which focussed entirely on earnings. Ok the financing is v important but the aim is not just a high paid job.

[petey @peteypayless]

the US if Tylenol actually caused autism

[Politics UK @PolitlcsUK]

🚨🎥 WATCH: The Lib Dems "reclaim patriotism" at their national conference

[Liberal Democrats @LibDems]

Our flag does not belong to one creed or to one race. It belongs to one people, the British people.

We will not let our flag be used to intimidate.

[Yuan Yi Zhu @yuanyi_z]

I don't think anyone who's salivating at the prospect of mass political violence or civil war has the foggiest idea of how bad these things are in real life. It's beyond their memory and their imagination.

[Tim Johnson @Partyreptile]

Harold Macmillan lay in a shell hole with shrapnel in his hip on the Somme for a full day, reading Aeschylus while waiting for stretcher bearers

[Taj Ali @Taj_Ali1]

This is what you call a real patriot

[Luke Robert Black @lukerobertblack]

At the moment, my bf and I want to move to a “luxury home”. I don’t choose this term, but this is how anything larger than a 3 bed is described in London. We want to have a family and therefore need a larger home. These are almost invariably called “luxury”.

And because they’re so rarely built by Sir Sadiq Khan (who seems unable to build anything, anyway, and won’t as this awful Labour govt reduces his targets in a cynical move), we will stay in our smaller, affordable flat for longer than need. The availability and price for a family home are beyond our reach.

So, because we cannot afford to move to the next place, our affordable home doesn’t go back into housing stock. It deprives the next first time buyer from getting on the property ladder.

Can you see the cycle?

So, yes, “luxury” homes matter. We need them. We need to build *all* types of housing for all types of families.

[LBC @LBC]

'It was one of the most pathetic things I've seen in years.'

@BenKentish attended a Barnet Council meeting about a proposed new football stadium on greenbelt land.

His verdict? 'Stop self-important NIMBYs vetoing everything this country needs.'

[Basil🧡 @LinkofSunshine]

Kornacki actually has my dream job. There's nothing I want in the world more than to go on TV and discuss random elections all day

[Stakeholder Consultant @echetus]

An indigenous British Left no longer exists; “Greens” and the “Labour Left” are psychologically Americans

[melody @melodyadjei]

I honestly think most nepo babies are misinterpreted.. their mindset is all my extremely wealthy friends and family choose to just be rich and I work hard when I dont have to. They exist in such a different paradigm that they literally are the hardest working people they know 😭

[Capel Lofft @CapelLofft]

You're in a debate to listen, not just wait for your 3 minutes to trot out some pre-fabricated soundbite that you can post on Twitter or put in a leaflet. Being a parliamentarian isn't an inconvenient interruption to your 'real' job as a glorified local councillor. It is your job

[Luke Tryl @LukeTryl]

🧵There seems to be a real tendency particularly on the liberal progressive left (in UK/US, more widely), to write off defeats, in either elections or on issues, by attributing them to 'biased media' or 'misinformation'. I think it's a mindset more likely to harm than help them

[crisp mattman @cushbomb]

This is the stupidest day in American history, a record that will be broken by every subsequent day in American history.