Alison Knight 💙

[Gordon Fielden @GordonFielden]

Chris, there are rare occasions when an author dismantles his own argument before the reader has progressed beyond the opening paragraphs. This is one of them.

You readily concede that much of your reporting over recent months rested upon anonymous briefings, unnamed sources, private conversations and opinions offered only on condition that they could never be subjected to public scrutiny. You then ask your audience to accept that such material provides an accurate account of events. With respect, that is not evidence in any meaningful sense. It is an interpretation of events, constructed from assertions that the reader has no means of testing, verifying or challenging.

No serious observer disputes that confidential sources have a legitimate place in political journalism. They always have, and they always will. But there is a profound distinction between using anonymous sources to illuminate established facts and using them to construct an entire political narrative over many months. The former is responsible journalism; the latter risks becoming an exercise in reinforcing assumptions until they acquire the appearance of fact simply through constant repetition.

Indeed, your own article inadvertently exposes that very process. It repeatedly invites readers to accept what unnamed MPs supposedly believed, what unidentified advisers were allegedly saying, and what anonymous insiders privately thought. Such accounts may well have reflected genuine conversations, but they remain assertions rather than verifiable facts. There is an important distinction, and one that ought never to be blurred.

More striking still is the omission at the heart of your analysis. You devote thousands of words to explaining how Westminster concluded that Sir Keir Starmer's premiership had become untenable, yet you devote scarcely a sentence to examining whether the relentless stream of anonymous briefings and speculative commentary from sections of the political media played any part in creating that very outcome. That question surely deserves examination.

Nor do you grapple with the constitutional consequence of what follows. The British people elected a Government led by Sir Keir Starmer. Should he be replaced by another individual through internal parliamentary manoeuvring alone, the process may be constitutionally lawful, but that does not automatically confer political legitimacy in the eyes of the electorate. Those are two entirely different questions.

Many of those now defending such a transition were previously among the most vocal critics of Rishi Sunak for assuming office without seeking his own mandate from the country. Constitutional principles cannot be invoked when politically convenient and quietly abandoned when they become inconvenient.

History has a habit of punishing such inconsistency. If Andy Burnham were to become Prime Minister in these circumstances, I believe the pressure upon him to seek his own mandate from the British people would become irresistible. In my view, he would have little practical choice but to call a General Election within six to eight months. Whether Labour would survive such a contest is, of course, for the electorate to determine. My own judgement is that they would face a severe electoral reckoning, with the country returning either a Reform UK-led government or a hung Parliament.

Journalism should chronicle events, not become so intertwined with Westminster's internal conversations that it begins to mistake the mood of the political class for the settled will of the British people. That, in my view, is the fundamental weakness running through your analysis.

https://t.co/8vSBlsVlze

[NHS Million @NHSMillion]

If you want to annoy Mike Graham then please give us a follow and share this so others can too

Thank you 🙏

[Sam @SamCKx]

The more I dig, the more I realise that Nigel Farage is literally done for. It's over for him. The £5 million bung is big enough to take the entire Reform movement down and possibly land Nigel in jail.

1) The fact the donation was made BEFORE Nigel was MP is absolutely irrelevant. Parliamentary Code of Conduct requires all receipts for the full 12 months before election. Nigel receiving his bung just a few days before he announced his candidacy makes it so much worse, not better.

2) "Category 5: Gifts and benefits from sources outside the UK - THRESHOLD FOR REGISTRATION Section 39. Members must register, subject to the paragraphs below, any gifts or benefits with a value of over £300 which they receive from a source outside the UK."

Nigel argues this was 'purely personal' but the Code refers to partners or families when it comes to personal gifts... this takes us to the next issue...

3) Christopher Harborne has a long track record of making SUBSTANTIAL political contributions to Nigel's parties, first to The Brexit Party, and later to Reform. He is a POLITICAL DONOR - any "gift" he made to Farage CANNOT be argued as personal or without political context due to this track record.

4) Using his platform as an MP, Nigel went on to promote 2 companies in which Christopher Harborne holds $ billions in stock - Nigel NEVER publicly endorsed or mentioned these companies prior to the "gift". Nigel also began actively pushing for policy that would directly interest Christopher Harborne and his business affairs. These were not interests that any could argue could possibly be of interest to his constituents - deregulation of crypto, and lowering of taxes on crypto gains. Nigel spent a substantial amount of time and effort pushing these policies.

It is beyond a doubt that this is the biggest breach of Parliamentary Code of Conduct rules in relation to donations in parliamentary history.

But even more concerning for Nigel will be that if it can be proven he was secretly incentivised to use his public office to push for policies to support a wealthy donor, then he should very likely face a criminal probe for corruption and bribery. I suspect Harborne might also be exposed to this. The United Kingdom and Thailand have a bilateral extradition treaty. Maximum prison sentences of up to 10 years for the offence.

This is not going to go away.

[Paul Powlesland @paulpowlesland]

Dear @EnvAgency.

In February this year, after 4 years of asking you to look after the Aldersbrook, I led a team of volunteers to do your job for you & clean out tonnes of silt & leaves, as well as hundreds of bags of rubbish. Through the effort of community volunteers & donations, & at zero cost to the taxpayer, we turned a forgotten silted up ditch back into a river again.

Last nights intense rain storm showed why our actions are the very definition of “strengthening water resilience”. A huge amount of rain fell in a short time, but the restored section of the Aldersbrook has been able to hold 100’s of thousands of litres more water, stopping this water running into the Roding, & thereby *reducing* local flood risk. The first photograph below is of the Aldersbrook after the rains this morning- a big contrast to the area before we did the work.

Perhaps more importantly, this water, instead of running straight off into the Roding & hence the sea is now being held in the Aldersbrook & gradually released so it can be used by nature. It is feeding marshes, trees & wildlife, topping up groundwater & helping to reduce our flood/drought cycle. If you want to strengthen water resilience, we need thousands more projects like the Aldersbrook around the country.

So the question I ask you, Environment Agency, is why you are threatening me with two years imprisonment, rather than offering to meet & discuss how we can work together to restore the Roding & its tributaries, which could become a blueprint for you cooperating with local river guardians nationwide?

[Chris Phillips @CJPhillips1982]

A real long shot but can people retweet this please.

Yesterday all my items were stolen in Eastbourne including my stats book which has 20 years worth of details in. Laptops, phones, clothes, shavers etc can all be replaced but this can’t and is useless to anyone else. It’s in a plastic folder you can see in the left hand side of this photo. Can anyone in that neck of the woods please keep an eye out. I’m gutted about this.

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

In England, you're allowed to clear about 20 metres of silt and rubbish out of a river on your own. Anything past that needs a permit from the Environment Agency. Paul Powlesland's volunteers cleared a 250-metre stretch of the River Roding with a hired digger, which is why a barrister who hauled out 200 bags of trash is now under criminal investigation.

The Roding runs through east London. Powlesland lives on a boat moored on it, and for years he and a group of volunteers have pulled out shopping trolleys, needles, old appliances, even weapons. Kingfishers, herons and dragonflies came back to water that used to be buried under junk. This one job took 10 days and a digger that cost £1,000 to hire.

The rule that caught him is oddly specific. Under England's water rules, scooping silt off the bottom of a river the agency officially manages counts as a "flood risk activity", and the law treats that the same as building a structure in the water. Do it without a permit and the offence carries up to two years in prison. The agency says it is also looking at waste the volunteers left on the floodplain. Powlesland is an environmental lawyer who has used these exact laws to protect rivers and trees, and a conviction could cost him his licence to practise.

The agency's reasoning isn't unreasonable. Dredging done badly can push flooding onto people downstream and wreck the habitat that protected animals need, which is what the permit is meant to prevent. The 20-metre allowance is there for small jobs. And no decision to prosecute has actually been made.

While investigators were knocking on a volunteer's door within a week of his cleanup, water companies discharged raw sewage into England's rivers and seas for a combined 3.6 million hours in 2024, more than 400 years of spilling packed into a single year. Only 14% of English rivers are in good health. Between 2015 and 2025, the Environment Agency investigated water companies for pollution 11,474 times. Fifty-eight of those ended in a prosecution. For serious pollution over the last five years, the number of water companies actually taken to court and convicted is zero.

So the message comes out backwards. Spend ten days and a thousand pounds making a river cleaner and an officer turns up within the week. Pump sewage into that same river for years and the chance of seeing a courtroom is close to zero.

[𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓻𝓵𝓸𝓽𝓽𝓮 @charlotteukcity]

This is powerful!!

The video strikingly illustrates the game of misinformation that’s being played by Nigel Farage & others. It shows who’s actually benefiting from it.

Absolutely worth watching!

Video sent to me by @nowayjomo

[Paul Powlesland @paulpowlesland]

I’m sorry, this is total bollocks. I have been looking after my river for a decade and you have done absolutely nothing to support me and the other hundreds of volunteers who give up their free time to do your job for you and to stop the river we love from dying.

This picture is the part of the Aldersbrook that we haven’t yet restored. Do you agree that allowing one of the ancient rivers of London to disappear beneath a layer of sewage, silt, rubbish & knotweed is a disgrace? If so, when can we expect EA teams down in the river to sort it out?

[Narinder Kaur @narindertweets]

Oh...oh...but...but Harborne didn't want anything in return for the £5m "gift" and there's simply NO CONNECTION between that and ..well THIS 👇

[Paul Powlesland @paulpowlesland]

Good news! After decades of ignoring rampant environmental crime on the Roding, @EnvAgency has finally decided to act.

Bad news! It’s not against Thames Water for illegally dumping billions of litres of sewage in the Roding, or the waste criminals who have dumped thousands of tonnes of rubbish on its banks, but against myself & a small volunteer charity for… restoring a river without a permit!

Within a week of the magnificent work of River Roding Trust volunteers completing the arduous work of restoring 250 metres of the Aldersbrook this winter, EA investigators had been down to the site and rattled off a letter threatening us with prosecution for doing the work without a permit. This is despite the fact that the Trust have repeatedly asked the EA to do this vital work on the Aldersbrook themselves & they have refused. It is also despite the fact that they have not investigated the huge illegal sewage outlet on the Cranbrook a few hundred metres away, which illegally discharges 750,000,000 litres of raw sewage straight into the River Roding every year.

[Brendan Cox @MrBrendanCox]

This is a brilliant investigation. It shows what many of us knew. Hostile states are supporting both Islamist & far right causes in order to divide us. If you are echoing those narratives you are aiding & abeting a hostile state.

https://t.co/Qr8sbm42zv

[Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla]

A) This a properly brilliant piece of investigative journalism by BBC & @hopenothate. Huge kudos to all involved.

B) The Kremlin operative who BBC names as directing arson attacks against Keir Starmer was taught his tradecraft by…drumroll…Sergei Nalobin !!! Pictured here with Boris Johnson. Also: the star of our podcast series, Sergei & the Westminster Spy Ring! Wtaf

[Kate from Kharkiv @BohuslavskaKate]

Zelenskyy wrote an open letter to Putin‼️

​"Whatever you say about NATO, geopolitics, and the russian language, this war is your personal choice—a war with no real reason. That is exactly how history will remember it."

[Jason | 🇬🇧 🇿🇦 🇮🇱🇺🇲 @Ajaon_of_All]

Let me categorically Debunk this utter rot. @sainsburys.

I am a poultry Breeder. The hens that lay white eggs (Amberline/White Star) DO NOT have a lower carbon footprint.

Yes they eat a bit less and produce roughly the same amount of eggs as the Brown egg layers (Bovan/Lowman/ISA Brown) but they live shorter lives, are prone to dying suddenly when startled, a flighty and nervous and because they live shorter productive lives (12 -18mnths) vs brown 18/24mnths (both commercial farmed), you have to incubate more which is increased (Electricity/gas costs) and their eggs are not the same quality.

I breed and keep 20+ different breeds, including: ISA Brown hens and White Stars. All my hens are 100% free range, Not a single barn kept bird, I have ISA browns that are 5yrs old and still laying beautiful Brown eggs, I have not seen a White star live beyond 3yrs and certainly none have laid eggs past 18-24mnths.
White stars Lay themselves to death. They are slender birds and because they dont eat a lot, it drains their personal vitality to keep up laying the eggs you want to sell because of the nonsensical lie that they are "More Carbon Neutral"

You want to know about eggs, come talk to someone like me, Don't rely on some hairbrained imagination of a buyer who's trying to squeeze the profit margin for a few extra pennies at our expense and to the poor hens detriment.

[FarmingUK @FarmingUK]

“As we drive around our farm picking up these paper lanterns - that our cows try to eat - we ask you to find something better to do to support your causes.

“There is wire inside the paper that will get on their stomach and kill them

“Donate money directly to your cause please, instead of lanterns or balloons!”

📸 Karen McCartin Foster

[Pam Ayres MBE @PamAyres]

Please consider signing this petition as I have done if like me, you are appalled at the amount of sewage tipped into our waterways to the vast financial benefit of others. Why would any country sell control of something as crucial as water? It is lunacy.

https://t.co/dsmb1FOmmK

[Paul Powlesland @paulpowlesland]

Hi @EnvAgency, I planned to go swimming in my river (River Roding) and checked the water quality and it’s full of sewage (often 5-7 ppm ammonia near outfalls) due to illegal outfalls putting over a billion litres of raw sewage into the river every year. The EA has not prosecuted a single one of these illegal spills or even asked Thames Water to fix them.

What should I do now?

[Cllr Lee Scordis @LScordis]

Hi Russell, considering I am the only Labour Councillor on the authority and I was not at the induction (as I have been here 9 years), this is a complete lie and a breach of standards @reformexposed

[Feargal Sharkey @Feargal_Sharkey]

“Don't swim' at 12 of 14 river bathing sites, as more locations announced.”

Here’s something to wrap your head around.

The only stretch of river graded as ‘Good’ is at Friars Meadow, Sudbury yet from 13th March to the 13th April Anglian Water dumped sewage into Friars Meadow nonstop 24 hours a day for 31 days straight. If you went swimming there during the Easter holidays you were probably swimming in human waste but none of it shows in the data because the EA don’t even bother testing until the middle of May.

PS the EA don’t actually test any bathing site in the country for most of the year 7 and a half months in fact. You go swimming between 1st Oct one year and 15th May the next you’re on your own.

https://t.co/VGBvWJVhkQ

[nazir afzal @nazirafzal]

Reform Latest
2 councillors died before election
Several now suspended for various bits of bigotry
At least 1 doesn’t exist
Others want to stand down cos they didn’t know it’s unpaid
1 thought he would be in Parliament

They don’t need a Whip, they need a Missing Persons Officer