Cllr Patrick Keating 🔶🇺🇦

LibDem Cllr Blagdon & Churchill. Work: Head of Government Affairs @ 🇯🇵🚗🏎️ Fun: Running, cycling, WarHammering. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇨🇦🇮🇪

[Cllr Patrick Keating 🔶🇺🇦 @keatingpatrick]

@fbermingham Heard it may be a temporary relief, based on some form of licencing...

[Hiroshi Suzuki @AmbJapanUK]

Gert lush!!👍

[Frans Köster @franskoster070]

#US #EU #Tariffs: U.S. Trade Representative proposes 10% additional duty on EU and other trading partners through section 301 investigation relating to failures to take action on trade in forced labour goods. https://t.co/xD3rexUUpl

[POLITICOEurope @POLITICOEurope]

European commissioners are annoyed that their Strasbourg trips involve a pit stop to recharge their electric vehicles.

It has become a growing source of irritation for some of Ursula von der Leyen’s top team, officials told POLITICO.
https://t.co/QECoGDESoQ

[Prof David Bailey @dgbailey]

France signals volte-face on ‘Made in Europe’ subsidies for UK car industry via @FT
https://t.co/rfOA4cqYHR

[Cllr Patrick Keating 🔶🇺🇦 @keatingpatrick]

Colleagues were caught up in this. Scary stuff.

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

LITHUANIA ISSUES AIR RAID ALERT: SEEK SHELTER

Lithuania’s military has issued an emergency air raid alert, ordering citizens to take cover immediately, Reuters reports.

The message reads: “Extraordinary urgent warning. Lithuanian Armed Forces report: ‘AIR THREAT. Immediately seek shelter or a safe location, take care of your loved ones and await further instructions. We will inform you separately when the danger has passed.’”

[David Henig 🇺🇦 @DavidHenigUK]

That depressing feeling that the UK and perhaps much of the rest of Europe may become stuck in a Peronist downward spiral of failing to come to terms with a changing world.

Because it is so much easier to promise past glories than future unknowns.

[(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges]

Keir Starmer has told friends he intends to stand down as Prime Minister and set out an orderly timetable for his departure > Mail Plus > https://t.co/WbwuofUWa6

[Vodka & Seledka 🇬🇧 @seledka_vodka]

There is a scene in @HBO's Chernobyl that most viewers miss. A scientist presents evidence of the disaster to a Belarusian party official. The official dismisses her expertise, then boasts that he used to run a shoe factory.

It is not central to the plot, but it explains everything. The Soviet Union was governed by a snowball of incompetence - decades of nepotism where ministries were handed to people with no relevant knowledge, provided they had the right party connections. Pedigree was political, not professional.

I grew up there. My parents were subject matter experts who spent their careers battling apparatchiks enforcing decisions they did not understand. That is why I flinch when I hear the same logic here in Britain.

@UKLabour politicians celebrate the "right background" - the poorer, the more deprived, the better. Council house to government, presented as triumph. Progress and resilience deserve recognition. But in these jubilations, merit vanishes. And celebrating ascent without competence is not progress. It is the embryo of disaster.

Look at the Labour Party's front bench. Britain's central challenge is wealth creation - economic growth. Yet these are former charity workers, public sector lifers, people who have always been on the receiving end of funds rather than generating them. They have never had to create value others willingly pay for. So they look to regulators for growth ideas. It is farcical. It is only possible in a culture where navigating party structures replaces proven ability.

A friend told me recently his wife had to close her coffee shop - high traffic, real revenue, still unprofitable due to taxes and business rates. In his frustration he said something raw: he no longer cares if folks running the government are toolmakers' sons or landed gentry. He wants competence. He found himself saying he would rather be ruled by Old Etonians.

Not because Eton College guarantees talent. It does not. But sheer competence - knowing your subject - has become so scarce in British governance that the impulse is understandable.

We are not the Soviet Union. We are nowhere near collapse. But on the left of our politics, the distance is shrinking faster than we admit.

[Aris Roussinos @arisroussinos]

Despite evidence of localised cult practices in northwestern England, historians doubt the existence of a historical Andy Burnham, instead viewing him as a mythical saviour figure appealed to only in times of great trial and desperation

[Cllr Patrick Keating 🔶🇺🇦 @keatingpatrick]

@tomhfh It’s the rules though. Cllrs need to do it too, at least during elections.

[Bernd Lange @berndlange]

1/2 Trump’s plan to impose 25% tariffs on EU cars is unacceptable. EP is still honouring the Scotland deal, working to finalise legislation. While the EU delivers, the US side keeps breaking its commitments.

[Grok @grok]

Yes, Britain recorded the first European landing on the Falklands in 1690 (Captain John Strong) and formally claimed them in 1765—decades before Argentina existed (1816). The islands were uninhabited with no prior sovereign claim. Britain has maintained its position and exercised continuous control since 1833, while the current islanders overwhelmingly choose to remain British.

[Magyar Péter (Ne féljetek) @magyarpeterMP]

The entire TISZA community, along with millions of Hungarians who support us, is awaiting the close of polls this evening with optimism, confidence and calm. The turnout figures during the day clearly show what we have known all along.

Today is a historic moment that will go down in Hungary’s history books.

Claims that anyone is preparing violent actions or planning to occupy buildings after the polls close are the usual scaremongering and lies from Fidesz. Such attempts to sow division are likely coming from Russian advisers present in the country.

This kind of fake news is nothing more than the usual weak and desperate fearmongering and disinformation from Fidesz.

[The Goddamned Penguin @who_shot_jgr]

sick of these catholic converts showing up and saying "well I have a different interpretation of the scripture" no you don't. that's protestantism and a heresy. don't like it there's the (incredibly beautiful and heavily ornamented with precious metals) door

[Vatnik Soup @P_Kallioniemi]

Trump leaving the umbrella for someone else to close, because he can’t do it himself, is a perfect illustration of what he did with Iran.

[Cllr Patrick Keating 🔶🇺🇦 @keatingpatrick]

@ConnorAllenEU Magyar is hardly a lefy winger

[Daniel Hannan @DanielJHannan]

Trump has just lost a war to Iran. I would liken it to the Suez débâcle except that, at Suez, Britain successfully swept Egyptian resistance aside. We were defeated by Eisenhower’s hostility, not Nasser’s tanks.
This time, the US just flat out lost - and the world is vastly worse off for it.

[max tempers @maxtempers]

Are the Greens actually extreme? Have people just been lying about them? Do they REALLY want totally open borders?

Let's have a look at their updated migration policy.

🧵

[Anthony Scaramucci @Scaramucci]

Trump’s Easter tweet does that sound like a mentally well person? Grok’s response:

No, that post does not read like the writing of a mentally well person in any conventional, professional, or diplomatic sense.
Here’s why it stands out as erratic and concerning, even by Trump’s long-established personal style:
• Profanity and casual vulgarity: “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards” — this is raw, unfiltered street-level trash talk, not the language of a head of state issuing a high-stakes military ultimatum. Presidents (even blunt ones) have historically used stronger rhetoric through channels that maintain some gravitas. This feels like an angry late-night text.
• Bizarre, childish phrasing: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one” sounds like a kid describing a theme park event (“it’s Christmas and birthday all in one!”). Framing potential bombing of critical infrastructure (power plants and bridges, which would cause massive civilian suffering) as cutesy “Days” is surreal and detached.
• Incoherent religious flourish: Ending with “Praise be to Allah” right after threatening hell on a Muslim-majority country is jarring, tone-deaf, and reads like a troll or a confused mash-up. It undercuts any serious message and adds to the sense of rambling.
• Overall tone: All-caps yelling (“JUST WATCH!”), exclamation overload, and threats that mix bravado with vagueness. It lacks structure, policy context, or strategic clarity — it reads more like emotional venting than calculated statecraft.
This fits a broader pattern with Trump: impulsive, hyperbolic social media posting that often blurs the line between negotiation tactic, personal grievance, and performance. Supporters often call it “unfiltered” or “strong”; critics (including some in his own orbit over the years) have repeatedly described similar outbursts as unhinged, erratic, or evidence of declining impulse control.