Pete Rogan

Into Indie tunes, LFC, cycling and reading the odd good book. My views all my own.

[Kevin Maguire @Kevin_Maguire]

Another lovely true patriot

[Narinder Kaur @narindertweets]

I've had the met police at my house because of death threats more times than I care to remember.
Its laughable you think a journalist dropping a card means you were right to take £5million tax free and undeclared.
You are very self entitled.

[Tim Walker @ThatTimWalker]

This has always been a front page story. Parliamentary careers have in the past been finished by a lot less.

[Mukhtar @I_amMukhtar]

Ant Middleton deleted his reply to that disgusting tweet from Valentina Gomez, but the Internet never forgets.

[Jamie Carragher @Carra23]

Not a full u-turn but credit where it’s due to Casemiro for looking after himself properly, while playing for one of the biggest clubs in the world on 350k a week🤯
I’ll await your full u-turn on support for Infantino & his World Cup ticket prices 😅

[Clive Lewis MP @labourlewis]

I know the news Andy Burnham has a route back to Westminster will divide opinion. So, before anything else, I want to speak plainly – to Labour members and voters, to those who have left us, and to anyone on the centre-left, whether you vote Green, Lib Dem, or are simply looking for a politics that hasn't given up on you.

Last week's local election results were, for many of us, existential. Not disappointing. Not a setback. Existential. Look across Europe and beyond at what happens to social democratic parties that refuse to step outside the economic orthodoxy of the last forty years – the one that hollowed out our public services, privatised what was ours, drove inequality to indecent levels, and cleared the ground for the authoritarian right to march into. That is the path we are on. Keir Starmer has refused to see it, and the country cannot afford another general election spent finding out the hard way.

So let me be direct. The Prime Minister should set out a timeline for an orderly transition. I have said this before. I say it again now because the stakes have changed. Reform is not a protest – it is a project. And it will not be beaten by a Labour Party that mistakes managerial caution for strategy.

As regards Andy, I want to set down here that I do not see him as some kind of messiah. Far from it. As someone who has been around frontline politics for more than twenty years, he has made his fair share of mistakes. But for the last ten years he has been a serious, grounded, and effective Mayor of Greater Manchester. The party and the country need their strongest players on the pitch, and he has a great deal to offer at a moment when the national stage has rarely mattered more. I hope the NEC will listen to the overwhelming view of the Cabinet, the PLP, the membership, and the unions, and let Andy stand. And I hope and believe the people of Makerfield will send him back to Parliament.

But that is not a given. We know Reform will throw everything at this by-election. We must do the same and then some. Reform have spent a year being told they are inevitable. Makerfield is where we find out whether that is true. Every advance has a limit. This is where we set it.

Millions of people, including my constituents in Norwich South, need this government to succeed. They need housing, working public services, secure jobs, water and energy that serves them rather than extracts from them. That work is not finished. But the honest truth is that stopping Reform and rebuilding the country is bigger than any one party. It will take a progressive politics willing to listen, willing to cooperate where the public interest demands it, and willing to drop the tribal habits that got us here. The country is ahead of us on this. It is time we caught up.

Makerfield is one of many places where Labour has lost trust. It is an area Andy knows and has lived in for many years. If selected, he will work hard to win that trust back and make the case for a Labour Party worth voting for again. That case has to be made not only to people who once voted Labour, but to everyone who believes the answer to Reform is a serious, democratic, social alternative – not a paler imitation of the politics that created the problem.

This by-election is not about one seat. It is a test of whether Labour understands the moment we are in. No single party is going to stop Reform on its own. The progressive majority in this country is real – but it is scattered across Labour, the Greens, the Lib Dems, nationalists, independents, and millions of people who have stopped voting altogether. Our job is not to demand they all come back to us. It is to earn the right to work with them, on shared ground, for a shared future.

To former Labour voters: come and talk to us again. To Green and Lib Dem voters: we are not enemies. To Labour members and MPs: this is the fight. Let's get on with it.
https://t.co/Ep47xRe3DS

[Sue Wilson @Suewilson91]

"I can't be bought by anyone".
Yeah, right!
https://t.co/ZUAe4z3ynG

[The Rev. Anton Mittens 🌹👮🎓 @MittensOff]

Bravo! 'Shropshire Council to prosecute people who attach flags to lamp posts without permission' https://t.co/DsfXl9jSKW

[Sebastian Kraemer @sebkraemer]

'Labour has to confront what voters said deafeningly in the local elections: not Labour and, crushingly, not Keir Starmer'

@pollytoynbee

https://t.co/5caT2qO7V4

[Nick Anderson/Political Cartoonist @Nick_Anderson_]

Raising the Flag
Link in comments...

[Sky News @SkyNews]

"Britain's future lies with Europe - and one day, back in the European Union."

Former health secretary Wes Streeting says the UK needs a new special relationship with Europe, as he calls Brexit a 'catastrophic mistake'.

https://t.co/SYHV5Ws1Hc

📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602

[Mike Galsworthy @mikegalsworthy]

Lisa Nandy: “I don't think anyone in this country wants to reopen the Brexit debate.”

The Country:

[Caroline Lucas @CarolineLucas]

I hope this isn’t true. There are times when it’s more important to put country before party. This is one of them. Burnham’s longstanding commitment to a fairer voting system could transform our democracy & counter dire threat of a Reform UK government https://t.co/PNfl5GnB0X

[Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan @MayorofLondon]

One city. 9 million people. All of us Londoners. We will never be divided.

[Kevin Maguire @Kevin_Maguire]

PM or bust for Burnham

[Dale Vince @DaleVince]

Trump opens his mouth and out comes Guff.

Immigration is down 80% here since it’s Tory peak and for every one windmill we have the USA has 7..! Our North Sea is all but empty, less than 10% left - that isn’t gonna change anything. But facts don't matter to Trump, even what he says one day doesn’t matter to him the next day. Iran was beaten two months ago, but the war drags on, their Uranium stockpile was vital yesterday - today he says it’s just a PR thing. We should pay zero attention to what this fool says.

Ooops, I just gave more (of a shit) than I should have..:)

[Pete Rogan @rogues63]

@Kevin_Maguire Tories lying again? I’m shocked

[Kevin Maguire @Kevin_Maguire]

So to be lower with Labour and higher under Cons!

“In fact what's changing is that welfare spending is forecast to be lower than income tax receipts in 2026/27 for the first time since at least 2013/14, and then remain that way until the end of the forecast period in 2030/31.”

[Marina Purkiss @MarinaPurkiss]

Angela Rayner was dragged through every front page for weeks...

HMRC's verdict: NOT deliberate. NOT even careless.

Farage pockets £5 million and chooses not to declare it

So where's the wall-to-wall coverage?

Tell me this isn't a rigged game.