Will Mapplebeck

it's better to be a pirate than join the Navy

[Will Mapplebeck @wimapp]

We got there eventually...a magical day. Thanks to my amazing wife @LyndseyPotts #mapplepotts @wylambrewery

[Will Mapplebeck @wimapp]

Still raging against the dying of the light...

[Rachel Wolf @racheljanetwolf]

I don't think Brexit is still shaping politics. I think the causes of the Brexit vote are still shaping politics, and at some point - since those voters still waiting for the serial changes they've been promised - we need to stop being surprised by this!

[Will Mapplebeck @wimapp]

The real battle for Sunderland takes place next Thursday, but shout out to the civil war soldiers who came to our parkrun this AM in full costume and ran the course...#parkrun @pauljacques83

[Zeus Sport @Zeus_Cricket]

Bamburgh Castle Cricket Club, Northumberland, England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

[William Dalrymple @DalrympleWill]

When the world seems impossibly grim, @PrivateEyeNews always helps...

[Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63]

Ukraine, every day for four years.

[Brendan May @bmay]

Me when people who’ve spent years boasting about not paying any UK taxes say they want the British embassy to help evacuate them from Dubai.

[Will Mapplebeck @wimapp]

@v_j_freeman Don't tell me, it's all our fault? 🙄

[Ronan Farrow @RonanFarrow]

Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post offering “financial runway." This month it gutted its newsroom—more than 300 layoffs.

Whatever you think of legacy news, the hard data shows us that newspaper closures hurt Americans. Here's how: 🧵

[Sophy Ridge @SophyRidgeSky]

Shocking detail in Baroness Amos report on maternity - the NHS is "incentivised" to record a baby as being born stillborn rather than having signs of life - because if a baby is born dead then coroners cannot legally investigate

[Will Mapplebeck @wimapp]

I've just had a NE cultural senior moment. I always thought Daniel Craig was walking over the High Level at the end not the actual Tyne Bridge.

[Tides of History @labour_history]

When Don’t Look Back in Anger was picked for the Our Friends in the North final scene, it was still just an album track.

By the time it reached our screens it was the biggest song in the country - and stood the test of time… 🍻3️⃣0️⃣

[Paul Lewis @paullewismoney]

Why I’ve read @PrivateEyeNews since I was 15. I got my copy on Tuesday, Andrew arrested Thursday. Inside it reminds us it raised concerns in 2009 about Mandelson discussing affairs of state with Epstein and a news item on Charles saying he would assist police with their enquiries. All for £2.99

[NUFC Fans Against Sportswashing @NoSaudiToon]

⚽ fans who oppose racism and support HRs are right to criticise the selective outrage of football journalists, who while correct to criticise Ratcliffe's racist comments say nothing about the actual racist, misogynistic & homophobic policies of @NUFC & @ManCity owners in govt.

[Steve @Shabby_The_Red]

Billboard and banner outside Old Trafford

[Cantona Collars AKA Larry @Cantona_Collars]

Sir Matt Busby was born to an Irish immigrant family in Scotland.

He gave everything to Manchester United.

He survived the Munich Air Disaster.
He lost players he loved as sons.
He rebuilt the club from the ashes.

An immigrant son who defined the greatest club in the world.

[stellacreasy @stellacreasy]

Without immigrants Man U’s starting line up last night would have been three players and the bench would have consisted of just two. Ratcliffe doesn't seem to understand the contribution they make to his own team, let alone this country - but then as he is an immigrant himself being resident of monaco rather than manchester there's obviously a lot of things he's not thought through...

[Will Mapplebeck @wimapp]

Sometimes I miss life in a local authority press office...

[Damian Low @DamianLow3]

The level of personal hostility directed at Keir Starmer over the last week deserves scrutiny in its own right. Not because he should be immune from criticism, but because the tone and intensity of the attacks tell us something unhealthy about the state of democratic politics.

1. Starmer is a conventional political figure. Cautious, legalistic, incremental. He frustrates people precisely because he is managerial rather than messianic. Yet the reaction to him often goes far beyond disagreement, tipping into visceral hatred more commonly reserved for authoritarians or demagogues.

2. Much of this hostility is disconnected from concrete policy. It is not about specific votes, proposals or outcomes, but about projection. A belief that Starmer embodies betrayal, bad faith or hidden malice. That kind of politics runs on suspicion rather than evidence.

3. This matters because democracy depends on the assumption of good faith among opponents. You can think a leader is wrong, timid, or misguided without believing they are fundamentally illegitimate. Once politics becomes moralised to the point of demonisation, compromise is reframed as treachery and pluralism as weakness.

4. The pattern is familiar. In fragmented, polarised systems, anger concentrates not on extremists, whose intentions are clear, but on moderates, who disappoint maximalists on all sides. The centre becomes the lightning rod precisely because it resists totalising narratives.

5. There is also a media and online dynamic at work. Incentives reward outrage, not proportionality. Algorithms favour contempt over analysis. Over time, this creates a political culture in which relentless personal attack feels normal, even virtuous, rather than disgusting.

6. None of this is a defence of Starmer’s decisions, instincts or record. Those should be argued over robustly as you do in a democracy. The problem is the substitution of critique with hostility and the quiet erosion of democratic norms that follows when political opponents are treated as enemies rather than rivals.

7. A democracy cannot function if every election is framed as an existential struggle against internal evil. At some point, the target may change, but the damage to trust, restraint and culture remains.

[Nic Cruz Patane @niccruzpatane]

This is the sound of a almost completely EV city in Shenzhen, China.

We need to step it up.