Day. Made.

Could not agree with this more. Most contemporary 'big movie' scores are not memorable, and listened to away from the movie are dull as anything. latimes.com/opinion/story/20…

Nick Robinson: don't do too much! Nick Robinson: why didn't you do more! #r4today

Healey repeating the endemic media lie that the benefits budget is ballooning. 🙄 #r4today

How delightful this weather person finds the warming of the average temperature of planet. #r4today

Oh good. Lawyers. What an exciting court case that'll be. #treegate #thearchers

Ugh. Bert. What a relief the world is without him. #thearchers

We do not lack the space to make our cities more human friendly. What we lack is imagination. 📍 Piccadilly Circus, #London🇬🇧 As reimagined by digital gardener Jan Kamensky.

YOU LOT TRIPLED THE DEBT. Fuck off. #Budget2026 #politicslive #PMQs

Kemi clearly thinks Griffiths isn't up to giving the response. #politicslive

Ah it's bobbins predictions time again. Has any Chancellor ever achieved them? #politicslive

I doubt building on farm reservoirs is cheap. £15million won't go anywhere. #politicslive

Lee Anderson's interest in corruption is purely outwards. #PMQs #politicslive

No we don't want to reopen the debate. We just want to rejoin. If you believe the polls. #PMQs #politicslive

Kemi 'I don't make mistakes' reckons she owns up to them. Roasted. 😂😂😂😂 #politicslive #PMQs #wato

Social media is not reality Martin. Higher users are older and mostly aren't on sm. And will bear most of the cost. #r4today

Nick Robinson: there's no money! Nick Robinson: why isn't John Healey spending more! #r4today

Here's an idea. The standing charge cost could be borne by exploitative power companies, whose profits have skyrocketed thanks to Trump. #r4today

@jdportes is right. Here is the data @cathynewman, @vicderbyshire, and @SkyNews ought to know and to have to hand the next time a politician makes the unsubstantiated claim that welfare is "spiralling out of control" on their programmes. @johnpringdns published a thorough piece showing that BBC and Sky News presenters consistently fail to push back on these claims. The OBR time series DNS compiled tells the story: UK social security spending as a share of GDP (OBR, EFO March 2026): • 2010-11: 12.0% • 2012-13: 12.1% (post-crisis peak) • 2019-20: 10.2% • 2024-25: 10.7% • 2025-26: 10.9% (forecast) The IFS puts social security at 8.3% of national income in 1979-80. Today it is 10.7%. An increase of roughly 2.5 percentage points over 45 years. Not spiralling. A slow drift. Where did the 2.5% come from? • Not from working-age benefits. Non-pensioner, non-health welfare fell from 4% of GDP in 2009-10 to 2.6% in 2023-24 (Work and Pensions Committee, HC 837, July 2025). Cut, repeatedly, for over a decade. • Pensions: state pension spending sat at 3.3 to 3.7% of GDP for two decades to 2007-08; total pensioner benefit spending then rose to 5.1% by 2023-24 (OBR). Triple lock and an ageing population. Roughly 1.5% of the increase. • Disability and incapacity: caseloads grew from 1.2% to 2.1% of GDP between 2010 and 2024-25 (Resolution Foundation). A post-pandemic public health crisis combined with the aftereffects of austerity. Not a lifestyle choice. • 55% of the total welfare bill goes to pensioners. The state pension alone is £146bn of the £323bn total (DWP, 2025-26). One driver is a policy choice every major party supports. The other is a public health crisis. Neither is "scroungers". The "spiralling welfare" line does not describe a category of spending that grew. It targets a category of spending that shrank. It is not a description of reality. It is a political project to manufacture consent for further cuts to working-age support that has already been cut to the bone. Or, in simple English, the usual bollocks that fuck over the working class and those in need. Sources: @johnpringdns / DNS (2 July 2026): disabilitynewsservice.com/bb… OBR, EFO March 2026: obr.uk/efo/economic-and-fisc… IFS, "How have the size and shape of the UK state changed?" (May 2026): ifs.org.uk/publications/how-… DWP Benefit Expenditure Tables 2026: gov.uk/government/publicatio… House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee, HC 837 (July 2025): publications.parliament.uk/p… Resolution Foundation (Nov 2025): resolutionfoundation.org/com…

Madeley: "Do you think welfare spendings out of control?" Maguire: "I don't think its out of control if you look at the total figure.. its only 10.6% of the economy, which is low by European standards" Singh: "And over half of the welfare budget is pensions, the state pension"

Wake me when this tree plot is over... 🥱😴 #thearchers