Not a Starmer fan

Labour suspends MP Karl Turner for criticising plan to limit trial by jury

A prominent Labour critic of Government plans for a major restriction on the right to trial by jury was suspended by the party today.

Karl Turner, 54, was leading internal opposition to David Lammy's proposal to allow juries to hear only the most serious criminal cases in a bid to cut a major backlog.

The Hull East MP vowed he would 'not stand back from speaking truth to power when it matters' after his suspension, saying his only concern was improving the court service.


Apparently Karl Turner is not a Starmer fan, Lammy fan or McSweeney fan -


He questioned the circumstances around the theft of a phone belonging to the Prime Minister's former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, which may have contained messages relating to Lord Peter Mandelson's time as ambassador to the US.

He had branded the former aide to Sir Keir Starmer 'McSwindle' and in an LBC interview recorded just before his suspension accused the PM of 'treating the electorate as fools'.

Including Ed?

AI 'is a year away from knowing more than all human experts', those startled experts predict

AI will be ready to score full marks on one of the world's most challenging knowledge tests branded Humanity's Last Exam (HLE) in a matter of months, developers claim.

HLE was set up by tech bosses to see just how intelligent their systems are and consists of 2,500 meticulously chosen questions, spanning around a hundred topics from rocket science and mythology to physiology.

Each one requires at least PhD levels of understanding and to achieve a score even close to 100 per cent would earn someone the title of a 'universal expert'.


 

Ed - a leading Net Zero expert

Your money is our money

From Blackout News, AI translation from the original German.    

Government takes control of the Federal Court of Audit

In Berlin, the CDU/CSU and SPD are taking control of the Federal Court of Auditors, damaging the very authority that is supposed to independently audit the government's handling of taxpayers' money. After the departure of the previous president Kay Scheller after twelve years, the CDU member of the Bundestag Ansgar Heveling is to become the new president, while the SPD has already filled the vice post with the former Minister of Construction Klara Geywitz. The process hits the core of state financial supervision, because it means that both top offices go to politicians of the governing parties. Heveling's personality is particularly explosive, as he is considered a close confidant of Chancellor Friedrich Merz and still comes from active parliamentary business. The consequence is serious: one of the last effective control bodies of the federal government visibly loses distance from the very power it is supposed to monitor

Control of billions in party hands in the future

The Federal Court of Audit is not a subsidiary authority. It examines whether ministries are wasting money, projects failing or concealing risks. This is precisely why this institution needs political distance. If the government fills the top with its own people, it damages the independence of control.

Morgan McSweeney's multiple phones

 

Cheap as Ships

Royal Navy in talks to sell Batch I offshore patrol vessels to Uruguay

Local media reports the UK has offered to sell the three River-class Batch I OPVs, HMS Tyne, HMS Mersey and HMS Severn to the Uruguayan Navy when they go out of service in 2028.

In October 2025, the Uruguayan government announced that it would terminate a contract with Spanish shipyard Cardama, signed in December 2023, for two 1,500-tonne OPVs that were due to be delivered in 2028. The reasons given for the cancellation were “contractual irregularities” and possible fraud.

The acquisition of second-hand OPVs by Uruguay is seen as a short-term solution to the gap left while plans are developed to acquire new-build vessels in the longer term. The River-class would meet the Uruguayan Navy’s requirements for ocean-going vessels. Each ship would reportedly be sold for around $20M (£15M), compared with around $60M for a brand-new OPV. The Uruguayans will need to see more detailed technical documentation and consider support arrangements before advancing negotiations...

All three Batch I OPVs have now completed a life extension refit designed to see them serve for another five years and have been well-maintained throughout their lives. Inevitably, there is no plan to replace them in 2028 as there is no budget. Some of the Batch II OPVs, mostly forward-deployed overseas, will have to be brought back home to take over their roles while Type 31 frigates eventually replace them. The vague official line is now that the first Type 31 frigate, HMS Venturer, will not enter service “until the end of the decade”, so another gap is looming. Building a new batch of low-cost OPVs would be a sensible solution, or at least extending the Batch I in service rather than selling them overseas.

Keir Starmer's values - tell it as it isn't

Starmer 'won't quit as PM' even if Labour hammered in local elections

Sir Keir Starmer will not resign even if Labour suffers very heavy losses at the May local elections, says a Cabinet minister.

Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds braced the party for dismal results in just over a month’s time, stressing many people may use the elections to voice a “protest” vote in the cost-of-living crisis deepening due to Donald Trump’s Iran war...

Sir Keir was pledging to “fight for our values” in an increasingly volatile world as he kicks off Labour’s local election campaign on Monday in the West Midlands.

By gum, "Sir" Keir Starmer seems intent on using the Iran war to present himself as some kind of aloof statesman as his piercing gaze penetrates the fog of war through Lord Alli's special spectacles.

Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds is confused though. She may not have noticed, being too busy fixing the environment, but Labour was extremely unpopular long before the Iran conflict.

Something else Emma may not have noticed is that it is Labour policies which have been busily damaging the UK economy and Donald Trump isn't the UK Prime Minister - "Sir" Keir Starmer is.

Lost for Words

Lost for words! Proof we're losing the art of conversation as Britons using 20 per cent fewer words

They say the art of conversation is dead – and psychologists have found we now speak about 20 per cent fewer words every day than we did two decades ago.

We are losing more than 300 words from our daily conversations every day – equivalent to 120,000 words a year, a study reveals.

The biggest decline is among Gen Z, with major implications for the loneliness epidemic and how we communicate in the future, especially with the rise of AI.

Baffling - perhaps there are reasons why we don't listen to words as much we used to -