"He brutalised people...I've never seen anybody in my entire life treat anybody as badly as John Bercow treated regularly the people around him." Quite something from a former Lieutenant General who served in Northern Ireland and Bosnia.

The requirement for police to record non-crime ‘hate’ incidents should be scrapped immediately. telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/1…

New map confirms worst coronavirus hotspots across Devon devonlive.com/news/devon-new…

So sad that society has come to this. #BeKind

Day 54 of poems & jumpers. Today’s jumper is one I last wore in the 1980s on TV-am, Britain’s first commercial breakfast TV station. The poem is by the genius that was Spike Milligan. We compiled a book of nonsense poetry together. The poem is timely: it’s contagious... Enjoy!

French President Emmanuel Macron publicly disavows racism but says colonial-era statues will stay ti.me/37tAgEA

This weekend, the Telegraph is removing its paywall. You can read our journalism for free. telegraph.co.uk

Labour MP Apsana Begum charged with housing fraud theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/o…

Devon tops the list of counties 😵

Beavers build first Exmoor dam in 400 years bbc.com/news/uk-englan…

4 December 1939 | A Jewish girl Magdalena Dora Blau was born in Rotterdam in The Netherlands to Fritz and Mina. On 11 August 1942 she was murdered in a gas chamber at the #Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp.

People are now more likely to vote Conservative if they are on low incomes than on high incomes. Me on the Great Class Inversion Independent Premium independent.co.uk/independentpre…

Next time ⁦Jeremy Farrar⁩, Ferguson, Edmunds are on TV, ask why their committee said masks are pointless, testing a waste of time, border control impotent. I don’t mind mistakes but I’d like to see a bit of self awareness rather than blaming others thetimes.co.uk/article/f7c263…

UN Security Council voting on resolution condemning Russia. Yes - United States - United Kingdom - France - Norway - Ireland - Albania - Gabon - Mexico - Brazil - Ghana - Kenya No - Russia Abstain - China - India - United Arab Emirates

The Importance of Beauty in the Ordinary (and the danger of things being bland) A short thread...

Factory farms are concentration camps for sentient, sensitive non-human creatures such as these pigs, suffering in the heat. Future generations will look back on us with disgust and hatred.

Pigs are as intelligent and socially complex -- if not more so -- than dogs. Morally despicable factory farms keep pigs in cases so small they can never turn around, step on their babies, and go insane. The whole industry is a menace to public health, and destroys family farms.

What nonsense. First, they are defendants, not offenders, as they are innocent until proven guilty (a schoolboy error for the Justice Minister) Second, a defendant electing a Crown Court trial is a legal right, and cannot be dismissed as "choosing to delay". The REAL facts are