JW retweeted
The absence of any kind of radical
Burnhamite programme in the budget is only surprising if you believed he had one. As I wrote months ago, that’s not who Burnham is. He’s a connection politician not a conviction politician. By their budgets shall ye know them and now we know.
There are 1.34 million people in the UK on the waiting list for council houses. I know it’s hard for spectator journalists to consider them equally to homeowners but they are people too.
JW retweeted
EXPOSED: Campaign Against Antisemitism Steward Tied to Far-Right Hitman for Hire Scandal @lornahosford
This guy is like 'American healthcare not so bad' but he pays $500 a month in medical insurance and still got charged $300 for visiting the hospital.
Armed guards at the door. Opioids offered on repeat. Apple Pay at my bedside. Welcome to the American Emergency Room.
The French think it bankrupts you. Americans think France does it for free. I’ve been to the ER in both. Both are wrong.
Mountain bike crash, dislocated and fractured shoulder. I’m French, I live in San Francisco, and I take slightly too many risks. Let’s compare.
Security
🇺🇸 Kaiser in Marin. Three armed guards and a metal detector. My phone set it off, so with my shoulder out of its socket I walked through again. And again. Then a pat-down.
🇫🇷 A couple of unarmed guys with walkie-talkies. Still not sure what they’re for.
Wait
🇺🇸 Three people in the waiting room. Seen in 15 to 30 minutes.
🇫🇷 Broken hand: packed room, 4 hours before anyone touched me.
Records
🇺🇸 Kaiser is vertically integrated. Insurer, hospital, doctors: one system. They had my file before I sat down.
🇫🇷 Every new doctor is a fresh context window. Zero history, maybe a printout from last time.
Infrastructure
🇺🇸 Small hospital, serious kit. Straight to the trauma bay: real bed, IV, vitals monitoring, ready for surgery if needed. All imaging on the spot.
🇫🇷 Broken hand: a plastic chair and a Doliprane.
Drugs
🇺🇸 Strong opioids were the default offer. I said no. They insisted. The doctor came in personally, confused why someone in that much pain would refuse. I stuck to Tylenol, an anti-inflammatory, to put the shoulder back in.
Yes, it hurt. No, I didn’t tap out. My mom is proud of me.
🇫🇷 Broken hand: Doliprane, opioids never mentioned. I have friends who got their shoulder popped back in with nothing at all.
US default: opioids. French default: Doliprane.
Bill
🇺🇸 Every nurse warned me: “You’re French, this bill is going to traumatize you.”
Before discharge, someone came to my bed to collect payment. Apple Pay, from the hospital bed. $300. For everything. On a ~$500/month Kaiser plan.
🇫🇷 A flat ~€20 ER fee, usually reimbursed by your mutuelle. The real bill shows up later, on your payslip (see below)
followup
🇺🇸 Kaiser called me right after to set up follow-up and physio, all in their system. So far, so good.
🇫🇷 Broken hand: discharged, figure it out yourself. A friend dislocated her finger. They put it back in wrong, sent her home with bad instructions, it locked up, and she needed surgery months later. Still not fixed.
“Free healthcare” in France
It’s not free when your marginal tax rate nears 70% with social charges. And if you want quality care fast, more and more people pay for private clinics anyway.
Verdict
One person, one data point. But the care was 10x better than anything I’ve had in France, for a price that’s completely fine.
France has a lot to learn.
And yes, I refused the narcotics to stay sharp enough to launch a NanoCorp from my hospital bed. Launch your first company run by an AI agent: nanocorp .so
JW retweeted
The Anti-Austerity Coalition has launched today with 5 demands of central government.
Follow it now at @antiausterityco
Website below 🧵
JW retweeted
Who is Jake Wallis Simons cheering on here?
It's Moshe Feiglin.
He just got elected on the government ticket.
Last year he said:
"Every child, every baby in Gaza is an enemy."
Jake knows exactly who this man is, by the way.
JW retweeted
“We’ve built software to track Wikipedia editors,” says the head of the ADL.
We have an investigation publishing soon about pro-Israel manipulation of Wikipedia, and he just blurts it out
JW retweeted
I'm grateful to see this thread as it's not often a prominent journalist will make the effort or indeed make a declaration against own interest to interrogate their own industry.
Not a single news outlet has reviewed its coverage of Jason Arday, for accuracy or proportionality. Zero attempt has been made to conduct any inquiry into the media’s role in his death. Instead, the industry has moved into self-congratulatory mode. This isn’t just tone deaf, it betrays a systemic failure
This seems like a good example to me of how the Liberal party has ceased to be a socially liberal party and has become quite reactionary and conservative as it appeals to former Tories in rural areas.
Since when was strangulation called ‘breath-play’?!
There is absolutely nothing playful AT ALL about someone trying to strangle you while having sex, when you didn’t ask for it, didn’t consent and are scared for your life.
WTAF…
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Consent.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consent
British higher education is collapsing in real time, but you can get shortlisted for an award for investigating a single guy's PhD for months, ultimately leading him to suicide. Absolutely sick stuff.
Recognition from fellow journalists is much appreciated as this is undoubtedly a difficult and polarising story, with a tragic outcome. Many people still do not accept its legitimacy but it was an important public interest story which sparked public debate about key issues of our age timeshighereducation.com/opi…
This is everything that is wrong with British journalism.
Very happy to have been shortlisted in the Specialist Journalism category in this year's British Journalism Awards for my investigation into Cambridge University professor Jason Arday and the extensive plagiarism in his PhD thesis #BJA2026
JW retweeted
Tonight - join @ZackPolanski and @jeremycorbyn to march against austerity.
The political class concedes nothing if you don't fight for it. Let's build a movement for an alternative to misery and decline.
Why hasn't he been arrested for conspiracy to commit murder?
Exc - The former Tory candidate who suspended over contract killer claims was an adviser in Kemi Badenoch’s office
Sources tell @BenQuinn75 and me that Jack Ross worked as social media consultant
theguardian.com/politics/202…
JW retweeted
The GRU hacked into Jared Kushner's iPhone. Dutch military intelligence (MIVD) then recruited a GRU spy who gave them access to the hacked phone. What MIVD discovered was that Kushner had access to two bank accounts --one Azerbaijani, the other Israeli --where Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Emirati ruler Mohammed bin Zayed deposited money. It sounds like a slightly far-fetched episode of "Slow Horses," but it's real. And it proves just how eye-poppingly corrupt this administration was and continues to be as its "special envoy" decides the fate of tens of millions in Europe in the Middle East. Simply incredible reporting by Matthew Cole, drawn from his new book on Kushner. vanityfair.com/story/jared-k…
Just. Build. Some. Fucking. Council. Houses.
Exclusive:
John Healey is poised to make the government’s revived Help to Buy scheme more generous in a boost to middle-earners
The chancellor was set to exclude households earning more than £90,000 outside London and £110,000 in the capital from the “Your First Home” scheme
It offers first time buyers a 20 per cent equity loan to help them buy a new-build home, with an initial interest free payment and a minimum deposit requirement of just 2.5 per cent
However, the initial earnings cap would have meant young couples with relatively modest incomes would have been unable to access the initiative. The median pay for a teacher is £51,048 and for a nurse the figure is £44,053
The Times was told that Healey recognised these concerns and decided to instead set the cap at £110,000 outside London and £140,000 in the capital
thetimes.com/uk/politics/art…
JW retweeted
Trying to understand why a prominent Tory party member organising contract killings isn’t being given wall to wall coverage. The BBC hasn’t even mentioned it on their site.
🚨🇬🇧 Turning Point UK's CEO was filmed offering an undercover reporter a menu of beatings, stabbings and killings through a Glasgow contact who says he arms the UVF
Al Jazeera’s undercover operation started in 2021 when a reporter joined the British offshoot of the American student group.
Its CEO Jack Ross, a Conservative candidate in 2023, introduced the reporter to Allan Nesbitt, a convicted criminal and self-described UVF member, agreed on camera to pay him to stage a fake pro-Zimbabwe rally, and priced out what Nesbitt’s friends could do to a person, from cutting faces to MURDER.
The UVF is the Ulster Volunteer Force, a Protestant loyalist paramilitary from Northern Ireland’s Troubles that killed over 500 people between 1966 and 1999, including 33 in one day in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, and is still banned as a terror group.
Since the peace deal it has run mostly as a drug gang that kept the name and the guns.
Nesbitt reportedly met the reporter in a London hotel, offered to have a fictional business rival “finished,” claimed he’d personally stabbed a man to death, showed a shotgun and pistol on a video call and said the fee would buy weapons smuggled from Scotland into Northern Ireland.
Ross says it was a joke. The joke came with a price list, a weapons demo and a smuggling route, and the police now have a name and a video... and wasn't particularly funny.
Somebody in Turning Point UK’s donor base should be asking when the fundraising dinners turned into this.
Source: Al Jazeera / Writer: Daniel
JW retweeted
🚨 A UK defence editor had information that UK Special Forces operating in Central America were involved in the US kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro in Jan 2026
Article was never published after UK military's 'D-Notice' censorship body told the editor to spike it
JW retweeted
So Paul Nuttall is in charge of Reform candidates, and vetting them. Is Nuttall a suitable person given his controversial past?
Paul Nuttall is running the vetting for Reform candidates? The same Paul Nuttall who, as UKIP leader, claimed to have lost friends at Hillborough, played for Tranmere Rovers, had a PHD and lived at a fake address? Ok
Via @JAHeale
