Rowan Pelling

I lived for WH Smith's "win a pony" competition in the 1970s. Did anyone else spend their whole year plotting how to win a four-hoofed friend? https://t.co/aOPA1igEio

RT @toby00green: Almost unbelievable, but there it is. The Guardian has now reported what really happened in the Global South, and why.

Very much this.

Professor Lucy Easthope @LucyGoBag

Oh I think there might be a lot more to it than that… they also needed to protect US colleagues. And also all of our pandemic plans were predicated on “not a leak” so that it could be portrayed as man v nature rather than bioterorrism… https://t.co/aekVo2HoEz

Never forget

Toby Green @toby00green

50 million people in Africa entered extreme poverty according to the UNDP, and the continent is now in "structural adjustment 2.0" -- Afrobarometer has noted the connections to lockdown policies. Only a handful of people in development sector talk about this openly.

Toby has long been one of the most insightful critics of covid policy, not just in the UK but the even more harmful aftereffects in developing countries, especially African nations. We must never forget.

Toby Green @toby00green

My Covid reflection day: Contact tracing reduced spread by 2-5%. Cost: £37 billion according to UK parliament. That's maybe 20 new hospitals, or the UK's entire annual transport budget. Vast profits to tech bros now pushing authoritarian capitalism. And yet we must "move on".

My admiration for @jessphillips is boundless.

Excellent news for a more transparent UK.

This has cheered me up enormously and restored my faith in British eccentricity. I'm mostly going to think of this today.

Lil'Bat @DalesLil

Brilliantly bonkers as usual, Ripon Cathedral clergy taking part in the annual #PancakeDay run down Kirkgate! https://t.co/4mwO4REglA

Oh lord - photo of me circa 1985. Going the full St Trinian's.

The Telegraph @Telegraph

✍️ 'As independent girls’ schools face closure in the wake of Labour’s VAT raid, young women will be worse off for the lack of choice' | Writes @RowanPelling Read the full column below 👇 https://t.co/tSud3tc4Du https://t.co/UfYfw5Kb3L

Fascinating thread which illuminates the ideological divisions in the States as well as anything I've seen this week.

Ann Bauer @annbauerwriter

This is a staggeringly good argument

Hurrah for @PrivateEyeNews quite rightly leading the pack.

Private Eye Magazine @PrivateEyeNews

Thanks to everyone who bought or subscribed to Private Eye! Our latest ABC figure stands at 232,638. Not a reader yet? Subscribe today from just £1.73 an issue: https://t.co/qfE7SkfwMN https://t.co/kIuoI5HW33

He could have done some proper public penance, like Profumo and Jonathan Aitken, but Andrew doesn't seem to have an iota of shame.

The Telegraph @Telegraph

✍️ 'While others scramble to save face, the disgraced royal is gleefully drowning in disrepute' | Writes @RowanPelling Read the full column below 👇 https://t.co/c2exgOoRnA https://t.co/Jzsf66S9qz

Rarely have I read a piece that made me feel such acute pain for all that's lost within and without ourselves - parents, childhood, time, certainty. Beautiful writing.

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

'There is still so much I do not know, which is why I urge everyone to get to know their parents while they can, and to ask, without restraint, about their lives. As it is, I came out of a mystery, and in this life I will never solve it.' On memory, loss and grief, my new column

Couldn't pass up riffing on Lego being heteronormative: nodules in holes, fnarr, is apparently female+male "mating". As I wrote, you'd have thought the Erotic Reviews made my household smutty, but, nope, it's the teetering towers of plastic filth: https://t.co/l2fXqBzMwj

Donald Trump's plan to grab and develop Gaza is not a shock announcement. His son-in-law pretty much announced the plan last year: https://t.co/wgz75rAohT

My philosophy for private members clubs is the same as that for relationships: if they don't want to passionately embrace you, then you shouldn't force them to. There are plenty of places that celebrate women like my beloved @chelseaartsclub https://t.co/GKMKUnfqab

I had fun researching and writing this one. Why the female cousin's the more deadly of the species. Only a blood relative can aim poison darts with such precision: https://t.co/awhfNnvokE