Former Sunderland South MP and political diarist, Chris Mullin, Knighted itv.com/news/tyne-tees/2026-…

The World Cup starts tonight! ⚽️ But by the end of the first match, we’ll be one man down. Someone dies by suicide in our country every 90 minutes. Three-quarters of these are men. I spoke with Luke the co-founder of @andysmanclubuk about male suicide, mental health and the help that is out there. 👇 Andy's Man Club is an incredible organisation that helps men across Britain open up, talk about what is going on in their lives, and help one another. I have been to sessions in my constituency and was overwhelmed by the support they can offer men dealing with all sorts of problems in their lives - small or large. In each session, a football is passed around the group to share thoughts, challenges, and successes. Simple, but effective and liberating! As a government, we take mental heath - and men's mental health - seriously. We published England’s first Men's Health Strategy last year, which committed further funding for suicide prevention programmes, recognising that suicide is one of the biggest killer of men under 50. We are investing £3.6 million in community based suicide prevention projects - and supporting the @premierleague Together Against Suicide initiative with @samaritans. And this is a challenge for all of us, not just government. As a society we can do more to encourage men to open up, get the weight off their shoulders. That is a key part of our Men and Boys work led by @DavidLammy - amplifying the issues, assuring folk there is help out there. Enjoy the football, look out for one another, and know there is support out there!

John Healey has resigned on a point of principle, and I have huge respect for him. Defence spending must rise significantly, but you do not keep Britain safe with a bigger cheque alone. Britain has for decades mistaken wealth for strength, and spending for capability, and now we are neither safe nor sovereign. A country with a shrinking industrial base that cannot power its own factories or make its own weapons is not strong, whatever it spends. Strength is not only bought. It is built. We must spend more and build more. This government and my party have to commit to both, urgently.

Together with almost 140 fellow Labour MPs, I have written to the Foreign Secretary to call for a ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements. Our group includes every Labour select committee chair. It’s time to be clear that settlements have no viable economic future (1/2)

Today, I’m launching a High Court claim against xAI, the company behind Grok. I am just one of thousands of women and even children who have been the victim of abusive and sexualised AI deepfakes. This should never have happened – and xAI must be held accountable.

James Murray, Health Secretary, on @BBCr4today on changing his mind on sex and gender & accepting the @ForWomenScot ruling by the UK Supreme Court

They hate pubs so much. telegraph.co.uk/gift/46228d5…

Tony Blair's essay is a serious contribution. The party is drifting. Just Labour ends in the comfort zone, a place the country is sick of, and that ends in defeat. There is some common ground on policy reform: on welfare, on the North Sea, on illegal immigration, on growth before redistribution, on the planning system. But he stops short of the project he says he is looking for. The age he describes, China rising, supply chains weaponised, a more dangerous world, demands an active state. It demands an industrial strategy with the muscle to build, make and defend. Not incentives and partnership. Direction. And it demands a politics rooted in the country as it actually is. Family. Work. Place. Nation. That project has a name. It is Blue Labour. It is radical in the way he claims to want, and it answers the legitimacy problem his Radical Centre cannot. Efficacy is not legitimacy. His essay names three actors. The state, the private sector, the voluntary sector. The citizen is missing. Treated as a recipient of services, a unit of human capital, a problem on a welfare roll. Never as someone with a contribution to make. That is why his politics will always feel like something done to people, not something done with them. Homes for Ukraine was one of the best designed policies of recent years. The state set the frame, the councils did the checks, the contracts were in place. But the policy only worked because the British people did the work. Ordinary households opened their doors to strangers on a scale this country has not seen in generations. No essay about Britain's future can be written without what the British people give to it. A smaller welfare state is the right goal. But you get there by asking more of citizens and more of the state in return. Work, training, a stake in your community on one side. Decent jobs, real opportunity, services that function on the other. Not sanctions on people the system has already failed. Dependency is not dignity. Contribution is. This is where apprenticeships matter. They were once a relationship. A trade, a master, a young person, a place. The apprenticeship levy turned them into a tax credit for big companies and a way to rebadge graduate training. And we never gave them a home. University students have campuses like palaces. The young person learning a trade would be lucky to get a portakabin. It tells you what this country values. A young person learning a trade from someone who knows it is worth more than anything the corporatised version delivers. Across economic and social policy, the challenge is to rebuild the relationship and place, so that dignity can be restored. There is a challenge here for the progressive class as well. People have come second to their causes. The working class were told their concerns could wait or that they were wrong, and when they refused to wait any longer they were called the problem. A party that puts its causes before its people will keep losing them. Causes do not rebuild politics. People do. Naming the drift is not the same as ending it. A list of policies is not a story about the country and its people, and what we owe each other. That is what the country is waiting so desperately for.

Last week I visited Nigeria, one of the UK's ten FoRB focus counties. I engaged with a multitude of stakeholders on promoting FoRB and social cohesion for all. Hear my reflections 👇