Sorry for the self-promotion, but shy bairns get nowt... My latest novel - about the Miners' Strike & left behind coastal towns - to be published 1st July. Pre-orders: UK (signed) from NE indie Forum Books: forumbooksshop.com/product/u… EU from publisher: merdogbooks.com/product/unde…

On the way to London for the launch of Shaun Wilson's INCREDIBLE debut, Malc's Boy, at @thesociallondon If you're in the area, why not grab a FREE ticket and pop along? thesocial.com/event/conduit-… #BookTwitter #BookLaunch

New event alert: Do come along to the @OwlBookshop in Kentish town on Thursday 23rd April to hear Shaun Wilson in conversation with @sammillsauthor to talk about his brilliant debut novel MALC'S BOY (it's publication day too so should be great!) Tickets 👇owlbookshop.co.uk/product/sh…

Reform’s former leader in Wales Nathan Gill has been jailed for 10 years after accepting pro-Russia bribes of tens of thousands of pounds. Reform spokespeople previously suggested their leaders didn't really know Gill. Despite all these pictures of him with Nigel Farage.

Nigel Farage, a spouter of Kremlin talking points himself (quite possibly for free) says close friend and UKIP, Brexit Party & Reform Party Leader for Wales - now a jailed traitor - Nathan Gill, is simply "one bad apple". The expression is: 'One Bad Apple Rots the Whole Barrel'.

Those who voted Brexit because they didn't like the Poles, are going to love the Patels... inews.co.uk/news/politics/uk…

We are delighted to announce that @DCMS has awarded £5 million of its Cultural Development Fund to support New Writing North’s dream of creating a centre for writing in Newcastle 🎉 newwritingnorth.com/capital-…

Looks like Marine Le Penn is about to enter a period which her biographers will come to refer to as the 'find out' years... Long-running embezzlement trial: prosecution requests MLP gets 5-year sentence, with 2 years of guaranteed jail time & 5 years of political ineligibility.

. @TomSwarbrick1 Come on, Tom, this is pretty basic stuff: The UK was warned (including by its own security heads) before the Brexit referendum that it could lose real-time access to EU crime data base. And it has... @Telegraph actions = consequence theguardian.com/politics/202…

. @mrjamesob : Margaret Thatcher's children undoubtedly did suffer, through the time she spent as Prime Minister, but not nearly as much as the rest of the country did...

RT @DumortierEmily: Ne mettez jamais en doute le courage des Français, ce sont eux qui ont découvert que les escargots étaient comestibles.…

The dream team are back together. John Crowley and Andrew Garfield made such a beautiful drama out of my novel Boy A that they both won Baftas for it. Can't wait to see #WeLiveInTime indiewire.com/features/inter…

Move Parliament to a new, purpose-built site between Manchester, Sheffield & Leeds with fast trains to all. Seating in semi-circle with desks & voting system. Westminster desperately needs fixing anyway: turn it into a museum which also houses the Royal (our) Art Collection.

Brexit was a bad idea, implemented badly, by bad people, in bad faith. But David Davis is an enigma: useful idiot; hubristic patriot; both? It doesn't actually matter: he, like all the prominent Brexiters, need to confront the fact that they were wrong and begin to make amends.

Boris Johnson is trending and while I hate him with every fibre of my being for reasons everyone else shares, I have a personal reason. Deeply personal. I was stuck in Spain for COVID. Already had an evil dose of it very early on. High risk. I knew with absolute conviction what we were dealing with. Thing is, I felt safe in Spain. There were roadblocks with machine guns. There were no crowds in parks or beaches. Within a matter of weeks the curve was flattened. We had adults in charge. Populists by definition cannot make unpopular decisions, and a pandemic is literally a non-stop series of unpopular decisions that need to be made. Must be made. Watching the absolute farce that unfolded in the UK was unreal. I was in a country taking real measures using science, while the leader of the UK was literally saying in public that it didn't exist. The it was 'just flu'. Then appearing without masks (intentionally) and saying he'd take a dose live on TV. I mean, not just the most obscene claptrap but also you could see the UK was palpably about 6 weeks behind the rest of the world. And gradually, slowly, the COVID map of europe shed the red parts, the orange parts, soon Europe was shades of green. Not the UK of course. Still red zones. Mostly orange. One of the reasons Boris Johnson was so inept is Brexit. He prioritised it over COVID. Things were looking OK, right wing Spaniards were demanding things open up. Normality was looming. And Boris Johnson went to India. Boris was in trade negotiations for Brexit with India's far right Gvt. India had the Delta Variant. India had the most brutal circumstances for an outbreak imaginable. India was dying by the thousands daily. As part of keeping India's far right sweet, Boris Johnson personally left the travel corridor with India open. No other nation on earth did. Tens of thousands of wealthy Indians with the Delta Variant flooded into the UK. Suddenly the COVID map changed, London went red, then black. Glasgow went black. Boris was advised not just to shut the travel corridor with India. It was discovered that Delta was THREE HUNDRED TIMES the viral load of the Alpha Variant. It was a monster. And Boris Johnson may as well of brought it in his hand luggage in a jar. And what did he do when told of this? He opened all the stadiums for the football and then, unbelievably, opened all travel corridors and gave Brits infected with Delta the green light. "Everybody go on holiday har har ho ho!" cried jolly Boris. Fully advised as to what this meant. And within a week that COVID map of Europe showed a strange change. Much of it still green. No orange at all. But patches of red and even black in some spots. Guess which spots? Favourite holiday spots for the British. And within 2 weeks of this - I got the Delta Variant, spent 3 weeks in hell trying to isolate while deranged with hypoxia, eventually emergency services having to break in, helicopter me to Majorca (Ibiza hospital overrun with sick Brits) 2 months in a coma. Nearly 2 years of complications. I lost all my muscles to atrophy in my 50s. I lost everything. I could do nothing for the key 2 years after the worst of COVID. And I had to pay for it all. Tens of thousands. I escaped with nothing but my life. And a day doesn't pass that I don't count myself very lucky... Nor does a day pass when I do not curse the name of Boris Johnson. Vile, lying filth. At least a quarter of a million dead by his hands. Could be double that for all we know. This is what I think when I see that name trending. Boris Johnson? mass murderer.

We open our doors tomorrow for the first day in our new location. Can't make it tomorrow? Here's our new opening times going forward. We can't wait to see you!

It's time for Inland Revenue to visit Ben Houchen and his dodgy freeport now he doesn't have Rishi Sunak and Michael Gove protecting him.

Hi Nigel Farage not famed for your diligence, you probably missed induction day, so you won't know that you now have research staff at the House of Commons Library @commonslibrary So there is no need to rely on unsubstantiated claims from nonces on twitter. Hope that helps.

It's taken 8 years, but we finally have a brexit benefit.

The desperation of Nigel Farage trying to stay relevant is pathetic. Promoting Brexit was a political idea - he is entitled to his opinion. But the MANNER in which he did it fostered the evil environment that ultimately killed Jo Cox. I will never forgive him for that.

Imagine your response to the death of three children being to peddle conspiracy theories that incite a riot. This is why Farage deserves the label far-right. Everyone who is associated with him, has normalised him or promoted him should be ashamed. This is vile.