UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves has indicated the Jackdaw and Rosebank oil and gas developments in the North Sea will go ahead despite a court ruling invalidating their approval. Read more here: eu1.hubs.ly/H0hKTvV0

“Drama can’t fix everything, but it can help.” This #WorldTheatreDay, listen to @mrJamesGraham discuss the importance of arts education whatsonstage.com/news/james-…

Let’s get this straight from the outset. The sole intent of this meeting in the Oval Office, was a tag team mugging designed specifically to disgracefully humiliate a war time president in front of the world’s media, for the sole purpose of gaining leverage. Just one problem, Zelenskyy hadn’t read the script. He was OK until JD Vance lit the blue touch paper looking for Zelenskyy to get down on his knees and show gratitude to a president, who had spent his entire campaign attempting to block military aid to Ukraine. JD Vance has been the chief cheerleader to not give Ukraine a cent. So tell me, who was Zelenskyy supposed to thank? Did they plan to invite Joe Biden into the room? The reality of the situation is, Zelenskyy is viewed as an obstruction to their attempted extortion of his nation’s mineral wealth. So it’s no surprise Lady Lyndsay Graham is now calling for his resignation. The Ukrainian president owes no loyalty to this administration, all they have ever done is try to starve him of military aid which they did successfully for six months resulting in thousands of Ukrainian soldiers losing their lives. Meanwhile, the President of the United States has unilaterally decided to align with a Russian war criminal. Trump has demanded nothing from Putin by way of reparations for Russian aggression. Instead, preferring to insist Ukraine pay reparations as the VICTIM of an illegal invasion. To really twist the knife, he is illegally attempting to convert lawfully appropriated funds, retrospectively to a loan. $183 billion dollars of aid has been appropriated, NOT $350 billion as claimed by Trump. 70% of the military aid funding, has been spent in arms manufacturing plants across America, providing jobs and profits to those companies. You won’t be surprised to note that many Republicans hold stocks in those companies too. In many cases the newly manufactured hardware has gone into U.S. stock, while the older stocks have been shipped to Ukraine. These same plants have also been paid by NATO allies and European countries who supplied aid to Ukraine. I’d really like to take a look at the premiums that were added to these orders. The U.S. has been the primary economic benefactor of the Ukraine war, while simply drip feeding just enough hardware for Ukraine to hold off the Russian army. At every twist and turn Ukraine has been exploited, so Zelenskyy has every right to be pissed off and say enough of this shit. Here’s where we are. The Trump Administration has every intention of throwing Ukraine under the bus as a favor to Putin, so that Trump can align America with Russia. Bizarre really, when you consider it’s an economic basket case feeding its soldiers on out of date rations. The only beneficiary of this realignment is Putin. He needs sanctions lifting quickly before his economy collapses. This geopolitical move by Trump effectively destabilizes European security, because the lifting of sanctions will allow Putin to regroup, then take another stab at Ukraine before moving on to the Balkan states. European and the NATO allies must stop thinking they can rehabilitate their abuser. It can’t be done. When a bully steals your lunch money today, rest assured he’ll be back tomorrow. It’s time to rip off the bandaid. Revoke the leases on all US bases, in the interests of the global threat presented by the Russo-American alliance. Invite South Korea, Australia and New Zealand into a new alliance. Cancel all military contracts and current licenses for military tech to the U.S. It’s time for a new global alliance. This can then form the foundation for a new economic alliance to rival the dollar. This can be done, there just has to be the will to do it. America has now declared war on the world, so it’s time to demonstrate that the world has had enough. We need to STOP living in fear of our abuser. TODAY WE ARE ALL UKRAINIAN S L A V A U K R A I N I 🇺🇦

"We need to stand up for our company, for opera and for the arts. We believe they are worth fighting for" - Welsh National Opera chorus and Equity member Philip addresses the audience during curtain call for Rigoletto at New Theatre Oxford.