Profile avatar
peterwalker99.bsky.social
Guardian senior political correspondent. New book, Stress tested, out now: https://tinyurl.com/mhn82a7m Email: [email protected] Secure email if needed: [email protected]
1,302 posts 30,288 followers 544 following
Regular Contributor
Active Commenter
Posts 20 Comments 30

NEW: the UK has cut its funding for the Gavi vaccine alliance by 25% (40% when inflation accounted for) prompting criticism from some experts - but at the same time, many in the aid world are pleased the sum is as big as it is given the era of aid cuts. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

submitted 6 hours ago • 1 comment

Heat Wave Doesn’t Bother Local Contrarian theonion.com/heat-wa...

submitted 1 day ago • 28 comments

A mass lobby of parliament as about a direct an expression of direct democracy as you can get. I chatted to people at today's lobby over trans rights in the wake of the supreme court ruling.

submitted 10 hours ago • 0 comments

Robert F. Kennedy Jr says the US is withholding money for Gavi, the global vaccine alliance, which has prevented an estimated 18m deaths worldwide, until has it has “re-earned the public trust” over vaccine safety. I don't think the public are the issue here. www.politico.com/news/2025/06...

submitted 12 hours ago • 1 comment

Genuinely good PMQs line from Angela Rayner about Kemi Badenoch, absent (due to Starmer being away) the last two outings: “The leader of the opposition said she’d get better - and she has for the last two weeks.”

submitted 13 hours ago • 2 comments

While there is a good if separate argument that asylum seekers should be able to work, the mass of Deliveroo/Just Eat etc bikes seen at an asylum hotel in London yet again illustrates that these companies have, in several ways, a business model based around mass illegality.

submitted 15 hours ago • 7 comments

Unstoppable force* still on trajectory to hit immovable object, Keir Starmer insists to LBC. *The "unstoppable" part is very much TBC.

submitted 16 hours ago • 2 comments

This looks like a fairly uninspiring project, but at least Thomas Heatherwick has been foiled in his attempt to sneak back the Garden Bridge in an even uglier form. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

While in Canada for the G7 I laboriously gave my usual slightly fussy coffee order - an Americano with lots of hot milk, a sort of Americano-edging-into-latte – to find the Canadians have a bespoke term for this, an Americano Misto. Can we start using it here, just for my convenience?

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

Big story on looming welfare rebellion by @jessicaelgot.bsky.social - it turns out a big majority won’t necessarily insulate you from anything www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Whatever you think about Palestine Action's tactics, I'm not 100% sure ministers have entirely thought through the decision to label them a terrorist organisation. From now, if I was to say here, "I support PA and their campaigns", I could in theory be jailed, with a maximum sentence of 14 years.

submitted 2 days ago • 9 comments

Among the many things you could say about this miserable rant, I strongly suspect the £8 pint was in part the result of a special “Goodwin surcharge” from a bar person who recognised him.

submitted 2 days ago • 5 comments

Last 48 hours before the assisted dying bill and the pro side feeling very confident. There will be a major push from both tomorrow to engage the last few genuinely undecideds. Those against the bill think there is still a chance, even in the chamber itself. Expect more abstentions too.

submitted 7 days ago • 3 comments

Having this minute just arrived back in the UK with Keir Starmer from the G7 summit, here’s my read on his careful and at times skilled diplomatic efforts - however limited the results. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

submitted 7 days ago • 5 comments

It seems to be Starmer’s curse to forever be the harbinger of Trump madness. A day after Starmer’s Oval Office charm efforts? The Zelenskiy Oval Office debacle. About an hour after Starmer insists Trump wants to “de-escalate”? US won’t kill Iranian supreme leader “for now”, Trump says

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

New: Keir Starmer sets out possible plans for a "transactional" visa system whereby nationals of countries who refuse returns deals with the UK to take back failed asylum seekers find it harder to get UK visas. www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

Keir Starmer told us at the G7 why he picked up Donald Trump's spilled papers, and to précis only slightly, it was because he worried that if someone else, like a journalist, rushed forward to help they might get shot.

submitted 8 days ago • 14 comments

Starmer challenges Badenoch to explain she didn't say 'one word' about grooming gang scandal when in government, @peterwalker99.bsky.social reports - www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

submitted 8 days ago • 4 comments

For non-UK readers it's woth adding some context: if you are British, it is physically impossible to not help pick up smeone else's papers if they drop them. See also: the compulsion to say, "Sorry!" even when someone else has bumped into you.

submitted 9 days ago • 5 comments

I was standing ten yards away when this happened, and while I totally get Starmer's instinctive reaction, the optics are a bit unfortunate.

submitted 9 days ago • 31 comments