The Economic and Social Impacts of Traditional Retail Markets  Not Cambridgeshire, but Oswestry market As regular readers of this blog know, I love markets of all shapes and sizes. I suspect it emerged during my childhood in South Wales where markets were a common retail form frequently used. As…

Dear Dave Reddin, RCK, Abi Tierney and the WRU Board, Please stop "striving." It's not helping. Just go. All of you. If you have any sense of dignity you would resign now. You're doing a terrible job. We told you this. Listen. Go. Now.

Johnson would do us all a favour if he’d crawl back until his rock

Musk WILL turn off Starlink when Ukraine counter-attacks. Musk WON'T disable Russia's use of Starlink. But sure, buy a Tesla. Line the Russia-supporting Nazi's pockets. Pretend like it's just the normal "business as usual".

Just think of how Trump reacted when some people were critical of Charlie Kirk after his death.

If the New York Times was waiting for a news hook to write a long-overdue story about how Trump is mentally unfit to be president, Trump has provided one today with his post saying Rob Reiner got murdered because he was mean to Trump. Write it, NYT. End the normalization. @nytimes.com

So much for that

Being the worst American President in history is one thing. But being the worst American in history and being elected President is a cause for global, unwashable shame.

NEW: Anas Sarwar is under pressure to speak out after his Welsh counterparts called for the UK Government to U-turn on 'anti-devolution' laws 👉 www.thenational.scot/news/2...

"It wouldn’t be unfair to say that Jac gives the impression that he isn’t too keen on leaving Brynaman more frequently than is strictly necessary. Driving him out of Wales completely is some achievement". gwladrugby.wordpress.com/2025/12/15/w...

So that's the spine of the Welsh pack for the next 5 years. The three most recent captains of their country. All now playing outside Wales. And another two of the autumn squad now playing in England. Well played, WRU. No, really now. Well played.

When Farage comes out of hiding (he hasn't held a press conference for a week), I hope the press continue to question him about this. He's hoping it'll go away.

Fraser Nelson is the latest Farage apologist to dismiss the racism allegations against him, saying that there's never been any evidence of him ever being racist as an adult. Just completely untrue. There is extensive undeniable evidence of it www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/nigel-fara...

Ospreys, Cardiff & Dragons all win. Scarlets give reigning champions Bordeaux a proper game. All four in position right now to potentially get out of their groups. Welsh rugby is class right now let's add a fifth region

BBC News - Should Westminster or Senedd decide town spending? www.bbc.com/news/article...

Incredibly brave man. Next time a maniac commits some atrocity, remember that for every Islamic terrorist there are millions of peaceful Muslims just living a peaceful life. Or, like this wonderful guy, risking everything to save strangers of a different religion.

WHY ARE YOU ANNOYED THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED TO HAPPEN

The fact is no presenter has ever had to leave the BBC for expressing conservative views, or even explicitly endorsing a right-wing party. Was never a problem for Jeremy Clarkson. Was never a problem for Andrew Neil. Was never a problem for Alan Sugar

We had our flaws, sure. But I feel like we had a pretty decent thing going before we decided to start stabbing ourselves in the face.

Say it loud say it clear

Meanwhile Robin Ince genuinely has been cancelled for daring to voice his opinions and for defending trans people. Where's the outrage from the "cancel culture" lot? What are the Free Speech Union doing to help him?

Well they are the communications wing of Westgate Street. Until that ends ...

Any business needs to prioritise money. It's because the WRU is prioritising control, that we're in this mess now.

#RoadToWRUin Day 25: The WRU continue to shape the narrative that cutting clubs is the only game in town. Sadly ChumV have fallen for it yet again.

Incidentally, the Bible is very much anti performative prayer... oh and is quite big on the "Love your neighbour as yourself" thing. But hey who cares when you've got social media to post

On "we have become the destination of choice in Europe, clearly visible to every people smuggler and would-be illegal migrant across the world" "we concluded that the statement made by the Home Secretary was presented as an assertion, and not a statistical finding" - UK statistics regulator

Very sad that I felt I had no choice but to resign from The Infinite Monkey Cage - a victory for the transphobes and other bigots - I did it because so much of the media has chosen to believe the kind and empathetic people are a fiction - they are real and so often unrepresented.

28 days since any small boat crossings across the English Channel. Looking forward to this being blazen across the front pages of the Mail, Express & Telegraph given their obsession with small boat crossings.

Fucking Nazi.... The president just published a "blacklist" of reporters — one giant leap toward autocracy. open.substack.com/pub/defiance...

🚨MSPs are demanding a correction and apology from the BBC over a 'serious' error on Question Time So far, the broadcaster has said nothing 👉 www.thenational.scot/news/2...

New study from LSE, York & Glasgow universities shows the Scottish Child Payment is transforming lives. Without it, 70,000 more children would face deprivation and food insecurity. We will keep investing in families and lifting children out of poverty.

He certainly survived being rejected by voters in seven parliamentary elections in a row, but not entirely sure that's the greatest boast to make

Stephen Flynn criticises Nigel Farage from attacking children who speak more than one language #BBCQT "A man who aspires to be PM of these isle would pick a fight with school kids, would hold school kids up as an object to beat, absolutely repulses me and it should repulse all of you as well"

What is going on at the BBC?

If handing someone their arse, was a video clip

Mark Rutte, Secretary General of NATO, warned yesterday that Europe faces war with Russia. Yesterday, wind produced 60% of British electricity. Every unit of clean domestic energy we produce makes us more secure. That’s why our enemies fund anti-renewables propaganda.

The US voted with Russia, China and N. Korea against most of the civilized world. This is where we are at.

The Right Honourable The Lord Offord of Turncoat-Garvel, financier, never elected, made a life peer for services to donating money to the Conservative Party. Reform UK think he will make a great leader in Scotland. That tells you all you need to know about the ‘anti-establishment party’.

There it is.. #politics

The US is trying to actively undermine and hobble the EU, with a Trump admin leaked doc revealing plans to 'persuade four countries to leave, according to Telegraph: www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025...

“This is a reset of the transatlantic relationship like nothing else in living memory. No one alive has gone through this. America’s foreign policy, on paper at least, is more overtly hostile to Europe than China or Russia’s.” inews.co.uk/opinion/us-p...

It is remarkably poor governance to not have a CFO, especially because of the issues the WRU is currently facing. If I were one of the lenders, I would be insisting on a person of their choice being appointed immediately at the WRU’s cost.

Replacing the Chief Financial Officer with a Chief Commercial Officer. I wonder what the banks will make of an organisation, which has broken its covenants several times and had to take out a number of short-term loans, not having a full-time CFO.

🔴 REVEALED 🔴 The Institute of Economic Affairs – the anti-state, anti-climate pressure group that "incubated" Liz Truss – was bankrolled by oil giants and Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. 📝 Exclusive findings from @desmog.com 👇

NEW: Five years of social media history is only a fraction of what the US Government will shortly demand of overseas visitors. The full requirements will end tourism in the United States. Below is the full, mind-blowing list. 🚨THEY. WANT. YOUR. DNA.🚨 1/

Farage just said “I didn’t wear a mask last time and I won’t wear them this time. This is nonsense.” Here he is, not only wearing a mask, but also getting vaccinated…

ICYMI: Yesterday's post on stirlingretail.com was by Dr Keri Davies on the issues surrounding Singapore's Strata malls. Brought into existence to solve a particular capital and development issue, their role has altered, posing questions for their future. stirlingretail.com/2025/12/10/s...

We now learn that Fifa had a very specific "ask" in exchange for its "Peace Award" to Trump, with loads of gold trinkets, and that was dismissal of a criminal corruption case against senior Fifa officials. And Trump granted it. Another corrupt bargain, barely noticed (and ignored by US media).

He’s not just offering his view though is he? He’s putting forward the excuse that Mann provoked him. That doesn’t excuse him because eye gouging is one of the most egregious acts you can commit on a sports field. He needs to keep his mouth shut and take his punishment quietly.