Ah, the Holy Trinity

It was removed in 2017 when World Rugby decided the law book was "42% too long" and re-worded a bunch of laws to make them easier to understand, as well as simplifying some ideas and cutting some 'This is very rare but this is what you do then' rules.

The sheer English Rugby Union Audience energy of George Ford advertising a banking app immediately followed by a commercial for a wealth management company nostalgiabaiting people on Thatcher's election

Manifesting Arsenal bottling the league so hard right now

The argument is always that some offices don't utilise their full staffing budget, but it's often in areas of the country where demand will be miles lower that that's the case, while the majority of MPs especially in towns and cities could do with *at least* 1-2 extra FTE roles just to stand still.

Being a good MP and being a good employer shouldn't be objectives in constant conflict with one another, but the IPSA budget incentivises poor practice by making you choose between eg: having a big enough team or paying a fair wage for complex and skilled work. Demand and resource are unsustainable.

2nd time, ffs. Not fit for purpose as a system. Like Ireland, I can’t get to a semi.

Gonna listen to every single English rugby podcast this week.

Something a bit grim in how the press build England up as grand slam contenders out of nowhere, then pile in in England when they fail to clear a bar they were never going to because they are currently not *that* good

The extent of England grand slam chat in the press before this tournament did seem a bit ridiculous, as did the general hype for this England team. Favourite line was that Townsend had never coached against an England as good as this one- peak Eddie Jones’ England were much better than this one

I really do admire Scott Snyder’s continued efforts to make DC as dumbed down as possible

Jim Ratcliffe is best known as the unpopular Manchester United owner and today he has been in the news for saying that 'the UK has been colonised by immigrants'. We need to understand Ratcliffe's as an energy billionaire who made his power and money by closing workplaces and opposing unions 🧵

My column in this week's @newstatesman1913.bsky.social, on bad data used in bad faith. FOI-ing the stats myself, I didn't find a great deal of difference in sex offending rates: 5 per 10,000 Afghan men, 7 per 10,000 UK men:

Greens are the anti environment party. Pretty much all their voters are much closer to ‘conservationist’ than environmentalist. Which is why they constantly have green leaders campaigning against solar farms and new energy infrastructure like pylons, or insisting we should bury all cables etc.

How the Epstein story sidelines women This is not about women failing to protect themselves; it is about power finding ways to neutralise them By Gerry Brakus

My hottest Star Wars take is that the Force Awakens is significantly improved by The Last Jedi, which adds depth and nuance to many of JJs off decisions, and there was space for a third film to do something genuinely great despite opening the trilogy on a dud.

“You are wrong. I will prove you wrong. I am going to fight.” In his ace column in this week's @newstatesman1913.bsky.social, Andrew Marr bumps into Keir Starmer and tells him exactly what he thinks:

Woke nonsense

Technofeudalism but it’s an analysis of the demise of literate bourgeois society based on the communications between oligarchic elites contained in the Epstein emails.

No

Ignore what it says with the graph; when trade unions are restored the 1906 immunities, can engage in secondary action and picketing, and have closed shops then labour law will be where it stood in the late 1970s. www.economist.com/britain/2026...

BBC Persian journalists say Iran monitoring them and targeting their families

The blunt truth is that if Karen Pierce had been a man, then she would still be US ambassador now and Keir Starmer's government would not be on the brink of death.

Prendergast wearing long sleeve skins, should be a sin bin.

They're pretty good edits! 2/2

This would be the same pathetic vibes as the politburo turning up to Stalin’s dacha in the summer of 1941. Also, it’s quite obvious whom the membership would vote for in any contest…

For more on how Epstein positioned Mandelson for post-Ministerial $$$$, see our complete analysis, with all the original documents: taxpolicy.org.uk/2026/02/02/m... Updated each day.

One would hope that, instead of repeating the line from one source, the health editor of a major newspaper would already know that exception reporting exists and this is most likely referring to the changes to that already being made this month as part of previous dispute settlement. Hey ho

A 3000-word preview of Ireland's Thursday night battle royale with a dangerous (and mysterious) France side in Paris. Where we've been, where we are, and where we might go. It's boom or bust for me. www.patreon.com/posts/green-...

Good Union Jobs

can’t help but feel Mandelson, despite being a spiv Etc., kind of got tacitly rehabilitated by the press post 2010- until he told the FT to fuck of

Reform would reimpose the two child limit (ie cut monthly income by over £300pm on many families and throw 450,000 kids back into poverty) to fund duty cuts on alcohol 🤮

Appropriate time to repost, me thinks.

One overlooked aspect is that graduates are now forecast to cover 83% of higher education costs – the funding system has been almost entirely privatised.

We should obviously join Safe and I hope reports that the EU are warming to the idea is true

Dweeb

more on this from the genius @danneidle.bsky.social taxpolicy.org.uk/2026/02/01/e...

crucial to remember here that Mandelson - who is shown trying to undermine the bank bonus tax in 2009 - went on to work for JP Morgan as a client of his Global Counsel advisory firm www.ft.com/content/91e8...

here's tonight's FT splash, fresh from the Epstein files

so many mistakes could have been avoided, if Pippin had simply been given some prescription Adderall

The Birmingham waste dispute can only end through negotiations. The Commissioners told us yesterday that they do not object to new talks. Talking to ITV Central yesterday 👇

Just went to a jazz night with a friend impromptu and you know, I think having read this piece I might get a late night cocktail on my own, just because I am alive and I can get a cocktail. (Also Georgina is writing tomorrow’s newsletter: www.ft.com/tryinsidepolitics)

Here is a brief and non exhaustive list of things AI is good at: * Bread and butter GUI of the kind that ever large company has hundreds of for internal use. * building and managing software to extremely prescriptive and well document standards such as a FIX engine.

Great Ormond Street Hospital has this afternoon published the report into harm caused by surgeon Yaser Jabbar - a 1/4 of children he operated on came to harm. 94 child victims. Read here: www.gosh.nhs.uk/news/orthopa...

Call someone a sexist once and they block you. Political correctness gone mad

I'm a long-standing and very sincere defender of Robespierre's Cult of the Supreme Being. It needs to be understood for what it was - an impressively successful (if short-lived) effort to overcome France's religious divides, and to institutionally embed a civic republican morality.