I have signed this and hope other British Jews will as well.

Genius move by Trump to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, because he can then claim credit for removing that blockade.

Now we know who is standing, what can we expect from May’s local elections in the East of England? Why are this May’s local elections different? They are unlike any before. Short-term councillors, five-way contests. Will a surge from Reform UK reshape the region?

up west in the bluster, lapwings displaying in the wind, scurvygrass on merse & a buoy on waves' upswing

A welcome addition to the Guardian Country Diary! Arable farming …

Nearly 1 in 6 UK species are threatened with extinction. We've lost 97% of our wildflower meadows since the 1930s. We have 73 million fewer birds than in the 1970s - a decline of almost a third. And yet some politicians still just see wildlife as a blocker to progress.

YAY ARTEMIS II That was so cool. Look at what we can do when we use rockets to take us all somewhere and not to bomb each other. Also, math is amazing. Plan a 500,000 plus-mile 9-day journey around the damn moon & say you’ll splash down at 7:07, & you splash down at 7:07. Wow

So true, from @profdevisridhar.bsky.social! My Instagram feed is full of “Rampant Individualism” telling me lots of things that I, as an individual, should do to improve my health!

Someone echoing exactly what I was thinking at that very moment (about the UK government, who have announced that the UK will not further electrify railways, even though it has only 38% of line electrified, compared to 57% in the EU overall, 75% in Sweden and 72% in Italy)

Also: that it is doing it at all

I'm shocked - shocked - to discover that somebody who supported fiscal austerity at the zero bound knows nothing about economics.

Howling.

Not quite but it's good and he should do it more. I don't think this kind of criticism is going to change the nature of what is already a damaged relationship.

open.substack.com/pub/backofmi... Sorry (not really) for being repetitive but this Substack is too good to ignore. By @dsquareddigest.bsky.social - including on whether these companies are blindly assuming they are heading to the "too cheap to meter, just build a moat" place, rather than this:

I mean this is just the dumbest possible moment to come up with this line, when he has visibly stood up to US aggression and kept us out a war she would have weekly joined.

One of the all time funniest lines and one that I persist in using every time I hear sirens despite the inevitable eye rolling.

Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf: a bilateral ceasefire or negotiations is unreasonable.

Spotted on the coast path above Talland Bay yesterday… This rather cute looking dark-edged bee-fly (Bombylius major) is deliberately gathering dust on the tip of her abdomen The fine coating of dust helps give her eggs just enough weight, so when she hovers above the entrance of a ground… 1/3

1/ This Yanis Varoufakis screed made me so angry the only way I can salvage my day is to go through it line by line as catharsis. You are welcome to come on the journey toward my aneurism with me. An angry h/t to @sianushka.bsky.social for bringing this into my life. unherd.com/2026/04/why-...

It's possible both to welcome this ceasefire- the human lives saved, and the relief it brings to energy markets - and also be flabbergasted by the ineptitude of the whole negotiating arc.

To add: Johnson & Truss were ousted by the cabinet. It matters, constitutionally, that ministers are mostly MPs with seats to defend, whose careers can continue after a PM goes. The Farage plan - to appoint a presidential cabinet from outside Parlt, dependent only on him - would weaken that check.

New post out: "Elections 2026: The Preview" The first part of an epic preview covering 5,000 seats across 136 councils in England; plus parliamentary elections in Scotland and Wales. (£/free trial) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/e...

Reminder.

The reason Trump enjoys the phrase “back to the Stone Age” is that, like a prehistoric man, he tends to cave.

Trump may have delivered Iran its biggest victory since the revolution.

The events of the last few hours, written down in one place, by the great chronicler of the US @hcrichardson.bsky.social

Miserable with the state of the world? May I prescribe a dose of blackthorn blossom (with accompanying robin and skylark song)?

I think at this point the best evidence for Trump NOT being under Kremlin's control is that a real Kremlin agent would've been far, far, far more discreet in wrecking US power, reputation and economy. But he *is* a Kremlin *asset.* Like a Molotov cocktail, he doesn't need to know he is.

Ex Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting under Obama👇🏽

A system that made Boris Johnson and Liz Truss prime minister has serious problems of its own, but the UK does have two main protections against a Trump-like figure. One is institutional; the other cultural. The bad news is that the former, in particular, is under serious pressure. 1/n

There's something just so brilliant about coal mines being directly replaced with solar farms www.pv-magazine.com/2026/04/07/g...

“The Home Office told the BBC the rapper made an application to travel to the UK yesterday via an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA). It said the decision to refuse permission was made on the grounds that his presence would not be conducive to the public good.” www.bbc.com/news/article...

This should always have been the end of it.

The League Against Cruel Sports is on BlueSky and I will think the world of any of you that follow them @leagueacs.bsky.social #AnimalRights #AnimalWelfare

The problem with this crisis is that, unlike previous ones Trump has created he can’t jus declare this one over and move on so market can’t fully price TACO, but on the other hand if there is some sort of resolution then the prospect of a sharp market recovery means people don’t want to sell out.

“The last thing the state should be doing is spending money to make us think that nothing bad has happened and that the war in Iran has little effect on the rest of the world.” - @stephenkb.bsky.social on why fuel subsidies are a really bad idea. www.ft.com/content/2961...

Moon walking, shortly before sunrise.

One Bride for One Brother

Brilliant recs here from the awesome @sarahweinman.com. I share her concerns about the procedural novel (ironic, given I'm currently writing what could be seen as procedurals, but I'm doing so to confront my own issues with them) but all these reads are so, so good...

Agree with this - we're allowing elements of dangerous driving (e.g speeding, phone use) to become normalised. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Steven Beschloss wrote: “This is an actual post. This is not funny. This is beyond desperate. This is a deeply unwell man who doesn’t belong anywhere near the levers of power. Every member of his cabinet and Congress is complicit in not demanding his removal now.” open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...

With so much bad news around, it's important to celebrate the really good news. And this is great news for children & families in need. It's also a reminder of why parliamentary government - in which even prime ministers with huge majorities have to respond to their backbenches - is so important.

When you've got Pakistan telling you to calm down and act like a grown up you've hit rock bottom in geopolitical terms

From today, statutory sick pay is paid from the first day of illness And it’s paid to every worker, including the lowest paid, who previously got nothing Long held goals of the labour movement - realised by a Labour government

A reminder that Iran was hardly mentioned in the US National Security Strategy - which was only published in November.

WILLOW WARBLER is home, on a territory where every year a male sings. Each year in April this is the song that floors me, that takes me back to a wide-eyed child, falling in love for the very first time with the wild.

In the BlueSky tradition of 'here's a nice thing but here's how it's problematic': Is Attenborough right to claim that gardens in England cover a greater area than all of our National Nature Reserves? Technically, yes: but I think it’s a misleading comparison that lets government off the hook...1/

6/ I think saying ‘our gardens are bigger than all our national nature reserves’ is misleading because it individualises the problem. Nature-friendly gardening is great, but political action is more important, & we really need the Government to create more nature reserves! [End]

Good people are almost always prepared to work for less than their market value for a while if they're doing valuable and interesting work. Good people generally won't work in the kind of system that backbench MPs have to tolerate, not for any money.

This is correct of course, but *why* people refuse to believe it is interesting/important. Very good discussion of the issues in the comments here.