This is a clear example of profiteering and you can tell because fuel is substantially cheaper in Northern Ireland (largely because supermarkets control less of the market): www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... Very odd the government isn't making more noise about this, given their attitude to business.

Today we are learning about couches.

This flag represents the unity of the Han, the Dutch, the Manchus, the Irish, the Mongols, and Prince.

Think you can understand a lot about British politics from the ONS survey reporting that 56% of people said they voted in the last local elections, when turnout in those elections was about 36%.

Doesn’t feel good that the head of BBC News Content is instructing reporters to refer to trans people with slurs. If this leak is real it raises questions about who made this decision, who was consulted, and why the BBC chose to ignore its own editorial guidelines on slurs and offensive language

Labour Together is concerned about the Factory Acts sapping the dynamism of the UK economy; instead, they suggest a tariff on corn

It turns out that Labour Together no longer believe that Labour took a wrong turn after WW2, but instead when Gladstone repealed the Combination Acts.

Joke's on anyone who tries to trick me with this. I don't even think the people who I *know*, who say they want to speep with me, actually want to sleep with me.

ProTEct truSTed LocAL nEWS This isn't even designed to wind people up and hope they share it. It's just an exploitation of Birmingham Live's privileged position on Google Discover/Apple News. The whole point is to deceive people into clicking. An industry built on total contempt for its audience.

Douglas Adams, H2G2: “The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”

I could see Reform coming out in favour of bringing back trial by ordeal. Revive the steel industry by mass producing hot iron bars for the accused to touch.

I think this is all besides the point. 'Immigration' was a top three issue in 2001 and 2005. It is essentially always a top issue under a Labour government. It doesn't make it a good idea to pursue bad economic policies or for the home sec to neglect 'crime' as an issue.

Fundamentally the only reason that Badenoch is in a stronger position bownthan she was this summer is because Jenrick is a bottler.

Not all cultures are equally valid

Obviously it wasn't my first thought when I saw that tweet but maybe it wasn't just intellectual reasons that saw Badenoch's teachers steer her away from medicine. "So the psychometric tests came back from the career officer and have you thought about abattoir work at all?"

"I'll tell you something that's not so funny. Right now, Tom Forth is at home, crying like a little girl"

The Badenoch statement of VAWG is awful for the fog-horning, but it's also really weird because under previous leaders this wouldn't even have been a partisan issue at all. One side might say the other wasn't doing enough, but nobody would have objected to doing things as a point of principle.

Even by my low expectations for Kemi Badenoch ‘violence against women and girls is something done by immigrants and nobody else’ has shocked me.

Another McSweeney profile talking about rescuing Lambeth from Militant and Ted Knight By the time McSweeney arrived in London, Militant had gone and Lambeth Council was led by Jim Dickson - a Blairite and now Labour MP for Dartford It's mad mythology www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/lab...

The Tees Valley Review was pretty good, imho, considering how narrow its remit was. But - clearly, given the above - it didn’t look at everything. Labour promised (Rachel Reeves actually said it on a trip to Teesside) to send in the NAO. It’s never been clear why they subsequently haven’t.

And this is yet another reason why they should have bitten the bullet and raised income tax, because it means there would be less incentive to delay projects like this. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Also: capitalists invented sex because it makes more slaves to work for the system.

That was a party political broadcast on behalf of capitalism

Ah I think it's a bit worse than I said! My take was that the bit re the failure of the meritocracy when it turns on these people didn't seem well supported by argument. Having read this I now think it's even more substantially just false, incorrect. www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2025/12/17/w...

British pundits, for £50, name this man

Am curious how many of the pre-Obama ones he bothered to do, or if it's just 3 spittle-flecked rants following on from serious and respectful profiles of the previous 43 presidents.

A somewhat dark thought I have from time to time is that the 60s/70s theory that the Eastern Bloc and the Western systems were converging turned out to be mince, but it seems to be possibly true in respect of two current globally dominant economies.

I think this is almost right. Totalitarianism can be good for individual capitalists, because if they have a good relationship with the despot then there are few limits to their agency. It is bad for capitalism, which requires freedom to challenge and a level of market instability.

Working at bookstore, woman comes in tells me she saw a movie about WWII, did we have the book it was based on? I said we'd many books on WWII. She looks confused, It's part of a series? I ask if she wants history or fiction. She smirks, "Um, movies are pretend. Made up" like I was the biggest tool.

The fact that we have not done a good job of arming Ukraine with the weapons it needs is explicitly a consequence of the weakness of European defence. Ifnl we actually had an arms race they wouldn't have any shortage of artillery ammunition.

I’m coining Nate silverism, which is when someone pushes back or annoys you online so you create an imaginary political identity for them based off of simplistic caricatures of what you think they believe in so you can remain an aloof nihilistic gambling addict

absolutely *incredible* update to the home office destroying jovi's naturalisation certificate, apologising, and telling us they'd send a replacement for free. it turned up in a "do not bend", hard backed envelope today...and it's for a romanian lady living in another city(!) my work is never done

"In an email to Novara Media, Cunningham said: 'It is not my habit to comment to the media on cases in which I am instructed as counsel.'" Is she having a laugh? She did an BBC entire podcast. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Baron of Gruinard Island

There was a good @hern.bsky.social observation that one of the UK's challenges is that the last Conservative government was just very bad at *being a Conservative government*, and you see that v clearly with healthcare, where the vision in 1997 was 'be wealthy' and in 2024 it was 'don't get sick'.

Campaign to replace the Moral Maze with a real maze in the basement of the Tower of London. Well, I say a maze, more of an oubliette really.

"So Mr Kruger, what first attracted Reform to someone who wants to fuck the entire country?"

Have to admit I just assumed that was Maurice Glasman's wife when I saw the headline.

itcouldbesaid.substack.com/p/it-could-b... Latest article is up on the substack; my (long in gestation) look at why I changed my mind on mass immigration. More people means a healther economy, a more powerful country & a more balanced society. We should all want to welcome as many people as possible

Any movement which claims to be about respecting the electorate has to actually be willing to challenge the electorate when they think they are wrong. If you just nod along with or ignore things that you think are nonsense, you are treating people like idiots, not respecting them.

I just think if you let an article entitled "In Praise of the Wehrmacht" appear in the magazine you edit, you ought to take a Trappist vow of silence on questions of whether somebody is racist.

Given that Cabinet collective responsibility is a thing, this would appear to be what is technically known as a lie. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Ok, but the last bit is just Grok.

Even before the two facts I wish more politicians understood and communicated: 1) Essentially no-one can 'afford to have children' (really only a small tranche of the people who privately educate can) 2) State pensions are *always* paid for by current taxpayers

What's the status of the bill to remove the remaining hereditaries? Presumably if that went through it would render it significantly more difficult for the Lords to obstruct the rest of the government's agenda?

Abolish it. Have panel of lay members and professional experts that sit on bill committees, select committees, and can participate in Westminster Hall debates to preserve revising chamber function.