This is a grim read. I stick to my view that the wilful blindness of the government to the financial crisis in local government will cost them their majority at the next election. Why not roll the dice for change when the local public realm is falling apart? www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

The Environmental Audit Committee’s report into Flood Resilience in England paints a stark picture of the current flood risk management approach. While the Committee’s recommendations are welcome, it's not clear that they amount to the systemic regulatory overhaul that's needed. shorturl.at/qjRf4

If when I’ve finished a future town planning podcaster rips off the ‘High Notes series and asks me about my career highlights the title of this blog will definitely feature. samuelstafford.blogspot.com/2025/10/obr-...

With the New Towns Taskforce's final report highlighting the importance of stewardship & with related issues such as commonhold in the news, Thursday's webinar presents an ideal opportunity to consider stewardship in new communities. 📅 16 October. 10 - 11.30am Tickets www.tcpa.org.uk/event/stewar...

PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD!! The University of Texas-Austin is beginning a process to eliminate the Black Studies, Latino Studies, and Gender Studies departments in the College of Liberal Arts. This is a grave threat to the educational liberty of students, faculty, staff, and the people of Texas. 1/

My friend Sascha is a professional musician and he's lost a viola bow on the way to Heathrow. Please signal boost to help him get it back.

The deportation order is based on Vedam’s conviction for murder—a crime he did not actually commit and for which he’s now been wholly exonerated. He entered the US at 9 months old and was a legal permanent resident before his conviction. We are so, so, so far from the light of justice.

🚨🚨🚨 Episode 150 of 50 Shades of Planning is available now via this link or the usual podcast platforms. The Amazing Technicolour Green Belt. pod.co/50-shades-of...

*FIFTEEN THOUSAND JOBS LOST*. If this were in a sector in which the PM could go and do a photoshoot looking like One Of The People, we’d have had a government intervention by now.

ONS revises down government borrowing estimates after data error on.ft.com/4h1HLGG

"Deloitte Australia will issue a partial refund to the federal government after admitting that artificial intelligence had been used in the creation of a $440,000 report littered with errors including three nonexistent academic references and a made-up quote from a Federal Court judgement."

What do you have to do to a person to make them behave like this? What brings a person to a point in their life where they’re gleefully inflicting lawless, unjust violence like this?

BREAKING: Heroic police officers save public from this terrifying terrorist who was holding a sign the government doesn’t like x

New blog post, Hillside: Every Journey Starts With The First Step simonicity.com/2025/10/03/h...

I'm too inactive here, but just to say I have an exhibition opening this weekend, plus events etc coming up... If you are in an Essex direction pls come by! firstsite.uk/event/into-t...

Zohran Mamdani tells CNN: "If Netanyahu comes to deliver a speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York next year while I am mayor, I will move to honour the ICC arrest warrant issued in The Hague against him, just as I would against Putin. He is responsible for the genocide in Gaza.”

This.

Initial response from @thetcpa.bsky.social to the New Towns publications today at link below. Lots to digest so we have focused on the Gov response for now but will, no doubt, have more to say… #newtowns #placemaking www.linkedin.com/posts/tcpa_i...

As Reform's Nathan Gill admits taking bribes from Russian 'secret service pawn' Oleg Voloshyn, here’s a nice photo of Nigel Farage with Voloshyn’s wife.

"TikTok Is About to Go Full MAGA" This administration is in the final stages of a deal to hand over control of TikTok to pro-Trump, pro-Israel billionaire investors – and Joe Biden is to blame, argues @taylorlorenz.bsky.social for Zeteo:

For anyone interested in planning and decision taking- this is a great chat on the subject👇🏻

How is this not front page news? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

📣 Voluntary roles: TCPA Trustee & Policy Council member We are looking to broaden the skills & range of perspectives on our Policy Council & Board of Trustees. Experience in town planning/ built environment sector not essential. Apply: Trustee shorturl.at/oZ4F1 Policy Council shorturl.at/r8zUW

This is a very important story in the context of Nigel Farage’s publicly expressed - if apparently unconnected - admiration for Putin and other links with a regime that only wants to harm our country.

Microsoft will no longer allow Israel to use its cloud services to enable its mass surveillance of occupied Palestinians – "the first known case of a US technology company withdrawing services provided to the Israeli military since the beginning of its war on Gaza"

CEO-to-worker pay ratio in 1965: 20-1 CEO-to-worker pay ratio in 1990: 75-1 CEO-to-worker pay ratio today: 280-to-1 Trickle-down economics was always a sham. Nothing has ever trickled down.

Struck by this from an academies boss on Today about fall in primary school numbers: ‘it’s not just the birth rate, it’s a lack of social housing, the benefit cap, the two-child cap, families moving out of London’ Then warns hospitals etc can’t get staff because of housing costs

This is very good. Very well pitched and sensibly placed.

Lib Dems: We have 12x Reform's MPs, can we have the same coverage? BBC: But Reform has 2x your poll rating. If there were an election tomorrow, they'd be running the country. Lib Dems: So you're putting their people and policies under scrutiny, right? BBC: Lib Dems: Right?

Nazis ban comedians shock.. NYT, 4 Feb 1939

What a lovely day for a walk at the common in #TunbridgeWells

Sadiq: “What’s happening in Gaza is a genocide.”

korean reporting is nightmarish on the conditions Korean workers were contained in

Calling all students: You could have access to a free FT subscription without even knowing it. Check here: www.ft.com/schoolsarefree

I’m not convinced that Middle England will buy this particular nonsense

Did it only work on Royals? WTAF are we giving these people any airtime? It’s a freak show that the media are treating like a government in waiting.

NEW: An Oxford report warns that misleading media coverage is shaping public debate on immigration and human rights. The study finds the ECHR is frequently misreported in deportation cases, fueling misconceptions that erode trust in the legal system. 🧵 [1/8]

Nigel Farage looks uncomfortable as Jamie Raskin uses his opening statement to absolutely demolish him

Wait, what? You mean there isn't a simple explanation and it isn't all the government's fault? Surely not? @chrisgiles.ft.com on the UK's public finances www.ft.com/content/bd3d...

These people aren't even hiding their racism anymore. Carswell, like many of the far-right fanatics stirring up unrest in Britain, lives in the US of course

You might well ask whether the current political climate is creating a permissive environment for this kind of racist abuse. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

chng.it/j6TV95bBKN Check out and sign up- international stations of Kent need to become international again

Dorothy Parker when told Calvin Coolidge had died: "how can they tell?"

The Diary of Anne Frank is among the hundreds of books banned in Florida this year. When I was in school, it was required reading. (Guardian)

Hind Khoudary explains what happened in the attack on Nasser hospital. An explosive drone targeted two civilians, one of whom was a journalist. Then, as rescuers went to retrieve the bodies and additional journalists were filming what had happened, a missile targeted them.

Video shows a blanket knitted by Irish activists as a tribute to Palestinian children killed in Gaza. Each square of the blanket represents 10 of the nearly 19,000 children killed by Israeli forces in the besieged enclave.

Danish activists have been painting their flag on roundabouts. Either that or British 'patriots' are a bunch of thick twats, which I find hard to believe.

#UN confirms: people in #Gaza suffer from a #famine. A famine "openly promoted" by the government of #Israel as a weapon of war.

Reading this and trying to take in the full enormity of what is happening. The scale of it. open.substack.com/pub/christin...

New blog post, Planning Law Is Being Used For Politicking About Asylum Seekers simonicity.com/2025/08/20/p...