Heckuva job Rutte

A friend is driving to Ukraine next week (with basically no notice - job needed doing) to drop off lifesaving aid - and a vehicle to help efforts there. He's self funding the costs presently, but if any of you fancy helping him you can do so by donating here.

Even from an Israeli perspective, does it make sense? As far as i can tell (others will know more), intelligence, probably Israeli, learned of the location of the majority of the Iranian leadership, and got Trump, who thinks Venezuela was a "success" to agree to take them out. /1

Everything about this war is so incredibly stupid that I genuinely feel physical pain trying to contort my mind to think like a Hegseth.

It is however disappointing that the action on crypto, which is *only* useful for crime, is confined in this way. We need to try to suppress it.

Seems sub-optimal

This is absolutely fine for the Prime Minister of a G7 nation trying to juggle several, era-defining geopolitical crises at once. No, the PM should not travel economy on commercial airlines just because it's cheaper. Leave idiotic, baited responses to yourself.

Grim. Every week this goes on is compounding the collective price paid. www.ft.com/content/c139...

Iran's interests is to make the cost of doing this so high that nothing similar happens again. This is going to go on for months, prices are goign to go up. Trump is a moron who has managed to make all of us poorer, very quickly. And that is before you get to bombing school girls.

What is Trump's"off ramp"? Throwing more bombs at Iran isn't going to stop them closing the strait. Closing the strait knackers the world economy. I don't see how Trump extricates himself, except by agreeing to everything Iran wants, and lying about it www.reuters.com/world/middle...

This is *so obviously* the only possible sensible measure. It should be expanded. 1. A charge to enter or cross the City 2. Charge market value for residents parking, rather than the current notional fee 3. Fund the damn buses. /1

The Citizens' Assembly suffers from the usual problems with such things - No account taken of trade offs (there is a reason the councils don't give out more free travel passes -Unrealistic (given physical constraints trams are never happening in Oxford in the lifetime of anyone reading this) /1

If you're replying to a post about torched ambulances in London with a point about Israel, you've crossed the line into antisemitism. And you're doing absolutely nothing to help any cause. Even if you consider yourself one of the good people. Maybe especially so. You've just caught racism.

Am I wrong to think that Iran (Iran!) is more likely to be telling the truth than POTUS?

A local example of a national problem. People don't like the measures that work to suppress traffic and lead to modal shift: pricing. /1

O'Brian readers should be able to guess. (Although I don't think Aubrey wore his on his hat. And thefashion for wearing the hat "athwart ships" changed).

Very important to remember that Paris proper is incredibly urban (almost 70% car free) and its urbanist policies are different from that of the more car owning suburbs, which in say Germany tend to be part of the city proper

Died on this day in 1964, (alas): the always wonderful Peter Lorre. In 2014 I wrote about him for the Telegraph (this is reposted on my blog, so no paywall required).

europeans when asked to help unblock the strait of hormuz

Once again a heartfelt thanks to David "cut the Green crap" Cameron and Nick "What's the point in a nuclear power plant that isn't ready until the 2020s" Clegg for their visionary political choices, whose consequences we get to enjoy today.

This was, alas, the motivation behind the sale by the Graun. It was a way of getting journalists off the books.

I doubted this could be true, it is so stupid, but there it is in Jenrick's piece in the Telegraph www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04... Well done the Telegraph subs for leaving that in, and skewering his cynicism.

I think this paragraph is the most illuminating insight into Kemi Badenoch's brain yet. Nuclear power is just inconvenient for her worldview, so it isn't mentioned at all and just exists as a glaring omission.

You can oppose the Trump administration’s blockade of the island without turning up to regime jollies and posing for selfies with the dictator. Why is this so difficult for some people to grasp?

To be as fair as i can be, the headline doesn't really reflect the article. if you think north sea drilling is an answer, you're living in 1976.

I did a French exchange when I was like 15 and my host family served, for dinner, an ox tongue. In explaining what the large tongue being served was they all pointed at their mouths. I am vegetarian.

Angry Bush is best Bush (at least, in his considered writing). I've attended the Trafalgar Square Easter service more than once. As I recall, Christ said "No one comes to the father except through me." Almost all religions claim a monopoly on truth. It is what being a religion involves. /1

I work at a number of large organisations and get to use their IT (laptops etc). I’m constantly amazed that the default page for Edge browser is configured to push GB News, Daily Express and Mail stories to all the employees. It’s not just Facebook and X. It’s the default config on Windows.

The subtext is clearly one of wishing to de-escalate. But you've killed lots of the leadership. Where is Iran's motive to do anything but to make the price for having done this astronomically high? Trump is a moron, and the US commentators sane-eashing him are fools.

The curse of British progressive politics: we have a Labour party that is preoccupied with winning the support of workers who are retired or dead, a Liberal Democrat party with no interest in defending liberal democracy, and a Green party with no real interest in climate change.

You know I actually hate this. The green MP is directionally right, but also hopelessly superficial. It’s a clear attempt to frame it through a remembered past rather than engaging on its own terms; and lads, the terms here are much worse.

What a weird thing to say. Most philosophers have done what???

Remember Gordon Brown's constititutional Commission on the UK’s Future, and that some people were naive enough to take it seriously? Happy days.

Misfeasance in a public office. What a huge lacuna its absence is in US law.

Wow huge break for russia. so weird. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/12/u...

It is depressing but predictable that VOs has clearly not done any serious reading on what a useful meaning of the "rule of law"might be It is nothing specifically to do with rights against the state. Two better pieces on this topic are. /1

I just figured out how to expresss a really difficult legal point. Whilst listening to Marquee Moon at full volume. Here it is. May it help you as it just helped me. www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4my...

It is quite amusing to me how so many people don’t understand scale . You would have to have a fleet of around 100k trucks running 24/7 down a road twice the size of the M25 Volumes of oil transitioning this strait are around 20 million barrels a day. Roughly 70% world trade volume

It is quite healthy to argue the toss about what goes on banknotes. Sign of democratic health, since we're all agreed on the Iran war thing now (Bad, for the slow at the back). /1

It is quite healthy to argue the toss about what goes on banknotes. Sign of democratic health, since we're all agreed on the Iran war thing now (Bad, for the slow at the back). /1

The issue has never particularly been the original daft Sun feature, which (as Greens like to note) was more than a decade ago. It's been the almost entirely unnecessary dishonesty around it, which is much more recent.

Very late to this. Worth reading carefully. This person should not be voted for.

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by."

Doug Rendleman passed away over the weekend. He was a giant in remedies and civil procedure. He was also a very gifted teacher. I was very fortunate to have him at Washington & Lee. www.ali.org/news/article...

I hate this. I also hate that the UK government has passed legislation signalling its support for this crap, and the Scottish government is going to do the same. It is deeply foolish. Don't be suckered.

"Within the laws, win how you want to win – but don’t expect to be popular." The pragmatic dullness of Arsenal isn't their fault. They've done what needed to be done to win. /1 www.theguardian.com/football/202...

I have always liked US election movies, but what strikes me now watching a couple of them is how serious the past was, compared to now. A quick ranking. 1. Advise and Consent (1962). Laughton steals this movie, playing the same senator as in Spartacus. /1

If we know one thing about Starmer, it is that he will only act within the law. Maybe that leads him to sometimes worship legality too much (as perhaps with the Chagos Islands which looks like a bad and expensive deal that wasn't really necessary) but it seems to have guided him well this time. /1

The right has lost its collective mind. What does victory look like? What is the reason for this war (I am not seeing a legal justification: there obviously isn't one). Tying yourself to Trump looks foolish. /1

Nothing to see: latest. www.theguardian.com/football/202...