I don’t think British political commentary/chatter has ever got over the adrenaline rush of 2016-19.

I was stumbling through trying to explain the criminal court to my six year old last night because I have jury duty, but it turned out she already knew it all because she just read an issue of Beano where Dennis and Gnasher were on trial

"the hard data suggests that the largest of the UK’s very real problems are no more being caused by mass immigration than they are by a group of charity fundraisers rowing past Great Yarmouth" on.ft.com/3IsyVVu @timharford.ft.com with his facts and reasonableness

Spotted today but not bought to save it for someone who likes Zola more than me, but: Zola photographing south London!

Can anyone explain why the guardian word wheel doesn’t accept penne as a word

“Yes, Jaywick, I’ll confess my reservations. Your name I’d heard, your headlines I had read. I took the bus, explained my destination, The driver fixed me with a look of dread.” No comment

I’ve started All that Glitters about the art fraud, but immediately got hung on this. Does he mean he’s speaking in a pastiche of the mid Atlantic accent or some kind of modern version? Does he sound like a Brit who’s spent so long in the US they’ve started to exhaustedly say “wadder” and “erb”

The key fact that the racist right really hates: multiculturalism works

Favorite fun fact that I learned about Redford today

Can I somehow blame AI for this

On my third "your data is weird are you sure you're sure" email to the same council this morning

Ha, this is amazing, they’ve asked this guy to rate high street coffee chains and he absolutely slams all but one of them apple.news/ADLZ-FPfbRhq... (Fwiw I actually think pret is fine?! I Maybe my tastebuds aren’t as refined…!)

We went to the Dulwich Picture Gallery today and tomorrow we’re hosting some neighbours and family for roast dinner. I finished a wonderful book. A slow weekend.

Nice that lots of people are discovering these wonderful books in the US! I’m not sure I agree that as novels they are particularly old fashioned though. Other than being set.. in the past. www.washingtonpost.com/books/2025/0...

I see the guardian and nyt spelling wheels differ on whether “eely” is a word

One resident described the JobCentrePlus experience as "a graveyard - no offence to the job centre". A fairly vivid contrast to this programme:

The DWP has been quietly trialling a new approach to getting people into work, in 10 social housing estates. The concept is borrowed from America where there’s decades of evidence - I went to see how one of the trials is going: www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/10-u...

An interesting story here of a local government pension fund investing in affordable housing in the council’s area.

On time and on budget? Whaaat? Make this man prime minister immediately www.ft.com/content/639a...

"Tougher" border enforcement won't change this. Restricting family reunification won't change this. Returns agreements won't change this. All the evidence shows it. Until it is safer and simpler to seek asylum more men, women and children will die in the channel. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

This seems like yet another major risk of a huge hit to the reputation of housing associations, and others who have these retirement flats. Not something that I hear discussed in the sector even as stories like this continue to surface. I do hear calls for more funding for retirement communities.

Leadership 2025 was set up with the aim of boosting the numbers of ethnic minority people in housing's top jobs by this year. So what comes next? @kathyswinds.bsky.social went along to one of its board meetings to find out www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/lead...

JRF's minimum income standard (MIS) updated for 2025 is arresting: A working-age couple with two children aged 3 and 7 needs to earn £74,000 a year between them to achieve MIS. Remember that covers basics, absolutely no luxuries. No wonder we felt bankrupt after a single holiday this year.

I am happy to share the detailed data if someone wanted to do an update and follow up what has happened since, but this was my headline figure showing multiple millions spent on highly disputed ABA therapy in English councils in 2021/22 and 22/23.

I’m just catching up on this. The part about children not losing existing plans is reassuring, that said, there’s a line in this that I think sounds sensible on the face until you understand how the system currently works schoolsweek.co.uk/restrict-ehc...

Every single Democrat should instantly condemn him for this and demand a retraction and apology. Blow it up. He's supporting domestic violence! It's nightmarish!

Every day I get served ads for ClickUp, a service we use, and every day I get more annoyed by the promises of all encompassing answer to our organisational problems. That site loads slow enough to be on a dial up connection in the year 2000.

A housing association has been named one of the best places to work in the UK for seven years in a row - so our reporter went to visit and find out why: www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/the-...

The housing sector has been sending the statements of welcome you might expect about Steve Reed, the new housing secretary (www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/sector-... for our round up). What about our previous coverage of him in Inside Housing? We've written about him as MP and Lambeth council leader

“I lied, put your clothes back on, we’re playing the Bay Area Regional Planner board game”

There can be only one

TLDR you’ll be surprised to know the answer is when they are ripe

Because the New Yorker has a story today about cat detectives I have to bring up Three Bags Full, a novel in which the detectives are a flock of sheep.

Hmm.

And @allymcgovern.bsky.social as a new minister in the housing ministry

I feel duty bound as people are still sharing and liking this to point out we do know who the housing secretary is but also this story is still absolutely worthy of a read

This is so grim

Imagine if this was a row of terraces or even semis.

And it's Steve Reed for housing secretary, as per the BBC. According to his website he "brought thousands of new affordable homes to Lambeth before becoming MP" - he was council leader

Are you still waiting for the news on the new housing secretary? try this gob smacking housing story while you wait www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/two-arr...

Tbh I’m not sure many people who read the full letter from Laurie Magnus, included here, and come to the conclusion Rayner did something intentionally wrong www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I am hardly a natural Rayner cheerleader, but genuinely furious that she's gone. Laurie Magnus's verdict confirms she acted on advice, she just missed the disclaimer saying she should get extra advice. Not just an honest mistake - a mistake literally anyone could make. There but for the grace etc...

Years ago, shortly after bitcoin was first launched, when it was worth pennies, I saw someone give a talk about it at a conference. I was chatting to the speaker afterwards, and he tried to persuade me to buy some - just buy £100 or £50 and see what happened, he said. I scoffed, and didn't. 🤡

This is absolutely wonderful, especially coming from the UK’s fact checkerless school of journalism www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Credit to Ed Davey for this. www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

Tbh I love the whole format

Nigel Farage just repeatedly denied – under oath! – to @raskin.house.gov ever banning journalists he doesn’t like from his party’s conventions. This happened to me *literally today*.

The thing is a tweet “working” means it has been seen a lot but none of this changes anything we’re all just shouting into the void and being pleased some people agree with us

Can I go back in time and into a fictional story and give these people spf 50 please