It's remarkable how most of the world's English-speaking democracies seemed to have gotten together and decided "let's destroy the main thing that led us to unprecedented prosperity: our systems of higher education."

Quite something to think we are staring down the barrel of a crisis which will end high level research and teaching as something spread evenly across the country's cities and towns, accessible to all, and both UK and devolved governments just don't seem to particularly care?

Does my head in a bit to think that the St George's Hill of Diggers fame is now a gated community for high net worth individuals

It would appear that JLPartners' Holyrood poll (which said SLab were winning Anniesland and Reform were winning Bearsden) has disappeared from their website - and the MRP tables have been reuploaded with only the numbers for Wales and England...

Man Utd Scottish Labour managers 🤝 leaders Impossible to do the job without paying homage to Sir Alex

What a time to be writing a chapter on how a mentality of abundance among elites drove efforts to extract wealth from the sea in nineteenth century Scotland

An organisation’s culture is set by its leader, Starmer dislikes making an argument for anything (because he’s bad at it) and that attitude spreads all the way down the party.

While the congress of the Republic endlessly debates this alarming chain of events, the Supreme Pontiff has secretly dispatched two Swiss Guards, the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy, to settle the conflict....

If I was the EFL, and staring down the barrel of all three clubs being relegated from the Championship this season doing so with points deductions for financial problems I would potentially be worried about what that says about the future of the game.

Me, sowing an electoral system so I can get a constitution-amending supermajority on a smaller share of the vote: Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!! Me, reaping an electoral system where they can get a constitution-amending supermajority on a smaller share of the vote: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.

Welcome to the resistance... Joshua, son of Nun?

It's so funny to me that the guy who is about to be the Prime Minister of Hungary is literally Peter Hungarian. It's way too on the nose. Like if you wrote a political novel and the autocrat was overcome by a guy named Joe Demonym the commissioning editor wouldn't read past the first page.

Today more than ever.

When Angela Rayner underpaid £40,000 stamp duty on her flat, Richard Tice said it was "morally completely indefensible” and she should immediately resign if she had “any moral decency”. Now we learn he personally made £91,000 in excess payments by failing to pay the tax his company legally owed

I hope the new Permanent Secretary at the Home Office is going to be able to look at the UK Visas and Immigration’s practices www.thetimes.com/article/1644...

Great, now do the same for all law-breaking on platforms. Tech companies should simply not be allowed to pretend they have no control over illegality on the platforms they have full control of.

Why is Katie Miller doing her podcast from a buy-to-let suburban Airbnb

This is an incredible achievement, you have to give him massive props

If you do not accept the scale of threat that Russia poses, and therefore don't accept the need for a rapid scaling up of military capability to meet this (even moreso if you support, as I do, signif decoupling from the US) your politics are fundamentally unserious.

To Glasgowpost for a moment: this building at Glasgow Cross is stunning and I'm glad it's going to reenter use BUT I've always thought this building would be an awesome future railway station, approx on the site of the old Gallowgate station (closed 1902). There's PW above and below ground already!

As a Baggie, may I be the first to say: Phew

You wait until we start charging for the English Channel and turn the Isle of Wight into a massive tollbooth

About once a week I log in to LinkedIn and marvel at what a godless, soulless place it is. I often feel I ought to improve my own profile for my employability but almost every regular user of it is such a terrible advert for it and most profiles make me feel a unique combination of ill and bored.

Say hypothetically we have seen the end of American involvement in this conflict. How do you reign in a state which has no interest in being reigned in?

I fear there is absolutely no way this ceasefire holds. In the balance of global economic collapse vs. American egos we all lose.

I'm sure the meeting of military leaders about the Strait at PJHQ Northwood this afternoon is going swimmingly

The United States Congress never actually existed, it was a bogeyman they invented to scare Democrats, it's really made of cardboard and every photo of it you've ever seen has been from the same angle.

It's deeply annoying that all of the people who promoted and backed Trump will blithely carry on making prouncements and grifting away without any consequences.

Negative polarisation is one helluva drug

Is there anything to be said for a coup?

The thing about there needing to be a path of redemption for people who have been “canceled” is: there already is a path to redemption and it’s called “redeeming yourself.” The path is open! No one is blocking that! You just have to do it!

New Iran peace proposal: 1. In spirit of forgiveness, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei to headline Wireless Festival 2027

You wait until they find out what language the Green candidate 4th on the Glasgow list thinks every child in Scotland should be taught in (hint: it isn't English)

A brilliant blog, particularly reflecting on the problem of institutional drags on tram-building. This particularly caught my eye on the brakes on the Leeds tram project. Two problems here (a) Whitehall being tightfisted but also (b) these are the inbuilt downsides of doing devolution on the cheap!

Big day for Bluesky, wonk social media, today as King of the Wonks (Stephen Bush) writes the Newsletter to the Wonks on the Wonk Special Interest (rail-based public transport)

Wednesday currently on course to take an axe to to the burnt husk of Leicester's season. You love to see it (I have no vested interest in seeing the Fox's points total stay low(er), why do you ask?)

On a move toward a "vaguer and less certain yearning"

Why do you look for the living among the dead?

3 stars is good actually

Off now to to do as Jesus did this Good Friday: give blood

Devilled eggs, of course, the perfect themed snack for the holy day of Christ's triumphant descent into hell

I can't emphasise enough how dangerous this trend of converting because Christianity evokes past securities is to the Church. Faith becomes an expression not of God's love (in which we participate), but of anxieties channelled into identitarian antagonism against the people privileged by that love

I know this is not The Point, but that oak is early modern, not ancient

so they're closing the West Coast Main Line for a week, huh? the single line connecting London to four of Britain's next five biggest urban conurbations? that's mad, weird that no one's ever thought to build an alternative route, perhaps even one that runs at a high speed, too. crazy

My thinking on this case is that Clarence Thomas should have been removed from office immediately when we found out his wife had plotted to overthrow our constitutional republic

He doesn't understand what's happening. He doesn't have a plan. There's nothing there to analyse.

I hate this thing people do (turbocharged by front-facing video imo) where they try to make what is essentially a self-interested argument sound collective-minded. No! You're annoyed at having to think about other people! Multiple people being self-interested doesn't add up to a community!