The baseball dance (3 mins in) is quite something.

What is she even talking about? The OBR is, by design, not under the control of Rachel Reeves.

They need to abolish the post of BBC Political Editor and restructure the way they do coverage. It seems to send people mad. Both Laura K and Chris M became significantly poorer reporters after stepping up to the role.

I'm going to be the horrible buzzkill here but I would point out that often these numbers are fake and having previously spent a week fielding angry phone calls from people getting spam calls from 'my number', I'd advise you don't do this.

I’ve thankfully been busy this weekend and missed the Reeves ‘scandal’. Just caught up and… I’m not really clear what she’s alleged to have done wrong? I think the walking up the path on income tax was daft but the claim seems to be she’s lying and actually the books are totally balanced?

Something about 'Last Christmas' by Wham that's always amused me, is the gentle chugging synth keyboard sounds exactly like the music they used in Thomas the Tank Engine. It's an uncanny fit.

Off the back of yesterday's despair about the lack of intellectualism in British politics, this series of 'debates' is fascinating because it should be the perfect forum for real intellectual argument but, so far, appears to 100% not be delivering that.

Does Tim Shipman genuinely believe that the removal of the two child benefit cap was the only reason for tax rises in the budget this week?

A lot of people are going to have risky surgery they don't need because the government is scared of a Daily Mail front page.

A colleague and I once mixed up millimetres and metres when ordering a banner. Fortunately we caught it before half of Buckinghamshire was draped in a promotion for a soft play centre.

@techpriest.bsky.social I’ve been meaning to ask. Are you the same Techpriest that wrote into Buzz Out Loud 5 million years ago?

This is just something we've not really reckoned with. Tech in general and AI have made access to a lot of things easier, whether that's making a benefit claim, getting your child additional SEND support or bunging up the planning system, this partly explains rising government costs IMO.

I know the basic reason for this (clicks!) but I'm not sure that covering everything as a live blog is particularly helpful. The migration figures release is one event, write a good piece (or a few) about what they say and what it means! There's nothing to cover 'live' www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cn...

Just need the PM to do the Jet2 holiday thing now.

My mum did some consultancy work at the factory that makes M&S sandwiches back in the 90s and there was a folder the size of a doorstep for each one, mostly concerned with making sure that the taste was consistent regardless of which area of the sandwich someone bit into.

Suspect a weird side effect of this policy is a lot of people who’ve imagined house price growth to be continuing at 2000s era rates will discover to their shock and dismay that it hasn’t been, and their home hasn’t gone up in value like they thought.

My favourite example of this is abolishing de minimus import exemptions in MARCH 2029. Yes, taking away people's ability to buy cheap stuff on Temu just before an election is a wonderful strategy!

If you are eligible for the mobility component of PIP and you want to spend *your own money on top of that* on having a nicer modified car, why shouldn't you? Should screen readers only work on Chromebooks?

Still convinced that a lot of the rise in claims was down to Reddit, MSE and the like informing a lot of people who were always eligible for these benefits that they were in fact eligible rather than some massive and sudden change in society.

Two things about this headline. 1. Please find me the person who wouldn't understand MP but does understand that Tory=Conservative and main opposition. 2. He's the shadow chancellor (or opposition finance spokesperson if you must!) Not just a random MP!

Okay, what's the worst mistake you made early in your career? I sent out a promo email for a talk someone was giving and used the wrong picture for the speaker. The speaker received the email and was baffled.

Uhm... are we supposed to know this yet?

Important retail history bulletin.

I think the one thing we can all agree on is that Labour deciding to have a 3 month run up to the budget, argue with itself, hand wave, basically announce and then drop major policy shifts and leave itself with a huge headache the next time the OBR does a new forecast has been a resounding success!

Only true 90s kids remember the Index catalogue.

I take to agree with this in general. The two huge risks are it being done in a panic because of a huge backlog and the fact that it seems to have dropped from the sky for most people and you really, really want them to have thought hard about the whats and whys of this.

Glee. Sometimes I like to pretend they made a pilot and it never got picked up.

And the 'taxes by SimCity 3000 budget screen' meme rolls on!

The main impression you got from that hearing is a bunch of people (on the BBC side and the parliamentarian side) who have no concept of the stakes they are playing with.

The point that is endlessly missed by these people is that lockdown would’ve basically happened whether the government ordered it or not. There were huge drops in restaurant bookings, train travel etc. before any legal restrictions came in.

I really feel the inquiry would've been better off interviewing a bunch of people in Australia, Singapore, South Korea etc. about what went right there and how we could learn from it. It feels like lockdowns would be much harder to pull off now than 5 years ago.

My uninformed read is that the government assumed that rolling in behind the EHRC guidance was the best means of making the issue go away and upon discovering it did not do that, has had no Plan B.

I know, I know this is 100% a tiny violin moment and The Times knows that and it's why they're promoting it (they love rage clicks!) but this country needs to be better at convincing rich people to donate money to civic things. They assuage their guilt, we get a lovely park. New York is great at it.

I’ve organized 3 events for work this year I’ve spent the 2 weeks leading up to them with a horrible knot in my stomach convinced I’ve forgotten to do something. So far, turns out I’ve been fine. There’s an event next week and I don’t have the knot and I’m worried it means I HAVE forgotten something

In a bad place

Have I ever mentioned my mortal fear of former BBC News substitute presenter Mishal Husain? Probably not, since it's not a big issue generally. Anyway, best get to work

WE GOT A BBC MONTAGE. That’s how important Scotland qualifying is!!

Never change Scotland

It now falls to Steve Clarke to work out exactly how to get eliminated in a group at the hands of Canada, DR Congo, and Uzbekistan.

If I were subtitling this I’d just write *incomprehensible Scottish noises*

UK Politics Bluesky is a not-particularly-popular role-playing game. the rules are simple: one participant takes the part of "the Stephen Bush", a commentator for the Financial Times, and other participants race to as quickly as possible link any given statement to the Harry Potter media franchise

The status updates are getting increasingly pass-agg. Having managed a much, much smaller crisis like this, I can hear the 'every moment I'm explaining this to you is a moment I'm not fixing it' coming from engineering.

Bob was shocked to find things being sold at a car boot sale they may not have been 100% legit. Good thing this never happened in the 1970s Britain he’s so fond of.

A lot of UK politics seems to regard the immigration health surcharge like Trump regards tariffs, as a free money pipe with zero consequences.

Has the government considered banning the use of English and forcing us all to learn Hungarian or Finnish instead?

Maybe someone suggested 'Pocahontas' and everyone winced, realised that absolutely no part of the US political spectrum is going to look kindly on that film, and just switched to the next Disney Princess in the colour chart.

My hobbies include ruining the days of political journalists.

Great news team! Labour is ahead of the Conservatives when it comes to immigration! Oh that's good news. Can we see the figures? No.

Fun fact: None of the banknotes featured in the Homes Under the Hammer title sequence are still in circulation.