It's not the only argument for 'of course this claimed messiah was real like the various claimed messiahs throughout history' but it is IMV persuasive enough on its own, there is just absolutely no need to have this contrived plot device unless there is a real actual Nazarene you need to move.

Or - more plausibly - by accepting the Navy’s proposal back in February to deploy a Type 45 to the region, which the government declined despite advance warning of the war from the Americans and our own embassy in Israel.

Great intro to Daniel Finkelstein's column www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

God, has it only been two days of “how dare you suggest that my artform no longer has mass appeal. My heavily subsidised concert had a full house of 55-65 year olds and I earn as much as €26k some years”? It’s felt longer.

This all looks remarkably sensible on V Levels. Kudos to the DfE. feweek.co.uk/revealed-the...

Some nice news for once.

Lots of v good points in this from @neildotobrien.bsky.social - civil service performance management is rubbish. But important not to think that's unrecognised inside CS. It's the complaint you hear most often, at all seniorities - the problem is making fixing it a priority & sticking with it!

I wonder if we could get 'social Calvinism' to stick in people's minds as much as 'social Darwinism has done? www.edrith.co.uk/p/an-arminia...

If we had built more railways than we needed, we should *stop building railways* and use those resources to do something more productive. Arguing that in such a situation we should just keep building more and more railways because to do otherwise would be 'defeatist' is bizarre.

Sadly, none of this will be a surprise to anyone who has spent time in the civil service. open.substack.com/pub/almondtr...

I wonder if we could get 'social Calvinism' to stick in people's minds as much as 'social Darwinism has done? www.edrith.co.uk/p/an-arminia...

Less than five hours left to rate 45 classic laws: 1. Acts of Parliament 2. Physical Laws 3. Sociological and other laws Can we get it to over 300 respondents? www.edrith.co.uk/p/a-question...

Less than five hours left to rate 45 classic laws: 1. Acts of Parliament 2. Physical Laws 3. Sociological and other laws Can we get it to over 300 respondents? www.edrith.co.uk/p/a-question...

This is a lot of fun - and I finally got to vote for the repeal of the ridiculous SEND laws

Imagine if Government gave hospitals a fixed sum for every MRI scan. No need for the scan to be necessary or if the patient benefited - just show you've done it and get the money. We would get a huge increase in unneccesary scans. Yet that's our university funding system.

Final call: Retain, Reform or Repeal? Join over 250 others in saying which of Britain's most iconic laws - plus some other 'laws'! - you would keep, or not. Which will be most popular? Which most divisive? Take the survey here: ⬇️ www.edrith.co.uk/p/a-question...

Final call: Retain, Reform or Repeal? Join over 250 others in saying which of Britain's most iconic laws - plus some other 'laws'! - you would keep, or not. Which will be most popular? Which most divisive? Take the survey here: ⬇️ www.edrith.co.uk/p/a-question...

NEW BLOGPOST: Keir Starmer and David Lammy are taking an extraordinarily dangerous gamble with our individual liberty For any MP unsure of how to vote on the government’s proposals to restrict trial by jury.

Thought-provoking piece on two options for how Labour could respond to the threat of the Greens. open.substack.com/pub/mbatangs...

First, AI kills the lawyers. Thoughtful, analytical and depressing piece from @archiehall.bsky.social. notes.archie-hall.com/p/britains-a...

Moving piece from @rmcunliffe.bsky.social. As someone who is often sceptical of the £200m cost of official inquiries, this was an important reminder to me that, whether or not that is the best way to do it, it is important that we do not forget those years. www.newstatesman.com/politics/hea...

"The scars of the Covid pandemic run deep, a rupture in the relationship hundreds of thousands of citizens have with the state that has never fully healed." Reflections on the final week of the Covid Inquiry - on what we have learned, and what we try to forget www.newstatesman.com/politics/hea...

Powerful and important intervention by Adam Tickell. As we see time and again, if abuse of a system is not effectively restrained, this endangers support for the system as a whole. Those who can't manage A-Levels should not be going to university at 18. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

I see BlueSkyers getting rattled this morning at the thought they may no longer be able to buy their child into the best state school in the area via house-price selection. How gauche to have an objective test that your kids aren't guaranteed to pass! inews.co.uk/news/politic...

If you could only visit one, would you choose to visit Narnia, Middle Earth or Dinotopia? Would your answer change if you had to choose one to live in for the rest of your life?

'It's as if we had a World Football Day and it was decided that the main thing everyone had to do on World Football Day was to write a poem about football.' Time to reshare the annual rant against World Book Day! www.edrith.co.uk/p/personal-o...

This week I wrote about night-time work, which time-use surveys suggest has been (slowly) falling out of favour in the US. as.ft.com/r/516c2024-c...

Welcome honesty from Adam Tickell. www.timeshighereducation.com/news/review-...

This is quite a chart. - 1995-2005 - *massive* house price growth. - Last 20 years - house prices broadly flat, in real terms. www.thetimes.com/article/9302...

Dressing up for world book day is bullshit, even leaving the parental finance stuff aside. It's one of very few 'event' days in school calenders set aside for a solo, quiet, activity – and then it's turned into dress-up. Spectacularly misses the point. Schools should drop it from a great height.

'It's as if we had a World Football Day and it was decided that the main thing everyone had to do on World Football Day was to write a poem about football.' Time to reshare the annual rant against World Book Day! www.edrith.co.uk/p/personal-o...

You know what could be fun? Reading all the Newbery award winning books. There are over 100 of them, but they're all kids' books, so some are pretty short

I love how Ipsos show the margin of error on their charts. Should be industry standard!

The Chancellor must end the self-inflicted wounds that are holding back the British economy. thecritic.co.uk/britains-eco...

Is gay marriage more popular than gravity? Should we repeal Murphy's Law? And was the Freedom of Information Act Tony Blair's 'greatest mistake'? Take the survey to share your thoughts. www.edrith.co.uk/p/a-question...

Is gay marriage more popular than gravity? Should we repeal Murphy's Law? And was the Freedom of Information Act Tony Blair's 'greatest mistake'? Take the survey to share your thoughts. www.edrith.co.uk/p/a-question...

The Greens have landed, Reform didn't do so badly - and Labour is no longer the automatic 'anti-Reform' party. Fourteen thoughts on the Gorton and Denton by-election. www.edrith.co.uk/p/14-thought...

Crowds in the Iranian town of Galleh Dar toppled a monument dedicated to the Islamic Republic's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, as flames rose from the roundabout and onlookers cheered. The death of Khamenei has exposed a deep fault line in a country: reut.rs/4r4GYYK

While by no means understating the Green's achievement, my #BGE2024 co-author, @robfordmancs.bsky.social, provides a really important reminder here (observer.co.uk/news/politic...) that, actually, Reform's performance shouldn't be dismissed either.

The Greens have landed, Reform didn't do so badly - and Labour is no longer the automatic 'anti-Reform' party. Fourteen thoughts on the Gorton and Denton by-election. www.edrith.co.uk/p/14-thought...

It is completely reasonable to worry about whether or not the strikes against Iran will work. Military intervention hardly has a flawless track record. What does shock me though is the number of people on the left who appear to be actively rooting for the Ayatollahs.

Bonus Post: 14 thoughts on the Gorton and Denton by-election. www.edrith.co.uk/p/14-thought...

"...it wouldn’t surprise me to see the Greens start to eat the Lib Dems lunch over the next year." re future by-elections.

Bonus Post: 14 thoughts on the Gorton and Denton by-election. www.edrith.co.uk/p/14-thought...

This is pretty remarkable given how controversial they both once were

Though my respondents are disturbingly in favour of Hitler comparisons: Link to take the survey below:⬇️

Banning smoking in indoor public places the most popular modern law so far - edging out same sex marriage by the slightest of margins. Both notable in having very strong support from left and right. Link to take the survey below:⬇️

The more I hear about inverse proportion, the less I like it.

Banning smoking in indoor public places the most popular modern law so far - edging out same sex marriage by the slightest of margins. Both notable in having very strong support from left and right. Link to take the survey below:⬇️

This is ironic, given the same could be said of Card's own series! I.e. that the bits he was clearly most interested in exploring were not the things that made most people (including me) like his first book so much! Though Ender books 2-4 are much better than Dune Messiah.