‘It’s a big loss’: what happens when a beautiful village loses its bus route? Mousehole in Cornwall once had a butcher, post office and general store. Now it doesn’t even have an ATM – and one of its crucial bus services has been cut. Can residents save this vital resource?

This illustrates two things . First, that the ‘85 Transport Act remains one of Thatcher’s most pernicious legacies, particularly when combined with austerity. The ‘85 Act allowed LAs to fund socially necessary services but they can’t do that without money www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

UK seeks EU deals on steel and EVs in push for closer economic ties Agreements would aim to shield British industry from new steel tariffs and stricter rules on electric vehicles due in 2027

Second album syndrome for this UK government with regard to EU ties - after last year's summit common understanding based on several years policy work, now there's a bunch of disparate issues that it would like to address but hasn't really conceptualised. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

England left with ‘toilet deserts’ as public facilities decline by 14% in a decade Report says lack of provision is harmful to health and damaging for high streets

Another visible indicator of the decline of the public realm. Public toilets are expensive to maintain and this is yet another consequence of successive governments squeezing local government finance. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

LOL.

Reports of a third attempted arson attack on Jewish targets in North London this week. It's getting really scary and more people need to start taking it seriously.

The China balance according to the FT Editorial Board. A slowly dawning realisation that its rise cannot be stopped or ignored, and thus the world will never be the same again. Far more significant in the long term than a mad US President. www.ft.com/content/d62f...

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://help.ft.com/faq/gifting-and-sharing-an-article/what-is-a-gift-article/. https://www.ft.com/content/034361bc-641b-4a73-a3d1-3ee76c4ed573?syn-25a6b1a6=1 One Labour official who knows Starmer well said that while McSweeney, a protégé of Mandelson’s, wanted to send him to Washington, Starmer was never that close to him. “Keir didn’t even really like Mandy, and suspended his judgment as he does so often,” the person said. “At that point, the machine took it [Mandelson’s appointment] as his intention and does what the British state does, which is bend the process to the signal it thinks is being broadcast from the principal.”

An all-time classic entry in the hall of fame 'does the person saying this realise how damning it is?' quotes:

Brexit. British Exit from the EU. But also stands in my mind for British Exceptionalism. That of being as a country so different to say France or Germany or any other that we couldn't really be happy members of a bloc.

Which was always nonsense.

Other big clubs have been relegated over the years, including Newcastle, Leeds and West Ham. Yet Spurs dropping out of the Premier League would be "unprecedented", said Omar Chaudhuri at sports data consultancy Twenty First Group, and could even cool investor interest in buying teams in England's top division.

Cool investor interest? That will never do. Need to do away with the vagaries of sporting performance and deliver some reliable funding streams 👍

Tourists to Japan Are Tossing Coins into These Ponds. That's a No-No - Unseen Japan Officials are worried about the environmental impact after tourists dumped 18,000 coins into the ponds in 2025, despite clearly posted signs.

Tourists tossing coins into UNESCO World Heritage ponds at Japan's Oshino Hakkai jumped from 4,400 recovered coins in 2024 to 18,000 in 2025. The coins corrode and leach metals, harming the delicate ecosystem.

buff.ly/tGLavU9

The image you provided is Upward (also known by its German title, Empor), a landmark oil painting on cardboard created by Wassily Kandinsky in October 1929

The image you provided is Upward (also known by its German title, Empor), a landmark oil painting on cardboard by Wassily Kandinsky, painted in October 1929.

Many of us lost loved ones to Covid and many of us struggled with the virus when we caught it.

People claiming it was a "staged event" are dangerous conspiracy theorists who don't care at all about the victims of that terrible event. The idea they're standing as representatives is horrific.

From the new Private Eye

This isn't a parody account

Deltic Locomotive D9018 (55018) “Ballymoss” heads south past Doncaster South signal box towards Bridge Jn.

Doncaster, 1966

Deltic D9018 (55018) “Ballymoss” heads south past Doncaster South signal box towards Bridge Jn. A Sheffield bound DMU departs the downside as 37 takes rest. The Corporation power station chimneys dominate the skyline.

#Doncaster #Yorkshire

📷 R Lush

Good explanation from @stellacreasy.bsky.social of my analysis of the government/MAC's own data on the fiscal impacts of recent immigration, as featured in today's Guardian.

Yes London is expensive but tomorrow you can watch a one-day cricket match at the Oval and see the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican and it will cost you a grand total of less than than £30.

Probably his best pieve

The painting is called Cardón, State of Oaxaca (1887), by the renowned Mexican landscape artist José María Velasco. It is a vertical oil on canvas that holds an important place in Mexican art history.

The painting is titled 'Cardón, State of Oaxaca' (1887) and was created by the renowned Mexican landscape artist José María Velasco. It is a vertical oil on canvas that holds a significant place in Mexican art history.

York Minster #York #Minster #yorkshire #England #travel #bnw #mono #photography

Cows are not cuddly animals and you risk serious injury if you treat them as if they are. Not only are they very heavy, but they also move much faster than many people realise.

Gout Gout, 18, breaks Usain Bolt's under-18 200m record with 19.67 seconds - Australian sprinter from Brisbane is the new fastest teen on Earth

Hexham Abbey, looking from the north transept towards the south transept and the night stairs.

Earned settlement: retrospective change is wrong but prospective change is even worse - Free Movement Applying the new earned settlement rules retrospectively to migrants already here is wrong. People came to the UK under a specific set of rules and made

"The harm to integration, to the social fabric, to children’s futures and to workers’ rights will be immense."

@colinyeo.bsky.social on the government's "earned settlement" proposals.

freemovement.org.uk/earned-settl...

Sounds awfully like he’s threatening a nuclear strike. That’s really going to help the Iranian people as well as opening the Gates of Hell for everyone else.

Canadian Pacific departing Alton back in February

The future of global trade won’t depend on the Strait of Hormuz A new infrastructure is being built rapidly to avoid the strategic chokepoint and ensure global energy and food security

Fascinating, and why the world of supply chains is here to stay - they are simply more adaptable and reliable than the alternatives for the range of goods and services modern economies demand. www.ft.com/content/2c89...

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
House in the Garden, 1908.
Oil on canvas. #Cubism

Black topped tomb in Durham Cathedral’s Galilee Chapel - the internment of the Venerable Bede

The tomb of the Venerable Bede in Durham Cathedral

A black, gleaming slab

#TombTuesday

MK is th obvious candidate that even local cabbies agreed with when I worked at the OU