He said:
"I am sure the House will be as concerned as I am that while officials felt unable to provide this information to Ministers, it was made available to The Guardian. As a consequence, I can confirm that a leak inquiry is now under way."
2/3
Scenes
These are a really good set of reforms - and carries on the Govts outstanding record on clean power - and will get virtual no coversge because of everything else.
Ffs
Yes and surely that is what the Labour govt have been trying to do, their aim being to stop the next 5% moving to Reform.
He said: "By shifting the vast majority of university funding into the hands of the aggregate decisions of 17-year-olds, the English system of choice has become an enormous machine for finding out who has the best marketing department, with some world-leading research sprinkled in certain places."
Quite the quote from the John Blake, the former director of fair access at the Office for Students
www.thetimes.com/article/1cb6...
Crikey! (Strong language, I know, but justified...)
The BBC are back to running a live feed on the old Starmer / Mandelson story.
Where's their live feed on whether Refukker Tice can survive his latest tax 'issue'?
🤔
Press cutting Lancashire Telegraph, 20 April 2008: Shepherd's pie recipe rumpus. Subhead: Petrol bomb threat in tomato topping row. By ANDREW BELLARD A dispute over the contents of a shepherd's pie proved to be a recipe for brotherly disharmony. Blackburn magistrates heard that John Garvin thought that the pie his brother Michael made should have been topped with tomatoes but Michael disagreed. The upshot was that John, who was hit over the head with a shovel, reacted by threatening to petrol bomb his brother's flat. And he ended up spending a night in custody to allow tempers to cool. John Garvin, 47, of Montague Street, admitted a breach of the peace and was bound over in £100 to keep the peace for 12 months. Catherine Allan, prosecuting, said the brothers lived in separate flats next to each other. On the day of the culinary dispute they had been drinking together since 7am. "The argument started because there were no tomatoes on the shepherds pie that Michael made for tea and John thought this was wrong," said Miss Allan. John called his brother an offensive name and then said he was going to petrol bomb his flat. "Michael was concerned by this threat because on a previous occasion John had started a fire in his own flat," said Miss Allan. Liz Parker, defending, said her client did not accept making a remark about petrol bombing his brother's flat. "He does say that his brother hit him over the head with a shovel and it is very clear there was a lot of trouble over nothing," she added. (The article has a pullout quote which says “It is very clear there was a lot of trouble over nothing” - LIZ PARKER in large letters) District Judge Peter Ward, who imposed the bind over, asked in court: "You can make shepherd's pie without tomatoes can't you?" But 'legal' opinion at Blackburn magistrates, where the issue became quite a talking point, was divided. A female defence solicitor said it should be made with lamb and topped with sliced tomatoes and that a pie made with b…
And lo, it came to pass that the 18th anniversary of the greatest local news story ever told came upon us, and we were sore amazed
A very good speech. Direct communication done well, though he does have the advantage of aiming at a great big orange target in the shape of Donald Trump. Speaking from the UK I say - Labour MPs take a look at this.
“They wanted to close up the strait again…as they've been doing for years,” Trump said Saturday. Of course Iran hasn't been closing the Strait of Hormuz "for years." Quite the contrary. The Strait is closed because of Trump's war. It's an indictment of his policy, and so he lies about the history.
When Angela Rayner underpaid £40,000 in stamp duty, Richard Tice said it was "morally completely indefensible” and she should resign if she had “any moral decency”.
Now we learn he set up four shell companies that let him avoid paying £100,000 he owed in tax and to then transfer the cash to Reform
I'm shocked, *shocked*, that once again the Greens are opposing renewables
How could any government ever run a vetting procedure ever again if the people who take part in it know that very personal information will end up being FOI-ed?
Farage thugs manhandle man with pacemaker after he objects to the Reform leader's chauffeur parking in disabled bay that he needs to use.
Lovely People.
www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...
Very good article
The average American spends about $290 to file. They also spend about 13 hours, often giving the government information it already has, which works out to another $486 worth of time assuming the average BLS hourly wage. The Trump administration says that Direct File was too expensive. Compared to what? Direct File cost IRS $16 million in its final year of operation. Between 2021-2025 Intuit also got almost $500 million dollars in federal tax credits.
Trump said Direct File was too expensive to operate. This feels like an indictment of our willingness to build things.
Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, had *more lobbyists* than the Direct File team had employees. The cost of Direct File is a fraction of the tax breaks given to Intuit.
As a very basic ratio- A Sky multi channel subscription (no sport) was £6.99 a month in September 1993 and a pint in a pub was about £1.50.
Today Netflix with ads (a much better product than 1993 Sky TV) is £5.99 a month and the average cost of a pint is around £5.
Labour MP gets dragged publicly by a pub landlady for having the audacity to go into her pub, order food and spend money. Honestly no wonder decent people don’t want to go into public life. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...
Thinking out loud: is there a Baumol/differential price changes aspect to rising social atomisation?
In that: the relative price of, say, going to the pub vs spending time online/playing computer games/accessing streamed media has changed quite a lot over the last 2-3 decades?
Exactly . The Greens have the ability to help Reform remove hundreds of Labour MPs, whilst not winning many seats themselves
Adoration of the Mystic Lamb first with the audio guide as John Rowan says. If it's a Saturday then the house where the French King (Louis 18?) stayed may be open.
The Telegraph just gave a convicted criminal a two-page spread to explain why he's pumping £4 million into Reform UK. They tucked his criminal record away in the small print. So as a former financial crime specialist I’ll do their job for them👇
Really not sure about this. On one level 'it is of course true that Brexit polarised Britain' but the suggestion appears to be 'No Brexit (referendum) = no polarisation'.
But if that were true, how does one account for other countries becoming similarly polarised at pretty much the same time?
Very interesting article by @willdunn.bsky.social . Fascinating idea that LLMs already being trained to put over Trumpist talking points.
Yep - ironically, a Green vote in 2029 in most English constituencies is likely to deliver a Reform MP who will then vote in Parliament to enable a Reform-led UK government to tear up the green energy transition just as non-carbon supply is embedding itself across the economy.
The real headline: crypto crook (who pleaded guilty to breaking US money laundering rules) plans to try and buy UK politics www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/202...
Oh, fuck off you total twat.
Just wanted to remind folks, especially the GOP and the FDD, that Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal didn’t give Iran control of the Strait of Hormuz or allow it to keep 60% enriched uranium. It sent $1.7 billion to Iran versus the tens of billions Iran will now make from tolls. 🤷🏽♂️
This is fairly unimportant but I think starmer played a bad hand decently re: the war. In reality I don't think he'd have been able to completely deny them giving the circumstances
As the world continues down this volatile path, our long-term national interest requires closer partnership with our allies in Europe PRIME MINISTER KEIR STARMER
Labour are guided by the interests of Britain & the British people.
Labour are clear: those interests require close partnership with our allies.
👏 👏
#Labour #KeirStarmer
Hello again, finished work so can pick up our conversation if you like.
You seem to not be aware that a transman - Elis Lundhom - competed in the winter Olympics this year in the female category. She (though you might use he) competed in the category for her sex. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elis_Lu...