Reform have held on to 7 out of 15 (47%) of the seats it has been defending since the 2025 Local Elections.
Retention Rates for Other Parties:
LDM: 35/44 (80%)
GRN: 8/15 (53%)
CON: 16/51 (31%)
LAB: 16/70 (23%)
Localist Groups: 1/11 (9%)
electionmaps.uk/council-by-e...
I am planning on appointing someone who has publicly resigned twice in scandal. They resign a third time in even bigger scandal. The fallout should, however, not include me, the person who made the big call in the first place.
Totally untenable.
I'm going to take the rare step of contradicting Ivan Rogers on UK-EU relations. Because relations with the UK per se might not be in the top issues Brussels faces, but they feature in an awful lot of those. Coupled with renewed London thinking means some genuine possibilities.
The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they're the ones who are alone. In Minnesota, all of the ideological cornerstones of MAGA have been proved false at once. Minnesotans, not the armed thugs of ICE and the Border Patrol, are brave. Minnesotans have shown that their community is socially cohesive-because of its diversity and not in spite of it. Minnesotans have found and loved one another in a world atomized by social media, where empty men have tried to fill their lonely soul with lies about their own inherent superiority. Minnesotans have preserved everything worthwhile about "Western civilization," while armed brutes try to tear it down by force.
Really powerful, hopeful paragraph from the latest article in the Atlantic by @adamserwer.bsky.social
Exactly one year ago today:
Economists: If only people understood carbon taxes better, maybe they would like them more
Reminds me of the period in climate science where we thought education about the science would change the politics of the problem.
www.nber.org/papers/w3507...
in addition to this (which i agree with), something that should put some wind in your sails is that orbán actually *was* the competent competitive authoritarian (relatively) everyone worries about, he had a stronger grip on power than i think trump ever has, and he had it for far longer
christ, not to relitigate It a decade on but it's hard to watch people happily waving Hungarian flags and EU flags at the same time and not think "oh right, almost like it's not that fucking hard to realise that you can have and cherish multiple, complimentary identities"
The end of Orban has been greeted with chants of "Russia go home". It is an irony that this was the sentiment which launched Orban into politics in June 1989, speaking at the reburial of Imre Nagy, the Hungarian Prime Minister of 1956, executed in 1958
theorangefiles.hu/2013/06/20/f...
I’m gonna get a lot of shit but a counter blockade is probably what every classic naval strategy book tells you to do in this this situation. It’s probably what Mahon and Corbett would shake hands on.
Actually agree with this assessment. The counter-blockade makes sense in terms of undermining Iranian strategy of monetizing the strait & allowing them to claim they are the only ones with control over it. And it puts pressure on other countries (such as China) to get involved in finding a solution
interesting read on the track record of the Greens in office as.ft.com/r/ae3bcbc8-f...
I did wonder about spelling this dubaious word ‘Dubai-ety’ 👍😂
Ah I was utilising the thought-to-be-wrong by some brute forcing technique but I did vaguely know the word (I always think slightly synonymous with bounce/cannon)…
…but it’s hellish obscure. It’s the sort you pick up from the Times Jumbo cryptic 😏
Wordle 1,756 4/6
⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨
🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I was definitely channeling Radio 4!
Well, I mean, where do you even start…? 🤔😏😂
We were promised a country like that by the architects of devolution in 1999. But for the last 20 years, the SNP have created a welfare economy which punishes aspiration and success. They have presided over an NHS that 93% of Scots think needs major reform. They have traduced our revered education system from outstanding to average. There are chronic shortages of affordable housing such that councils across the country are declaring housing emergencies. They have allowed strangers to be prioritised ahead of Scots, welcoming uncontrolled immigration from the rest of the UK. And they have supported Net Zero resulting in our energy prices being seven times those of China and four times those of the US, deindustrialising our country that once hummed to the sound of machinery, the once beating heart of the Industrial Revolution
Scotland's Reform manifesto is opposed to the SNP government in Scotland "welcoming uncontrolled immigration from the rest of the UK".
www.reformparty.uk/view-pdf/sco...
‘Dubiety’.
Noun.
The state of not being convinced that Dubai is a good place to go on holiday. Or visit for any reason frankly.
(Even if it isn’t embroiled in a Trump geopolitical clusterfuck.)
TRUMP: “Do everything I ask or I’ll bomb you back into the Stone Age!”
IRAN: “How about, instead, you do everything we ask and we’ll call it a day?”
TRUMP: “Deal.”
FOX NEWS: “Awesome Trump is the world’s most masterful negotiator!”
Nobody assumes the CEO of Toyota must be some sort of brilliant engineer, but we have for some reason developed this collective notion that being a successful tech CEO must make you a tech genius.
Impossible to disagree with a single word that Ben Rhodes (Obama era NSC official) is saying here:
‘Dubiety’.
Noun.
The state of not being convinced that Dubai is a good place to go on holiday. Or visit for any reason frankly.
(Even if it isn’t embroiled in a Trump geopolitical clusterfuck.)
BREAKING: New York Times is reporting that experts are dubious about the legitimacy of the FIFA peace prize.
(I’ve shared but FYI for anyone landing here via that: England only - but still interesting for anyone in other parts of the UK bc it may drive parallel direction given England’s critical mass)
Details of this are now out: Looks like Government has learned lessons from the rather slack transitional arrangements for the previous (2013) building standards - *individual dwellings* will have to have started before March 2028 to be allowed to use the old regs this time, not whole sites.
So, about those Eid prayers in London...
"What's the highest thing in Trafalgar Square?"
"Nelson's column, innit?"
"And the highest thing on the column?"
"Nelson."
"And on Nelson?"
"His hat."
"And the highest thing on his hat?"
"That bit that sticks up."
1/8
Very wise 👍
Why not both?!
Sorry what now?! The main objective of the war that closed the (geopolitically crucial) strait is reopening the strait…? 🤔🙄
Having failed to secure the Snickers or M&Ms that were my original objectives, sources tell the Washington Post I will now be refocusing all energy on extracating my hand from where it is stuck inside the vending machine and restoring said machine to the working order it was in prior to my arrival.