Jennifer Williams

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There’s a place I came across over the summer but it was in Cumbria, I’m not sure about Manchester. Nothing is getting chucked yet, it’s an initial sifting process. There are a lot of

This isn’t helping my attempts to be brutal

Goddamit

Thats what they’re called. Demijohns. Couldn’t remember the word

Or are these also going to turn out to be modern classics i’ve overlooked

What about these. Are we all ok if I get rid of these?

Ok ok everyone is saying this is great, I’ll take it back out of the charity shop bag

And… guess you had to be there

That’s more like it

Maths entertainment (first printed 1917)

Think it was because the product was undrinkable. iirc once it had been sampled the rest was abandoned

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Today’s task is to go through many dusty books I scooped up when clearing out my parents’ house, from a high shelf on the landing. Retro. I remember the winemaking phase, but only because the “wine” remained in the airing cupboard gathering dust through the 90s

Final thought is that I think there will be a strong desire at national level - for obvious national electoral reasons - that Reform councils dont appear financially wild. So despite council tax/DOGE promises, needing to balance the books in a sober way has to ultimately win out.

I don’t think Durham is the worst of them tbh. I reckon they can probably get through this ok for the timebeing with a bit of help from council tax, especially if fair funding goes as currently expected

Right exactly. And I’m some way off predicting that whacking up council tax in the places they’ve already won will stop them winning Sunderland.

There’s little to nothing to cut in most places. You can move some deckchairs about. in Durham, there’s a potential move to cut council tax relief. Many other places did this years ago (and blamed the tories) - but obviously Reform’s May election platform was what it was.

Certainly there’s a lot of that yes. When I went to the last Lancs cabinet meeting (ex Tories) it seemed relatively indistinguishable from any other, apart from flag talk

In practice therefore a lot of these councils are *heavily* reliant on the officers the national party began by slagging off in May - although the picture varies. Some political administrations are more experienced than others.

We’re into budget setting now. Durham, for example, has asked officers to model on the basis of no CT rises. (NB we don’t know how fair funding flushes out yet.) but it will also be up to officers to say: this is or isn’t doable without eg closing things or taking reserves down to a dangerous low

Ha see what I was just about to add to the thread

Do Reform suffer electorally as a result? Honestly? Dunno. Will be interesting to see what gets promised next year though, with so many councils on all outs

The party obviously went into the locals in many areas promising the opposite: waste slashing will solve this (and in some cases an explicit promise to cut CT).

For obvious news reasons - Burnham, terrorism - I’ve not written about the reform councils elsewhere for a few weeks. But the general vibe is “we can’t rule out CT rises”.

The narrative, ie blame govt, is therefore already being established.

It’s true (central govt £ DOES dictate this), but 1/

The Manchester tragedy and antisemitism in Britain Synagogue attack comes amid a sharp rise in anti-Jewish prejudice

FT Editorial - The Manchester tragedy and antisemitism in Britain www.ft.com/content/7353...

TPE is much better than it was and yes LNER is a good whole different experience to Avanti

I’ve taken a new approach to the west coast mainline this year, which has been: don’t go to London. It’s served me well so far. But probably knowledge economy something something

Don’t get me started on standard premium

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