Jim Pickard

"Round-the-clock misery and self-recrimination combined with coyness about the biggest thing that Britain has done this century: that is modern Conservatism to a dishonest tee."

Farage’s firestarter politics A year after riots swept Britain, Reform’s leader and his supporters are warning of future unrest unless their policies are followed. The message is a threat wrapped in respectability

“Farage, Anderson, Goodwin and Pearson frame their interventions as warnings – do what we say to prevent this deplorable violence.

“That is certainly how they would choose to frame it. But the more you read and the more you hear of what they say, it sounds instead like a threat.”

Scenes from England

Fibonacci

symmetry

YouTube video by JacobAlonVEVO Jacob Alon - Fairy in a Bottle (Live)

had the joy of seeing this guy perform at the weekend, a really special talent

m.youtube.com/watch?v=CzpL...

Not for the first time I am begging angry people to put the phone down, walk through actual streets, go to actual pubs, stand on the touch line at local sports clubs, browse Saturday markets, chat with ramblers on footpaths and rediscover beauty & contentedness.

psychedelic chat, sounds awesome?

in case anyone is going to Latitude Festival I’ll be on stage Sunday lunchtime 💬💬💬

Imagine going into journalism to argue that not enough civilians have been killed in a war crime.

Westminster Bridge

he’s going to struggle to shake this off

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch says she is Britain’s chainsaw-wielding Javier Milei In an FT interview, the UK opposition leader says voters want an Argentina-style assault on state spending

is this meant to be….good?

www.ft.com/content/7108...

This bit killed me

Kemi Badenoch isn’t working The Tory leader was supposed to save her party. What went wrong?

“She is “fragile” and “frightened”. At PMQs Badenoch’s hands shake as she reads her lines from a piece of paper. Her backbenchers notice. On television, when she rouses herself to appear in the studios, Badenoch blinks…This is not someone enjoying the job.”

www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

Whitehall

I'm not convinced Allison has ever met the British Army. The officers are generally somewhere on the political spectrum between James Cleverly and Dan Jarvis. It would end up being the first ever centrist coup*.

The evolution of Marco Rubio Once an advocate of US soft power, the secretary of state has embraced Maga values from isolationism to impatience with foreign aid

Marco Rubio was horrified by Trump’s presidential run in 2015, calling him a “con artist” who had “spent a career sticking it to working Americans”.

It was after Trump’s surprise victory in 2016 that Rubio’s views began to change.

www.ft.com/content/d615...

Here’s a real one. It’s splendid. bsky.app/profile/papa...

The Telegraph is now having to publish so many corrections to articles where it attempts to find *any angle whatsoever* to attack net-zero polices that it makes sense to start tracking them here.

These are the ones published since Labour won the election.

"We are happy to correct the record."

Whitehall

General Pinochet has entered the chat:

When you’ve lost the daily express

Ex-union boss Len McCluskey took private jet flights arranged by building firm, report finds The ex-Unite chief enjoyed flights arranged by the firm building a controversial hotel, report seen by BBC says.

nothing's too good for the workers....

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The billionaire and the tax evading gift shops Asif Aziz's Criterion Capital manages a row of high-profile shops at Piccadilly Circus. So why does his team keeping renting them to students who vanish without paying millions of pounds in taxes?

He's one of Britain's richest men. So why does Asif Aziz's property company keep leasing London gift shops to overseas students based in abandoned offices or flytipped car parks — before vanishing without paying millions of pounds in taxes? www.londoncentric.media/p/asf-aziz-l...

Cost of Sizewell C nuclear project expected to reach close to £40bn Final price tag for building new power plant is likely to be double 2020 estimate

the government and Sizewell denied our scoop about the project hitting nearly £40bn in January - today it's finally confirmed

www.ft.com/content/0b48...

and yet he’s always cited as evidence of the “tragedy” of rich people leaving the uk

Cohere’s Frosst warned that even the term hallucination was misleading. “It sounds too much like [the model] working the way a human brain works, and it does not,” he said. “It works in a completely different way.”

The appropriate technical term is bullshit

How will regulatory overhaul affect water industry in England and Wales? Cunliffe calls for abolition of regulator Ofwat but steers clear of proposing nationalisation of the embattled sector

our explanation of the Cunliffe water review - and whether it will resolve the problems in Britain’s water industry

with @bondhack.ft.com

www.ft.com/content/f721...