Lucy Bailey

I too regret some of the stupid things I said when I was younger: such as that we had nothing to worry about, the British people would never vote to leave the EU.

The ‘shocking’ water crisis in parts of South East England Prime Minister Keir Starmer has criticised what he called a "shocking" water crisis in the South East of England, where parts of Kent and East Sussex have been without water supplies for five days.

The ‘shocking’ water crisis in parts of South East England
www.channel4.com/news/the-sho...

Water companies have borrowed over £10bn in ‘green’ bonds The water industry issued a third of UK corporate bonds this year, according to a new Unearthed analysis - but the sewage crisis continues

Water companies have borrowed over £10bn in 'green' bonds - and keep borrowing more.

We analysed Bloomberg data & found that the industry issued a third of the UK corporate green bonds so far this year.

And still the sewage crisis goes on.

unearthed.greenpeace.org/2025/11/30/w...

AI Is Hollowing Out Higher Education Olivia Guest & Iris van Rooij urge teachers and scholars to reject tools that commodify learning, deskill students, and promote illiteracy.

“Ultimately, the collective strategy of AI companies threatens to deskill precisely those people who are essential for society to function(…) automation of knowledge and culture by private companies is a worrying prospect – conjuring dystopian and outright fascistic scenarios.” — @olivia.science

Equatorial Atlantic mid-depth warming indicates Atlantic meridional overturning circulation slowdown - Communications Earth & Environment Mid-depth warming in the equatorial Atlantic Ocean serves as a fingerprint of a slowdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation on decadal scales, according to ocean model experiments, and...

A sub-field of science looks at whether the Atlantic ocean circulation #AMOC has weakened. Direct measurements suggest yes but only started in 2004. So people look at temperature and salinity data.
A new study finds a robust slowdown fingerprint at 1000–2000 m depth.
www.nature.com/articles/s43...

70% of the additional spending from removing the two-child limit will go to families who are in work. This is targeting support for low-income working households who are being priced out of a decent standard of living despite doing everything asked of them.

Removing the two-child limit accounts for less than 1 per cent of social security bill. To remove 450,000 children out of poverty, that's pretty good return on investment.

We still need to get from a situation where Russia pretends to negotiate to a situation where they need to negotiate.

Extract from my press remarks following today’s informal Foreign Affairs Council ↓

Trump EPA to abandon air pollution rule that would prevent thousands of U.S. deaths The Environmental Protection Agency will no longer defend Biden-era limits on fine-particle pollution, which causes heart and lung disease.

Trump EPA to abandon air pollution rule that would prevent thousands of U.S. deaths www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

Hoo boy, another fictitious "EV market slows" headline from the Times

*EU EV sales are up 25.6% in 2025*

Receipts in thread.

In case you missed this it, we published our in-depth summary of COP30 yesterday

Comic: Typical Geologic core sample. [Cylindrical core sample with labels for difference sections from top to bottom] Topsoil, till, granite bedrock, bottomsoil, roof of subway car, floor of subway car, more granite, municipal water main [gouge in core sample], slightly different granite, piece of screaming spelunker’s forearm, cool crystals with no resale value, mangled fragments of drillbit from previous attempt, some boring intrusive rock that’s basically granite but has a name like “diorite” or “Andalite” that you always have to look up, netherrack, Balrog wing. [break between next chunk of core sample] Granite, topsoil, cement, floorboards, carpet, possessions of a confused and angry homeowner in the other hemisphere.

Geologic Core Sample

xkcd.com/3171/

I really wish we'd stop calling them climate "skeptics" or "vaccine skeptics", if you jump off a cliff we don't call you a "gravity skeptic"

Opinion | How the Elite Behave When No One Is Watching: Inside the Epstein Emails

Well-written essay from Anand Giridharadas, showing how power and influence corrupt completely, regardless of party or affiliation.

Gift article below:
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/23/o...

Insurers retreat from AI cover as risk of multibillion-dollar claims mounts AIG, Great American and WR Berkley seek permission to limit liability from AI agents and chatbots

Insurers AIG, Great American, and WR Berkley seek permission to limit liability from AI agents and chatbots and to retreat from coverage of AI risk as multibillion-dollar claims mount

www.ft.com/content/abfe...

Inside the Battle to Preserve ‘Black Wall Street’ Establishing the Tulsa neighborhood as a protected landmark would honor a community that was lost to a racist massacre, advocates say.

Viola Fletcher, the oldest survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre, has passed away. She was 111. In recent years, her and other survivors have advocated for making the site a protected landmark to honor the community.

https://capitalbnews.org/black-wall-street-national-monument/

Britain is one of the world’s richest countries. So why do a third of its children live in poverty? | CNN Child poverty has reached a record high in the United Kingdom as the country’s cost of living soars and its social security safety net falters following years of government austerity.

edition.cnn.com/2025/11/24/u...

Jimmy Cliff, Jamaican reggae singer, actor and cultural icon, dies aged 81 Star of The Harder They Come had hits including You Can Get It If You Really Want and I Can See Clearly Now

Jimmy Cliff, Jamaican reggae singer, actor and cultural icon, dies aged 81

Chef Skye Gyngell, who pioneered the slow food movement, dies aged 62 Tributes paid to ‘culinary visionary’ who was early celebrity proponent of using local and seasonal ingredients Tributes have been paid to the pioneering chef and restaurant proprietor Skye Gyngell, who has died aged 62. The Australian was an early celebrity proponent of using local and seasonal ingredients and built a garden restaurant from scratch, the Petersham Nurseries Cafe in Richmond, south-west London, which went on to win a Michelin star. Continue reading...

Chef Skye Gyngell, who pioneered the slow food movement, dies aged 62

As expected, overnight, they dropped fossil fuels from the drafts AGAIN.

You can't make this discussion happen last minute during COP30 just to look good (or in hopes that it will lead to a map that lets developing country oil producers drill for longer).

You have to want to focus on it!

@adelesulcas.bsky.social Hi Adele I am trying to contact you to ask you on the programme today to talk about UPFs - I'm a producer on BBC World Service radio's Newshour. Can you email me at lucy.bailey@bbc.co.uk?

CIA concludes Saudi crown prince ordered Jamal Khashoggi’s assassination Audio recordings, intercepted phone calls and other intelligence link Mohammed bin Salman to killing that Saudis say was conducted by rogue elements.

A reminder that seven years ago almost to the day, the CIA determined that Mohammed Bin Salman ordered the killing of @washingtonpost.com journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

I hired and worked with Jamal for a year.

www.washingtonpost.com/world/nation...

Doctors dance at COP30 to demand a fossil fuel phase-out A group of Canadian doctors danced to hip-hop at the U.N. climate talks in Brazil, calling for a global phase-out of fossil fuels.

Doctors dancing with giant lungs at #COP30.

What more do you need?

Of course, there is a point: the Amazon, the very lungs of the world, hang in the balance as negotiators discuss the future of climate and health.

@cape-acme.bsky.social

apnews.com/video/doctor...

New Slovenian law treats entire Romany minority ‘as a security threat’ Parliament approves law giving police powers to raid and surveil homes in what are demarcated as security risk areas

New Slovenian law treats entire Romany minority ‘as a security threat’

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

Oracle’s astonishing $300bn OpenAI deal is now valued at minus $74bn [FREE TO READ] And suddenly, there may be a reverse Midas at the centre of AI’s circular economy

Big oof.

on.ft.com/4peYLvP

The British library is in crisis: why does nobody care? The widespread indifference to the British Library's crippling cyberattack demonstrates a perilous failure to value the knowledge infrastructure vital for national prosperity

I’ve written a piece on the curious lack of media and political interest in the issues faced by our national @britishlibrary.bsky.social. This is strange given we live in a world where ideas, knowledge and research are a long-term source of innovation and insight
www.cityam.com/the-british-...

Trump slashed spending on clinical trials. The toll is starting to become clear. Grants for 383 clinical trials were terminated and the funding disruptions affected more than 74,000 trial participants, according to new research.

The Trump regime’s cuts to NIH grants disrupted more than 380 clinical trials, affecting over 74,000 participants. The cuts disproportionately impacted trials on infectious diseases and minority communities.

E.P.A. Rule Would Drastically Curb Protections for Wetlands

In a win for polluters, the Trump regime proposed a rule to limit the EPA’s authority to regulate pollution in wetlands and waterways. This would strip federal protections from 55 million acres of wetlands (85% of all wetlands nationwide!), threatening lots of people's drinking water.

Human rights are universal - if we start stripping away basic human rights from any section of society then none of us has rights – just privileges that can be taken away by people in power whenever they want