Euan Healey

It's a structural problem. They're a racist and misogynistic party, trying to pretend they aren't, but not successfully enough to dissuade the nation's bigots from putting themselves forward for selection. It's a problem no amount of vetting will solve: can't vet against your own platform!

Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin faced GB News complaint over colleague’s claim of ‘inappropriate comments’ Exclusive: Nigel Farage understood to have known of grievance against byelection candidate, whose lawyer described it as resolved ‘minor workplace matter’ of miscommunication

One underemphasised Reform problem is that its candidate problems are its ceiling. The party is unwilling or unable to do anything about it. It will become even more clearly problematic after May when two wholly new blocs of 20+ MS/Ps try and survive the tidal wave of bad news stories like this one.

Week in wildlife: a peek-a-boo fish, dunkin’ frogs and a white crow This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

One of the most terrifying otter jumpscares you'll ever see

What, like Britain has been since his tenure as Chancellor?

I once persuaded a betting company to advertise odds on my branch chair's chances at the party leadership to everyone on the app

Ffs aidan

as you say, and Obama presided over a broad-based liberal consensus on trans rights which has since been torn up by active campaigning. If you think the world is getting woker (even though it isn't), you think everyone from the past must be conservative on this issue.

Very particular view expressed here on the role of wealthy 'risk-taking' in the economy. Does not make a convincing argument which can dissuade against doing a wealth tax (and be more aggressive about loopholes) to give political cover for a modest raise in broad-based taxes.

The Hundred: IPL-linked teams 'not considering Pakistan players' Four sides in The Hundred with links to the IPL are not expected to sign players from Pakistan in next month's auction.

ECB anti-racism reforms going well, I see

"Sir Keir Starmer of Britain" he's not a fucking knight of the round table

The ever-important priestly responsibility for making sure it looks like a cross and not just a smudge comes under scrutiny once gain

Everything I read about these books is mental. This is absolutely one of the most impressive

Destruction of Stocking Frames, etc. Act 1812 (52 Geo. 3) made it an offence punishable by death or transportation to destroy new textile manufacturing machinery. Destruction of Data Centres, etc. Act 20??, anyone?

Mill-owner William Horsfall was shot and killed in April 1812 by his own workers because he installed the tech that industrialised wool cloth production. It took over 12,000 troops and mass executions to put down the Luddites.

"How might workers respond?" has a bit of a FAFO potential for AI bros!

Big problem with the BBC is its sheer credulity and lack of intellectual curiosity about stuff. It feels like it has lost the will to interrogate (with rare exceptions)

I note Cambridge Core have a metric of 'no. PDF view' and I suppose this site design makes the line go up

Appreciate there is probably a profit driven explanation here - do they charge libraries by the file download? Or perhaps more simply it would have cost them more to build a better software, so they just use the same system they would use for an edited collection or journal.

Niche academic complaint: it absolutely infuriates me that the Cambridge Core repository only allows you to download individual chapters as PDFs and not whole books. Having to download 29 individual files instead of one to read or index search a book is just shoddy design!

The worst thing about being arrested on your birthday is it rules out the possibility of getting a cake with a file in it for another 364 days.

Trump tells Starmer handing Chagos Islands to Mauritius is a ‘big mistake’ US president had recently said that the plan was the best deal Starmer could make

At a certain point it just isn't worth printing what he says. He's both senile *and* he has no idea what he's talking when the mic is near him. Unless he can string together these quotes and sign an executive order in one sitting, it just doesn't matter.

Watching Canada v Czechia in the Winter Olympics men's QF. The Olympics is always great for Hockey because it allows players from smaller teams to showcase their talent. For example Czechia's Filip Hronek plays for a very poor team called the "Vancouver Canucks"

Adam Fleming on his BBC podcast yesterday was talking about how votes at 16 used to be great for labour but would now be very polarised because the men are going right and the women, left, and you sort of just want to bang your head against a wall.

Someone I know recently go scammed very badly in a way related to this, and got every penny back from the bank because they didn't do enough safeguarding checks. Aggressive regulation just works! (Though seemingly the actual scammers are not feeling the same pinch the bank are...)

Locking myself out of my office on Ash Wednesday so having to meekly go to the security office so they can stare slightly confusedly at my forehead

Yup, and being a PGR in that context looking at where the sector will be in 2 years (and paying attention to the prevailing wind of elections) feels a lot like trying to swim after a lifeboat being rowed away from you!

You know how you struggle to get a GP appointment now? Well you're going to love what happens when we make GPs fill in DWP paperwork!

"But who would you, a low information voter, rank 4th?"

The pollsters yearn for the Single Transferable Vote

I got really into the idea of English parliamentS circa 2019 and I have to say I have no regrets. Bring back regional parliament discourse!!