Andrew Garner

Brook obviously had to keep up the aggression! The moment the England batters went into their shells, the field came up and run scoring became incredibly difficult.

I need to know about a feature length Teen Titans Go! That’s really worth getting excited about.

Specifically the RFC mods of Civ IV

I mean given that human life expectancy was around 40 years for the first few million years, it would have been an insane evolutionary strategy to have a sun functioning brain for 60% of that 40 year period.

We really need him to be much better because a chaos premium on gilts that would probably arise if he stepped down after such a short term would be massively unaffordable

I’d love to believe there’s more to it than that, but….

I remember a time when HMG and the Foreign Office could exercise a degree of objectivity when it came to Israel, now Britain seems to compete with the US to be its No.1 apologist, when and how did this happen…?

Sorry what’s GDT?

God it’s like watching a thug kick a puppy to death, just sickening.

Fabulous such a brilliant portrait of such a brilliant man! Thanks Barney!

Sorry about your recent head injury, hope you recover all your mental faculties soon!

Very nice! I liked your point on the ‘ pathway to white ball cricket’; it may not be the type or format that *we* want to see WI play (always longing to see them thrash Australia over five tests), but if it works best for them and their cricketing communities, then so what.

The NDA messed up the procurement for decommissioning of Magnox nuclear reactors, and the courts ordered that they had to compensate losing bidders, cancel the awarded contracts, (compensating those incumbents) and restart the whole process over again; cost to taxpayers c£400m, plus massive delays.

The tax it would raise is so piddly for a lot of political pain. On that basis it’s amazing Labour haven’t slashed the limit already.

Government departments are like beaten dogs when it comes to procurement, there have been sooo many challenges under the regs (most spectacularly Magnox) but even unsuccessful challenges can derail a programme. No one has any risk appetite, and the new Act missed the opportunity to correct this.

The dependency ratio is quite an important metric for guiding economic policy, no? Obviously the brutally honest answer is that we need to increase the retirement age but she ain’t gonna go within a light year of that…

The dependency ratio is the absolute driver of so many of out fiscal woes, we can’t deny it, but the only feasible solution that really moves the dial is increasing the retirement age, and obviously she won’t go within a light year of that, because she’s just not honest.

If hypothetically Reform win the next election, on day one they’d need at least 30 or so peers to act as Lords ministers and to be accountable to that chamber. I don’t see how these proposals accommodate that?

I do wonder though if Reform win the next election, won’t they feel that it is entirely legitimate to have significant representation in the Lords? They’d need a fair few Lords just to be upper house ministers. This package of proposals wouldn’t seem to allow for that.

You’d probably end up designing something that looked a bit like the Met Police, only this time staffed with people who actually had some kind of positive interest in fighting crime.

This puts it absolutely perfectly.

What is the highest Test total to include six or more ducks? And how many batters have been dismissed for both 99 and 199 in Tests?

Nope…

www.espncricinfo.com/story/ask-st...

What is the highest Test total to include six or more ducks? And how many batters have been dismissed for both 99 and 199 in Tests?

I think it’s the highest score with 6 ducks in first class cricket…

www.espncricinfo.com/story/ask-st...

We have to give some respect to those who try, even if we disagree with their decisions. As no one will ever get it all right.

UCH is such a magnificently, terrifyingly gothic building. When I was at UCL back in the dark ages, the rumour was that lives apes were kept in there for medical experimentation, and, looking at that facade, one could quite believe it…

The dependency ratio is not an unimportant strategic metric for guiding economic policy though? If she coupled this observation with policy suggestions for, say, raising the pension age or crunchy welfare reform her point would have more merit.

British aid workers 'died from blast wounds' in Gaza - inquest James Kirby, James Henderson and John Chapman were killed in an air strike on 1 April.

The IDF killed three British aid workers last year.
The UK refuses to investigate Israel for killing its citizens but will investigate British people for cursing the IDF
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Are you just asking for a remake of I, Claudius? If so, good shout, I adore the BBC original, but it would be fascinating to see what could be done with a budget of more than 25 pounds.

I follow you with interest, and agree that higher education is critical to any chance of economic growth in the UK, but is there an argument that some institutions were poorly managed, then over-expanded, and are now retrenching as the iron law of supply and demand asserts itself?

Well they’re certainly making a concerted effort in that direction - when was the last time they commissioned a decent fine arts documentary?