FOARP

I don’t know, maybe ask someone who actually likes Starmer?

A government that was governing effectively would have no need either of poetry or of furiously online defenders.

Well, at least they spare us their poetry, I guess there’s that…

Poledouris’s score was brilliant.

A sad thing about being a lawyer is you do tend to write everything as if it might be read out in court at some point.

Back in 'Godfather' era, the mafia code was:

- Don't put anything in writing, that you can just say
- Don't say anything, if you can just wink and nod

Trump got "don't put it in writing" part, by not using email

But these people around Epstein—did they think emails could ever be "private"?

I do wonder about the mindset of people who do things like this, but then I recall even Christopher Lee indulged in a bit of exaggeration about his wartime service despite having a good record.

America's network of democratic alliances was a jewel. Never before had a great power relied on cultivating voluntary relationships, leading to the richest, most powerful country in history, and benefitting the world relative to the alternative.

Then America decided to throw it away. And for what?

Counterpoint: that was awesome.

Nearly every discussion you have as a patent attorney: "but how can X be an invention when not-X already existed!!!!"

I mean this was the wider context that the Graun felt would be useful to the reader for this story. Not anything about Russia. Not even anything about the progress of the war or the fact that the Russians have been doing this repeatedly, over and over.

What's the bet the Ukrainians didn't even launch 216 drones?

Russia attacks ‘every district’ of Kyiv, sparking fires across Ukrainian capital Pictures posted on social media showed different sites in flames and residents gathering in rubble-strewn streets outside apartment buildings

I really hate how, after nearly four years, these barbaric attacks barely register any more.
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

"What is certain, and felt instinctively by almost everybody, is that things cannot go on in their present way" – The Times, May 1975

“It is difficult to imagine a previous period when such an all-pervasive hopelessness was exhibited at all levels of British life” – Professor Stephen Haseler, 1975

Iceland applied for EU membership in 2009 (they were basically forced to as part of the bail-out) and then ended their application process in 2015. Why would we even start that process, why would the EU want that, knowing that after the next election the same thing could happen?

The problems are all political. It wouldn’t matter if the EU accession process itself were entirely easy - they won’t even start as long as they could be undone quickly at the next election.

The UK is not unique in this regard. We’re in a similar orbit to eg Iceland, Norway, Turkey.

Vladimir Putin told us what his grievances were in the 2021 ultimatum. They weren’t anything that we could have in good conscience conceded.

They were first and foremost that CEE was no longer dominated by Russia and had become a community of democratic and independent nations.

What was Russia ready to surrender in the name of coexistence?

Even today in posts like this Europe is expected to make concessions in advance in the name of future liberal Russia, with no details on what would Russians have to do in order to transform it into that form for more than usual 10 years

Police and crime commissioners to be abolished Home secretary says PCCs, in England and Wales, were ‘failed experiment’ – and scrapping them will save £100m over this parliament

I never thought PCC's were a particularly great idea, but scrapping them and replacing them with *nothing*?

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

We don't even need to go to fiction or counter-factuals to see this isn't true.

The mass graves dug in the 1930's in Russia are now all known, the camps also. Denialism about the Stalin regime won out in the end. Voted the greatest Russian of all time.

You know lads, that's a nice goal and all, but there's a quick way of achieving it...

Change a few of the words and the faces of the people doing it, and this could be a film playing on Chinese television. Particularly the need to affirm their own propaganda with a foreign viewpoint (Murchison was actually Scottish, not English, and reputedly a bit of a megalomaniac).

I mean I'm pretty sceptical about "bad things started with Blair" theories, but the PM and a senior cabinet member being in a briefing war is the Blair-Brown feud all over.

1997 at least.

There’s a whole industry around designing effective offices but as far as I know execs don’t care; it’s well established that open plans suck but we’ve been stuck with them for decades so that they can save rent

Economic growth in Germany since reunification has mostly benefited the middle and upper middle class up to the 99th percentile. Income inequality (pre-tax) in 🇩🇪 is similar to the 🇺🇸 and higher than in 🇫🇷. Inequality has increased, but less than previous studies suggest.

Just another day in this government that is supposedly "laser focused on growth" doing something that is pretty much the exact opposite.

Why are they even reviewing this? Why open this one up again? What on earth is the point in this?

No money should be paid. Not a penny.

…I give up. I absolutely give up.

FFS.

There's nothing this government won't do to pander to old people who ultimately won't vote for them anyway, and nothing they will even try to improve the lot of those who did vote for them.

Traitors’ Joe Marler: I got £30k. We weren’t all paid the same Rugby player Joe Marler was the breakout star of The Celebrity Traitors. He reveals what it was like inside the castle — and why he almost left halfway through

Full Joe Marler interview here:

www.thetimes.com/article/7778...