Stephen Smith

I need to adjudicate (for some reason) on Englishness and Britishness so I’m going to cite an entirely different countries admin system as proof that I’m right, is an odd outlook

And yet - venturing into a sport I’m only distantly aware of - it does tolerate England, Wales, Scotland teams? Not worth the faff of trying to dismantle an historical anomaly?

Does the general public get that distinction in the way academics do?

Setting aside the joke of Trump complaining about the UKs reliability, this is why we have a permanent ambassador to the US. We do have one of those, don’t we?

15ish (very ish) when Brum council was appointing its new chief exec there were newspaper stories getting the two confused

‘Stunned’ in that he promotes Putin without the need for payment?

Simultaneously profitable and having a product no one buys. Neat.

If it conflicts with their priors, longer than forever

Thank you. Always useful to see our vacancy rates are low when seeing the ‘fill the vacant homes and we don’t need to build (m)any more

How do we compare with similar countries? My vague recollection is that France is similar (though different tenure mixes make comparisons hard/not 100% relevant)

Whilst they think the voters - other than the 16% saying they’ll support them now - are in Kemi’s fictional fairyland, they’re doomed.

Tbf, he hasn’t realised the need to advocate for all his policies and, indeed, his government. It sometimes feels his previous career is a problem - you don’t have to explain to the judge your point countless times, you expect the jury to pay attention. The electorate on the other hand….

You’d think that someone who talked about us being in a fight for the soul of the country might want to participate in that fight. But, Starmer experience says not

You think they move quickly? This is the lot that happily let a round of mayoral elections take place on a system that did them no favours despite aeons of time to tweak it back

With our working lives potentially spanning 50 years in the future, an adult careers service to help people switch mid working life to the best alternative would be great.

I think it was The Pinch but it may have been somewhere else which had a fascinating graph of lifelong net (projected & real) contributions, which offered precisely zero surprise on which generation was the biggest net beneficiary of the UK welfare state

Yeah, I suppose early retirement isn’t a binary thing. Just surprised there are appreciable numbers who can afford to retire in that cohort, but a) the ones who can pay lots of tax b) maybe the pension pinch is a bit younger

Surprised the tax drop starts in the 50-59 cohort - is early retirement still a thing for them?

Example n of a government that has no coherent vision into which its policies fit

Complaining about her teachers is one of the things she has in common with Liz Truss

It’s the parallel to the BBC doing something wrong meriting wall-to-wall coverage on the BBC

They clearly haven’t integrated well

It’s just such a terrible shame for Kemi Badenoch that there was someone with exactly the same name as her who served in government for a sizeable part of that period.

Would they have to find Nandy to sack her?

Do you think Lab would go into coalition with the others, though? There is a strain of Labour thinking ‘better opposition than compromise with others’

Isn’t this British political journalism in general? Everything is either a bit of fun, or super dramatic. If it was serious, people wouldn’t read/click/watch/listen

So brave of those people to only speak through their solicitor. Normally they’d be up for standing wifh their arms folded looking disgruntled

There are dragons the wrong side of the Pennines so this is just protecting you from your own intentions

Not even the compensation element?

When will the Moneybox live on train company service and compensation be?