Peter Raitt

Goody-bag merch from Tory Conference branded "When Labour negotiates Britian loses" and signed "Kemi Badenoch".

It helps to be able to spell the country you say only you are competent enough to run.

There is healthy skepticism and there is this...

Well that’s me depressed for the weekend. As Glen acidly observes this looks like a pretty transparent effort to shift blame for coming university bankruptcies onto the institutions. Good luck with selling that to whichever MPs are about to lose their constituency’s largest employer.

Letting unis go bust will be popular with voters right up until the economic and societal affects hit them square in the face.

This is exactly why outsourcing politics to focus groups and those who cannot adjust from campaigning to governing is disastrous.

80+% of both Democrats and Republicans believe America would be better off if more Americans worked in manufacturing, but < 30% say that about themselves.

The bipartisan belief that America would be a better place if *other people* worked in a factory.

www.ft.com/content/8459...

This road is broken – and nobody can fix it The spiders aren't the only thing stopping Ebbsfleet's development

I don't know what it would take to fix this, but can nothing in Britain be fixed or built?
takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/the-landsl...

Who cares about life expectancy?! Healthy life expectancy is what matters. Roughly speaking in richer countries you are healthy for longer. Costa Rica punches above its weight while the US ranks as a pathetic 71st.

Great chart by @rubenbmathisen.

Excel Parking ordered to pay £10,240 in five-minute Derby parking rule row Excel Parking had demanded £11,390 from driver Hannah Robinson, but lost a court case against her.

I would love to think that this might treat the predatory car parking companies to act a bit more fairly - but I doubt it.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This is huge and monstrous. The nasal vaccines are our only hope of getting back to a world where you don't have to fear getting covid indoors. I would like to stop masking some day, and they're going to make it impossible.

The shame of it.

Kemi Badenoch's latest bonkers claim about the West being in a crisis made by its own weakness.

Have a great weekend. It could be our last.

How Vladimir Putin plans to play Donald Trump The Russian president thinks he is the better poker player

Vladimir Putin believes Donald Trump is impatient and manipulable. He hopes to manoeuvre him into a deal that allows Russia to reintegrate into the world economy, renders Ukraine a semi-failing state, and leaves Europe too stunned to defend itself. www.economist.com/europe/2025/...

Crypto exchange Bybit says it was hacked and lost around $1.4 billion Crypto exchange Bitby disclosed a breach that that amounts to a loss of $1.4 billion, the largest crypto theft of all time. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Crypto exchange Bybit says it was hacked and lost around $1.4 billion

Meta, X approved ads containing violent anti-Muslim, antisemitic hate speech ahead of German election, study finds Social media giants Meta and X (formerly Twitter) approved ads targeting users in Germany with violent anti-Muslim and anti-Jew hate speech in the run-up to the country’s federal elections, according to new research from Eko, a corporate responsibility…

Meta, X approved ads containing violent anti-Muslim, antisemitic hate speech ahead of German election, study finds

Just look at these paragraphs from the AP story.

Hegseth called Brown unqualified solely because he's Black. Then they fired him... and replaced him with a white guy so indisputably unqualified that he requires a Presidential waiver.

This is what "merit" means to them.

apnews.com/article/trum...

Opinion | Trump’s Misguided Strategies for Peace in Ukraine In their silence, Republicans are betraying the Ukrainians, national security and their own party’s values.

President Trump's approach to the war in Ukraine is a reversal of the last three years, the editorial board writes, "but also a repudiation of a nearly eight-decade core belief that the United States was safer in a world where it stood against aggression and authoritarianism and for freedom."

A simple response. But Apple and Google caved immediately.

OpenAI quietly revises policy doc to remove reference to ‘politically unbiased’ AI OpenAI has quietly removed language endorsing “politically unbiased” AI from one of its recently published policy documents. In the original draft of its “economic blueprint” for the AI industry in the U.S., OpenAI said that AI models “should aim to be…

OpenAI quietly revises policy doc to remove reference to ‘politically unbiased’ AI

Jimmy Carter was 52 at the start of his presidency. JFK was only 46 at the start of his. But Biden was 78. Trump only 70 but now 78 at the start of his second term. I wonder if this is related at all to the increasing age of the baby boomers? (Though Obama and Reagan slightly screw up that theory.)

FUN FACT: When my family takes holiday pictures, we're able to do it without everyone in the house holding an assault weapon and grinning like a psycho.

Kemi Badenoch: 'Lunch breaks are for wimps and sandwiches are not real food' Lunch breaks are for wimps, Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has declared.

'“I have food brought in and I work and eat at the same time. ... Ms Badenoch argued sandwiches are not “not real food” and that she sometimes chooses to eat a steak instead.'

Another Tory leader in touch with the reality of many British workers who regularly get a steak brought in for them.

Major water company uses accounting trick to inflate balance sheet by £1.68bn A substantial Severn Trent Water investment is based on IOU notes - BBC Panorama finds.

"Since Trimpley was added to the accounts in 2017, Severn Trent Water Ltd has paid out £1.615bn in dividends.

Profits over the same period were £1.246bn, so Severn Trent Water has paid out £369m more than it made in profit during that period. "
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...