Ed Wilson

#BBCLauraK

Dr Sarah Longlands, Chief Executive, Centre for Local Economic Strategies: if you had kept local services funding at the same level as it was in 2009-10 that would have resulted in £43bn extra for the economy every year since.

#BBCPNW

Not content with selling out Ukraine to Russia and thereby putting the security of America’s allies at risk, the Trump regime is trashing the reputation of US science and risking the health of its children by rewriting the CDC website to suggest a link between vaccines and autism

I sat on the Bill Committee for the Border Bill. I spent hours proposing amendments that would've saved taxpayers money and created safer routes for refugees - all ignored. Even Labour knows this Bill isn’t good enough, as the Home Secretary’s new measures show.

The civil service has grown by 37% since 2016.

It grew significantly to prepare for and handle Brexit, and in some areas that turned out to be useful for Covid.

We might have become a bit too used to it since then.

#BBCLauraK

How much of Lakshmi Mittal's wealth was, is and will be in the UK? What difference will his supposed leaving make to the UK national budget?

#BBCLauraK

Tories talk absolute poverty. Labour talk relative poverty because it suits them.

Most of the rest of the world also talks about relative poverty.

#BBCLauraK is like most media - it never explains the difference.

Ask Jeremy Hunt to defend the rape clause in the two-child benefit cap policy.

#BBCLauraK

"Last time you were here"

Polanski was last on #BBCLauraK on 19 October.

Zack Polanski's veering from "taxing the rich" to annoying the asset markets seems as illogical as #BBCLauraK's various reponses to his first lines.

Let's waste at least half of an already uninspiring programme by talking about a budget we've been talking about for months, and which we'll probably be too knackered to talk about next week when it's finally happened.

#BBCLauraK

Heidi Alexander joins the ranks of opposition people I quite liked sometimes, but who spout standard rubbish when they become ministers.

#BBCLauraK

How many people think the government started the "fiscal fandango" speculation months ago? Reeves certainly joined in, but I think I remember lots of media rubbish long before that.

#BBCLauraK

Republican Senator Mike Rounds:

"Rubio did make a phone call to us this afternoon and he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives. It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

The "welfare bill" is not a lever, it's an indicator. We have to work on what it indicates.

#BBCLauraK

Victory! We’ve won major legal battle exposing car industry lobbying After two years we can finally reveal “backdoor channels where corporate money hijacks our democracy.”

🚨 SCOOP: Toyota and Aston Martin secretly lobbied a Conservative cabinet minister to weaken Britain’s climate policy.

We only know this because Democracy for Sale won a two-year legal fight to force the government to hand over the documents.

democracyforsale.substack.com/p/victory-we...

Merz and Starmer at least have announced polite phone calls to say "more work is required". Trump has told the world that it's not the final formula. The motivation is Russo-American financial exploitation. The "diplomatic" technique is amateurish, and they'll just keep going in the same way.

You can be racist and call yourself a Christian.

*Being* a Christian is a more complicated philosophical question.

I start from the position that nobody was consulted. Witless and his business mate Dmitriev compiled a set of notes.

It's going to take a while.

Trump & co are working lazily to achieve the status of "rank amateur".

U.S. Senators Say They Spoke With Rubio About Trump’s Ukraine Peace Plan Who Denied It Is A U.S. Plan Senators said Rubio told them the peace plan Trump is pushing Kyiv to accept is a “wish list” of the Russians and not the actual U.S. plan.

Friday: "Sign this by Thanksgiving or it's all over for you."
Saturday: "This is nothing to do with us, some other boys wrote it." www.huffpost.com/entry/senato...

This would embarrass an amateur.

If a Russian and an American produce a sketchy draft proposal, you might expect signs of both languages.

But if that sketchy draft is then to be proposed as the basis for an international agreement, you'd think some work would be done on making it work in both languages.

@peaseroland.bsky.social It was certainly early, but I'm sure I heard an item from you this morning on Iranian water supplies. I wanted to refer it to a friend, but it isn't in the available Inside Science podcast. Was I dreaming?

Christo Grozev & @christogrozev X.com I happened to see an early version of the "peace plan", about 6 months ago. It was a purely Russian concept and was nearly identical to what we see today (certainly the 50/50 Russian assets + EU investment in Ukraine reconstruction was there). However two items are glaringly missing. First, a proposal that US (investors) bail post-war Russia out of a pending cash- and investment-strapped recession, "like in the 90s". This was meant as an inducement for Trump (whether as a legitimate US sweetener or as one for friends and family, that wasn't explicit) The second "offering" was a new Russia-US alliance against China. A lot of "Christian alliance" demagoguery was included under that item. I am absolutely certain that this is a Russian, not a jointly developed, proposal. I also cannot imagine the Russians didn't include the 1st of the two extra items. I can see however how that wouldn't be part of the publicly leaked plan. On item 2, can't be sure if Russia dared to include the anti China offer. Again, if it did, it wouldn't be public. So all in all, it might be a 30-point plan after all.

Grozev is a reputable investigative journalist

John Groth’s cartoon casting doubt on the crowd control methods of the NYPD, from August 1933’s Esquire. Plus ça change etc etc …

Hope HMRC are investigating whether Gill evaded tax on the bribes he received.

(Bribes are absolutely taxable income, but people tend not to declare them to HMRC...)

🇺🇸‼️ Key Trump administration officials knew nothing about the peace plan, it was secretly developed only by Witkoff and Putin's envoy Dmitriev, and then shown to Trump, — Bloomberg

Lord Rothermere’s Telegraph takeover strengthens UK media’s rightwing tilt Many fear competition and diversity will be diminished as Daily Mail owner wins race to buy newspaper

Lord Rothermere’s Telegraph takeover strengthens UK media’s rightwing tilt