In case you missed it earlier, I've been talking to the
@ohgodwhatnow.bsky.social podcast about my new book on the Blair governments and the crisis in Higher Education... Take a listen!
megaphone.link/NSR1340804685
I'll be launching my book on the Blair governments in London on Monday 9 March! Between 6.30pm and 8pm. We'll be at the Gilded Acorn bookshop between LSE and the Hunterian... Come along! Booking details below:
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/new-labour...
As you see the reports out of Texas SD-9, keep in mind: This was the cash discrepancy.
Money speaks -- but it's not as loud as it used to be.
Oh yes!! Moved back to Cumbria from Vienna in June so will check the calendar 😊
So good to hear @snellarthur.bsky.social on the pod today
Probably should have asked him about
Bored of Peace suggestion 😬😉
Superb guest and conversation on this episode of BTL.
Bravo, @snellarthur.bsky.social!
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...
I have just listened to this. It was my first time listening to a Behind the Lines podcast with @snellarthur.bsky.social , and after listening I feel approximately 95% better informed than I was before. Highly recommended.
If only the ‘sic semper tyrannis’ crowd could identify some acts of governmental tyranny
😳
(other than Covid mask mandates)
Might even his previous PB of disagreeing with himself
bsky.app/profile/coli...
another
Nationalise Turnberry
🎄 Merry Christmas, dear supporters, gorgeous friends, and precious listeners.
Check your apps first thing, for a cracker 2025 Review, with @mrjamesob.bsky.social. We'd never abandon you without company, on what can be a pretty stressful day. 🎁
☃️ We love you lots! A, N, K & other A x
By this time tonight I was meant to have made my bread sauce, cranberry sauce and begun the gingerbread stuffing, and yet I find myself, tasks still undone, on my sofa, with drink and cake to hand, happily gazing at my Christmas-Grotto-garden. Rather thrilled with my new light-up deer, I must say.
You could argue that the roast potatoes are the most important element to get right at Christmas. Perfect Roast Potatoes create perfect happiness. Which is why they are, indeed, #RecipeOfTheDay!
www.nigella.com/recipes/perf...
agreed 👍
(until I remembered the gravy 😂)
Oh James sorry to hear that - haven’t been on here for a while so sorry if I had missed it 🤦♂️
Isaac was only 4 when we got to Vienna so for him this is almost like his first Uk Christmas which is also new (and quite surreal at times) start here too.
Feel free to dm if ever need someone to
listen
a great Christmas to you and yours James - we’re missing the wandering around Christmas markets this year, but bacon and egg butties for breakfast at the local farm shops are a nice alternative
Frohe Weihnachten!🎄🎄
Full text of peace plan 🇺🇦🇺🇸
The UK Trade and Business Commission’s new report sets out how the UK and the EU could implement a Youth Experience Scheme.
“The report is likely to give weight to the arguments of Britain’s negotiators in talks over the deal,” writes Arj Singh.
Read: https://bit.ly/48tqyTY
This is a significant report on UK-EU youth experience / mobility as the first to be released from either side on how the scheme outlined in May's common understanding could actually work in practice.
I'm pleased to have been involved as an adviser.
#ShatGTP
🆕 SPOILER ALERT - Unpicking the Budget 📈
The good stuff
The less good stuff
The economic rationale
The political consequences
Balance, humour, @pimlicat.bsky.social , @sturdyalex.bsky.social & top economist Vicky Pryce.
🍊 open.spotify.com/episode/05mP...
🍏 podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/q...
Sorry, everyone. I think we've gone and done a thoughtful, balanced episode on #Budget2026, that is more about the economics and the politics, rather than the gossippy nonsense that gets hacks excited. #NotSorry
You may have seen some headlines about welfare spending going up to £406.2bn by 2030/31.
That is correct, it is the OBR figure.
Here is what you may not have seen.
Of the £406.2bn
A) £195.4bn goes to pensioners
B) £13.9bn goes on child benefit.
Facts matter.
Does that mean that foreign immigrants are changing the traditional way of life and introducing their own laws? 😉
T’publican is a bar owner in Yorkshire
On Truss & Kwarteng in ‘22. Allister Heath, Telegraph: “the best budget I have ever heard a British chancellor deliver". Alex Brummer, Mail: “a genuine Tory package elbowing to one side the Treasury's fiscal conservatism".
These men will now be paid actual money for their analysis of today’s budget.
My personal favourite
#MTGB
