US ambassador: Reform drug prices or face pharma exodus from Britain Warren Stephens says American companies will cancel UK investments and shut facilities here if no agreement reached with Trump

USA wants to export it excessive drug prices to the UK as Ambassador threatens to shut down drug firms in UK unless NHS pays more bit.ly/47CrROE

We are an absolute embarrassment

Five major banks to allow homeless people to open bank accounts under new pilot Thousands of homeless people will be able to open a bank account and five major banks as part of a strategy to improve financial inclusion.

Lloyds, NatWest, Barclays, Nationwide and Santander will join HSBC and allow people without a fixed address to open bank accounts, in initiative with Shelter and government bit.ly/4nPm6U0

#Felon47 #Krasnov
#NoKings #CorruptGovt
#LowIQIndividual
#BonespurWarrior
#TheEpsteinFiles
#NotMyPresident
#TrumpCrimeFamily

School pupils are to be taught how to tackle conspiracy theories, spot 'fake news' & root out misinformation. The Daily Mail, ajudged by Wikipedia to be an unreliable new source, is furious. You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to work out why.

Forced out of retirement by a £25k bill: MPs probe freeholder over service charges Residents launch fightback against Britain’s biggest freeholder’s fees

Never buy leasehold (if you can avoid it) part 94 bit.ly/4qG8soL “escalating charges, poor service quality, opaque fees and a lack of communication” MB these are failings, not alleged failings.

A third of inspected law firms breach anti-money laundering rules The Solicitors Regulation Authority imposed fines totalling £1.5m but the watchdog is having responsibility for monitoring compliance stripped from it

Most law firms inspected (86%) were potentially complicit in money laundering, regulator finds bit.ly/43b0FVM but soon it is to have responsibility for monitoring and fining rule breakers taken from it

Dictators don’t like math—because math insists on reality.

We’re still trying to work out how this math maths. Is he suggesting people are crossing illegally out of the US into Mexico and Canada? Math exposes the lie, but when reality is inconvenient, the authoritarian will simply demand a new one.

Another 55mins of Farage carried live by BBC and Sky, in which he rambled for twice as long as briefed, and yet managed to say little of substance.

Why can broadcasters not simply give us 3mins of the low-lights after the event, as they would do with most other politicians? ~AA

Bill ‘will turn pensioners’ losses into boardroom bonuses’ Law going through parliament will make life easier for companies that have already frozen pre-1997 pension incomes for years, campaigners say

Firms that have huge pension surpluses refuse to use them to increase pensions paid to ex workers with inflation bit.ly/3JdafRq the last time firms were allowed (forced by Nigel Lawson) to snaffle surpluses (pension holidays) it led to pension schemes collapsing

Interesting factlets about Digital ID...

Government is proposing a massive extension of right to work checks, to sweep up not just employees but all individuals providing services otherwise than to consumers. So the whole gig economy and even including eg barristers (shock!)... /1

More than half of people use AI as ‘financial adviser’ ChatGPT and other platforms can help people but can also expose them to greater risk, a study warns

People using AI for big financial decisions. Is it Independent? Does it have a clear fee structure? Does it have key qualifications or access to @financialombuds or @FSCS compensation? bit.ly/4qCMRgQ hmmmm.

'Nigel Farage is Not My Friend...He's Just a Very Handsome Man' The wife of a Russian spy gets in touch...

NEW: ‘Nigel Farage is not my friend…he’s just a handsome & stylish English gentleman’

The wife of the Russian agent who Nathan Gill has admitted to accepting bribes from says Nigel Farage is not her ‘good friend’ after saying that he was her ‘good friend’
1/

open.substack.com/pub/broligar...

Meta Stock Plummets as Investors Horrified at How Much Zuckerberg Is Spending on Misfired AI Mark Zuckerberg's Meta is spending untold billions on infrastructure and top talent for its AI ambitions. Investors are rattled.

‘It’s been given out pay packages ranging from tens of millions to more than $1 billion in a desperate bid to attract talent.

Then … the company cut hundreds of roles from its AI unit — suggesting that the cracks could be starting to show.’

Pro-Palestinian protesters kept away as Gal Gadot films in London Eight people have been charged with disrupting production of The Runner, starring the Israeli actress

Met Police use trade union law to arrest pro Palestine protestors who have now been charged with breaking a 1992 law designed to stop violent pickets bit.ly/47iXePk

A woman is killed by a man every 3 days in the UK...

78% are murdered by a partner/ex

Yet not once have I heard Reform talk about this

Not once have I heard them back measures to protect women’s safety

In fact, they voted against them...

The curious case of the King and the statue A statue of Hercules admired by millions has disappeared from Kew Gardens. Why has Charles decided to remove a prime piece of public art?

Last Wednesday a colossal statue seen by millions at Kew Gardens for 60 years was removed. The King, whose mother sent the work to Kew in 1963, wanted it back. A curious story of the exercise of Royal will www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/monarc...

My open letter to Rachel Reeves (cc @ofcom.bsky.social, DSIT)

Now O2 has broken the taboo, the big risk is other firms will likely follow suit... the Govt must step in to stop mobile, broadband and pay-TV firms increasing prices mid-contract by MORE than they said they would when people sign up.

The path from abusing foreigners to abusing the disabled is well-trodden. I I hope this nugget is bright enough to reflect on who else has walked it.

Can we focus more on how victims of sexual violence continue to be failed today and less on the drama of the Royal Family? Then perhaps some good might come from this?

Why Italians love Airbnb and fear Meloni’s short-term lets tax The Italian government is planning a tax raid over fears that holiday lets are ‘destroying’ the housing market and driving residents out of historic towns

Too important to tax bit.ly/3WvSik2 Italian holiday home letters join the club as tax rise from 21% to 26% planned

Climate goals out of reach as demand for energy surges Changed government priorities and a slow EV uptake are derailing emissions targets, the consultancy Wood Mackenzie warns

It’s too late bit.ly/47vgpEx remember this every time you use AI - and that is hard to avoid if you go online - though data centres are not the biggest offender

Too many Americans were in denial about how bad a second Trump term would be. Which is astonishing because 400K people died of covid on his watch.

Just two decades ago, China had little capacity to manufacture cars — and owning one was considered a novelty.

Today, China produces and exports more cars than any other country in the world.

Meanwhile we in Europe still pretend we can somehow stop EVs from taking off by holding on to old tech.

Keir Starmer's failure to stand up to this man is a cowardly and suicidal calamity

In Brexit Britain, this is simultaneously very good & very bad news. Fact fans know it is mostly bad but hope (probably naively) that it might stem the flow of nativist bile dominating discourse. What a time to be alive.

Poetic justice that a newspaper, The Times, for which dishonesty comes as naturally as breathing is being hauled over the coals for an apology.