Neil Brighton

With budget coming up there's talk of tax rises. But what if the Chancellor also included sweeping reforms to make the system better & which had broad support from experts across the spectrum.

If she is going to break her manifesto pledges, she might as well go big. Her legacy might be positive.

Read the link and then the comments. There's hope for humanity yet.

And generally they are places where you can eat lots. They aren't the place you go for smaller, well prepared portions served with finesse.

A bit late to this but congratulations. I'm sure you will make a positive difference. May you have wisdom, grace and determination!

A French lemonade from 1651

Matt @MattCartoonist on #Solar #NetZero @telegraph – political cartoon gallery in London original-political-cartoon.com

Sad to hear Walter Brueggemann has died. News comes from biographer Conrad Kanagy (his book on Brueggemann: publicwitness.wordandway.org/p/review-and...). I've read numerous Brueggemann books & learned a lot. Glad I got to meet him several years ago.

Redefining 'messy' church

Once upon a time, 1963ish, Ladybird embarked on a grand new project: the ‘Peter and Jane’ reading scheme.
Artist Harry Wingfield illustrated the first books.
Amazingly, the girl who posed for those first books got in touch with me.
Here she is: meet Jackie Stanley (aka Jane)

Wonder if Qatar are gifting the “palace in the sky” aircraft to Trump like a fancy new printer, and Trump will then be beholden to Qatar for increasingly expensive oddly shaped fuel cartridges.

Samuel Escobar, Latin American theologian and missions leader, dies at 90 Samuel Escobar Aguirre, a leading Peruvian theologian, missiologist and Bible scholar, died April 28 at the age of 90. Born in Arequipa, Peru, in 1934, Escobar devoted his life to serving the church and advancing theological reflection from a distinctly Latin American perspective. He became one of the most influential voices in the global evangelical movement, helping to shape the emergence of Latin American Evangelical Theology by offering a contextualized vision of Christian faith amid the con

Samuel Escobar, Latin American theologian and missions leader, dies at 90: Samuel Escobar Aguirre, a leading Peruvian theologian, missiologist and Bible scholar, died April 28 at the age of 90. Born in Arequipa, Peru, in 1934, Escobar devoted his life to serving the church and advancing theological…

If you know, you know

MALGORITHMS A feature dedicated to excellence in online advertising... Guardian: "A high-rise building under construction in Bangkok collapsed after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake rocked Thailand and neighbouring Myanmar midday on Friday, police said ..." Accompanying ad: "Thailand's having a moment" (Hilton) Business Insider: "A norovirus outbreak hit a luxury Cunard cruise ship, leaving nearly 200 passengers sick" Accompanying ad: "You'll never forget how Cunard makes you feel." Independent: "UK's worst motorway where aggressive drivers have 'abandoned the speed limit' named in AA study" Accompanying ad: "Get ready for the thrill of Formula 1 Ethihad Abu Dhabi Grand Prix!" (Value Added Travel)

For those of you who don't know, Private Eye runs a regular feature showing suboptimal advertising placements in online media.

Some corkers in the current edition.

@privateeyenews.bsky.social

#Malgorithms

It looks as if Democrats have understood a rationale for tariffs (protecting domestic jobs etc) but also recognise overall they don't actually work because higher prices, reduced economy, unintended consequences hurt everyone.

Republicans look like they have no idea but want to 'follow my leader'

Escaping Eden For those who leave the Exclusive Brethren sect, separation comes at great personal cost.

So the Telegraph has a feature on the Exclusive Brethren which seems to borrow rather a lot from this (outstanding, in my view) New Statesman cover story by my amazing colleague Pippa Bailey.

If you fancy reading the original (and much better) source material...
www.newstatesman.com/long-reads/2...

That would be a really interesting bit of research. It seems clear to me that there is significant influence, but there are also some important differences. Nevertheless it often seems that it is the more malign aspects are the ones that cross the pond.

Happy Birthday 🎂🍷

History doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes

I'd hope they wouldn't. The longer range plan at moment seems to be increasing supply from Canada. Which benefits Europe and Canada (who need to decouple economy from US as quickly as possible)

Trump's view roughly translates as he (Zelensky) can come back when he's prepared to sell out his country so that the US can make some money and do a deal with Putin. Trump thought doing a deal would be easy & is frustrated that it's hard, plus it requires mastering complexity and nuance.

IMO Starmer was right yesterday to do the charm Trump stuff; but today's meeting btwn Trump and Zelenski shows that the reality is that the US can't be trusted, is being led by a shameful (probably ill) man-child, whose actions will trash the US and endanger others around the world.

A small clerical error

Any normal political party would kick out a politician who lied and behaved with this callous disregard for their country or its allies. But here we have POTUS acting as the PR department for an adversarial state. And no pushback. The US has gone off the rails.

A number of prominent UK Conservatives' statements about Donald Trump resemble one of those news stories that begins with a magazine feature about a new age mystic who believes he can talk to bears and ends with a newspaper article about a new age mystic being mauled to death by bears.

Pretty disturbed by some of the Kremlin framing on the Trump talks being bought by parts of the media worldwide. It’s as if the genesis of the war is entirely forgotten. This isn’t a conflict which needs mediation. It was an unprovoked act of aggression. It could end tomorrow if Putin just withdrew.

Thank you for the free substacks, over the last couple of years they've been a helpful source of context/analysis.

It's pretty clear from recent actions by the Trump administration that they are very Putin friendly, whatever the wider US view .

Thanks for these. Really helpful as I "tidy up" my prep for tomorrow.

Donald Trump and Elon Musk are showing how not to go about government reform | Institute for Government Would-be government reformers would be wise to reject the Trump/Musk approach.

President Trump and Elon Musk’s efforts to shake up the US government are providing a lesson in how not to reform the state www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/trum...

Pope backs Rory Stewart in his showdown with J D Vance >>