Tim Dowse

Estonia?

They usually claim it’s to make way for “seasonal goods”, but since Easter eggs now start to appear about three weeks after Christmas, which itself has merged with Halloween, there’s a pretty well continuous churn. (The commercial merging of holidays is another thing I’ll be boring about for ever).

Seconded! My local Sainsbury’s seems to do this about once a fortnight, I assume to lure customers into seeing products they wouldn’t normally go anywhere near.

Farrow & Ball have the most off-putting names for some of their paint colours. Who would want to decorate a room in “Mizzle”, “Clunch” or (a personal favourite) “Dead Salmon”? Is a mole from Dulux working in their marketing department?

How should Ukraine respond? And more details on the "peace plan"

A helpful balance to some of the wilder commentary. Sensible and constructive advice.
Agree it’s noteworthy that Russia has not signed off on the “plan” - just hope that isn’t part of a pre-agreed script.
open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/h...

A security arrangement that gives allied sovereign states zero decision-making power over military action but commits them to joining that action (or even perhaps assuming sole responsibility for it - the wording is, again, very vague) if another state's leader says so, is not viable.

Pretty sure that removing immigrants is not going to reduce the price of groceries. Rather the opposite where fruit and vegetables are concerned.

Thanks. A pretty odd kind of nationalism - supporting your previous oppressor while trashing the entity (the EU) that is mainly responsible for what prosperity you have.

I realise that there are historical Ukraine-specific factors in play (also with Romania). But still…

Something I find consistently puzzling is why, with all their historical experience of Russia from 1945-1990 (and notably in 1956), Hungarians can accept a leader who aligns them with ex-KGB officer Putin. Is it generational change, or collective amnesia?

Comment is Freed is one of the best value subscriptions out there. Highly recommended.

“U.S. pushing Ukraine to sign peace deal by Thanksgiving or lose support.” [Washington Post]

So Ukraine is being pushed, with threats, to accept a one-sided and (to put it mildly) half-baked “plan” that the Russian government claims not even to have seen?

This gets more peculiar by the hour.

Another biting and detailed critique. The more one sees of the reported detail, the more this "plan" does indeed seem to have been the work of people with only the vaguest idea of what they are talking about. Hard to imagine it has been near any of the professionals in the State Department.

What are the legal implications of Labour’s new immigration reforms? | Institute for Government Some of the government’s proposals are thin on details, others are likely to be tested in the courts.

My commentary on some of the legal aspects of the government’s latest immigration proposals, including the potential for court challenges

www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/lega...

Hope this is an - all too rare - positive straw in the wind.

Sounds like EU custons are taking a tougher line than UK.

The other thing is that shipping charges from the EU have now become astronomical even for small items like books.

Excellent points, well made.

America’s Allies Should Go Nuclear Selective proliferation will strengthen the global order, not end it.

This is a really bad idea. Who can be sure that “selective proliferation” remains confined to friends and allies? What if someone else also starts selecting?

www.foreignaffairs.com/canada/ameri...

Well said. Matches my experience exactly. In almost 50 years I've lived in south-west, south-east and east London. All have been different, and all have been great in their own ways.

Rule of law: holding the line between anarchy and tyranny - Committees - UK Parliament The rule of law in the UK is being weakened, and everyone must take steps to protect it against further erosion, says the House of Lords Constitution Committee.

committees.parliament.uk/committee/17...

So ... everything Russia has been demanding. What is Russia conceding?

I don't. And if I did, I'd be cautious about publicising it.

I see from a recent answer to a PQ that the UK has supplied 85,000 drones to Ukraine in the past six months. That is rather impressive - not least for it happening with little publicity. It's the right approach: do more, shout about it less.

On further inspection, there is also a photocopy of the vendor’s health insurance card (‘Tessera Sanitaria’). Can’t imagine why - I’m guessing it is something required by the Italian customs, not HMRC.

Just took delivery of a softback book. French publisher, Italian vendor. Price: €20. Accompanied by *fifteen pages* of customs documents, including photocopies of the vendor’s ID card (front and back)!

Can’t help wondering whether, when they finally appear, these ‘files’ are not going to be a massive anti-climax.

Also striking that Americans (of all political persuasions) appear confident that what is released after all this time will not have been expurgated/redacted/selectively edited. Why?

Extraordinary. Where are they going to send him - El Salvador?

Assume this will be overturned, but the more of these sorts of cases there are, the stronger the popular reaction will be. Almost as if ICE are trying to undermine the very policy they are supposed to be implementing

I think DVLA are also hugely improved on, say, 15 years ago. (Though they still struggle a bit with anything out of the ordinary - it took a family member months to get a licence reinstated after temporarily being unable to drive for medical reasons).

This is of course true. But it sends a strong signal to Russia that Putin's long-term dream of a neutered, more-or-less demilitarised Ukraine firmly in Russia's orbit is not going to happen.

Sadly, this annual #IISS volume seems to get bulkier every year.

Shower spray head?