David Shepherd

At this rate everyone will be driving electric cars before UK Gov has electrified the rail network.

Developers met ministers dozens of times over planning bill while ecologists were shut out Exclusive: Leading ecologists say warnings over threat to wildlife have been ignored in drive to build 1.5m new homes The scale of lobbying of ministers by developers on Labour’s landmark planning changes, which seek to rip up environmental rules to boost growth, can be exposed as campaigners make last-ditch attempts to secure protections for nature. The government published its planning and infrastructure bill in March. Before and after the bill’s publication the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, and housing minister Matthew Pennycook have met dozens of developers in numerous meetings. The body representing professional ecologists, meanwhile, has not met one minister despite requests to do so. Continue reading...

Developers met ministers dozens of times over planning bill while ecologists were shut out

The problem in the UK is that cycle routes simply run out. Locally the council have installed a partial route on the 8k from Godalming to Guildford but I’d like to be able to go safely all the way, especially in busy town centres.

Must be a sign of getting old that I can’t shed a tear for these. They were uncomfortable, either too hot or too cold and with no loos. They still seem something of an innovation compared with the 4-SUB units they replaced, not to mention the steam trains I remember from my early years.

A haunted image, a sense of the missing, of post-war grief and loss.

We no longer know how the UK is doing relative to the EU states.

I did with my student rail card. I went all over the UK from Penzance to Thurso in the following few years.

Prospect of breaking 50-year income tax taboo shows scale of Reeves’s challenge The chancellor appears to believe voters will forgive a broken promise in return for meaningful investment

The Brexit Tax! The fear is that we’ll be paying more to support still failing public services.

It’s clear to anyone paying attention that Farage gets an easy ride from the media. They give him as much airtime as he wants but never hold him to account for the damage he’s done.

So much of what’s broken in Britain is thanks to Nigel Farage.

EU could admit new members by 2030, says its foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas tells reporters more countries could join 27-country bloc, including Montenegro, Albania and Ukraine

Then there are those strange small islands in the Atlantic archipelago near Ireland. They might want to join someday although that would be scraping the barrel a bit.

Does Christchurch Oxford chapel still keep to local, pre-railway time? It did in 1980.

You’ll need a lot of prudence to live on the old state pension of £187.80 a week which is all many of the very old have to live on.

And planes?

did the sitwells sit well? an investigation

Pound hits lowest since April as investors anticipate budget tax rises after Reeves speech – business live Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, as chancellor’s speech is taken as a sign that tax rises and tighter budgets could be ahead.

Fed up with Reeves playing games with us with a daily drip of rumours and hints and now this speech, all raising questions of competence and creating uncertainty. A government with such a large majority ought to be able to make hard choices and get on with it.

Brief Encounter at 80: why we’re still falling for David Lean’s 1945 romance The story of hot tea and unconsummated love hails from a very different era – and was far from easy to make. Yet it remains a key influence for film-makers from Sofia Coppola to Celine Song, James Ivo...

Finally saw this all the way through a few months and yes it is amazing.

Extraordinary to hear Reeves cite tariffs and increased defence spending in her speech, as she sets up the blame for tax rises. This message could have been really effective if she'd issued it when Trump introduced tariffs. Now, much less so.

Are your kids obsessed with ‘6-7’? Here’s my plan to break the spell | Dave Schilling Rules seem unlikely to help – kids will just rebel. Instead, try saying it all the time yourself

There have been so many articles about ‘6-7’ that I’m beginning to say it.

True, save that the grim reaper is coming for him.

Apparently the last horse drawn cab licence was withdrawn in 1947 according to a Google search. I recall reading a piece about it recently too but I can’t recall where!

Even a big far-right vote couldn’t give the far-right total control, because the Dutch democracy promotes cooperation.

Here in the UK, just one-third of the vote could give Nigel Farage a huge majority of MPs.

Our democracy isn't fit for 21st-century politics. We need Proportional Representation.

I add the local council school term dates to my iCal. There’s a useful link on their website.

Thought “Pochin” sounded a bit foreign, so I googled it. Apparently the name dates from the Conquest and is Norman. I fear she is not of pure Anglo-Saxon stock, at least not by marriage. We may have to send her back.

Yes, we only take two of those on flights now. Taxi drivers say ‘Where’s the rest of your luggage?’

They’ve gone up, they were only half a crown the last time I bought one.

This is how we do it: ‘When his grandma heard us having sex, she asked if we’d been “having a fun dance” upstairs’ Living with elderly grandparents has helped Zach and Luna with the cost of living crisis – but not their sex life

I suspect Zach’s grandma is more knowing and less innocent than they think!

Is that the old ‘Ministry of Works’ I remember from the 60s? Do they still sell those rather worthy blue guides and keep the ruins neatly clipped and tidy?

The issue is that Starmer doesn't actually understand he has both power and the ability to use it, and has ideologically curled up in a ball and already given up.

End Of The Keir Show: How Senior Labour Figures Now Believe Starmer Is Already Toast Will the embattled PM even make it to the New Year in No.10?

Exclusive: No10 chief of staff Morgan McSweeney addressed a meeting of Labour peers on Wednesday night. It did not go well, for him or Keir Starmer.

The HuffPost UK weekend political read 👇

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/end-of...

‘Crisps up perfectly’: the best (and worst) supermarket bacon, tasted and rated It’s the food of the gods, says our reviewer, but which supermarket rasher is heavenly thick and smoky, and which is hellishly thin and salty?

How carcinogenic are they? @theguardian.com has another article saying bacon should have a cancer warning like cigarettes. A lack of editorial consistency. Noticed a journalistic decline of late. Not sure why.