Putin speaks but Trump’s mouth is moving.

It only appears half empty because many of the motorways are, for no obvious reason, drawn in pale colours. We don’t need more motorways, we need proper local trains, trams and light rail in & between our major cities.

In other words, a 10 percent contraction in one of Britain’s most successful exports. If it were steel or fish or other infinitely less profitable sectors, people would be having a meltdown.

I haven’t had a time to focus on this but, from the headlines, it sounds like the incentive is to get old people to use their surplus cash to buy property they don’t need to live in, thus keeping young people further from home ownership. But I can’t have got that right?! 

Ask John Elledge?? Follow the route of the old “concrete collar“ the inner ring road of Birmingham. All the streets with the name “Queensway“ are the in inner ring road. Some are still exactly as they were when they were built, some transformed beyond recognition. 

Those three little words "in order to" seem to have been missing from political debates about costs and benefits. Good to see them back

It’s a mark of the corruption of our whole way of thinking about the world that trying to meet a planetary emergency is routinely described as “ideological”, while continuing to accelerate it is presented as “pragmatic” and “economic”.

My other main thought: that prospectus means that it's now overall possible to be progressive and feel ok about supporting Labour again. That hasn't been the case for some time. Those in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s have a chance to put things right when we've drifted badly off course.

It is an extremely good book

The BBC news summary this morning went seamlessly from "critics warn PM scrapping triple lock would be electoral suicide" to "critics ask if PM has nerve to make tough decisions" and I don't think it's a particularly pro Burnham stance to suggest he might not be the entire problem here.

Google finally updated some of its satellite images of Gaza and my god, it's horrific. The entirety of Rafah has been demolished. The majority of Khan Younis is in ruins. Entire towns completely leveled and erased of the map.

The before and after it's even more haunting.

Liar. Small boat crossings peaked under Johnson in 2022 reaching 46,000 in 2022. In current year they are 18,565 and falling. Also prior to Boris Johnson's Brexit there were none.

I once saw an incredibly self-congratulatory presentation by Nando‘s on how they had dealt with a supplier crisis when they ran out of chicken. As far as I could tell, the response was to close all the restaurants until more chicken turned up. 

Ah! Thanks! Why does he support a North London football team?

But what has that got to do with Mandami?