Best Of

Beautifully written piece in the TLS on life in Kharkiv now.

https://bsky.app/profile/jamesmeek.bsky.social/post/3latvtnhh4s2l

Horrendously sad.

It is. But I fear, like our very own Sean Thomas, Meeks is someone who travels and sees what he wants to see. War-weariness is also far from unusual: from listening to my grandparents, you would have seen plenty of war-weariness here in Britain in 1942, 1943 and 1944. That does not mean they didn't want to continue the fight. But we also forget how many people did not fully obey the rules, from black-marketeers and the people who used them, to the many who did not obey the blackout at all times.

Meeks is a good writer, but he needs a good editor. He *always* over-writes. And that's quite an accusation coming from me.

(If you want to see a video from Ukraine which IMV is better than that article, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQQCq1ijRjc Sometimes images really do cover 1,000 words.)

Beautifully written piece in the TLS on life in Kharkiv now.

https://bsky.app/profile/jamesmeek.bsky.social/post/3latvtnhh4s2l

Horrendously sad.

It is. But I fear, like our very own Sean Thomas, Meeks is someone who travels and sees what he wants to see. War-weariness is also far from unusual: from listening to my grandparents, you would have seen plenty of war-weariness here in Britain in 1942, 1943 and 1944. That does not mean they didn't want to continue the fight. But we also forget how many people did not fully obey the rules, from black-marketeers and the people who used them, to the many who did not obey the blackout at all times.

Meeks is a good writer, but he needs a good editor. He *always* over-writes. And that's quite an accusation coming from me.

(If you want to see a video from Ukraine which IMV is better than that article, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQQCq1ijRjc Sometimes images really do cover 1,000 words.)

Not exactly the Budget pasty tax furore, is it? What happened to that growth they voted for in July, SKS?

"High Street job losses are "inevitable", prices will rise, and shops will close as the result of the tax increases in the Budget and other rising costs, a group of the biggest retailers in the UK is warning.

Tesco, Amazon, Greggs, Next, and dozens of other chains are urging the Treasury to reconsider some of the measures."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp816jrnynyo

Not to worry. The Assistant to the Regional Manager in No.11 will sort it all out.

Our public services are broken.

The Government is asking rich estates and the most valuable farms to pay their fair share.

Small family farms will not be affected. Only about 500 estates a year will pay more under the new scheme than they do today.

https://x.com/SteveReedMP/status/1858613805737296378

The trick is not to die under a Labour Government...

Just because an Opposition complains about something in the first year of a parliament doesn't mean its reversal will automatically be in their manifesto at the next election.

On this I expect it to be in a manifesto, even possibly in the Lib Dems as well, as it is not a huge sum [ circa 700 million] and an unnecessary own goal by Reeves on a powerful group