Best Of

...

It's official
@ONS
baby name day!
Here are the names that are dying out
– A mere 9 boys called Norman last year
– Rodney = 8
– Nigel = 5
– Giles = 3
And not a single Piers was registered! (If it's 2 or fewer, it's not released for data reasons, so it's possible 2 were)

In contrast there were 161 boys called Zorawar
Zakariyya = 63
Theo-James = 22
Paris = 14
London = 7
Lucifer = 7

https://x.com/hwallop/status/1950948388754661606

No wonder there are no Piers’s. Naming your child after Piers Morgan should lead to immediate removal into care.

People naming their child Lucifer should go on a list.

Zee list, ja?

Bad news from Diddly Squat. We’ve gone down with TB. Everyone here is absolutely devastated.
https://x.com/JeremyClarkson/status/1950911254056272374

The Badger Lobby: 'It was caused by the pixies.'

(I exaggerate only slightly.)

Killing badgers without TB is likely to allow badgers WITH TB to move into their patch.

Of the top 10 financial losses for farmers, TB came in 11th.

9 of the other 10 were down to bad husbandry practices.

There are very few badgers left without TB now. That's the issue.

As for 'bad husbandry,' what is worse husbandry than allowing badgers infected with a disease and transmitting it to livestock on somebody's land?

I'm beginning to grasp why this disaster has happened. Talking about tests being too expensive when they didn't work, people saying their preferred option despite the actual impossibility of it being vaccinating badgers, and now again the perturbation claim - which was right 25 years ago, but not now - shows just how sterile and unproductive the debate is. And without informed debate, nothing will happen.

(The irony of the Krebs report which first noted it, and was seized on by activists as a reason not to cull, was that it proved a causal link between TB in badgers and TB in cattle by doing so.)

The badgers got hit by a PR exercise by the hedgehogs. Less hedgehog-munching badgers = more badger-food hedgehogs

Badger PR peak was during the original Harry Hill show, featuring Tasmin Archer Badger, Gareth Southgate Badger, and the Badger Parade.

Meanwhile, in "heh heh" news,

69% of Britons say they support the new age verification rules brought in by the Online Safety Act

This is despite just 24% thinking they will be effective at stopping under-18s accessing porn (down from 34% before the changes came into effect)

https://bsky.app/profile/yougov.co.uk/post/3lvbi325l2s25

Meanwhile, in "heh heh" news,

69% of Britons say they support the new age verification rules brought in by the Online Safety Act

This is despite just 24% thinking they will be effective at stopping under-18s accessing porn (down from 34% before the changes came into effect)

https://bsky.app/profile/yougov.co.uk/post/3lvbi325l2s25

The crucial part of that question is accessing porn...which a lot of the objections people have aren't the crux of the issue.

For people who are very online, I agree. But we are a minority.

And I mostly posted that poll because the percentage amused me. I know...

And I was told that the Online Safety Act was about to bring down the government Britons with strong right arms hit the streets in a frustrated frenzy of fapping.

Its almost as if Albanian taxi drivers and eccentric millionaires don't really know anything about the country

Nah, the reason public aren't rioting about the OSA is because they rioting about the secret Afghan story.

Maybe they're still at home, because they got all tired out rioting about the Chagos Islands.

Dine and dash. More shoplifting that absolutely isn't happening:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjd24ky4818o

Allowing people to consume expensive meals before they've paid for them is one of those great examples of civilisation in action.

Which will come to end shortly by sound of things. You order, you pay, your food comes a few minutes or whatever later.

It'll become like hiring a car - you hand over your credit card details before you've perused the menu

Yep. Only a matter of time.

Maybe shops will be the same? Face recognition on entrance, linked to credit details. There's no way the industry wont find ways to stop the industrial shoplifting in the end.

Or they lock and explosive collar on you when you enter and it only gets disarmed once you pay. Otherwise you leave and it blows up. Saves time and money for the justice system as a side bonus.

"Tulip Siddiq to face corruption trial in Bangladesh
Former anti-corruption minister is alleged to have illegally received land from despot aunt’s government"

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/07/31/tulip-siddiq-corruption-trial-bangladesh-labour-hasina

Hampstead and Highgate. GREEN/YOURPARTY GAIN

The area has more LibDem councillors than Green ones. I think it goes Lab, LibDem, Con, Green. The local LibDems have selected a candidate already.

At the general election, it was...

Labour 48%
Conservative 17%
Green 14%
Liberal Democrats 13%
Reform UK 6%
Rejoin EU 1%
Independent 1%

In by-election conditions, I think that the Lib Dems would take it.

In theory, Reform might hit second place, but I expect any increase in their vote will lag far behind the national average.

Id be backing Green/Corbyn myself but we will see if it happens i suppose
The Tories arent taking it, that much is certain

We do abut Islington North, Corbyn's seat, and a Your Party-associated candidate (then standing as an independent) came second in the constituency to our south, Holborn & St Pancras. However, the constituency we are perhaps most like and with which we share the longest border is Finchley & Golders Green.

I guess I'm basing it on progress in 2024 and where I see a 'protest' vote going at the moment. I just think the Green/Corbyn style of London candidate has a better claim at the moment than a LD one and is running ahead on votes last time.LDs have to construct an argument from fourth.
That said I don't know the area so its entirely feels based

The Westerly part of the constituency, around Queen's Park and Kilburn is younger and more likely to go Your Party / Green. But Belsize Park, West Hampstead and Hampstead itself are all very wealthy areas, and quite a bit older. They are much more likely LibDemmy than Green, and they aren't Your Party at all.

I suspect that the Labour vote in Hampstead and environs would most go LibDem in protest, and they might even pick up some of the more Remainy Conservatives.

For Your Party / the Greens to have a serious chance, they would (a) need not to be competing with each other, and (b) would have to flood the seat with activists, leaflets, etc to make themselves the obvious challenger. The LDs are the masters at that; it will be interesting to see if either the Greens or Your Party is able to do similar.

Hampstead town certainly won't go YourParty, indeed the Tories came top in the ward even in 2022 and the Tories were still second in Hampstead and Highgate at the general election with the Greens third, just ahead of the LDs

True: but remember it's now Hampstead and Kilburn, so the constituency has changed somewhat.

No, it is now back to Hampstead and Highgate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampstead_and_Highgate_(UK_Parliament_constituency)