Trump is trying to shift jobs back to the US including in car manufacturing via his tariffs but the risk is it just raises prices.
Starmer and Reeves are unlikely to benefit if they fail to get a hoped for trade with the US, anti Trump voters will just go LD or Green
You can't relocate complete supply chains in months that type of work is a multi year project with significant upfront costs.
No one is going to take the US risk while the US equity and debt markets are in mid air. With every day that passes, the crash gets more baked in to investor assumptions.
The volatility alone is causing significant repricing.
To me these are all unintentionally, or maybe intentionally, humorous. Either way, Redknapp seems good value, as football punditry usually literally bores me to death.
My favourite was when he said Peter Schmeichel was a father figure to Kasper Schmeichel.
To me these are all unintentionally, or maybe intentionally, humorous. Either way, Redknapp seems good value, as football punditry usually literally bores me to death.
My favourite was when he said Peter Schmeichel was a father figure to Kasper Schmeichel.
State of Emergency in Bangkok. Would have been handy to have a correspondent on the scene.
The footage of the building collapse should finally put to bed the 9/11 conspiracy theories.
My younger son is a Bangkok resident, although as luck would have it he's currently in Taiwan on business. He texted this morning to say that his family and home are OK and the School his children attend is fine, although they had some 'shakes'. Apparently one of his daughters told him that the ceiling shook. Not sure whether that was at home or school; she's 17, but is nursing a sports injury at the moment.
For those who enjoy the misuse of the word literally as much as me: a woman at an adjacent table is telling a long and involved story about being allergic to lavender, and a reaction to some sort of cosmetic: 'My face was literally on fire. I was literally burnt to a cinder'.
Should "literally" have been in quotation marks?
But "literally" is being used in the same way as "really", so I'm not sure why pedants seem OK with one but not the other.
I was cold, I was very cold, I was freezing. You don't say "I was very freezing", so if you want to go further you have to use an adverb like "really freezing", "literally freezing" or "fucking freezing". All are fine.
Literally is a helpful word because it helps describe how extreme a situation was, by taking a scenario that might otherwise be deemed a colourful metaphor or exaggeration, and informing someone that it actually happened. 'My kitchen was flooded totally - the hearth rug literally floated out of the door.'. It's a useful rhetorical device being undermined by ignorance.
You might find it 'fine' but then it's also 'fine' if someone comes up to someone else and says 'flubby flub flubber flub'. Nobody gets hurt. It is still not very good English.
So you were confused about whether the person saying "my face was literally on fire" was speaking metaphorically?
Most people can work things out from the context.
It's actually a good way of bringing a dead metaphor back to life. Though that only really works as long as pedants keep complaining, so it's good that they do this service.
I wasn't confused, because it didn't happen to me. And the demerit does not lie in the confusion caused when stupid people abuse the word 'literally' - it lies in no longer being able to use the word 'literally' to describe something that 'literally' happened, because it has become devalued.
But you have just given an example yourself where that meaning of literally was quite clear, so it seems to me that you are the stupid person if anything.
I've explained quite clearly why I don't think this word being used to mean the opposite of its true meaning isn't a positive development in the language. You've given brain farts in response. I think you are reflexively in favour of any change to the language, however ugly or stupid, and probably also in favour of any modern building, however ugly and stupid, and any modern art, however ugly or stupid, because that chimes in with your politics and makes you feel modern. So it seems to me that you're the stupid person if anything.
You start by calling people you disagree with stupid, and when called out on your own stupidity, you go on a rant about how I must love ugly buildings? I think you comprehensively lost whatever argument you were trying to make.
TLDR: "Literally" has been used as an intensifier for a long time. It's probably best not to use it in that way, but there's little point in railing aginst people who do.
It's a bit crass but infinitely better to an older generation like me as an intensifier than the F word.
Secondly, there is a literally (!) never ending issue about whether the meanings of words are fixed to their long term history and philology or whether the meaning is properly discerned by their current use.
(This is also a significant and complex element of how the class system works).
Decimate is a good example. The cause of sticking to its historical roots is, surely, lost and it would be crass(us) to try to revive it. And 'prevent' meaning 'go ahead' is a cause only for students of the 1662 prayer book.
Personally I value "literally" and "decimate" for having relevant meanings, whereas the f- word doesn't when imported into unrelated conrtexts. My partner disagrees - says the f-word should be kept for f-relevant contexts, which I think is a lost battle.
I would rather people used the C word than "yourself" meaning "you". I don't even notice people using the F word. I think there's a generational split on swearing somewhere above 50yo.
For those who enjoy the misuse of the word literally as much as me: a woman at an adjacent table is telling a long and involved story about being allergic to lavender, and a reaction to some sort of cosmetic: 'My face was literally on fire. I was literally burnt to a cinder'.
Should "literally" have been in quotation marks?
But "literally" is being used in the same way as "really", so I'm not sure why pedants seem OK with one but not the other.
I was cold, I was very cold, I was freezing. You don't say "I was very freezing", so if you want to go further you have to use an adverb like "really freezing", "literally freezing" or "fucking freezing". All are fine.
Literally is a helpful word because it helps describe how extreme a situation was, by taking a scenario that might otherwise be deemed a colourful metaphor or exaggeration, and informing someone that it actually happened. 'My kitchen was flooded totally - the hearth rug literally floated out of the door.'. It's a useful rhetorical device being undermined by ignorance.
You might find it 'fine' but then it's also 'fine' if someone comes up to someone else and says 'flubby flub flubber flub'. Nobody gets hurt. It is still not very good English.
So you were confused about whether the person saying "my face was literally on fire" was speaking metaphorically?
Most people can work things out from the context.
It's actually a good way of bringing a dead metaphor back to life. Though that only really works as long as pedants keep complaining, so it's good that they do this service.
I wasn't confused, because it didn't happen to me. And the demerit does not lie in the confusion caused when stupid people abuse the word 'literally' - it lies in no longer being able to use the word 'literally' to describe something that 'literally' happened, because it has become devalued.
But you have just given an example yourself where that meaning of literally was quite clear, so it seems to me that you are the stupid person if anything.
I've explained quite clearly why I don't think this word being used to mean the opposite of its true meaning isn't a positive development in the language. You've given brain farts in response. I think you are reflexively in favour of any change to the language, however ugly or stupid, and probably also in favour of any modern building, however ugly and stupid, and any modern art, however ugly or stupid, because that chimes in with your politics and makes you feel modern. So it seems to me that you're the stupid person if anything.
You start by calling people you disagree with stupid, and when called out on your own stupidity, you go on a rant about how I must love ugly buildings? I think you comprehensively lost whatever argument you were trying to make.
TLDR: "Literally" has been used as an intensifier for a long time. It's probably best not to use it in that way, but there's little point in railing aginst people who do.
A major reason why 'literally' gets singled out, is because its (informal) usage is the *antonym* of the word that should be used: 'metaphorically'. The original speaker really meant "My face was metaphorically on fire".
This alone means that many of the 'misuses' of literally are funny when the listener/reader takes the sentence literally.
I am recalling the worst thing about the Trump 2016 era - it wasn't anything Trump actually did - it was that awful, awful screaming of the Libs.
And yet here we are in the Trump 2025 era where they are far better organised and far more deadly. And yet owning the libs is still your focus.
Not at all - British politics (and associated betting, though I'll admit primarily politics) is my interest. I find the constant Trump outrage on here quite wearisome and also oddly reversely-parochial. There's a lot of shit going on in this country and we're hanging on Trump’s every word (again).
I partly agree with you - our problems remain regardless of who is the American president. However, Trump ending NATO and smashing the global economy make our problems worse. So it is directly relevant to the shit going on in this country.
Quite. Does the UK have a problem with overly focusing on US news and culture? Absolutely. But what the US President does matters a lot of the time unfortunately.
Its like saying things happening in Europe, like a war, dont matter for us, its just not true, the argument is over how much it matters.
I think the UK public and nerds often have a problem with contextualising in a USA which is as diverse, and has as many regions, as Europe.
One of things we are missing is a 21st Century Alistair Cooke.
Yes. I am 100% against Trumpism and Trump but journalism doesn't just exist to tell me what I want to hear.
I can follow MSNBC which tells me 100% of what is wrong with Trump; I can (but don't much) follow Fox News etc that promote and whitewash Trumpism.
What is lacking, SFAICS, are sources which comment from the point of view of understanding both why Trumpism is clearly 100% opposeable but also why and how it is that Trumpian authoritarianism, lies, threats, illegalities, silencing and Hobbesian approaches can be and are supported and sustained knowingly by millions.
I'm old-fashioned enough to want news and views separate. I don't think the news should start from Trump or anyone else being 100% opposable - it should tell us what's happening, and what current US opinion appears to be. By all means refer at the end to a comment piece saying it's deplorable. Otherwise, we end up completely baffled by Trump's ability to win an election, which in the context of political betting can be an expensive error.
As the UK Labour government cuts spending, Australian Labor PM Albanese says 'now is not the time for cuts'. As Coalition leader Peter Dutton promises to cut 'wasteful spending' as he starts his election campaign
To me these are all unintentionally, or maybe intentionally, humorous. Either way, Redknapp seems good value, as football punditry usually literally bores me to death.
My favourite was when he said Peter Schmeichel was a father figure to Kasper Schmeichel.
For those who enjoy the misuse of the word literally as much as me: a woman at an adjacent table is telling a long and involved story about being allergic to lavender, and a reaction to some sort of cosmetic: 'My face was literally on fire. I was literally burnt to a cinder'.
Should "literally" have been in quotation marks?
But "literally" is being used in the same way as "really", so I'm not sure why pedants seem OK with one but not the other.
I was cold, I was very cold, I was freezing. You don't say "I was very freezing", so if you want to go further you have to use an adverb like "really freezing", "literally freezing" or "fucking freezing". All are fine.
Literally is a helpful word because it helps describe how extreme a situation was, by taking a scenario that might otherwise be deemed a colourful metaphor or exaggeration, and informing someone that it actually happened. 'My kitchen was flooded totally - the hearth rug literally floated out of the door.'. It's a useful rhetorical device being undermined by ignorance.
You might find it 'fine' but then it's also 'fine' if someone comes up to someone else and says 'flubby flub flubber flub'. Nobody gets hurt. It is still not very good English.
So you were confused about whether the person saying "my face was literally on fire" was speaking metaphorically?
Most people can work things out from the context.
It's actually a good way of bringing a dead metaphor back to life. Though that only really works as long as pedants keep complaining, so it's good that they do this service.
I wasn't confused, because it didn't happen to me. And the demerit does not lie in the confusion caused when stupid people abuse the word 'literally' - it lies in no longer being able to use the word 'literally' to describe something that 'literally' happened, because it has become devalued.
But you have just given an example yourself where that meaning of literally was quite clear, so it seems to me that you are the stupid person if anything.
I've explained quite clearly why I don't think this word being used to mean the opposite of its true meaning isn't a positive development in the language. You've given brain farts in response. I think you are reflexively in favour of any change to the language, however ugly or stupid, and probably also in favour of any modern building, however ugly and stupid, and any modern art, however ugly or stupid, because that chimes in with your politics and makes you feel modern. So it seems to me that you're the stupid person if anything.
You start by calling people you disagree with stupid, and when called out on your own stupidity, you go on a rant about how I must love ugly buildings? I think you comprehensively lost whatever argument you were trying to make.
TLDR: "Literally" has been used as an intensifier for a long time. It's probably best not to use it in that way, but there's little point in railing aginst people who do.
It's a bit crass but infinitely better to an older generation like me as an intensifier than the F word.
Secondly, there is a literally (!) never ending issue about whether the meanings of words are fixed to their long term history and philology or whether the meaning is properly discerned by their current use.
(This is also a significant and complex element of how the class system works).
Decimate is a good example. The cause of sticking to its historical roots is, surely, lost and it would be crass(us) to try to revive it. And 'prevent' meaning 'go ahead' is a cause only for students of the 1662 prayer book.
Personally I value "literally" and "decimate" for having relevant meanings, whereas the f- word doesn't when imported into unrelated conrtexts. My partner disagrees - says the f-word should be kept for f-relevant contexts, which I think is a lost battle.
For those who enjoy the misuse of the word literally as much as me: a woman at an adjacent table is telling a long and involved story about being allergic to lavender, and a reaction to some sort of cosmetic: 'My face was literally on fire. I was literally burnt to a cinder'.
Should "literally" have been in quotation marks?
But "literally" is being used in the same way as "really", so I'm not sure why pedants seem OK with one but not the other.
I was cold, I was very cold, I was freezing. You don't say "I was very freezing", so if you want to go further you have to use an adverb like "really freezing", "literally freezing" or "fucking freezing". All are fine.
Literally is a helpful word because it helps describe how extreme a situation was, by taking a scenario that might otherwise be deemed a colourful metaphor or exaggeration, and informing someone that it actually happened. 'My kitchen was flooded totally - the hearth rug literally floated out of the door.'. It's a useful rhetorical device being undermined by ignorance.
You might find it 'fine' but then it's also 'fine' if someone comes up to someone else and says 'flubby flub flubber flub'. Nobody gets hurt. It is still not very good English.
So you were confused about whether the person saying "my face was literally on fire" was speaking metaphorically?
Most people can work things out from the context.
It's actually a good way of bringing a dead metaphor back to life. Though that only really works as long as pedants keep complaining, so it's good that they do this service.
I wasn't confused, because it didn't happen to me. And the demerit does not lie in the confusion caused when stupid people abuse the word 'literally' - it lies in no longer being able to use the word 'literally' to describe something that 'literally' happened, because it has become devalued.
But you have just given an example yourself where that meaning of literally was quite clear, so it seems to me that you are the stupid person if anything.
I've explained quite clearly why I don't think this word being used to mean the opposite of its true meaning isn't a positive development in the language. You've given brain farts in response. I think you are reflexively in favour of any change to the language, however ugly or stupid, and probably also in favour of any modern building, however ugly and stupid, and any modern art, however ugly or stupid, because that chimes in with your politics and makes you feel modern. So it seems to me that you're the stupid person if anything.
You start by calling people you disagree with stupid, and when called out on your own stupidity, you go on a rant about how I must love ugly buildings? I think you comprehensively lost whatever argument you were trying to make.
TLDR: "Literally" has been used as an intensifier for a long time. It's probably best not to use it in that way, but there's little point in railing aginst people who do.
A major reason why 'literally' gets singled out, is because its (informal) usage is the *antonym* of the word that should be used: 'metaphorically'. The original speaker really meant "My face was metaphorically on fire".
This alone means that many of the 'misuses' of literally are funny when the listener/reader takes the sentence literally.
"my face was metaphorically on fire", unless intended as a joke, is way stupider than "my face was literally on fire", as it insults the listener. Unless in a context in which the face could have literally been on fire, in which case better to avoid the metaphor altogether.
Most of the public are not going to read White Papers, green Papers and Red Books. General ignorance about how tax is raised and from whom, and even more how it is spent and in what sort of amounts is a shocking failure of communication from government, education and public service media.
I recall a really good documentary on how elections work in the U.K. - black and white, BBC, early sixties? Your classic man-in-mac-with-microphone, talking to the volunteers.
Full of information, no Jeremy Vine histrionics, just the facts. Cheap as chips to make, probably. These days could do it with a DSLR…
To me these are all unintentionally, or maybe intentionally, humorous. Either way, Redknapp seems good value, as football punditry usually literally bores me to death.
My favourite was when he said Peter Schmeichel was a father figure to Kasper Schmeichel.
That's literally true though.
The one time he should have said literally.
To be consistent he should have said he’s like a father figure.
I am recalling the worst thing about the Trump 2016 era - it wasn't anything Trump actually did - it was that awful, awful screaming of the Libs.
And yet here we are in the Trump 2025 era where they are far better organised and far more deadly. And yet owning the libs is still your focus.
Not at all - British politics (and associated betting, though I'll admit primarily politics) is my interest. I find the constant Trump outrage on here quite wearisome and also oddly reversely-parochial. There's a lot of shit going on in this country and we're hanging on Trump’s every word (again).
I partly agree with you - our problems remain regardless of who is the American president. However, Trump ending NATO and smashing the global economy make our problems worse. So it is directly relevant to the shit going on in this country.
Quite. Does the UK have a problem with overly focusing on US news and culture? Absolutely. But what the US President does matters a lot of the time unfortunately.
Its like saying things happening in Europe, like a war, dont matter for us, its just not true, the argument is over how much it matters.
I think the UK public and nerds often have a problem with contextualising in a USA which is as diverse, and has as many regions, as Europe.
One of things we are missing is a 21st Century Alistair Cooke.
Yes. I am 100% against Trumpism and Trump but journalism doesn't just exist to tell me what I want to hear.
I can follow MSNBC which tells me 100% of what is wrong with Trump; I can (but don't much) follow Fox News etc that promote and whitewash Trumpism.
What is lacking, SFAICS, are sources which comment from the point of view of understanding both why Trumpism is clearly 100% opposeable but also why and how it is that Trumpian authoritarianism, lies, threats, illegalities, silencing and Hobbesian approaches can be and are supported and sustained knowingly by millions.
I'm old-fashioned enough to want news and views separate. I don't think the news should start from Trump or anyone else being 100% opposable - it should tell us what's happening, and what current US opinion appears to be. By all means refer at the end to a comment piece saying it's deplorable. Otherwise, we end up completely baffled by Trump's ability to win an election, which in the context of political betting can be an expensive error.
Current affairs reporting should certainly take into account the often neglected political punter.
For those who enjoy the misuse of the word literally as much as me: a woman at an adjacent table is telling a long and involved story about being allergic to lavender, and a reaction to some sort of cosmetic: 'My face was literally on fire. I was literally burnt to a cinder'.
Should "literally" have been in quotation marks?
But "literally" is being used in the same way as "really", so I'm not sure why pedants seem OK with one but not the other.
I was cold, I was very cold, I was freezing. You don't say "I was very freezing", so if you want to go further you have to use an adverb like "really freezing", "literally freezing" or "fucking freezing". All are fine.
Literally is a helpful word because it helps describe how extreme a situation was, by taking a scenario that might otherwise be deemed a colourful metaphor or exaggeration, and informing someone that it actually happened. 'My kitchen was flooded totally - the hearth rug literally floated out of the door.'. It's a useful rhetorical device being undermined by ignorance.
You might find it 'fine' but then it's also 'fine' if someone comes up to someone else and says 'flubby flub flubber flub'. Nobody gets hurt. It is still not very good English.
So you were confused about whether the person saying "my face was literally on fire" was speaking metaphorically?
Most people can work things out from the context.
It's actually a good way of bringing a dead metaphor back to life. Though that only really works as long as pedants keep complaining, so it's good that they do this service.
I wasn't confused, because it didn't happen to me. And the demerit does not lie in the confusion caused when stupid people abuse the word 'literally' - it lies in no longer being able to use the word 'literally' to describe something that 'literally' happened, because it has become devalued.
But you have just given an example yourself where that meaning of literally was quite clear, so it seems to me that you are the stupid person if anything.
I've explained quite clearly why I don't think this word being used to mean the opposite of its true meaning isn't a positive development in the language. You've given brain farts in response. I think you are reflexively in favour of any change to the language, however ugly or stupid, and probably also in favour of any modern building, however ugly and stupid, and any modern art, however ugly or stupid, because that chimes in with your politics and makes you feel modern. So it seems to me that you're the stupid person if anything.
You start by calling people you disagree with stupid, and when called out on your own stupidity, you go on a rant about how I must love ugly buildings? I think you comprehensively lost whatever argument you were trying to make.
TLDR: "Literally" has been used as an intensifier for a long time. It's probably best not to use it in that way, but there's little point in railing aginst people who do.
My 7 year old has recently started using 'literally' in literally every other sentence (exercise for the reader as to whether I literally mean 'literally' there! )
I've picked him up on it in a not-serious way - he's interested in language and word meanings, so was actually interested in learning what it really means - and we're now at the stage of using it playfully to try to annoy each other.
I'm not too bothered by the misuse. It was the excessive use that was mildly vexing. The Americanisms of 'could care less' and 'me either' grate a lot more, somehow.
For those who enjoy the misuse of the word literally as much as me: a woman at an adjacent table is telling a long and involved story about being allergic to lavender, and a reaction to some sort of cosmetic: 'My face was literally on fire. I was literally burnt to a cinder'.
Should "literally" have been in quotation marks?
But "literally" is being used in the same way as "really", so I'm not sure why pedants seem OK with one but not the other.
I was cold, I was very cold, I was freezing. You don't say "I was very freezing", so if you want to go further you have to use an adverb like "really freezing", "literally freezing" or "fucking freezing". All are fine.
Literally is a helpful word because it helps describe how extreme a situation was, by taking a scenario that might otherwise be deemed a colourful metaphor or exaggeration, and informing someone that it actually happened. 'My kitchen was flooded totally - the hearth rug literally floated out of the door.'. It's a useful rhetorical device being undermined by ignorance.
You might find it 'fine' but then it's also 'fine' if someone comes up to someone else and says 'flubby flub flubber flub'. Nobody gets hurt. It is still not very good English.
So you were confused about whether the person saying "my face was literally on fire" was speaking metaphorically?
Most people can work things out from the context.
It's actually a good way of bringing a dead metaphor back to life. Though that only really works as long as pedants keep complaining, so it's good that they do this service.
I wasn't confused, because it didn't happen to me. And the demerit does not lie in the confusion caused when stupid people abuse the word 'literally' - it lies in no longer being able to use the word 'literally' to describe something that 'literally' happened, because it has become devalued.
But you have just given an example yourself where that meaning of literally was quite clear, so it seems to me that you are the stupid person if anything.
I've explained quite clearly why I don't think this word being used to mean the opposite of its true meaning isn't a positive development in the language. You've given brain farts in response. I think you are reflexively in favour of any change to the language, however ugly or stupid, and probably also in favour of any modern building, however ugly and stupid, and any modern art, however ugly or stupid, because that chimes in with your politics and makes you feel modern. So it seems to me that you're the stupid person if anything.
You start by calling people you disagree with stupid, and when called out on your own stupidity, you go on a rant about how I must love ugly buildings? I think you comprehensively lost whatever argument you were trying to make.
TLDR: "Literally" has been used as an intensifier for a long time. It's probably best not to use it in that way, but there's little point in railing aginst people who do.
A major reason why 'literally' gets singled out, is because its (informal) usage is the *antonym* of the word that should be used: 'metaphorically'. The original speaker really meant "My face was metaphorically on fire".
This alone means that many of the 'misuses' of literally are funny when the listener/reader takes the sentence literally.
For those who enjoy the misuse of the word literally as much as me: a woman at an adjacent table is telling a long and involved story about being allergic to lavender, and a reaction to some sort of cosmetic: 'My face was literally on fire. I was literally burnt to a cinder'.
Should "literally" have been in quotation marks?
But "literally" is being used in the same way as "really", so I'm not sure why pedants seem OK with one but not the other.
I was cold, I was very cold, I was freezing. You don't say "I was very freezing", so if you want to go further you have to use an adverb like "really freezing", "literally freezing" or "fucking freezing". All are fine.
Literally is a helpful word because it helps describe how extreme a situation was, by taking a scenario that might otherwise be deemed a colourful metaphor or exaggeration, and informing someone that it actually happened. 'My kitchen was flooded totally - the hearth rug literally floated out of the door.'. It's a useful rhetorical device being undermined by ignorance.
You might find it 'fine' but then it's also 'fine' if someone comes up to someone else and says 'flubby flub flubber flub'. Nobody gets hurt. It is still not very good English.
So you were confused about whether the person saying "my face was literally on fire" was speaking metaphorically?
Most people can work things out from the context.
It's actually a good way of bringing a dead metaphor back to life. Though that only really works as long as pedants keep complaining, so it's good that they do this service.
I wasn't confused, because it didn't happen to me. And the demerit does not lie in the confusion caused when stupid people abuse the word 'literally' - it lies in no longer being able to use the word 'literally' to describe something that 'literally' happened, because it has become devalued.
But you have just given an example yourself where that meaning of literally was quite clear, so it seems to me that you are the stupid person if anything.
I've explained quite clearly why I don't think this word being used to mean the opposite of its true meaning isn't a positive development in the language. You've given brain farts in response. I think you are reflexively in favour of any change to the language, however ugly or stupid, and probably also in favour of any modern building, however ugly and stupid, and any modern art, however ugly or stupid, because that chimes in with your politics and makes you feel modern. So it seems to me that you're the stupid person if anything.
You start by calling people you disagree with stupid, and when called out on your own stupidity, you go on a rant about how I must love ugly buildings? I think you comprehensively lost whatever argument you were trying to make.
TLDR: "Literally" has been used as an intensifier for a long time. It's probably best not to use it in that way, but there's little point in railing aginst people who do.
My 7 year old has recently started using 'literally' in literally every other sentence (exercise for the reader as to whether I literally mean 'literally' there! )
I've picked him up on it in a not-serious way - he's interested in language and word meanings, so was actually interested in learning what it really means - and we're now at the stage of using it playfully to try to annoy each other.
I'm not too bothered by the misuse. It was the excessive use that was mildly vexing. The Americanisms of 'could care less' and 'me either' grate a lot more, somehow.
Is he using it in 1 in 10 sentences?
Well, approx 1 in 5, maybe - his correct sentence formation has been literally decimated
State of Emergency in Bangkok. Would have been handy to have a correspondent on the scene.
The footage of the building collapse should finally put to bed the 9/11 conspiracy theories.
My younger son is a Bangkok resident, although as luck would have it he's currently in Taiwan on business. He texted this morning to say that his family and home are OK and the School his children attend is fine, although they had some 'shakes'. Apparently one of his daughters told him that the ceiling shook. Not sure whether that was at home or school; she's 17, but is nursing a sports injury at the moment.
I think my son will be flying back to Thailand tonight; he usually gets home for weekends so I might have a more up-to-date/on-the set report tomorrow morning.
As the UK Labour government cuts spending, Australian Labor PM Albanese says 'now is not the time for cuts'. As Coalition leader Peter Dutton promises to cut 'wasteful spending' as he starts his election campaign
Are you supportive of the Reeves-Dutton view or the Farage*-Albanese take?
* I am being impish. Nigel "free school meals" Farage.
UK public spending is higher at the moment than Australian public spending so there is more to cut.
Farage wants to shift to more contributory welfare and axe overseas aid so is hardly that pro big spend either
How did Labour lose control of welfare spending in just 9 months after 14 years of Tory austerity?
Farage wants a US style insurance based healthcare system. There will be some excellent opportunities for consultancy commissions for selling NHS Trusts to the likes of Cedars Sinai Healthcare. Loads 'a money, luvvly Jubbly!
I am recalling the worst thing about the Trump 2016 era - it wasn't anything Trump actually did - it was that awful, awful screaming of the Libs.
And yet here we are in the Trump 2025 era where they are far better organised and far more deadly. And yet owning the libs is still your focus.
Not at all - British politics (and associated betting, though I'll admit primarily politics) is my interest. I find the constant Trump outrage on here quite wearisome and also oddly reversely-parochial. There's a lot of shit going on in this country and we're hanging on Trump’s every word (again).
I partly agree with you - our problems remain regardless of who is the American president. However, Trump ending NATO and smashing the global economy make our problems worse. So it is directly relevant to the shit going on in this country.
Quite. Does the UK have a problem with overly focusing on US news and culture? Absolutely. But what the US President does matters a lot of the time unfortunately.
Its like saying things happening in Europe, like a war, dont matter for us, its just not true, the argument is over how much it matters.
I think the UK public and nerds often have a problem with contextualising in a USA which is as diverse, and has as many regions, as Europe.
One of things we are missing is a 21st Century Alistair Cooke.
Yes. I am 100% against Trumpism and Trump but journalism doesn't just exist to tell me what I want to hear.
I can follow MSNBC which tells me 100% of what is wrong with Trump; I can (but don't much) follow Fox News etc that promote and whitewash Trumpism.
What is lacking, SFAICS, are sources which comment from the point of view of understanding both why Trumpism is clearly 100% opposeable but also why and how it is that Trumpian authoritarianism, lies, threats, illegalities, silencing and Hobbesian approaches can be and are supported and sustained knowingly by millions.
I'm writing up a little list following your question the other day as I spot or remember things.
But at the moment for the USA it's glazing your own stained glass window from many sources to make a picture, and it's selecting fragments from each source.
One problem with the traditional right at present in the USA is that when conservative Republicans poke their heads out of the niche and take a proper look at Trump, they either flip quite quickly or burrow even deep up his rabbit hole. Some military commentators seem to have done this in the recent episode, since they are actually in possession of principles and a morality.
As you observed with Marc Elias, law people get to track one niche-full of actual happenings. I tend to follow the duets from Brian Taylor-Cohen and Elias, and also Michael Popok on Legal AF, who tends to mention everything legal in short segments.
One source I have not tried yet has been right of centre law blogs aka blawgs, such as Volokh Conspiracy, which I read for years.
Possibly useful sources are NPR / PBS as usual, or US versions of British sites - such as Spectator World on thespectator.com (which is more Trumpish / Christian Nationalist than the UK edition, but does cover things and shares some staff).
Plus the authoritative US magazines such as Foreign Affairs and The Atlantic, and their podcasts.
I've also found things such as DW useful to triangulate a UK perspective, but I have not really tried the BBC World Service yet, which is usually distinctly more informative than the UK focused BBC.
I've found people who do long form interviews helpful as it gives time for analysis. The best for me at present is probably Silicon Curtain, on Youtube. And particular commentators - at present I'm working through Fiona Hill's archive.
Finally, my pair of Telegraph Podcasts - Ukraine the Latest, who are the gold standard because their team has such a deep knowledge of Ukr, Military, Eastern Europe etc, and they interview a vast range of people - one per day since 2022, and now doing more coverage of USA-Europe relations. And the Daily T is a useful window on the Right to Hard Right, since they are fairly ardent Trump supporters who tend to swallow his speeches whole.
Final thought - are the International Herald Tribune any use, or anything USA focused from the FT?
As the UK Labour government cuts spending, Australian Labor PM Albanese says 'now is not the time for cuts'. As Coalition leader Peter Dutton promises to cut 'wasteful spending' as he starts his election campaign
Are you supportive of the Reeves-Dutton view or the Farage*-Albanese take?
* I am being impish. Nigel "free school meals" Farage.
UK public spending is higher at the moment than Australian public spending so there is more to cut.
Farage wants to shift to more contributory welfare and axe overseas aid so is hardly that pro big spend either
How did Labour lose control of welfare spending in just 9 months after 14 years of Tory austerity?
Farage wants a US style insurance based healthcare system. There will be some excellent opportunities for consultancy commissions for selling NHS Trusts to the likes of Cedars Sinai Healthcare. Loads 'a money, luvvly Jubbly!
The truth is, there never was "austerity", just slightly less profligate spending by the public sector and cuts to things that were actually quite useful, whilst protecting the featherbedding of public sector pensions and other unnecessary bureaucratic hobbyhorses.
I guess this means no more sneering at Signalgate.
Back in the New Labour days a CD Rom left by a Squadron Leader on a bus would have led to calls by the Telegraph for the Defence Secretary to be sacked. Should Healey consider his position?
As the UK Labour government cuts spending, Australian Labor PM Albanese says 'now is not the time for cuts'. As Coalition leader Peter Dutton promises to cut 'wasteful spending' as he starts his election campaign
Are you supportive of the Reeves-Dutton view or the Farage*-Albanese take?
* I am being impish. Nigel "free school meals" Farage.
UK public spending is higher at the moment than Australian public spending so there is more to cut.
Farage wants to shift to more contributory welfare and axe overseas aid so is hardly that pro big spend either
How did Labour lose control of welfare spending in just 9 months after 14 years of Tory austerity?
Farage wants a US style insurance based healthcare system. There will be some excellent opportunities for consultancy commissions for selling NHS Trusts to the likes of Cedars Sinai Healthcare. Loads 'a money, luvvly Jubbly!
The truth is, there never was "austerity", just slightly less profligate spending by the public sector and cuts to things that were actually quite useful, whilst protecting the featherbedding of public sector pensions and other unnecessary bureaucratic hobbyhorses.
That is quite a decent analysis of the Spring Statement.
As the UK Labour government cuts spending, Australian Labor PM Albanese says 'now is not the time for cuts'. As Coalition leader Peter Dutton promises to cut 'wasteful spending' as he starts his election campaign
Are you supportive of the Reeves-Dutton view or the Farage*-Albanese take?
* I am being impish. Nigel "free school meals" Farage.
UK public spending is higher at the moment than Australian public spending so there is more to cut.
Farage wants to shift to more contributory welfare and axe overseas aid so is hardly that pro big spend either
How did Labour lose control of welfare spending in just 9 months after 14 years of Tory austerity?
Farage wants a US style insurance based healthcare system. There will be some excellent opportunities for consultancy commissions for selling NHS Trusts to the likes of Cedars Sinai Healthcare. Loads 'a money, luvvly Jubbly!
There was some austerity under Cameron and Clegg and Osborne and a limited amount under May and Hammond.
Under Boris and Sunak however spending surged, including on welfare. Indeed Boris was and still is the biggest spending UK PM this century after Gordon Brown.
State of Emergency in Bangkok. Would have been handy to have a correspondent on the scene.
The footage of the building collapse should finally put to bed the 9/11 conspiracy theories.
My younger son is a Bangkok resident, although as luck would have it he's currently in Taiwan on business. He texted this morning to say that his family and home are OK and the School his children attend is fine, although they had some 'shakes'. Apparently one of his daughters told him that the ceiling shook. Not sure whether that was at home or school; she's 17, but is nursing a sports injury at the moment.
Gosh! How incredibly fortunate to escape an earthquake in Bangkok by being on Taiwan! Literally.
Trump is trying to shift jobs back to the US including in car manufacturing via his tariffs but the risk is it just raises prices.
Starmer and Reeves are unlikely to benefit if they fail to get a hoped for trade with the US, anti Trump voters will just go LD or Green
One trouble is that Trump claims to want tariffs to do two tings at once. One is to be a government revenue stream, which means continuing imports. The other is to onshore manufacturing jobs (not happening- high value manufacturing uses robots, low value manufacturing creates jobs but they're terrible jobs). Those two things contradict. The best he can hope for is a bit of both, but even that's unlikely.
What he probably really wants is the thrill of extorting what he sees as the weak kid's lunch money. Hence his insistence that the importer pays the tarrifs out of their own pocket, which isn't how anything ever works.
Is there really a contradiction with "here's a policy, it might have outcome A or B or C or a mix of all of them, but they're all good so we don't mind which we get"?
I think the main problems with the tariffs are (a) they're a reflection of Trump's mercantilist economic instincts rather than of our best understanding of how the economy actually behaves and (b) incentivising onshoring of jobs requires a consistent tariff landscape whereas using tariffs as a bargaining point in foreign policy means big swings in whether tariffs are in force or not, so those two aims do contradict each other.
NEW: @FT obtained new US proposal. The Trump admin is pushing to gain sweeping control over all of Ukraine’s major minerals and energy assets, while offering Kyiv no security guarantees, in an aggressive expansion of previous demands... https://x.com/ChristopherJM/status/1905297287221272735
I have been saying for weeks now, the US Ukraine minerals deal will never be signed - the reason is US industry are not at all interested in it - and this development absolutely proves me right. Trump Whitehouse have gone totally cold on signing this.
Trump will be drilling in Greenland before 2028 - the reason is US industry are totally excited by the prospect and lining up to be part of it.
Which bits of US industry are incredibly keen on drilling in Greenland?
The ones which extract rare earths and secure them for America.
The first thing you need to know about rare earths is that they're not rare.
And the second thing is, they are quite important. And the third thing, there’s geo political push to secure them.
I’m happy to name names.
Howard Lutnick certainly stands to gain. But Primarily it’s Ronald Lauder influencing this. Trump is completely on board with everything Lauder is saying on needing Greenland in the National Interest. https://fortune.com/2025/01/09/trump-greenland-mining-defense/
Here’s a flavour of the geo political queuing up to be involved in Greenland mining alongside Trumps America, and that it’s not whimsical from Trump, but solidly geo political and future looking. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9d5jwvw9nlo
Conversely, the now dead Ukraine/US minerals deal, Biden sounded out US industry on the Kyiv offer, there was zilch interest in spending the next century in Eastern Ukraine, when, as you say, they are not that rare, and Greenland is in play. After that Biden White House did not take the Ukraine offer of a deal remotely seriously. I’m not sure if Trump ever did either. https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2025/Items/Feb28-1.html
I predict it again, US Ukraine Earths Deal dead, Trumps crew (including Starmer’s UK?) mining Greenland before 2028.
What looked like was turning into a planned PR visit to rally support for a US Greenland has rapidly been reduced to a visit to the US space base, now that the White House has realised they were heading for a load of negative PR. It looks like they won't be visiting Greenland soil at all, assuming the space base is US soil like their military bases...
You saying Moonrabbits analysis and prediction here is wrong?
Currently Denmark leads the foreign policy of 50K Greenlanders, a yes to independence vote leads to discussions and new arrangement, followed by fifty thousand pairs of eyes wide with the dollar signs and one signature put on paper - and it’s done.
As the UK Labour government cuts spending, Australian Labor PM Albanese says 'now is not the time for cuts'. As Coalition leader Peter Dutton promises to cut 'wasteful spending' as he starts his election campaign
Are you supportive of the Reeves-Dutton view or the Farage*-Albanese take?
* I am being impish. Nigel "free school meals" Farage.
UK public spending is higher at the moment than Australian public spending so there is more to cut.
Farage wants to shift to more contributory welfare and axe overseas aid so is hardly that pro big spend either
How did Labour lose control of welfare spending in just 9 months after 14 years of Tory austerity?
Farage wants a US style insurance based healthcare system. There will be some excellent opportunities for consultancy commissions for selling NHS Trusts to the likes of Cedars Sinai Healthcare. Loads 'a money, luvvly Jubbly!
There was some austerity under Cameron and Clegg and Osborne and a limited amount under May and Hammond.
Under Boris and Sunak however spending surged, including on welfare. Indeed Boris was and still is the biggest spending UK PM this century after Gordon Brown.
Come off it HY. Boris got all the big calls right.
I am recalling the worst thing about the Trump 2016 era - it wasn't anything Trump actually did - it was that awful, awful screaming of the Libs.
And yet here we are in the Trump 2025 era where they are far better organised and far more deadly. And yet owning the libs is still your focus.
Not at all - British politics (and associated betting, though I'll admit primarily politics) is my interest. I find the constant Trump outrage on here quite wearisome and also oddly reversely-parochial. There's a lot of shit going on in this country and we're hanging on Trump’s every word (again).
I partly agree with you - our problems remain regardless of who is the American president. However, Trump ending NATO and smashing the global economy make our problems worse. So it is directly relevant to the shit going on in this country.
Quite. Does the UK have a problem with overly focusing on US news and culture? Absolutely. But what the US President does matters a lot of the time unfortunately.
Its like saying things happening in Europe, like a war, dont matter for us, its just not true, the argument is over how much it matters.
I think the UK public and nerds often have a problem with contextualising in a USA which is as diverse, and has as many regions, as Europe.
One of things we are missing is a 21st Century Alistair Cooke.
Yes. I am 100% against Trumpism and Trump but journalism doesn't just exist to tell me what I want to hear.
I can follow MSNBC which tells me 100% of what is wrong with Trump; I can (but don't much) follow Fox News etc that promote and whitewash Trumpism.
What is lacking, SFAICS, are sources which comment from the point of view of understanding both why Trumpism is clearly 100% opposeable but also why and how it is that Trumpian authoritarianism, lies, threats, illegalities, silencing and Hobbesian approaches can be and are supported and sustained knowingly by millions.
I'm writing up a little list following your question the other day as I spot or remember things.
But at the moment for the USA it's glazing your own stained glass window from many sources to make a picture, and it's selecting fragments from each source.
One problem with the traditional right at present in the USA is that when conservative Republicans poke their heads out of the niche and take a proper look at Trump, they either flip quite quickly or burrow even deep up his rabbit hole. Some military commentators seem to have done this in the recent episode, since they are actually in possession of principles and a morality.
As you observed with Marc Elias, law people get to track one niche-full of actual happenings. I tend to follow the duets from Brian Taylor-Cohen and Elias, and also Michael Popok on Legal AF, who tends to mention everything legal in short segments.
One source I have not tried yet has been right of centre law blogs aka blawgs, such as Volokh Conspiracy, which I read for years.
Possibly useful sources are NPR / PBS as usual, or US versions of British sites - such as Spectator World on thespectator.com (which is more Trumpish / Christian Nationalist than the UK edition, but does cover things and shares some staff).
Plus the authoritative US magazines such as Foreign Affairs and The Atlantic, and their podcasts.
I've also found things such as DW useful to triangulate a UK perspective, but I have not really tried the BBC World Service yet, which is usually distinctly more informative than the UK focused BBC.
I've found people who do long form interviews helpful as it gives time for analysis. The best for me at present is probably Silicon Curtain, on Youtube. And particular commentators - at present I'm working through Fiona Hill's archive.
Finally, my pair of Telegraph Podcasts - Ukraine the Latest, who are the gold standard because their team has such a deep knowledge of Ukr, Military, Eastern Europe etc, and they interview a vast range of people - one per day since 2022, and now doing more coverage of USA-Europe relations. And the Daily T is a useful window on the Right to Hard Right, since they are fairly ardent Trump supporters who tend to swallow his speeches whole.
Final thought - are the International Herald Tribune any use, or anything USA focused from the FT?
HTH.
PS Times Radio do a daily Trump Report, which I'm not sure about. 20 minutes approx per day and quite varied. I'm not sure about it yet.
I guess this means no more sneering at Signalgate.
Back in the New Labour days a CD Rom left by a Squadron Leader on a bus would have led to calls by the Telegraph for the Defence Secretary to be sacked. Should Healey consider his position?
It is the crass incompetence that is so depressing.
For those who enjoy the misuse of the word literally as much as me: a woman at an adjacent table is telling a long and involved story about being allergic to lavender, and a reaction to some sort of cosmetic: 'My face was literally on fire. I was literally burnt to a cinder'.
Should "literally" have been in quotation marks?
But "literally" is being used in the same way as "really", so I'm not sure why pedants seem OK with one but not the other.
I was cold, I was very cold, I was freezing. You don't say "I was very freezing", so if you want to go further you have to use an adverb like "really freezing", "literally freezing" or "fucking freezing". All are fine.
Literally is a helpful word because it helps describe how extreme a situation was, by taking a scenario that might otherwise be deemed a colourful metaphor or exaggeration, and informing someone that it actually happened. 'My kitchen was flooded totally - the hearth rug literally floated out of the door.'. It's a useful rhetorical device being undermined by ignorance.
You might find it 'fine' but then it's also 'fine' if someone comes up to someone else and says 'flubby flub flubber flub'. Nobody gets hurt. It is still not very good English.
So you were confused about whether the person saying "my face was literally on fire" was speaking metaphorically?
Most people can work things out from the context.
It's actually a good way of bringing a dead metaphor back to life. Though that only really works as long as pedants keep complaining, so it's good that they do this service.
I wasn't confused, because it didn't happen to me. And the demerit does not lie in the confusion caused when stupid people abuse the word 'literally' - it lies in no longer being able to use the word 'literally' to describe something that 'literally' happened, because it has become devalued.
But you have just given an example yourself where that meaning of literally was quite clear, so it seems to me that you are the stupid person if anything.
I've explained quite clearly why I don't think this word being used to mean the opposite of its true meaning isn't a positive development in the language. You've given brain farts in response. I think you are reflexively in favour of any change to the language, however ugly or stupid, and probably also in favour of any modern building, however ugly and stupid, and any modern art, however ugly or stupid, because that chimes in with your politics and makes you feel modern. So it seems to me that you're the stupid person if anything.
You start by calling people you disagree with stupid, and when called out on your own stupidity, you go on a rant about how I must love ugly buildings? I think you comprehensively lost whatever argument you were trying to make.
TLDR: "Literally" has been used as an intensifier for a long time. It's probably best not to use it in that way, but there's little point in railing aginst people who do.
My 7 year old has recently started using 'literally' in literally every other sentence (exercise for the reader as to whether I literally mean 'literally' there! )
I've picked him up on it in a not-serious way - he's interested in language and word meanings, so was actually interested in learning what it really means - and we're now at the stage of using it playfully to try to annoy each other.
I'm not too bothered by the misuse. It was the excessive use that was mildly vexing. The Americanisms of 'could care less' and 'me either' grate a lot more, somehow.
He is literally learning how language works. Perhaps he could give Luckyguy lessons ?
For those who enjoy the misuse of the word literally as much as me: a woman at an adjacent table is telling a long and involved story about being allergic to lavender, and a reaction to some sort of cosmetic: 'My face was literally on fire. I was literally burnt to a cinder'.
Should "literally" have been in quotation marks?
But "literally" is being used in the same way as "really", so I'm not sure why pedants seem OK with one but not the other.
I was cold, I was very cold, I was freezing. You don't say "I was very freezing", so if you want to go further you have to use an adverb like "really freezing", "literally freezing" or "fucking freezing". All are fine.
Literally is a helpful word because it helps describe how extreme a situation was, by taking a scenario that might otherwise be deemed a colourful metaphor or exaggeration, and informing someone that it actually happened. 'My kitchen was flooded totally - the hearth rug literally floated out of the door.'. It's a useful rhetorical device being undermined by ignorance.
You might find it 'fine' but then it's also 'fine' if someone comes up to someone else and says 'flubby flub flubber flub'. Nobody gets hurt. It is still not very good English.
So you were confused about whether the person saying "my face was literally on fire" was speaking metaphorically?
Most people can work things out from the context.
It's actually a good way of bringing a dead metaphor back to life. Though that only really works as long as pedants keep complaining, so it's good that they do this service.
I wasn't confused, because it didn't happen to me. And the demerit does not lie in the confusion caused when stupid people abuse the word 'literally' - it lies in no longer being able to use the word 'literally' to describe something that 'literally' happened, because it has become devalued.
But you have just given an example yourself where that meaning of literally was quite clear, so it seems to me that you are the stupid person if anything.
I've explained quite clearly why I don't think this word being used to mean the opposite of its true meaning isn't a positive development in the language. You've given brain farts in response. I think you are reflexively in favour of any change to the language, however ugly or stupid, and probably also in favour of any modern building, however ugly and stupid, and any modern art, however ugly or stupid, because that chimes in with your politics and makes you feel modern. So it seems to me that you're the stupid person if anything.
You start by calling people you disagree with stupid, and when called out on your own stupidity, you go on a rant about how I must love ugly buildings? I think you comprehensively lost whatever argument you were trying to make.
TLDR: "Literally" has been used as an intensifier for a long time. It's probably best not to use it in that way, but there's little point in railing aginst people who do.
My 7 year old has recently started using 'literally' in literally every other sentence (exercise for the reader as to whether I literally mean 'literally' there! )
I've picked him up on it in a not-serious way - he's interested in language and word meanings, so was actually interested in learning what it really means - and we're now at the stage of using it playfully to try to annoy each other.
I'm not too bothered by the misuse. It was the excessive use that was mildly vexing. The Americanisms of 'could care less' and 'me either' grate a lot more, somehow.
He is literally learning how language works. Perhaps he could give Luckyguy lessons ?
NEW: @FT obtained new US proposal. The Trump admin is pushing to gain sweeping control over all of Ukraine’s major minerals and energy assets, while offering Kyiv no security guarantees, in an aggressive expansion of previous demands... https://x.com/ChristopherJM/status/1905297287221272735
I have been saying for weeks now, the US Ukraine minerals deal will never be signed - the reason is US industry are not at all interested in it - and this development absolutely proves me right. Trump Whitehouse have gone totally cold on signing this.
Trump will be drilling in Greenland before 2028 - the reason is US industry are totally excited by the prospect and lining up to be part of it.
Which bits of US industry are incredibly keen on drilling in Greenland?
The ones which extract rare earths and secure them for America.
The first thing you need to know about rare earths is that they're not rare.
And the second thing is, they are quite important. And the third thing, there’s geo political push to secure them.
I’m happy to name names.
Howard Lutnick certainly stands to gain. But Primarily it’s Ronald Lauder influencing this. Trump is completely on board with everything Lauder is saying on needing Greenland in the National Interest. https://fortune.com/2025/01/09/trump-greenland-mining-defense/
Here’s a flavour of the geo political queuing up to be involved in Greenland mining alongside Trumps America, and that it’s not whimsical from Trump, but solidly geo political and future looking. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9d5jwvw9nlo
Conversely, the now dead Ukraine/US minerals deal, Biden sounded out US industry on the Kyiv offer, there was zilch interest in spending the next century in Eastern Ukraine, when, as you say, they are not that rare, and Greenland is in play. After that Biden White House did not take the Ukraine offer of a deal remotely seriously. I’m not sure if Trump ever did either. https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2025/Items/Feb28-1.html
I predict it again, US Ukraine Earths Deal dead, Trumps crew (including Starmer’s UK?) mining Greenland before 2028.
What looked like was turning into a planned PR visit to rally support for a US Greenland has rapidly been reduced to a visit to the US space base, now that the White House has realised they were heading for a load of negative PR. It looks like they won't be visiting Greenland soil at all, assuming the space base is US soil like their military bases...
You saying Moonrabbits analysis and prediction here is wrong?
Currently Denmark leads the foreign policy of 50K Greenlanders, a yes to independence vote leads to discussions and new arrangement, followed by fifty thousand pairs of eyes wide with the dollar signs and one signature put on paper - and it’s done.
I guess this means no more sneering at Signalgate.
Back in the New Labour days a CD Rom left by a Squadron Leader on a bus would have led to calls by the Telegraph for the Defence Secretary to be sacked. Should Healey consider his position?
It is the crass incompetence that is so depressing.
If as in the pre-Johnson days the buck stops with the Minister, perhaps Healey should consider his position.
As the UK Labour government cuts spending, Australian Labor PM Albanese says 'now is not the time for cuts'. As Coalition leader Peter Dutton promises to cut 'wasteful spending' as he starts his election campaign
😀 Your homework is write 100 times “there are two very different policies for two very different ends of a parliamentary term” and then write “also such a thing as desperate measures by those set to lose an election, that comes back and bites them if they actually win.”
NEW: @FT obtained new US proposal. The Trump admin is pushing to gain sweeping control over all of Ukraine’s major minerals and energy assets, while offering Kyiv no security guarantees, in an aggressive expansion of previous demands... https://x.com/ChristopherJM/status/1905297287221272735
I have been saying for weeks now, the US Ukraine minerals deal will never be signed - the reason is US industry are not at all interested in it - and this development absolutely proves me right. Trump Whitehouse have gone totally cold on signing this.
Trump will be drilling in Greenland before 2028 - the reason is US industry are totally excited by the prospect and lining up to be part of it.
Which bits of US industry are incredibly keen on drilling in Greenland?
The ones which extract rare earths and secure them for America.
The first thing you need to know about rare earths is that they're not rare.
And the second thing is, they are quite important. And the third thing, there’s geo political push to secure them.
I’m happy to name names.
Howard Lutnick certainly stands to gain. But Primarily it’s Ronald Lauder influencing this. Trump is completely on board with everything Lauder is saying on needing Greenland in the National Interest. https://fortune.com/2025/01/09/trump-greenland-mining-defense/
Here’s a flavour of the geo political queuing up to be involved in Greenland mining alongside Trumps America, and that it’s not whimsical from Trump, but solidly geo political and future looking. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9d5jwvw9nlo
Conversely, the now dead Ukraine/US minerals deal, Biden sounded out US industry on the Kyiv offer, there was zilch interest in spending the next century in Eastern Ukraine, when, as you say, they are not that rare, and Greenland is in play. After that Biden White House did not take the Ukraine offer of a deal remotely seriously. I’m not sure if Trump ever did either. https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2025/Items/Feb28-1.html
I predict it again, US Ukraine Earths Deal dead, Trumps crew (including Starmer’s UK?) mining Greenland before 2028.
What looked like was turning into a planned PR visit to rally support for a US Greenland has rapidly been reduced to a visit to the US space base, now that the White House has realised they were heading for a load of negative PR. It looks like they won't be visiting Greenland soil at all, assuming the space base is US soil like their military bases...
You saying Moonrabbits analysis and prediction here is wrong?
Currently Denmark leads the foreign policy of 50K Greenlanders, a yes to independence vote leads to discussions and new arrangement, followed by fifty thousand pairs of eyes wide with the dollar signs and one signature put on paper - and it’s done.
Can we put in a stink bid for, say, Vermont? They'd probably take forty quid and a Crown Derby puffin paperweight each to be rid of Trump...
State of Emergency in Bangkok. Would have been handy to have a correspondent on the scene.
The footage of the building collapse should finally put to bed the 9/11 conspiracy theories.
My younger son is a Bangkok resident, although as luck would have it he's currently in Taiwan on business. He texted this morning to say that his family and home are OK and the School his children attend is fine, although they had some 'shakes'. Apparently one of his daughters told him that the ceiling shook. Not sure whether that was at home or school; she's 17, but is nursing a sports injury at the moment.
Gosh! How incredibly fortunate to escape an earthquake in Bangkok by being on Taiwan! Literally.
Well, as many on here know, business is business. If the customer wants to see you......
Trump now appears to be demanding reparations from Ukraine.
Trump now wants entire Ukrainian resource revenue in updated minerals pact offer
The new deal requires Ukraine to repay all free US aid since 2022, plus pay 4% interest per year before it can access any profits. Zelenskyy says the terms keep changing. https://x.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1905547409091871176
Trump now appears to be demanding reparations from Ukraine.
Trump now wants entire Ukrainian resource revenue in updated minerals pact offer
The new deal requires Ukraine to repay all free US aid since 2022, plus pay 4% interest per year before it can access any profits. Zelenskyy says the terms keep changing. https://x.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1905547409091871176
You already posted this yesterday. All it says to me Nige is I now doubt Trump was ever serious about US being involved in Eastern Ukraine for next 100 years for this expensive mining.
I have a theory Trump acts in the same way Intelligence Agencies do, operating under the cover of decoys, chaff and misinformation.
I would extend that to how football clubs do transfer business too.
I like it, as a business “tactic” 😇
Instead of signing Ukraine as the new number 9, they end up signing Greenland.
Trump now appears to be demanding reparations from Ukraine.
Trump now wants entire Ukrainian resource revenue in updated minerals pact offer
The new deal requires Ukraine to repay all free US aid since 2022, plus pay 4% interest per year before it can access any profits. Zelenskyy says the terms keep changing. https://x.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1905547409091871176
What remains remarkable, unless I’ve missed it, is the silence from Democrats on most of the Trump administration’s foreign policy twatteries.
Have they said anything reassuring towards: Canada, Greenland, the entire continent of Europe, or even Ukraine? Anything to suggest they would reverse unfair extortion on minerals or power stations?
Trump now appears to be demanding reparations from Ukraine.
Trump now wants entire Ukrainian resource revenue in updated minerals pact offer
The new deal requires Ukraine to repay all free US aid since 2022, plus pay 4% interest per year before it can access any profits. Zelenskyy says the terms keep changing. https://x.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1905547409091871176
What remains remarkable, unless I’ve missed it, is the silence from Democrats on most of the Trump administration’s foreign policy twatteries.
Have they said anything reassuring towards: Canada, Greenland, the entire continent of Europe, or even Ukraine? Anything to suggest they would reverse unfair extortion on minerals or power stations?
Trump now appears to be demanding reparations from Ukraine.
Trump now wants entire Ukrainian resource revenue in updated minerals pact offer
The new deal requires Ukraine to repay all free US aid since 2022, plus pay 4% interest per year before it can access any profits. Zelenskyy says the terms keep changing. https://x.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1905547409091871176
What remains remarkable, unless I’ve missed it, is the silence from Democrats on most of the Trump administration’s foreign policy twatteries.
Have they said anything reassuring towards: Canada, Greenland, the entire continent of Europe, or even Ukraine? Anything to suggest they would reverse unfair extortion on minerals or power stations?
The Dems have retreated into their comfort zone:
US Senate Democrats banded together to torpedo a Republican bill that would ban transgender athletes from women’s sports, defeating the legislation in a razor-sharp party-line vote of 51-45 on Monday evening.
The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, led by Tommy Tuberville, a senator from Alabama, crashed before reaching the 60 votes needed to advance, halting the proposal that had passed the House in January.
A New York Times/Ipsos poll from January found 79% of Americans opposed transgender female athletes competing in women’s sports, a statistic Republicans hoped would bolster their position. Democrats, however, swiftly branded the bill a cynical political distraction.
Trump now appears to be demanding reparations from Ukraine.
Trump now wants entire Ukrainian resource revenue in updated minerals pact offer
The new deal requires Ukraine to repay all free US aid since 2022, plus pay 4% interest per year before it can access any profits. Zelenskyy says the terms keep changing. https://x.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1905547409091871176
What remains remarkable, unless I’ve missed it, is the silence from Democrats on most of the Trump administration’s foreign policy twatteries.
Have they said anything reassuring towards: Canada, Greenland, the entire continent of Europe, or even Ukraine? Anything to suggest they would reverse unfair extortion on minerals or power stations?
Trump now appears to be demanding reparations from Ukraine.
Trump now wants entire Ukrainian resource revenue in updated minerals pact offer
The new deal requires Ukraine to repay all free US aid since 2022, plus pay 4% interest per year before it can access any profits. Zelenskyy says the terms keep changing. https://x.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1905547409091871176
What remains remarkable, unless I’ve missed it, is the silence from Democrats on most of the Trump administration’s foreign policy twatteries.
Have they said anything reassuring towards: Canada, Greenland, the entire continent of Europe, or even Ukraine? Anything to suggest they would reverse unfair extortion on minerals or power stations?
Interesting piece from the blawg I mentioned earlier, about how they think the balance of US Appeal Courts could be changed by Trump appointing different types of conservative:
You see the nomenclature: movement conservative, prosecutor conservative, establishment conservative, and moderate conservative. If you think all Republican-appointed judges are the same, you are quite wrong. By the way, I think Judge Brennan will soon be the Chief Judge of the Seventh Circuit. I hope Chief Justice Roberts is ready for a movement conservative on the Judicial Conference.
As a populist meme to garner support from the grumpy, it's brilliant.
As an excuse to cut immigration to negative numbers because we have nowhere to house people, it's 5D chess genius.
(It does highlight the fact that Reform is a party for disgruntled Conservatives, golf club boors, more than a party that is going to sweep the Labour heartlands.)
Trump now appears to be demanding reparations from Ukraine.
Trump now wants entire Ukrainian resource revenue in updated minerals pact offer
The new deal requires Ukraine to repay all free US aid since 2022, plus pay 4% interest per year before it can access any profits. Zelenskyy says the terms keep changing. https://x.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1905547409091871176
What remains remarkable, unless I’ve missed it, is the silence from Democrats on most of the Trump administration’s foreign policy twatteries.
Have they said anything reassuring towards: Canada, Greenland, the entire continent of Europe, or even Ukraine? Anything to suggest they would reverse unfair extortion on minerals or power stations?
The Dems have retreated into their comfort zone:
US Senate Democrats banded together to torpedo a Republican bill that would ban transgender athletes from women’s sports, defeating the legislation in a razor-sharp party-line vote of 51-45 on Monday evening.
The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, led by Tommy Tuberville, a senator from Alabama, crashed before reaching the 60 votes needed to advance, halting the proposal that had passed the House in January.
A New York Times/Ipsos poll from January found 79% of Americans opposed transgender female athletes competing in women’s sports, a statistic Republicans hoped would bolster their position. Democrats, however, swiftly branded the bill a cynical political distraction.
Trump now appears to be demanding reparations from Ukraine.
Trump now wants entire Ukrainian resource revenue in updated minerals pact offer
The new deal requires Ukraine to repay all free US aid since 2022, plus pay 4% interest per year before it can access any profits. Zelenskyy says the terms keep changing. https://x.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1905547409091871176
What remains remarkable, unless I’ve missed it, is the silence from Democrats on most of the Trump administration’s foreign policy twatteries.
Have they said anything reassuring towards: Canada, Greenland, the entire continent of Europe, or even Ukraine? Anything to suggest they would reverse unfair extortion on minerals or power stations?
The Dems have retreated into their comfort zone:
US Senate Democrats banded together to torpedo a Republican bill that would ban transgender athletes from women’s sports, defeating the legislation in a razor-sharp party-line vote of 51-45 on Monday evening.
The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, led by Tommy Tuberville, a senator from Alabama, crashed before reaching the 60 votes needed to advance, halting the proposal that had passed the House in January.
A New York Times/Ipsos poll from January found 79% of Americans opposed transgender female athletes competing in women’s sports, a statistic Republicans hoped would bolster their position. Democrats, however, swiftly branded the bill a cynical political distraction.
Trump now appears to be demanding reparations from Ukraine.
Trump now wants entire Ukrainian resource revenue in updated minerals pact offer
The new deal requires Ukraine to repay all free US aid since 2022, plus pay 4% interest per year before it can access any profits. Zelenskyy says the terms keep changing. https://x.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1905547409091871176
What remains remarkable, unless I’ve missed it, is the silence from Democrats on most of the Trump administration’s foreign policy twatteries.
Have they said anything reassuring towards: Canada, Greenland, the entire continent of Europe, or even Ukraine? Anything to suggest they would reverse unfair extortion on minerals or power stations?
I use it to check out places, but then it's very often possible to find the owners (or local agents) directly and get the same place 20-30% cheaper.
It's worth boycotting because co-founder Joe Gebbia - worth billions because of his 7% stake in Airbnb - is part of DOGE and supports Trump. He's also on the board of Tesla.
I use it to check out places, but then it's very often possible to find the owners (or local agents) directly and get the same place 20-30% cheaper.
It's worth boycotting because co-founder Joe Gebbia - worth billions because of his 7% stake in Airbnb - is part of DOGE and supports Trump. He's also on the board of Tesla.
I don't use it but happy to boycott it along with Tesla so I don't feel so bad about sticking with Amazon.
I am recalling the worst thing about the Trump 2016 era - it wasn't anything Trump actually did - it was that awful, awful screaming of the Libs.
And yet here we are in the Trump 2025 era where they are far better organised and far more deadly. And yet owning the libs is still your focus.
Not at all - British politics (and associated betting, though I'll admit primarily politics) is my interest. I find the constant Trump outrage on here quite wearisome and also oddly reversely-parochial. There's a lot of shit going on in this country and we're hanging on Trump’s every word (again).
I partly agree with you - our problems remain regardless of who is the American president. However, Trump ending NATO and smashing the global economy make our problems worse. So it is directly relevant to the shit going on in this country.
Quite. Does the UK have a problem with overly focusing on US news and culture? Absolutely. But what the US President does matters a lot of the time unfortunately.
Its like saying things happening in Europe, like a war, dont matter for us, its just not true, the argument is over how much it matters.
I think the UK public and nerds often have a problem with contextualising in a USA which is as diverse, and has as many regions, as Europe.
One of things we are missing is a 21st Century Alistair Cooke.
Yes. I am 100% against Trumpism and Trump but journalism doesn't just exist to tell me what I want to hear.
I can follow MSNBC which tells me 100% of what is wrong with Trump; I can (but don't much) follow Fox News etc that promote and whitewash Trumpism.
What is lacking, SFAICS, are sources which comment from the point of view of understanding both why Trumpism is clearly 100% opposeable but also why and how it is that Trumpian authoritarianism, lies, threats, illegalities, silencing and Hobbesian approaches can be and are supported and sustained knowingly by millions.
I don't have a problem with MSNBC being anti-Trump and Fox being pro-Trump. You know their bias and can consider accordingly.
What I despise is, the faux non-partisanship by, for example the BBC, politically balancing a case by using non - equivalence. The example often used is Andrea Leadsom being given (economic expertise) parity with Pascal Lamy, the Head of the World Bank on Newsnight.
I really think someone, maybe Elon Musk, should sit down with Trump and explain that Europeans (including us) and Japanese people don't buy American cars not because they are priced out due to a tariff, but because they're shite and completely unsuitable for our road system. If America made more products the rest of the world wanted then people would buy them, as it stands they don't do we don't. On the flip side the rest of the world makes a whole stack of products Americans absolutely love from the Mini Cooper to the PS5.
Trump would be better placed spending the time to get American domestic industry to be less isolationist if he wants to resolve the deficit issue. We don't want their additive infested food, we don't want their gigantic road hogging cars and we don't want their shite whiskey.
I use it to check out places, but then it's very often possible to find the owners (or local agents) directly and get the same place 20-30% cheaper.
It's worth boycotting because co-founder Joe Gebbia - worth billions because of his 7% stake in Airbnb - is part of DOGE and supports Trump. He's also on the board of Tesla.
Airbnb is very convenient. We've just come to Florence and have a lovely place right on the river with a roof terrace for breakfasts, so much better than a hotel as well because it's our own space where we can spread out for the week.
The reason why it's so successful is that it they're very, very customer centric. They've become so good at what they do the rental agencies who initially didn't like going on Airbnb and giving them their 25% had to because that's where all the customers are. Absolutely brilliant business model really.
Trump now appears to be demanding reparations from Ukraine.
Trump now wants entire Ukrainian resource revenue in updated minerals pact offer
The new deal requires Ukraine to repay all free US aid since 2022, plus pay 4% interest per year before it can access any profits. Zelenskyy says the terms keep changing. https://x.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1905547409091871176
What remains remarkable, unless I’ve missed it, is the silence from Democrats on most of the Trump administration’s foreign policy twatteries.
Have they said anything reassuring towards: Canada, Greenland, the entire continent of Europe, or even Ukraine? Anything to suggest they would reverse unfair extortion on minerals or power stations?
The Dems have retreated into their comfort zone:
US Senate Democrats banded together to torpedo a Republican bill that would ban transgender athletes from women’s sports, defeating the legislation in a razor-sharp party-line vote of 51-45 on Monday evening.
The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, led by Tommy Tuberville, a senator from Alabama, crashed before reaching the 60 votes needed to advance, halting the proposal that had passed the House in January.
A New York Times/Ipsos poll from January found 79% of Americans opposed transgender female athletes competing in women’s sports, a statistic Republicans hoped would bolster their position. Democrats, however, swiftly branded the bill a cynical political distraction.
Working people in the North of England have long been held back by a broken transport system.
That ends today.
We are introducing the biggest transport investment in decades to places like Leeds, Bury and Merseyside, boosting growth and opportunities for working people.
Comments
The volatility alone is causing significant repricing.
I don't even notice people using the F word. I think there's a generational split on swearing somewhere above 50yo.
This alone means that many of the 'misuses' of literally are funny when the listener/reader takes the sentence literally.
Farage wants to shift to more contributory welfare and axe overseas aid so is hardly that pro big spend either
Does show Streeting would likely need Tory tactical votes to hold off the Corbynite Independents at the next GE
Full of information, no Jeremy Vine histrionics, just the facts. Cheap as chips to make, probably. These days could do it with a DSLR…
Need more stuff like that.
"It's fucked, pal..."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9wp9k875r8o
Farage wants a US style insurance based healthcare system. There will be some excellent opportunities for consultancy commissions for selling NHS Trusts to the likes of Cedars Sinai Healthcare. Loads 'a money, luvvly Jubbly!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyjed2038ko
I guess this means no more sneering at Signalgate.
@PippaCrerar
EXCL: Keir Starmer’s director of communications, Matthew Doyle, is standing down from his role after nine months in No 10.
Senior special adviser is going after Downing Street’s strategy and narrative stabilised after turbulence of early days in power.
His role to be split between James Lyons, who will be responsible for comms strategy, and Steph Driver, who will run comms delivery.
But at the moment for the USA it's glazing your own stained glass window from many sources to make a picture, and it's selecting fragments from each source.
One problem with the traditional right at present in the USA is that when conservative Republicans poke their heads out of the niche and take a proper look at Trump, they either flip quite quickly or burrow even deep up his rabbit hole. Some military commentators seem to have done this in the recent episode, since they are actually in possession of principles and a morality.
As you observed with Marc Elias, law people get to track one niche-full of actual happenings. I tend to follow the duets from Brian Taylor-Cohen and Elias, and also Michael Popok on Legal AF, who tends to mention everything legal in short segments.
One source I have not tried yet has been right of centre law blogs aka blawgs, such as Volokh Conspiracy, which I read for years.
https://reason.com/volokh/
Possibly useful sources are NPR / PBS as usual, or US versions of British sites - such as Spectator World on thespectator.com (which is more Trumpish / Christian Nationalist than the UK edition, but does cover things and shares some staff).
Plus the authoritative US magazines such as Foreign Affairs and The Atlantic, and their podcasts.
I've also found things such as DW useful to triangulate a UK perspective, but I have not really tried the BBC World Service yet, which is usually distinctly more informative than the UK focused BBC.
There is also BBC World News America.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/n13xtmgh/clips
I've found people who do long form interviews helpful as it gives time for analysis. The best for me at present is probably Silicon Curtain, on Youtube. And particular commentators - at present I'm working through Fiona Hill's archive.
Finally, my pair of Telegraph Podcasts - Ukraine the Latest, who are the gold standard because their team has such a deep knowledge of Ukr, Military, Eastern Europe etc, and they interview a vast range of people - one per day since 2022, and now doing more coverage of USA-Europe relations. And the Daily T is a useful window on the Right to Hard Right, since they are fairly ardent Trump supporters who tend to swallow his speeches whole.
Final thought - are the International Herald Tribune any use, or anything USA focused from the FT?
HTH.
https://x.com/robertjenrick/status/1904973535791272341
Labour won't get Tory tactical votes for pretty much any reason outside of Scotland.
Under Boris and Sunak however spending surged, including on welfare. Indeed Boris was and still is the biggest spending UK PM this century after Gordon Brown.
How incredibly fortunate to escape an earthquake in Bangkok by being on Taiwan!
Literally.
I think the main problems with the tariffs are (a) they're a reflection of Trump's mercantilist economic instincts rather than of our best understanding of how the economy actually behaves and (b) incentivising onshoring of jobs requires a consistent tariff landscape whereas using tariffs as a bargaining point in foreign policy means big swings in whether tariffs are in force or not, so those two aims do contradict each other.
Currently Denmark leads the foreign policy of 50K Greenlanders, a yes to independence vote leads to discussions and new arrangement, followed by fifty thousand pairs of eyes wide with the dollar signs and one signature put on paper - and it’s done.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGeQKoGUstRA9Zv-J_Qdc9Ldrcea-HdrD
Perhaps he could give Luckyguy lessons ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOSYiT2iG08
(It's confusing.)
Reform's think tank's first campaign: “countering housebuilding”.
https://x.com/s8mb/status/1905549817574560250
In any event, this sounds insane.
6% in favour of a US takeover.
Trump now wants entire Ukrainian resource revenue in updated minerals pact offer
The new deal requires Ukraine to repay all free US aid since 2022, plus pay 4% interest per year before it can access any profits. Zelenskyy says the terms keep changing.
https://x.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1905547409091871176
My daughter's interspersion of the word 'like' several times in each protracted sentence distresses me immensely, however.
(Applications in person only from Greenland's embassy in Copenhagen)
I have a theory Trump acts in the same way Intelligence Agencies do, operating under the cover of decoys, chaff and misinformation.
I would extend that to how football clubs do transfer business too.
I like it, as a business “tactic” 😇
Instead of signing Ukraine as the new number 9, they end up signing Greenland.
Have they said anything reassuring towards: Canada, Greenland, the entire continent of Europe, or even Ukraine? Anything to suggest they would reverse unfair extortion on minerals or power stations?
US Senate Democrats banded together to torpedo a Republican bill that would ban transgender athletes from women’s sports, defeating the legislation in a razor-sharp party-line vote of 51-45 on Monday evening.
The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, led by Tommy Tuberville, a senator from Alabama, crashed before reaching the 60 votes needed to advance, halting the proposal that had passed the House in January.
A New York Times/Ipsos poll from January found 79% of Americans opposed transgender female athletes competing in women’s sports, a statistic Republicans hoped would bolster their position. Democrats, however, swiftly branded the bill a cynical political distraction.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/04/democrats-block-trans-athletes-bill
https://www.cityam.com/steel-billionaire-lakshmi-mittal-to-ditch-uk-after-non-dom-crackdown/
You see the nomenclature: movement conservative, prosecutor conservative, establishment conservative, and moderate conservative. If you think all Republican-appointed judges are the same, you are quite wrong. By the way, I think Judge Brennan will soon be the Chief Judge of the Seventh Circuit. I hope Chief Justice Roberts is ready for a movement conservative on the Judicial Conference.
https://reason.com/volokh/2025/03/25/what-should-trumps-circuit-nominees-look-like/
Who’d run a hospitality business with this party in charge ?
https://x.com/tonydowson5/status/1905543551577993523?s=61
As a populist meme to garner support from the grumpy, it's brilliant.
As an excuse to cut immigration to negative numbers because we have nowhere to house people, it's 5D chess genius.
(It does highlight the fact that Reform is a party for disgruntled Conservatives, golf club boors, more than a party that is going to sweep the Labour heartlands.)
I use it to check out places, but then it's very often possible to find the owners (or local agents) directly and get the same place 20-30% cheaper.
It's worth boycotting because co-founder Joe Gebbia - worth billions because of his 7% stake in Airbnb - is part of DOGE and supports Trump. He's also on the board of Tesla.
Trump would be better placed spending the time to get American domestic industry to be less isolationist if he wants to resolve the deficit issue. We don't want their additive infested food, we don't want their gigantic road hogging cars and we don't want their shite whiskey.
The reason why it's so successful is that it they're very, very customer centric. They've become so good at what they do the rental agencies who initially didn't like going on Airbnb and giving them their 25% had to because that's where all the customers are. Absolutely brilliant business model really.
https://x.com/keir_starmer/status/1905538144876757082
Working people in the North of England have long been held back by a broken transport system.
That ends today.
We are introducing the biggest transport investment in decades to places like Leeds, Bury and Merseyside, boosting growth and opportunities for working people.