Whilst in Malaysia Trump seems to have found time to tweet that childhood vaccines are a disaster unless you split them in weird ways and paracetamol is very very bad.
Bonkers.
Mad as a box of frogs.
And yet 40% of US voters - give or take - still support.
And Reform UK are aping him all the way.
Brexit and Reform is our version of Peronism.
Trump has far more in common with Peron than Milei too.
That's fng rich from a supporter of the party that tried to take £5bn off the future growth of the welfare bill and ended up adding to it.
When and why did the right wing decide self professed medical expertise was the way to go?
Only a matter of time before Reform go that route (if not already) and the Tories follow suit. My most Trumpian acquaintance is all over it already.
It's long bubbling on the American right but Covid sent them mad.
I think it's simpler than that. They're not mad: they "did the research". For any given medical condition there is a multiplicity of opinions as to cause and cures. If you have a pre-existing idea as to cause/cure and distrust of experts, then the combination of algorithmic feeds, Google and AI will give you sources to support that idea, and bolstered by what the Internet is telling you is unimpeachable truth, you will provide what you think is best advice but is actually bullshit. We have a real ontological problem now, and it's going to get people killed. Witness the dramatic fall in vaccine takeup in the UK.
I remind you of my existing stance that algorithmic feeds should be banned, AI in search engine searches should be banned, and search engines providers forced to provide search results in order of relevance. Until we do that, we are genuinely fucked.
This looks like bad news, then;
The 𝕏 recommendation system is evolving very rapidly. We are aiming for deletion of all heuristics within 4 to 6 weeks.
Grok will literally read every post and watch every video (100M+ per day) to match users with content they’re most likely to find interesting.
This should address the new user or small account problem, where you post something great, but nobody sees it.
We will also be adding the ability for you to adjust your feed temporarily or permanently just by asking Grok.
In recent weeks, senior figures in Labour have been musing that perhaps the Rwanda plan wasn’t the worst idea after all. “Perhaps we should have tried to fix the legal problems with Rwanda, instead of just cancelling it,” says one government official. “We took the biggest deterrent off the table.”
But, sure, Moonshine, let’s be fair to Trump. Just because he has repeatedly assaulted women, hung out with Epstein and is covering up for him after his death, tried to overthrow democracy and encouraged attacks on his own Vice-President, has undermined the rule of law in the US, has repeatedly damaged the world economy with an erratic tariff policy, has slowed support for Ukraine and keeps cosying up to Putin, has threatened to attack Canada, Greenland and Panama, fiddled his taxes, supported racists, illegally deployed the National Guard against his own citizens, demolished the White House east wing without the usual permissions, is trying to extort his own government for $230 million, pardoned numerous sex offenders, made fun of the disabled, denies climate change, and believes exercise is bad for you, is no reason to treat his views on vaccines unfairly.
What’s any of that got to do with the chicken pox vaccine?
Mr Lammy issued all prison chiefs with a new three-page mandatory list of as many as 30 checks that governors will have to personally oversee before any prisoner can be released.
These include identifying “high-profile” prisoners, about whom governors will consult a new special support unit in the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) before they are freed or deported.
Prisons must also check all warrants, including for deportation, are in order; ensure staff who oversee releases are trained to the right grade; and conduct checks with other agencies
However, governors warned it would add to the workloads of already-overstretched staff and questioned whether it would solve a problem that has yet to be identified by any investigation. The new checks could take as long as 45 minutes per prisoner, one source said.
Mr Lammy issued all prison chiefs with a new three-page mandatory list of as many as 30 checks that governors will have to personally oversee before any prisoner can be released.
These include identifying “high-profile” prisoners, about whom governors will consult a new special support unit in the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) before they are freed or deported.
Prisons must also check all warrants, including for deportation, are in order; ensure staff who oversee releases are trained to the right grade; and conduct checks with other agencies
However, governors warned it would add to the workloads of already-overstretched staff and questioned whether it would solve a problem that has yet to be identified by any investigation. The new checks could take as long as 45 minutes per prisoner, one source said.
Was this really the limit of Sunak's ambition ? Why did he even bother.
Rishi Sunak to the Times: "Clearly, I miss the levers of power. I’m proud I brought in the smoking ban for the young. I miss playing cricket in the garden with the England cricket team and the staff. But not much else." https://x.com/JAHeale/status/1982114041196609600
It was a nice interview piece but I thought that too about that bit. I'd have thought he'd be proud of steadying the ship after Truss pointed it at the rocks.
I suspect history will turn out to look more favourably on Sunak than it will on Truss, Johnson, May and Cameron.
Sunak screwed up HS2 which is going to have long term economic impact.
I suspect he won't be looked as favourably as Brown, Blair or Major..
To be fair to Sunak (and I was angry with him too) it was Johnson and Shapps that doomed HS2 by scrapping the north eastern leg to Leeds and HS3 from Newcastle to Liverpool, without which HS2 couldn't function.
The Integrated Rail Plan was a deliberate forgery, as it was undeliverable, and unless he is as stupid as he comes across (which seems improbable) Shapps knew that when he presented it to the Commons. Sunak was left to clear up the mess, which he did badly.
Where he absolutely screwed up and can't be excused was in the highly illegal fire sale of the land that had been purchased to ensure that nobody else could ever build it - a move so dumb even Cummings would have blinked at it.
Edited for a muddle on the alphabet soup.
Cute that you think there was ever a snowball's chance in hell of the northern leg actually getting built.
It was doomed years ago, the writing was on the wall the second it was agreed to begin construction in the South and only start investing in the North once the London leg was complete.
The only chance there would have been for the northern leg of HS2 is for them to either be built concurrently or to do the northern leg first and the London one last.
Once the London leg was past the point of no return, the Treasury no longer had a reason to keep up the pretence of investing in the North.
Sunak just said the quiet part out loud.
Sigh.
It was not possible to build the northern leg first because without the southern leg, there would have been nowhere for the trains to actually go to. The northern section of the WCML is congested but the southern was ram packed.
I agree the Treasury are either crooks or morons, and I would like to see them relocated to Darlington or Carlisle at which point I think thing ps would radically alter. But engineering reasons made your proposed solution impossible.
Nowhere?
So you couldn't have trains going between say Preston, Manchester, Stoke, Leeds and Birmingham without the southern leg? Why on earth not?
The idea that London is the only place that isn't nowhere is precisely why the northern leg was doomed from the start.
Because you can't fill the northern leg without the traffic to the south.
For good or for ill (I'd argue principally for ill) most traffic in England and Wales flows to London. Not Stoke or Birmingham.
And you couldn't put the extra traffic to the south without more tracks.
That is not true. Most journeys within the North West remain within the North West, and if it were better connected then there would be even more.
And building the Northern leg first, or concurrently, is not the same as saying never build the London leg, whereas by building the London one first ...
Yes, poor connections in the north are just taken as a given.
Someone recently noted that Sheffield and Manchester are the two largest near neighbour cities in Europe without either decent road or rail connections.
Meanwhile, we're building a new line between Cambridge and Oxford.
Last time I was getting the train from Glasgow to Sheffield - it was cheaper and quicker to get the train down to London, then back up to Sheffield than to just book a 'direct' train that was more 'as the crow flies'.
Glasgow to Sheffield is Cross Country. They are the fare setter. They set high fares to discourage too many people from travelling on their inadequately short trains.
Exactly this - most U.K. train services are priced to discourage use and yet many lines are at historically high passenger levels albeit for leisure an no longer commuting
I once did the Penzance to Aberdeen train.
I didn't bother about split ticketing as work were paying for it.
Mr Lammy issued all prison chiefs with a new three-page mandatory list of as many as 30 checks that governors will have to personally oversee before any prisoner can be released.
These include identifying “high-profile” prisoners, about whom governors will consult a new special support unit in the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) before they are freed or deported.
Prisons must also check all warrants, including for deportation, are in order; ensure staff who oversee releases are trained to the right grade; and conduct checks with other agencies
However, governors warned it would add to the workloads of already-overstretched staff and questioned whether it would solve a problem that has yet to be identified by any investigation. The new checks could take as long as 45 minutes per prisoner, one source said.
More likely, some poor sod working at 110% capacity screwed up because screwups happen exponentially when you are working at 110% capacity and the failsafe was cut due to efficiency savings in 2014 or so.
Nothing works because we have never in my lifetime been willing to pay to do things properly. And that includes governments I have voted for.
They sound like checks that ought to have been happening all along, but clearly haven't been because it costs to do them.
Though I bet the ensuing manhunts don't come in cheap, either.
When and why did the right wing decide self professed medical expertise was the way to go?
Only a matter of time before Reform go that route (if not already) and the Tories follow suit. My most Trumpian acquaintance is all over it already.
It's long bubbling on the American right but Covid sent them mad.
Plus they've been conditioned to accept every lie Trump utters.
It predates him, but he has demonstrated he can change their minds, he does not simply follow on all issues, so on this one he's playing to the gallery.
And we're a long time past anyone on his side questioning anything he says, even inconsequential stuff.
It’s actually quite difficult to obtain the chicken pox vaccine for your child in this country. Until 2017 Hepatitis B was a private vaccine given upon request if you were travelling to high risk areas. Breaking the mmr into separate shots is an inconvenience the Blairs reportedly put upon themselves. I’ve not a doctor but I’ve not heard of anyone dying because of paracetamol avoidance. But yeah we hate Trump! Boooo to Trump!
The really dangerous political intervention of recent years into the vaccine debate was forcing the Covid vaccine onto the young, for very unclear net health benefit, even when it was known it did not provide effective herd immunity either.
Breaking the MMR into separate shots is well demonstrated to reduce how many kids are fully vaccinated because parents are more likely not to get around to having all the shots. That increases the chance of those diseases spreading. 2025 has already seen more measles cases in the US than any prior year this millennium. There have been more cases than all of 2000-2013 put together. There have been 3 deaths so far this year.
If you’re not using paracetamol for pain, you might turn to other painkillers, like opioids. About 80,000 people a year in the US are already dying because of opioid overdoses. It’s a huge problem. You don’t want to be putting people off an effective and safer analgesic.
And, really, are you going to go yay to Trump?
I think it's just the familiar impulse to normalise his severely abnormal behaviour.
Trump is not a normal dude and behaves extraordinarily atypically. But all the same I would not be in the least surprised if this US admin ends up as a net beneficiary to long term US health, even if in the short term politics around Obamacare are a net detriment. I just find the unflinching hyperbolic criticism quite tedious.
I'll be honest: vaccines is one of those things that has such an impact it shows up in things like infant mortality. Unlike the Americans we had two baby booms in the UK: one in the 1940s when the troops came back and had sex with their wives (more babies!), and another one in the 1950s when the NHS started rolling out childhood vaccinations (less dead babies!). Because we all think we're Americans we overlook this.
In recent weeks, senior figures in Labour have been musing that perhaps the Rwanda plan wasn’t the worst idea after all. “Perhaps we should have tried to fix the legal problems with Rwanda, instead of just cancelling it,” says one government official. “We took the biggest deterrent off the table.”
Food assistance used by more than 40 million Americans will not be distributed from November due to the ongoing US government shutdown, according to the US Department of Agriculture. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) is used by one in every eight Americans, and plays a vital role in many grocery budgets.
As much as 40% of grocery spending comes from SNAP in some deprived and rural areas. It's not just people getting the benefit who will suffer, stores in those areas will go out of business if the shutdown lasts.
When and why did the right wing decide self professed medical expertise was the way to go?
Only a matter of time before Reform go that route (if not already) and the Tories follow suit. My most Trumpian acquaintance is all over it already.
It's long bubbling on the American right but Covid sent them mad.
I think it's simpler than that. They're not mad: they "did the research". For any given medical condition there is a multiplicity of opinions as to cause and cures. If you have a pre-existing idea as to cause/cure and distrust of experts, then the combination of algorithmic feeds, Google and AI will give you sources to support that idea, and bolstered by what the Internet is telling you is unimpeachable truth, you will provide what you think is best advice but is actually bullshit. We have a real ontological problem now, and it's going to get people killed. Witness the dramatic fall in vaccine takeup in the UK.
I remind you of my existing stance that algorithmic feeds should be banned, AI in search engine searches should be banned, and search engines providers forced to provide search results in order of relevance. Until we do that, we are genuinely fucked.
This looks like bad news, then;
The 𝕏 recommendation system is evolving very rapidly. We are aiming for deletion of all heuristics within 4 to 6 weeks.
Grok will literally read every post and watch every video (100M+ per day) to match users with content they’re most likely to find interesting.
This should address the new user or small account problem, where you post something great, but nobody sees it.
We will also be adding the ability for you to adjust your feed temporarily or permanently just by asking Grok.
In recent weeks, senior figures in Labour have been musing that perhaps the Rwanda plan wasn’t the worst idea after all. “Perhaps we should have tried to fix the legal problems with Rwanda, instead of just cancelling it,” says one government official. “We took the biggest deterrent off the table.”
Mr Lammy issued all prison chiefs with a new three-page mandatory list of as many as 30 checks that governors will have to personally oversee before any prisoner can be released.
These include identifying “high-profile” prisoners, about whom governors will consult a new special support unit in the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) before they are freed or deported.
Prisons must also check all warrants, including for deportation, are in order; ensure staff who oversee releases are trained to the right grade; and conduct checks with other agencies
However, governors warned it would add to the workloads of already-overstretched staff and questioned whether it would solve a problem that has yet to be identified by any investigation. The new checks could take as long as 45 minutes per prisoner, one source said.
More likely, some poor sod working at 110% capacity screwed up because screwups happen exponentially when you are working at 110% capacity and the failsafe was cut due to efficiency savings in 2014 or so.
Nothing works because we have never in my lifetime been willing to pay to do things properly. And that includes governments I have voted for.
They sound like checks that ought to have been happening all along, but clearly haven't been because it costs to do them.
Though I bet the ensuing manhunts don't come in cheap, either.
The costs of recapture should be charged to HMP Chelmsford. Attempting to save money by not carrying out their duties shouldn’t be seen as a cost free option.
In recent weeks, senior figures in Labour have been musing that perhaps the Rwanda plan wasn’t the worst idea after all. “Perhaps we should have tried to fix the legal problems with Rwanda, instead of just cancelling it,” says one government official. “We took the biggest deterrent off the table.”
Ha ha. So at some point in the not too distant future the Labour government will be proposing to send people to Burundi, or somewhere similar, and claiming it's completely different from what the Tories did.
Most people vote for a preferred party, and it's reasonable that the result should reflect that.
No it is not. Whatever the voters think they are voting for, they want to be able to dump their MP if they turn out to be worse than expected. Something that is very difficult to do with D'hondt if the MP is liked by the party.
Moreover in the D'hondt system the seat belongs to the party not the candidate. What price rebellion under such circumstances. That may not be a problem for a 'my party right or wrong' MP like yourself but it is something we should be fighting against all the way.
I'm not really a "party right or wrong" person, and voted against the party several times in Parliament. But I was aware that most people vote for a party more than an individual, and our system gives an unfair impression when it consequently delivers huge majorities for one party, then huge majorities for another, even when in reality the difference in support is a few percentage points. I of course understand that you'd like voters to be different, but on the whole they aren't, and that's not something you can fix fairly by the electoral system.
I had a premonition about a year ago of the Kremlin in flames.
I put it down to eating Extra Mature Cheddar too close to bedtime But maybe...
I don't think they would (although it's arguably a legitimate target, contains government offices and one of Putin's official residences). However, if they burn the Kremlin, Pechersk Lavra will be next
At 8.03am, as the 41-year-old fugitive loitered at a bus stop in Finsbury Park, a member of the public rang police after driving past and recognising the face that had been splashed across newspapers and TV channels for two days.
Sixteen minutes later, Kebatu was spotted by officers who pursued him on foot. By 8.35am he was in handcuffs.
Footage of Kebatu’s eventual arrest shows the sex offender near a bench, where he was apprehended by four officers yards from a children’s play area.
As predicted last night the MET didnt have a scooby where he was.
At 8.03am, as the 41-year-old fugitive loitered at a bus stop in Finsbury Park, a member of the public rang police after driving past and recognising the face that had been splashed across newspapers and TV channels for two days.
Sixteen minutes later, Kebatu was spotted by officers who pursued him on foot. By 8.35am he was in handcuffs.
Footage of Kebatu’s eventual arrest shows the sex offender near a bench, where he was apprehended by four officers yards from a children’s play area.
As predicted last night the MET didnt have a scooby where he was.
When and why did the right wing decide self professed medical expertise was the way to go?
Only a matter of time before Reform go that route (if not already) and the Tories follow suit. My most Trumpian acquaintance is all over it already.
It's long bubbling on the American right but Covid sent them mad.
Plus they've been conditioned to accept every lie Trump utters.
It predates him, but he has demonstrated he can change their minds, he does not simply follow on all issues, so on this one he's playing to the gallery.
And we're a long time past anyone on his side questioning anything he says, even inconsequential stuff.
It’s actually quite difficult to obtain the chicken pox vaccine for your child in this country. Until 2017 Hepatitis B was a private vaccine given upon request if you were travelling to high risk areas. Breaking the mmr into separate shots is an inconvenience the Blairs reportedly put upon themselves. I’ve not a doctor but I’ve not heard of anyone dying because of paracetamol avoidance. But yeah we hate Trump! Boooo to Trump!
The really dangerous political intervention of recent years into the vaccine debate was forcing the Covid vaccine onto the young, for very unclear net health benefit, even when it was known it did not provide effective herd immunity either.
Breaking the MMR into separate shots is well demonstrated to reduce how many kids are fully vaccinated because parents are more likely not to get around to having all the shots. That increases the chance of those diseases spreading. 2025 has already seen more measles cases in the US than any prior year this millennium. There have been more cases than all of 2000-2013 put together. There have been 3 deaths so far this year.
If you’re not using paracetamol for pain, you might turn to other painkillers, like opioids. About 80,000 people a year in the US are already dying because of opioid overdoses. It’s a huge problem. You don’t want to be putting people off an effective and safer analgesic.
And, really, are you going to go yay to Trump?
I think it's just the familiar impulse to normalise his severely abnormal behaviour.
Trump is not a normal dude and behaves extraordinarily atypically. But all the same I would not be in the least surprised if this US admin ends up as a net beneficiary to long term US health, even if in the short term politics around Obamacare are a net detriment. I just find the unflinching hyperbolic criticism quite tedious.
I'll be honest: vaccines is one of those things that has such an impact it shows up in things like infant mortality. Unlike the Americans we had two baby booms in the UK: one in the 1940s when the troops came back and had sex with their wives (more babies!), and another one in the 1950s when the NHS started rolling out childhood vaccinations (less dead babies!). Because we all think we're Americans we overlook this.
Personally I love vaccines. They make me feel like Steve Rogers. But anytime political and media discourse focuses on them either in favour or against, it tends to reduce adherence rates. The Covid thing was such a monumental own goal for vaccine policy and it’s frustrating it’s still not more broadly recognised. That programme changes views for life.
At 8.03am, as the 41-year-old fugitive loitered at a bus stop in Finsbury Park, a member of the public rang police after driving past and recognising the face that had been splashed across newspapers and TV channels for two days.
Sixteen minutes later, Kebatu was spotted by officers who pursued him on foot. By 8.35am he was in handcuffs.
Footage of Kebatu’s eventual arrest shows the sex offender near a bench, where he was apprehended by four officers yards from a children’s play area.
As predicted last night the MET didnt have a scooby where he was.
Definitely only at the play area for bantz
A few years ago I had to do jury duty for a case involving a guy who was kicked out of Sudan for kiddy-fiddling. And was now in the UK for some reason and, surprisingly, had been accused of kiddy-fiddling.
Apart from the overwhelming evidence - I was sat thinking "How bad must the kiddy-fiddling have been to get kicked out of Sudan?".
In recent weeks, senior figures in Labour have been musing that perhaps the Rwanda plan wasn’t the worst idea after all. “Perhaps we should have tried to fix the legal problems with Rwanda, instead of just cancelling it,” says one government official. “We took the biggest deterrent off the table.”
Rachel Reeves will lead a delegation of senior business leaders to Saudi Arabia on Monday as she hopes to deepen the UK’s relationship with a state that has been widely criticised for human rights abuses.
She is the first UK chancellor to visit the Gulf in six years and is expected to meet senior Saudi royals, US administration representatives and global business figures.
The visit comes as the UK continues its efforts to secure a trade agreement with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which also includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
The BBC are utterly obsessed with this sex pest migrant who seems to have been set free very much against his will. No doubt they’ll be reporting shortly on pitchfork wielding vigilantes inspired by their hysteria. Anyone on the darker side of the racist colour chart should avoid carrying a shopping bag decorated with avocados.
It's totally ridiculous.
"The Etheopian"
An Etheopian English teacher decides to migrate to the UK. He arrives in a small boat and is put in a detention centre
Bored he sits on a wall outside the centre and makes small talk with a couple of bored local school girls.
He makes a lewd joke
The police are called
Word gets out and a far right mob mob mobilise and threaten the centre
The man is charged with an attemted grope and is jailed for 12 months
The prison authorities mistakenly release him after two
He asks if he can serve the rest of his sentence as he has no place to go
The prison authorities say no.
They drop him protesting at a local railway station with no money.
All ports and airports are alerted. A dangerous criminal is on the loose
A terrified population lock up their daughters........
What do you think Mr De Milne? Will it fly......
He tried to kiss the 14 year old. Read her testimony.
I notice your the Tory justice secretary has now raised the Ethiopian fugitive to 'Dangerous Paedophile'. Thank goodness his attempted kiss didn't land or he'd have run out of adjectives
He told the girl that he wanted to have sex with her
I know that you think she should be grateful for the attention, but you’re permanently in the wrong un column
Imagine someone coming from Ethiopia and after an horrendous journey arriving in detention in Epping
He's greeted by flag waving racists chanting 'GO HOME'outside the hotel where he is detained.
A woman befriends him and says she'll help him with his asylum application.
A few days later he's sitting on a bench and a couple of school girls sit with him. He misinterprets some banter as affection and asks the girl for a kiss. She laughs with her friend and he makes some inappropriate sexual remarks. They walk away.
The older lady who was going to help with his application reports the incident to the police.
The police arrest him.
He becomes a cause celebre with the racists and in custody he tries to kill himself.
Is he a 'dangerous paedophile' as Chris Philip describes him or an unfortunate in a foreign land knowing little of our norms or customs? Who knows.... but It certainly looks like the Daily Mail branch of PB have made up their minds
Totally off topic, but I went to an Evensong service at an Oxford college this evening and it was very lovely in a timelessly English kind of way. Stunning surroundings, beautiful singing and a thought provoking sermon. It made me feel guilty that I didn't set foot in my college's chapel once the three years I was at Cambridge.
Milei’s Party on Track to Win 41% of Votes in Argentina’s Midterm Elections
With 91% of the polling stations counted, Javier Milei's La Libertad Avanza leads with 40.84% of the votes, while the left behind with 24.50%, according to official data.
NHS bosses are seeking an emergency injection of £3bn to cover unexpected costs and have warned ministers that without it patients will wait longer for treatment and hospitals will start rationing care. The £3bn demand is needed to cover the cost of NHS staff redundancies, strike action by doctors and higher drug prices, and is likely to cause consternation inside a government that is desperately short of cash. The NHS is already due to receive £196bn of the £211bn health budget for England this year.
NHS bosses are seeking an emergency injection of £3bn to cover unexpected costs and have warned ministers that without it patients will wait longer for treatment and hospitals will start rationing care. The £3bn demand is needed to cover the cost of NHS staff redundancies, strike action by doctors and higher drug prices, and is likely to cause consternation inside a government that is desperately short of cash. The NHS is already due to receive £196bn of the £211bn health budget for England this year.
NHS bosses are seeking an emergency injection of £3bn to cover unexpected costs and have warned ministers that without it patients will wait longer for treatment and hospitals will start rationing care. The £3bn demand is needed to cover the cost of NHS staff redundancies, strike action by doctors and higher drug prices, and is likely to cause consternation inside a government that is desperately short of cash. The NHS is already due to receive £196bn of the £211bn health budget for England this year.
Totally off topic, but I went to an Evensong service at an Oxford college this evening and it was very lovely in a timelessly English kind of way. Stunning surroundings, beautiful singing and a thought provoking sermon. It made me feel guilty that I didn't set foot in my college's chapel once the three years I was at Cambridge.
Don't beat yourself up over it. The world is very big. Your lifespan, in comparison, is very small. You will miss a lot...
Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money were squandered on asylum hotels because of a “failed, chaotic and expensive” system imposed by the Home Office, a committee of MPs has found.
Ministers and officials “neglected” day-to-day management of their asylum accommodation providers even as the cost of the 10-year contracts tripled from £4.5bn to £15.3bn, according to the all-party home affairs committee.
As a result contractors made “excessive” profits at taxpayers’ expense without the Home Office imposing effective penalty clauses or clawbacks.
Milei’s Party on Track to Win 41% of Votes in Argentina’s Midterm Elections
With 91% of the polling stations counted, Javier Milei's La Libertad Avanza leads with 40.84% of the votes, while the left behind with 24.50%, according to official data.
Giant polling failure.
I am not sure where you got that Peronist figure. From the Guardian Website:
"With more than 95% of ballots counted, Milei’s party, La Libertad Avanza, won 40.84% of the nationwide vote in an election widely seen as a de facto referendum on the self-styled anarcho-capitalist’s nearly two years in power.
The Peronist opposition, Fuerza Patria, secured 31.67%."
This does mean that Milei's LLA party has achieved his obective as he now has enough votes in the Legislature to block the Peronists from over-riding his veto, as forecast in my penultimate paragraph.
Incidentally, at 67% turnout it is a new low for Argentinian elections since the restoration of democracy in 1983, despite voting being compilsory.
NHS bosses are seeking an emergency injection of £3bn to cover unexpected costs and have warned ministers that without it patients will wait longer for treatment and hospitals will start rationing care. The £3bn demand is needed to cover the cost of NHS staff redundancies, strike action by doctors and higher drug prices, and is likely to cause consternation inside a government that is desperately short of cash. The NHS is already due to receive £196bn of the £211bn health budget for England this year.
£1.3 billion for the redundancies at the ICBs (successors to the PCGs, and 50% of staff there are facing redundancy) and up to £2.5 billion on increased drug costs courtesy of President Trump. £500 million to cover the cost of the resident doctors strike in the summer, with a further one in November for 5 days.
Incidentally, its looking like a bad start to flu season:
Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money were squandered on asylum hotels because of a “failed, chaotic and expensive” system imposed by the Home Office, a committee of MPs has found.
Ministers and officials “neglected” day-to-day management of their asylum accommodation providers even as the cost of the 10-year contracts tripled from £4.5bn to £15.3bn, according to the all-party home affairs committee.
As a result contractors made “excessive” profits at taxpayers’ expense without the Home Office imposing effective penalty clauses or clawbacks.
Rachel Reeves will lead a delegation of senior business leaders to Saudi Arabia on Monday as she hopes to deepen the UK’s relationship with a state that has been widely criticised for human rights abuses.
She is the first UK chancellor to visit the Gulf in six years and is expected to meet senior Saudi royals, US administration representatives and global business figures.
The visit comes as the UK continues its efforts to secure a trade agreement with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which also includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Totally off topic, but I went to an Evensong service at an Oxford college this evening and it was very lovely in a timelessly English kind of way. Stunning surroundings, beautiful singing and a thought provoking sermon. It made me feel guilty that I didn't set foot in my college's chapel once the three years I was at Cambridge.
Speaking as a non-Anglican, Choral Evensong is one of those specifically Anglican rituals that are both beautiful and numinous.
Milei’s Party on Track to Win 41% of Votes in Argentina’s Midterm Elections
The important question for this country is, does Argentina show that our political class's cynical but economically disastrous strategy of never offering the electorate any hard choices and repeatedly coddling parasitic interest groups with taxpayer's money is maybe not as smart as they think, even in the short term?
Or do we have to decline as much as Argentina did over the last century before we get an economically literate government again?
Comments
This is quite the picture.
A Russian mobile air defence team deployed outside of the Kremlin as Ukrainian drones hit targets in and around Moscow.
https://x.com/JimmySecUK/status/1982548403843412028
The 𝕏 recommendation system is evolving very rapidly. We are aiming for deletion of all heuristics within 4 to 6 weeks.
Grok will literally read every post and watch every video (100M+ per day) to match users with content they’re most likely to find interesting.
This should address the new user or small account problem, where you post something great, but nobody sees it.
We will also be adding the ability for you to adjust your feed temporarily or permanently just by asking Grok.
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1979217645854511402
Does highlight the difference between users who go to SM to speak and those who mainly go to listen.
In recent weeks, senior figures in Labour have been musing that perhaps the Rwanda plan wasn’t the worst idea after all. “Perhaps we should have tried to fix the legal problems with Rwanda, instead of just cancelling it,” says one government official. “We took the biggest deterrent off the table.”
https://www.thetimes.com/article/a885b10e-6b52-4a6c-8a27-1eebb2d79997?shareToken=540997e7294324b07b4eaae6bd75f145
Although to be fair this is down to Grayling.
Has this government been in office but not in power since July 2024? Quite the admission...
More likely, some poor sod working at 110% capacity screwed up because screwups happen exponentially when you are working at 110% capacity and the failsafe was cut due to efficiency savings in 2014 or so.
Nothing works because we have never in my lifetime been willing to pay to do things properly. And that includes governments I have voted for.
They sound like checks that ought to have been happening all along, but clearly haven't been because it costs to do them.
Though I bet the ensuing manhunts don't come in cheap, either.
Edit first link I found https://www.vice.com/en/article/constant-scrolling-is-giving-ai-brain-rot/
I put it down to eating Extra Mature Cheddar too close to bedtime But maybe...
Sixteen minutes later, Kebatu was spotted by officers who pursued him on foot. By 8.35am he was in handcuffs.
Footage of Kebatu’s eventual arrest shows the sex offender near a bench, where he was apprehended by four officers yards from a children’s play area.
As predicted last night the MET didnt have a scooby where he was.
Surely this is the best version of the song referred to in the header title?
https://youtu.be/BnwR37DG4CI?si=eHouBh2MXBQzBsbv
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVh44lG_2fQ (8 mins)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS6VzBVixwo
With my favourite YT comment being "That's a lovely Jumper."
Apart from the overwhelming evidence - I was sat thinking "How bad must the kiddy-fiddling have been to get kicked out of Sudan?".
It isn't even a proper Toyota.
[I always wonder what Toyota make of it when their pick-ups are used in this fashion. Surely good advertising.]
She is the first UK chancellor to visit the Gulf in six years and is expected to meet senior Saudi royals, US administration representatives and global business figures.
The visit comes as the UK continues its efforts to secure a trade agreement with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which also includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/oct/26/rachel-reeves-saudi-arabia-trade-mission-human-rights
He's greeted by flag waving racists chanting 'GO HOME'outside the hotel where he is detained.
A woman befriends him and says she'll help him with his asylum application.
A few days later he's sitting on a bench and a couple of school girls sit with him. He misinterprets some banter as affection and asks the girl for a kiss. She laughs with her friend and he makes some inappropriate sexual remarks. They walk away.
The older lady who was going to help with his application reports the incident to the police.
The police arrest him.
He becomes a cause celebre with the racists and in custody he tries to kill himself.
Is he a 'dangerous paedophile' as Chris Philip describes him or an unfortunate in a foreign land knowing little of our norms or customs? Who knows.... but It certainly looks like the Daily Mail branch of PB have made up their minds
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/live-blog/2025-10-26/argentina-midterm-elections
Milei’s Party on Track to Win 41% of Votes in Argentina’s Midterm Elections
Giant polling failure.
What do Woody from Toy Story and Hadush Kebatu have in common?
They both go stiff when a child walks into the room.
[End inappropriate joke]
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/oct/27/nhs-leaders-demand-extra-funding-waiting-times
Ministers and officials “neglected” day-to-day management of their asylum accommodation providers even as the cost of the 10-year contracts tripled from £4.5bn to £15.3bn, according to the all-party home affairs committee.
As a result contractors made “excessive” profits at taxpayers’ expense without the Home Office imposing effective penalty clauses or clawbacks.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/10/27/asylum-hotels-migrants-costs-home-office-hadush-kebatu/
"With more than 95% of ballots counted, Milei’s party, La Libertad Avanza, won 40.84% of the nationwide vote in an election widely seen as a de facto referendum on the self-styled anarcho-capitalist’s nearly two years in power.
The Peronist opposition, Fuerza Patria, secured 31.67%."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/27/javier-milei-president-far-right-party-wins-argentina-midterm-elections?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
This does mean that Milei's LLA party has achieved his obective as he now has enough votes in the Legislature to block the Peronists from over-riding his veto, as forecast in my penultimate paragraph.
Incidentally, at 67% turnout it is a new low for Argentinian elections since the restoration of democracy in 1983, despite voting being compilsory.
Incidentally, its looking like a bad start to flu season:
They really need to employ a central team of contracts negotiators and analysts, pay them each £1m salary. It would turn out to be worth every penny.
It’s a massive intergovernmental conference in Saudi this week, not just Rachel from accounts flying solo.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/crunch-time-saudi-arabia-financial-elite-descend-riyadh-2025-10-24/
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/27/argentinas-midterm-election-hands-landslide-win-to-mileis-libertarian-overhaul.html
Other countries will be no doubt be looking at how they can enact similar reforms.
Or do we have to decline as much as Argentina did over the last century before we get an economically literate government again?