The correct answer is of course octopi – politicalbetting.com
The correct answer is of course octopi – politicalbetting.com
Full results for what Britons think are acceptable plural terms for octopus: https://t.co/xd0afmckQX
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Oil and gas are used for much more than just energy.
Natural gas is used to make nitrogen fertilizer, without which we would all starve.
While oil is used in plastics, road surfaces, pharmaceuticals, and much more.
I hope next month a supporter of the bill gets drawn high up the private members ballot and reproposes the bill and the elected house passes it again.
Then the Parliament Act should be used and the unelected house removed from the equation.
Over 99% of medicines contain an oil product.
They voted for it last year. They should again.
Even if the current form has far too many absurd "safeguards", they should just pass it unchanged and use the PA.
Sadly the supporters of the bill have made the safeguards look laughable.
So I find the idea this was the one and only shot suggested in some quarters a bit bizarre.
By the way, while called the duck-billed platypus, the platypus's bill has a longer evolutionary history than that of ducks. They had their bills first. Thus, we should refer to the platypus and to the platypus-billed duck.
The safeguards are laughably onerous, agreed. Far too many that should not be there and should be stripped out.
But better to accept it as it is than liberalise it further, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good enough for now.
Some of Sir Keir Starmer’s Cabinet are in secret discussions about the best time to tell the Prime Minister to quit and who should deliver the message, @theipaper can reveal
Here's one of his screen tests for it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksjXilVYIxw
As we found out this past week or so Starmer and #10 don't read the i, so no danger of him finding out about this plot.
I hope none of these folks are trying to conduct a clandestine relationship. They'll be sleeping in the car otherwise.
The film is positioned to be released in 2028, which indicates a shoot start of late 2026.
Key actors speculated to be in the running include Callum Turner, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Jacob Elordi. If chosen, Elordi would be the youngest and tallest Bond ever, as well as the second Australian to play him.
Despite his recent Oscar-nominated role in Frankenstein, as well as his high-profile performance in Wuthering Heights, Elordi’s forthcoming schedule appears surprisingly clear.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/apr/16/james-bond-casting-announcement
Best thing is whether it is true or not it drives the paranoia.
Solar, in the U.K., is limited by planning. There is more money chasing projects that can happen.
Perhaps the bit you are missing is that oil (in particular) is required to make a lot of things. This is the long tail of net zero.
But MPs should do the right thing and pass it, unamended, then override the unelected Lords.
The Lords could have chosen to pass reasonable amendments to send to the elected chamber to continue. Instead they have chosen to dick about, so the Commons should pass it unamended and have the Lords forfeit the right to suggest amendments.
That way he can be very, very angry when finally notified *at* PMQs
Alternatives are faux learned, and just sound wrong.
If the elected House passes it again, the Parliament Act can apply.
The Lords normally act more reasonable, but they have chosen not to this time. So the Commons should assert their primacy.
Yes I agree, we have become more divided and tribal. But I would argue that actually it was the whole EU question rather than one specific answer which has done that. It is worth remembering that the country was already deeply divided about the question of EU membership and all the other associated issues long before 2016. The whole world has become more divided and tribal in the 21st century compared to the 50 years after WW2. Brexit was a symptom not a cause.
And I think the standard of political leadership had already collapsed way back in the 90s. As I have said before, Blair bears a great deal of responsibility for this as he turned political success from a measure of public service into a measure of personal and career achievement. For most high flying politicians of all parties, politics is no longer something you go into to give back to society it is something you go into for personal gain, either financial or reputational. That is where I lay the blame for the dire state of political discourse and ability these days.
Again, as I have done before, I refer back to the Rest is History podcast where Dominic Sandbrooke this week was discussing the 1975 referendum. He points out that the level of informed political and philosophical debate in that campaign is immeasureably better than what we saw in 2016 - from all sides. You can watch the debates on Youtube and whatever side you support you will be blown away by the level of erudition and intelligence on display from all the participants.
Whether either should do such things are trickier, and why both acts are rare, so they need to decide carefully.
Did you hear about the Indian tennis player who simultaneously bet for and against himself?
Vijay Arbritrage.
I am in a bit of a quandary. Will the RefCon government spend all our tax cash cash on flags of St George here in Wales as they have in the East and West Midlands?
He doesn’t represent the country, the RF or the government and is too stupid to realise he adds nothing positive but is causing problems because of his ego and need to keep a high profile.
Too many people don’t understand that he has no official standing and he will only cause more problems unless someone has a word and stops his grandstanding.
https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/KB/2026/954.html
Among the many sins against the light from this sinner was this abomination:
She called for “generosity of spirit, a willingness to get into the grey area to talk about these things calmly”.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/apr/24/kezia-dugdale-chair-stonewall-apologises-backlash-jk-rowling-remarks
It only becomes an issue when you want to permanently abandon them and they are 300 ft below the surface of the North Sea * Then you have to do a proper abandonment based on the highest possible recharge pressures over several thousand years. That means pulling casings, setting cement plugs and eventually cutting off wellheads and removing any infrastructure above the seabed. That is when it becomes irreversable.
Nothing Trump is doing will reduce Iranian oil reserves or cost them anything beyond the immediate issue of being unable to sell their oil.
*other seas and other depths are available.
Nobody who was opposed said: "I will switch to supporting it with certain specified safeguards".
Instead they played a clever game - raising endless issues when really they were just flat out opposed whatever the safeguards.
I actually think the proposers missed a trick:
It became stand practice for TV presenters to say "this is a very difficult, complex issue ......"
They should have been confronted with the answer: "No, it's not difficult. It's very simple. People should have the right to decide their own lives." Saying it was difficult / complex was pandering to the objectors and gave credibility to their objections.
Next time the response should be: "What safeguards do you want?"
As we saw with a famous poster on this site, when confronted they went round in circles for a while but ultimately admitted they wouldn't agree to it under any circumstances, even if they themselves could draw up the safeguards.
A massive wasted opportunity.
a). what's happening
b) what the leaker incorrectly thinks is happening
c) what the leaker wants the journalist to think is happening
d) what the leaker wants the journalist to think the leaker thinks is happening
e) etc
The trouble with journalism as stenography.
If you listen to some of the Lords ex[plaining their objections you realise just how bad this bill was as it was presented to the Lords.
For a start, being a Private Members Bill, it had none of the usual research and support work done in advance - green and white papers, proper consultations etc. It was brought to the Commons as a half arsed emotionally based attempt to get ssisted dying rather than a proper formulated plan for end of life care indcluiding an option for assisted dying.
Then after it passed its second reading in the Commons it was changed with key protections being removed. This is not the same bill the Commons voted on, even before the Lords had had a chance to look at it.
It stands as the largest and most complex private members bill ever put before the Lords and it needed proper scrutiny. All he more so because all the work which would normally be done in advance of a Government bill was missing.
What we need is for a Government to do the right thing and introduce a proper bill which has been properly planned and reseached. Not some half arsed bit of legislation that relies on emotional blackmail to get it through.
Random late afternoon thoughts - a wonderful day for solar power generation.
Mr Stodge Senior (the one with the Irish ancestry) was a long sitting and occasionally standing CAMRA member for whom the Halfway House at Brenchley was akin to Heaven - six cask ales at any one time. I took him there on many occasions - the food was very good.
Another week sans oil flowing through Hormuz - WTI currently around $94 with Brent at $105. I wonder if this is the "new normal" for oil -I seem to recall in 1973 oil prices quadrupled (when the world was split between the superpowers the USA, USSR and OPEC) and OPEC didn't lose a single customer.
The tube strikes have been effective but will we have another round next month? I couldn't get to Sandown this afternoon for the flat card - the jump card tomorrow isn't worth it. I suspect some sort of compromise will be hammered out before the next disputes.
Will the Newham Independents be running the council a fortnight today? I sense Labour fighting back hard in the Borough but this is the toughest battle they've faced in decades.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/04/24/toddler-throws-tantrum-in-the-white-house/
And then in 3 years time when all that's been done an MP can introduce the bill again as a private member..
I was recently confronted with the closed Hilhead Nurseries near Totnes. Always a little ramshackle but lovely plants and a fine tearoom with superb cakes.
I really felt it as a loss.
It'll be back.
It is, of course, Octopods - like peapod and cephalopod.
The plural of cephalopod is cephalopods, and octopods literally ARE cephalopods.
https://x.com/YouGov/status/2047710420195033258
https://bsky.app/profile/gregsargent.bsky.social/post/3mkagqnanfs2q
It failed because of the arrogance, stupidity and failure to listen to genuine concerns of its sponsors - and its appalling overreach. A bill to introduce something like what Switzerland has would likely have passed. A Bill which every single organisation from psychiatrists to care homes to palliative specialists to those knowledgeable about coercion to every single organisation representing the disabled to the former Head of the NHS said was unsafe and could not be supported is what doomed it. Rather than try to bully it through its proponents would do better to listen to the very genuine concerns and stop telling lies about what it means for the vulnerable.
The Falklands are and will always be British. 🇬🇧
https://x.com/Nigel_Farage/status/2047668235240128720?s=20
There were 1200+ amendments put forwards. At the point when there were around 900, these were the scores on the doors:
Seven of the most vocal opponents to the Bill have put forward 617 amendments between them:
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff 169
Baroness Grey-Thompson 131
Lord Carlile of Berriew 72
Baroness Coffey 72
Lord Sandhurst 68
Lord Goodman of Wycombe 59
Lord Moylan 46
I also wonder whether more not less MPs might now be prepared to back the reintroduced bill too, given that it's become a matter of constitutional importance to ensure that the will of the Commons cannot be frustrated by procedural antics in the Lords.
See the reason why the U.K. pursued hydrogen peroxide for submarines (HMS Exploder and HMS Excruciator), torpedos, space launch and missiles. Long after the rest of the world decided that was insane.
Wildly off-topic, I always thought the flour bombing of Roy Jenkins at East Ham Town Hall in 1975 was connected to the EEC Referendum campaign. There's a picture of him on the same platform as Willie Whitelaw and Jo Grimond during the Referendum campaign.
Can you imagine it - a public meeting and three of the speakers are Whitelaw, Jenkins and Grimond, political titans all? Whatever you think of their politics, imagine them at a public meeting in their prime.
Anyway, it turns out the flour bombing was much later in the year - in September 1975 - when Jenkins was at a Labour Party event in support of Reg Prentice who was the local MP at the time. He shared the platform with Prentice, Shirley Williams and Tom Jackson. Jackson was at the time General Secretary of the Post Office Workers' Union.
I didn't realise until I did some research he had refused honours in the resignation lists of both Harold Wilson and James Callaghan.
So I find the argument that there are matters of constitutional importance somewhat overblown, given one of the reasons the bill ran out of time was because of the chosen method of introduction enabling that more easily. It's been a classic case of arguing they shouldn't be allowed to do it (ie it's an outrage), instead of arguing they shouldn't have chosen to do it (ie it's frustrating and a mistake).
For MPs who might struggle to think of a decent idea for a Private Members Bill, and not interested in wasting time on a no hoper, having a pact of them agreeing they will put it back up sounds like a smart strategy.