Seen it called a porcupine graph

Intercity trains packed with high paying passengers pretty much always get priority when behind schedule. But often that spreads the delay onto other services across the country. For this reason something going wrong in Scotland in the early morning can cause delays in the south of England by 9am.

Under legislation the power to award track access rights is vested in the Office for Rail and Road (an independent government body).

Wouldn't she be expected to give a statement to Parliament immediately if she'd confirmed decisions have been made?

I think a non-trivial part of the problem is that the great majority of people in senior public sector jobs are doing just fine, especially if they were well into their career and had bought before the financial crash. Instinctively they don't see a reason for urgency about development.

This it?
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/671622...

You can read the history here:
www.lse.ac.uk/business/con...

Until the mid 2000s the median priced home would have attracted only a fairly small SDLT liability. The graph which shows liability as a percentage of median full time income is instructive.

There also doesn't seem to be much recognition that class can change throughout one's life. He certainly might have been lower class when he was 18, but not when he was 35.

Yup. Amazes me how often this is explained and yet never seems to land with anyone. If you adjust for how pensions and tertiary education are funded the UK employee will snap back to the middle or even towards the higher end.

Not that I disagree, but there is deep scepticism within HMT as to the level of grip and competence in local government (I'm sure you can name several mismanaged authorities; that's the tip of the iceberg). Naturally this is symbiotic - most capable people don't want to run powerless bodies.

And as I'm sure you know, real wage growth has been materially lower than GDP per capita growth. So 2007 - 2025 has been a bit better for those with lots of property and pension income, but worse for those reliant on wages. Which is of course the majority of working age people.

There needs to be much more thought given to how future obligations will be robustly resourced. Otherwise as soon as there are budget and headcount pressures (always) people will be shifted to whatever the day's biggest prioirities are (not post-implementation reviews of statutory instruments).

It seems obvious to me that tactical voting will typically be more powerful when the intended outcome is to get an unpopular government out than when it is to return a government whose policies and rhetoric have set clear dividing lines with other parties.

Here's a first attempt - interesting how the education divide widens with Lib Dem voters with age, and there is a complete crossover with Conservative voters.

Although to @psurridge.bsky.social 's point this does not account for the fact that many 18-24 year olds are at uni but don't have a degree

But also the longer we continue with degraded public services the more the middle classes become accustomed to relying on private provision.

Had no idea how radically different industrial pricing worked before reading the recent Dieter Helm piece. Not *that* long ago but must have looked almost alien to British policymakers/thinkers by the mid 1990s.

This is the biggest issue I see with getting autonomous vehicles rolled out in a city. Until there's a set of court cases setting out who holds what risk in what circumstances when a child dies in an accident with one there's going to be a lot of nervousness.