What a role model for a short brown Muslim woman from a party that was “progressive” within living memory to choose! Did anybody look up Noem’s Wikipedia entry or do any more thorough research before briefing this out?

The word “iconic” is vastly overused, especially about things that can in some way be associated with the war period (“England — the country where it is always June 1940”). The Troc was a commercial building built for the recreational needs of its time. Survival = repurposing.

My mother — a young Post Office telegraphist living in London through WW2 — seems, from her diaries, to have more or less lived there or in the Lyons Cornerhouse. So it’s a relic of a certain interwar/midcentury London & presumably valued by some people for that reason. Sentimentalised.

@joxley.jmoxley.co.uk your point too. This is why people like Cooper, Mahmoud, & Reeves (or Reed) come across as so clueless & unprincipled & inauthentic, parroting three-word slogans. In old-fashioned language, they’ve got no bottom. They stand on nothing firm, have no objectives exc pol survival.

Allowed = required, given that foreigners won’t have access to the welfare system, only the privilege of paying for it (for natives) through their taxes. Massively discriminatory & unfair & actually intolerable.

Gastarbeiter, only not allowed to work.

They absolutely monstered him. Opposed at every turn, impeached. It was the era of Gingrich. Not a kinder, smarter past, but the start of the awful present.

@marykfoymp.bsky.social definitely a Q for you. I didn't vote for you last year, but if I thought that Reform had a good chance here & you were the best candidate to beat them, I would have, & I would again. But if it means voting for **** like this, why bother? Cooper was bad enough, but this?

Or even 2030.

"Treasonous" is the word you're looking for, not "scary".

Put your money where your mouth is (or isn't). I know far less about this than you do, but (1) I have "invested" (lost) my way through more than one bubble since 1992, and (2) I used to be a business historian and I don't understand the business model here. Where are the revenues going to come from?

Indeed. Most of the variation is in the income tax take. This is a 38-year career, from lowest Lecturer grade to well up the Professorial scale. Heaviest sustained burden was in the mid-1980s, which is surprising. Last two years anomalous.

Easily done.

When I'm not in a hurry (which is on most trips) I rather hope for a delay. Scoring a free 1st Class trip to London is the big prize, only hit it once because LNER is too damn' reliable. But that was worth it.

If she were even more inspired by the way Pakistan and Iran have treated Afghan refugees than by the Danish example then her proposals would have been even worse, so I guess we must be thankful for tiny mercies.

Elegug (guillemot) Stacks -- carefully safeguarded vs human predators by the Earls of Cawdor for decades before (1) they lost their estate to the MoD in the 1930s, and (2) legal protection became more effective

Why? If you were reading it for review, consistent absurdity would make your job easier.

I know you didn't ask for it, but otoh it was interesting for me to summarise the changing tax+NI salary take throughout my career. Two series: Net as % of Gross (includes USS as well as tax & NIC); and tax & NIC/total comp. (treating my & univ's USS as deferred income). What happened in the 1980s?

We were down in rural Pembrokeshire last month, enjoyed two power cuts on successive windy/stormy nights. Quite common down there -- every holiday rental home we've had has provided torches.