Remember when the right-wing press and the private schools lobby said VAT would mean an exodus to state schools causing a crisis? Not so much.
(From this FT analysis: www.ft.com/content/c979...)
Journalist Caolan Robertson from Kyiv:
"Midnight on New Year's Eve here in Ukraine, the start of 2026. Complete silence, no crowds, no fireworks, there's no cheering. Every other capital in the world right now is exploding with sounds, with light, and here it's silence.
Carol of the Bells ("Shchedryk") from Ukrainian Defenders at Sofiivska Square, in the heart of Kyiv.
Merry Christmas, friends!
📹: miarodriges / Threads
What do you call the last Friday before Christmas?
Most Britons don't have a name for the term, but 8% call it "Black Friday" or "Black Eye Friday", with usage most common in...
Tyne & Wear: 44%
West Glamorgan: 41%
Cumbria: 39%
Durham: 35%
Gwent: 33%
yougov.co.uk/society/arti...
In mid-November, I agreed to an experiment. Anthropic had tested a vending machine powered by its Claude AI model in its own offices and asked whether we’d like to be the first outsiders to try a newer, supposedly smarter version. Claudius, the customized version of the model, would run the machine: ordering inventory, setting prices and responding to customers—aka my fellow newsroom journalists—via workplace chat app Slack. “Sure!” I said. It sounded fun. If nothing else, snacks! Then came the chaos. Within days, Claudius had given away nearly all its inventory for free—including a PlayStation 5 it had been talked into buying for “marketing purposes.” It ordered a live fish. It offered to buy stun guns, pepper spray, cigarettes and underwear. Profits collapsed. Newsroom morale soared. This was supposed to be the year of the AI agent, when autonomous software would go out into the world and do things for us. But two agents—Claudius and its overseeing “CEO” bot, Seymour Cash—became a case study in how inadequate and easily distracted this software can be. Leave it to business journalists to successfully stage a boardroom coup against an AI chief executive.
Sincerely one of the funniest things the WSJ has ever written or done.
www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anth...
Auditors and new officials have been turning over stones at the body in charge of Teesworks. Turns out the Tees Valley Combined Authority has been lending hundreds of millions of £ to connected orgs, without loan agreements, and those orgs are now struggling to repay
as.ft.com/r/ac457745-4...
Has the active/passive shift contributed to the demise of the UK small/mid cap industry, and by consequence the UK IPO market and UK productivity?
www.linkedin.com/posts/duncan...
Big new Jeffrey Epstein investigation just dropped: How he built his fortune based on scams and lies. New revelations about his ties to Clinton and Trump. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/16/m...
This year, Newcastle United's owner had people put to death at a rate of nearly one-a-day.
The cultural impact of Rob Reiner cannot be understated. Legend isn't big enough a word. It goes to 11. You can't handle the truth. As you wish. I'll have what she's having. I'm your number one fan. You guys wanna see a dead body? The very idea of a bucket list. The West Wing.
All from his movies.
Just so we're clear, one incident of alleged anti-semitism by a musician = a major national scandal that should be roundly condemned.
Multiple incidents of alleged anti-semitism from the man leading the race to run the country = a load of nothing that should be completely ignored
My dad abhors any negative comments about immigrants. Asked him recently why he’s so strong on it: ‘Because we’re always happy to take the rich and clever ones. Which means it’s not about disliking immigrants. It’s about disliking the poor and vulnerable. And that’s a bad human instinct.’
This will always and forever be the most on point and prescient thing that Fukuyama ever wrote.
An incredibly tall tree next to a footpath/road. It is decorated with hanging lights in purple, pink and green. Glowing yellow festoon lights follow the curving path where a person stands looking up at the tree - they are tiny in comparison!
Not many people need a cherry-picker to decorate their Christmas tree, but the team at Cragside do.
Their tree stands an incredible 44.7 metres tall - more than twice the height of the Angel of the North. And... it's a record breaker.
Deliberate leaks are not culpable, but accidental leaks are heinous.
What a jolly political culture we have.
So take this in. Straight from the NATO meeting after Russia’s attack Britain’s primary military town, Salisbury, Boris Johnson flew unofficially to party in Umbria with a former KGB officer working for the Kremlin.
Can anyone tell me how this has been forgotten?
It is Profumo on stilts
Sunderland staged a remarkable comeback to beat Bournemouth 3-2 at the Stadium of Light.
Regis Le Bris' side have now picked up more home points (15) in seven Premier League games this term than they did in the entirety of their last season in the top-flight (14 in 19 games).
I'm still really angry about all the pre-Budget leaking.
Hugely damaging to the UK. The exit tax rumours in particular. The uncertainty didn't end with the Budget - I expect an ongoing impact on business confidence and domestic/foreign investment.
Indefensible.
Another way of looking at this, of course, is that if you took the triple lock out of the equation, the benefits bill would very likely roughly be increasing in line with projected inflation *if that*
Poetry.
Gill’s sentence sets a clear legal benchmark – leaving the way clear for Parliament to finally hold a much-needed inquiry into Kremlin meddling in domestic affairs…
This inquiry cannot help but look at events surrounding the EU Referendum
bylinetimes.com/2025/11/21/n...
Having Johnson & Cummings in Downing Street when Covid struck was, just like Brexit, an entirely avoidable disaster caused largely by utterly appalling journalism. And now exactly the same clowns, arses & bigots with bylines are rolling out the red carpet for Farage.
www.thetimes.com/article/1b15...
The “toxic and chaotic culture” inside Boris Johnson’s Downing St was behind the UK’s “too little, too late” response to Covid-19, with Johnson singled out for particular blame. Inquiry chair Baroness Hallett said poor decisions by him, his ministers and officials cost tens of thousands of lives.
This does feel like a major crossing of the Rubicon – the world's best-funded and in many ways most powerful public health agency is now actively pushing disinformation.
I know there's a *lot* going on to care about at the moment, but this one really is significant, and matters well beyond the US.
I am moving to Dubai because England is so dangerous. www.ft.com/content/9bf6...
I will never forget having to edit Jamal’s final, posthumous piece for the Washington Post, after he was murdered.
He was calling for free expression in the Arab world. You can read it here :
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/glo...
My greatest disappointment with Starmer is the continuation of this same old game. Half-arsed policy with focus on electoral dynamics over effectiveness. Underlying situation gets worse. Then you complain the border is out of control, when in fact it is your policymaking which has failed.
Capex from big tech ⬆️
Makes them more capital intensive
❓Is there evidence that higher capital intensity/lower ROIC should result in lower valuation multiples
💡 Yes. Sectors with lower ROIC tend to trade on lower multiples. Big risk!
Stronger relationship between sectors than within them
Donald Trump destroyed public service broadcasting in the US - it's little surprise Nigel Farage wants to do the same thing here.
Trump’s America, don’t let it become Farage’s Britain.
And we knew this. This wasn't speculation. We studied it, we had the talking points. We trained volunteers to explain this to people. It's not a surprise. Rich people don't flee places with good quality of life when we increase the quality of life. They might try to cheat us, but they don't leave.
