Says Chakrabortty, where did all the North Sea oil money go? Says Thatcher Foundation, well, Fatty Soames wanted to use it for investment, like Tony Benn according to the Civil Service note on the file, and Geoffrey “Dead Sheep” Howe nixed it on the grounds that spending it on investments must needs crowd-out other investments…
Read More Sheepy Howe and the oilSir Humphrey says among much else, all worth reading: An outsider looking in may well conclude that the sort of military assets needed to build and effect long term change, stability and security are those which have effects such as training teams, defence attaches, limited professional training and so on with the nuclear deterrent as…
Read More Some Snowden consequencesWe’re paying for the Afghan police, but the Afghan government doesn’t necessarily actually pay over the money. Jesus wept. Conor Friedersdorf stands in for Megan McArdle, and rather than the barrage of mockery you might hope for, gets a barrage of poisonous misogyny instead. His past experience of comments trolls is much like mine, including…
Read More Links uncategorisedIrna Qureshi’s Belter of a Blog discusses the surprising similarity of Pakistani and Yorkshire attitudes to land, and the even weirder way people chose to divide up their living space in exactly the same fashion on each side of the ethnic divide, at least until they moved out to somewhere that wasn’t built with a…
Read More Links, with an immigration themeYou know when people say “I hope he doesn’t get on any small planes”? Well, the leader of those Mexican countergangs has done, with proverbial results. He was transferred to the capital for his ambiguous safety and is all right. He may have made some sort of commitment to the government or perhaps not, while…
Read More Your occasional Mexican popular militia updateOK, so I’m weirdly obsessed with “Create Streets”. Here’s some more. Will Fulford is a co-founder of The Urban Market Company, a joint venture focusing on mixed use developments of niche independent retail, workshops and market stalls. Its first acquisition was Camden Lock, one of London’s most iconic urban markets. Will is an Academician for…
Read More Even more twisted obsession.Another “Create Streets” thing. When I drew Dave Hill’s attention to their dodgy past in the Irish property bubble, the immediate reaction was to claim that we were both “obsessive”. @createstreets @DaveHill tell me, is there a Tory HQ book that says to always say critics are "obsessed" — Alex Harrowell (@yorksranter) January 10, 2014…
Read More Twisted Obsessive.The “Create Streets” lot are being mithered by the very serious people again. Dave Hill of the Guardian and Faisal Islam from the Ha! Ha! Poors Channel have been at it since the turn of the year. London housing crisis: Create Streets? Fine. But who decides? http://t.co/Pz6x2ep2yG — DaveHill (@DaveHill) January 10, 2014 interesting: “@createstreets:…
Read More who you gonna call? the unacceptable behaviour teamIt seems incongruous to cite Langewiesche and Michael White in the same post, so I broke this out separately and it grew. White worries that public anger at MPs’ pay and expenses and even actual thieving will rob us of inspiring examples of public service, such as Denis MacShane. What gets me here is that…
Read More The Ideal Content-Free Politician Leaves…Things to read. James Meek on housing in Britain as part of a wider project to declare the basic fabric of life an illegitimate subject of political debate. Inside Housing‘s review of the year, mostly of interest for the way it paints the Coalition as a culture not just uninterested in facts but actively hostile…
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