Pylon Men (1956)

 

The reality of the Starmtrooper’s ambition

Felix Hardinge has a fine Critic piece on what he calls Soft-Play Britain, the shallow and superficial urban schemes which go no further than trying to make the place look a bit nicer.

Soft-Play Britain

Britain’s governing class talks of growth and grandeur but focuses on planters and paint schemes

On X, you see the little impulses and fixations that ani§mate [sic] the people who actually run Britain. And time and again, the revelation is the same. The people who speak most grandly about “doing things” and “growth” in practice, to be obsessed with cycling infrastructure, shopfront beautification, pedestrianisation and the general moral necessity of making places look a bit nicer.

No government has embodied this dissonance more perfectly than Starmer’s. The promise was of restored standards in public life fused to technocratic seriousness: growth, competence, a bright (and green) industrial future, perhaps even a faint revival of that old Blairite hum of modernisation. This vision could not, at least initially, be laughed out the room. Unlike the stagnant 2010s, the world has begun to recover some sense of technological momentum, above all in artificial intelligence and in space: NASA’s Artemis II mission launched on 1st April, and this week completed the first crewed lunar flyby since Apollo 17.

Yet the reality of the Starmtrooper’s ambition is far more often the moral and aesthetic world of the municipal functionary: traffic management, frontage improvements, “public realm” tidying, and an endless preoccupation with making everything feel safer, softer, and more convivial. Millennials were the first generation to invent the “kidult”, so it makes sense that they should wish to turn the streetscape into a kind of giant soft-play area.


The whole piece is well worth reading as anyone paying attention here in the UK must see such kidult streetscape schemes all over the place.


That is why these schemes so often feel less like urbanism and more managed irritation: not a positive vision of how to build better places, but a negative politics of making existing habits harder. In practice, as Chris Bayliss notes, the supposed policy substance often dissolves into a motte-and-bailey: the attractive claim that everyone should live near life’s necessities, followed by silence when asked how those amenities are actually to be made economically viable where they do not already exist.

Replica Activists

Greenpeace installs 'wind farm' at Trump's golf resort

Environmental campaigners have staged a renewable energy demonstration at Donald Trump's golf resort in Scotland, installing mock wind turbines on a green to protest his stance on fossil fuels.

Greenpeace confirmed that three activists set up six small, replica wind turbines on the fourth hole green at Trump Turnberry Golf Club in South Ayrshire at approximately 6.30am on Monday.

The demonstrators later removed the turbine models as golfers approached, ensuring their round was not disrupted.


At least we don't have to subsidise them.

Britain is poorer than people think

Matthew Lesh has a useful CAPX piece on an old British problem, the sluggish nature of economic growth. Worth reading, although voting for political charlatans and loons who don't believe in economic growth is also an old British problem. They don't believe in education either. 


Britain is poorer than people think

• New polling shows that growth still matters to the British public
• Britons know something has gone badly wrong – they just need to see how far we’ve fallen
• The public want prosperity, not excuses

Not too long ago Keir Starmer was banging on about how growth is his ‘number one mission’. Now, with the economy once again faltering – real GDP grew by an anaemic 0.1% in the last quarter of 2025, following an equally disappointing 0.1% in the previous quarter – we are hearing a bit less on this topic.

But have no doubt: the British public still dreams of a more prosperous society.

An expansive new public opinion research project, published by the Institute of Economic Affairs and undertaken by Freshwater Strategy, highlights that despite widespread pessimism, few have given up. When asked whether the UK should focus more on growth, an overwhelming 87% agree, compared to just 9% who say the country is already wealthy enough. This view cuts across the usual political divides, with strong support across genders, age groups, educational levels and regions. We may have a more divided politics than at any time in modern history, but there’s at least one thing pretty much everyone agrees on: growth.

Monday to Friday

Monday

Labour put on united front as Starmer, Rayner and Burnham reunite at breakfast club

Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner joined Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham at a visit to a school's breakfast club.


Friday

No invite for Starmer? Rayner and Burnham spotted holding late-night meeting in Manchester fuelling talk of a leadership challenge days after pair were all smiles with PM

Angela Rayner and Andy Burnham have fuelled speculation about a challenge to Keir Starmer after being spotted holding secret late-night talks.

Greater Manchester mayor Mr Burnham was seen leaving Ms Rayner's constituency home in the city late on Friday, days after they played happy families with the PM on the campaign trail.

Ms Rayner is seen as a leading candidate to run for the leadership if Sir Keir is challenged in the wake of a poor showing in the May 7 local elections.

No way Lammy wasn’t told

No way Lammy wasn’t told Mandelson failed vetting, says former foreign secretary

Exclusive: In an interview with The Independent, former foreign secretary James Cleverly sets out the reasons why ministers must have known Peter Mandelson had failed his security vetting

It is “inconceivable” that Sir Keir Starmer and David Lammy were not told about Peter Mandelson failing the security vetting process for the role of US ambassador, a former foreign secretary has claimed, amid growing accusations that the prime minister scapegoated the head of the Foreign Office in order to save himself.

Describing his own recent experience, Sir James Cleverly, who was foreign secretary from 2022 to 2023, said: “I cannot envisage a universe where someone senior in the Foreign Office wouldn’t have sat down with the foreign secretary and said something to warn about this.”

Hmm, so the highest Ministers in the land are not entirely truthful. 

Queen Anne is dead too apparently.

The colour of intolerance

German survey finds Greens voters least tolerant of differing opinions

Supporters of Germany’s Alliance 90/The Greens are the most likely among the country’s main political groups to say they become annoyed when confronted with opinions that differ from their own.

The poll, conducted by the Allensbach Institute for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, asked respondents whether they are often annoyed by people who hold completely different political views or whether they usually have no problem with it.

According to the results published on April 17, 28 per cent of Greens voters said they are often annoyed by differing opinions, the highest figure recorded among the main party electorates.


Probably not a surprise, but given the survey uncertainties there are no dramatic differences overall. This finding is interesting though -


A majority of respondents — 57 per cent — said there was at least one person in their family or circle of friends with whom they believed it made no sense to discuss political topics because opinions were simply too far apart.