Builders not invited

 
The world is filled, not with good and bad people, but with the builders and the destroyers, and the battle between them is eternal.

Hugh Walpole - The Bright Pavilions (1940)

Burnham pushes for closer EU ties and questions Russian interference

Andy Burnham has reignited the argument over Brexit, insisting the UK’s relationship with Europe must be revisited while adding it is "inconceivable" that Russia did not attempt to interfere in the 2016 referendum campaign.


Europe moves to further destroy itself! EU eyes COP31 climate deal to accelerate CO2 cuts, document shows – Seeks to turn ‘countries’ existing climate pledges into real-world actions’

BRUSSELS, Oct 12 (Reuters) – The European Union will use next month’s COP31 climate summit to push for agreement on a “package” of efforts to reduce the greenhouse gas ​emissions heating the planet, an internal EU document seen by Reuters showed.

But the public stood by me

Angela Rayner on that vape picture: 'It was put out there to shame, but the public stood by me'

Angela Rayner has hit out at attempts to shame her and portray her as a chav in the right-wing press.

The senior Cabinet minister said an image of her vaping on a kayak in Hove last summer - just weeks before her resignation from Keir Starmer's Cabinet - was "put out there to shame me" but backfired.

Appearing on The Mirror's new Youtube show Sense Check, Ms Rayner said she had been out to celebrate after youngest son's GCSEs at the time. She said: "I had a vape and there was an iconic picture of me.

iconic

adjective

very famous or popular, especially being considered to represent particular opinions or a particular time:

• iconic status John Lennon gained iconic status following his death.
• iconic image The gunfight is the single most iconic image of the Wild West.
• The film Casablanca won three Academy Awards, and its characters, dialogue, and music have become iconic.

 

Irony strikes again

LTN work damages 200-year-old canal tunnel

A grade-II listed canal tunnel has been damaged by contractors installing a cycle lane in a low-traffic neighbourhood (LTN).

Bath & North East Somerset council has closed the waterway and towpath beneath Beckford Road in Bath after masonry began falling into the Kennet and Avon Canal last week.

A lane of the A36 has also been shut while workers assess the structural damage to the 200-year-old stone-arch tunnel.

Lucy reimagines childhood

Education Secretary speech at CST Conference 2026

In her speech, Lucy Powell set out a bold vision to reimagine childhood for a new era.

For example we have -

I see every single day the amazing job that you do. That is often unseen, and certainly not thanked – and definitely not measured – enough.

So can I take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you and all your staff for the amazing job that you do.

This is a new time, a new moment and we need to match it. That’s the challenge for the next decade.

And Hamid just set that out then really well. To reimagine childhood for this new era.

Playing, exploring, belonging and happiness. Restoring for our children a connection to something bigger.

The notion of aiming to "reimagine childhood" may be twaddle because emitting twaddle is why she is there and it's what people vote for, but it's chilling twaddle too. We might reimagine a few things ourselves, such as an emphasis on parental responsibility before it's too late.

Then there is "Restoring for our children a connection to something bigger." We may assume that's their connection to the State and coming from Lucy Powell it probably is, although she wouldn't put it like that.

There were encouraging hints such as -

Colleagues, every child does matter. And that’s why we’ve got to spread excellence to every corner and give more opportunities not fewer.

That’s why I’m putting technical and vocational qualifications on a par with academic ones.

But it didn't offset the chilly miasma of State Education Done Our Way.

The new-mega-latest polls

Will Burnham now go for an early election? New mega-poll gives Labour a 56-seat Commons majority

Labour would win a 56-seat majority if a general election were held tomorrow as the party enjoys a reversal in fortunes under Andy Burnham, a new mega-poll shows.

Latest research by Electoral Calculus, based on Find Out Now surveys, finds Labour would win 353 seats in the House of Commons, far ahead of the Tories on 90 seats.

Who would win a UK general election today, on the latest polls
Data through 15 October 2026

If an election were held today, the PollCheck seat model projects Labour as the largest party on 301 seats, 25 short of a majority, with Conservatives on 140, Lib Dems on 64 and the Reform UK on 64. 326 of 650 seats are needed for a majority.

Focus on Focus

An interesting video on an extremely familiar subject, something we all do when we are awake - we focus.

Interesting because political parties, governments, commercial interests, activists, charities and many others all seek to meddle with how and where we focus our attention. Also interesting because of the diffuse divide between people who resist outside meddling with their focus and people who seem to have weaker resistance.

Fresh Things

John Healey vows to give breathing space to consumers and businesses in first budget

John Healey has promised to use his first budget in a fortnight’s time to offer consumers and businesses a “breathing space” while sticking to Labour’s fiscal rules.

Speaking to journalists in Bangkok, where he has been attending the International Monetary Fund annual meetings, the chancellor said he was conscious of rising costs...

“When the second half of a spending review is in place, there are pressures on departments, and colleagues are doing a good job of managing with what they’ve got,” he said, adding: “You have to reprioritise if you want to do fresh things.”


A chap could be sarcastic about a government wanting to do "fresh things". Raising the remote possibility of doing old things better for example - such as the usual functions of a competent government.

They use some strange language, this Labour lot, such as "breathing space" with the implication that it won't last and we'll soon be diving back into the Swamp.