With Bio-Waste Spreader: "The financial crisis facing small local abattoirs across the UK shows no sign of abating, with one of the few remaining facilities left in the south-east of England, at Henfield in West Sussex, warning that it's losing money and, without government support, will soon have to close. Can anything be done to save the last few small slaughterhouses?…"
With M.D.: "On Wednesday 11 June, all NHS England staff received an email from CEO Jim Mackey stating: 'I can confirm that from tomorrow, closing 11.59pm on Sunday 13 July, you can express your interest in voluntary redundancy. This expression of interest stage will help us to understand the number of colleagues who would be interested in taking voluntary redundancy, and to determine whether we have a business case that works.' Alas, there was no other information…"
With Dr B Ching: "More signs have emerged that the Labour government doesn't know (or perhaps care) what needs to be done to shift more road freight on to the railways. Though Labour ministers say they want to see at least 75 percent more freight on rail by 2050, they are giving juggernauts a competitive boost by freezing fuel duty and maintaining the 5p-per-litre cut, while doing nothing to offset staggering rises in electricity prices for trains…"
With Remote Controller: "The ghost of Oswald Mosley might be slightly bemused to have seen his former self featured in both Doctor Who and Peaky Blinders, but his main broadcast immortality comes from marrying a Mitford. The archive of his neo-Nazi speeches and marches is mined for the regular documentaries about one or all six of the toff sisters, and is due to be viewed again soon in a three-part Channel 4 documentary, The Mitfords, that is gazumped by Outrageous…"
With Old Sparky: "With the appeal court rejecting a lengthy legal challenge to the government's flagship Teesside 'carbon capture and storage' (CCS) project, and CCS being billed as a winner in chancellor Rachel Reeves's spending review, attracting £9.4bn in subsidies, this must be good news at last for the would-be CCS industry? Not so fast. The money is actually just a downpayment on the £22bn bung already announced by the last government…"
With Lunchtime O'Boulez: "It's a year since St John's College, Cambridge dumped its esteemed mixed choir, St John's Voices, attracting widespread criticism (including on this page). The college insisted money saved would be 'redirected' toward musical 'opportunities', promising goodwill and 'support' to the abandoned singers – who reinvented themselves as a floating ensemble, performing around Cambridge with no particular home. There is little to show from these assurances…"
With Slicker: "Lawfare continues to rage in the courts, generating multi-millions for London's legal finest from representing sanctioned Russian individuals and companies involved in commercial spats over money while the real war in Ukraine grinds on, costing more lives. A record near £19m in legal fees and expenses was approved by the Treasury for law firms and barristers acting for sanctioned Russian clients in the six months to April…"
Letter from New Delhi
From Our Own Correspondent: "Four days of intense missile, drone and long-range munition strikes between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan ended with a US-brokered ceasefire in early May. But a quieter war waged by safari- suited arms dealers in penny loafers and aviators is now underway in hotel suites and conference halls in both countries. American, French, Russian, Israeli, Turkish and even Chinese defence firms and their fixers are aggressively pitching their