With M.D.: “As a dual national, MD is vexed that Australian states have introduced properly safeguarded voluntary assisted dying to allow terminally ill adults to die sooner should they ask for help to do so, and yet the UK parliament has not, despite around 70 percent of UK adults wanting choice at the end of life…”
With Bio-Waste Spreader: “In its latest report, Resilience of the Food Supply Chain to Disruptions, the National Audit Office (NAO) warns of a growing risk to Britain’s food supplies, going so far as to suggest the public should stock up on basics in preparation for ‘severe shocks’ – extreme weather, cyberattacks, disease. But why does it not point out the bleedin’ obvious: that improving UK food security means reviving productive British agriculture…”
With Dr B Ching: “Could much-needed improvements to northern railways under Andy Burnham’s leadership distract from solving West Country rail problems? This month the government announced 29 new privately financed battery-electric trains for its northern TransPennine Express company, where the existing fleet’s average age is a youthful 14 years. Comparable West Country journeys depend on diesel trains already 35 to 40 years old, with no new trains on order…”
With Lady Liberty: “Have you started worrying about the potential for AI to kill us all, following the industry’s collective freakout in recent weeks? Fear not, because Donald Trump has the answer. Yes, some AI leaders want an industry-wide slowdown, and a pact with China, whose leader Xi Jinping is scheduled to visit Washington DC this week. But not El Presidente. No, all the regulation that’s needed, Trump posted on his TruthSocial network, is a ‘STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT…’”
With Remote Controller: “Landmark events are often quadrennial – American presidential elections, World Cups, Olympics – but the king of septennial rotation is Up, the developmental documentary that selected 14 seven-year-olds in 1964 and followed up every seventh year (except with the dissenting or dead). The aim of Up was to observe whether the have-nots prosper less in England than the have-lots…”
With Old Sparky: “Why has Donald Trump told Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky to stop attacking Russian diesel production plants? And could any such move lead to lower diesel prices for all of us? It’s complicated. President Vladimir Putin sowed the seed in the US president’s mind during a recent call. Russia is suffering badly from Ukraine’s long-range attacks on its vast, vulnerable oil industry, with refinery capacity reduced by some 30 percent…”
With Lunchtime O’Boulez: “When the government said it had ‘no plans’ to rejoin Creative Europe, it dashed hopes that Andy Burnham’s new regime would actually do something about the problems faced by touring musicians since Brexit. According to UK Music, since 2021 a quarter of British performers have lost all their EU work, with average tour earnings down by 45 percent as bureaucratic costs have soared…”
With Gold Digger: “The captains of industry welcomed into Number 10 last week for a ‘business summit’ already had plenty to smile about. Speaking in the West Midlands the week before, chancellor John Healey had softened them up by promising to ‘reduce the burden of business regulation by 25 percent by the end of this parliament’. As part of this, the business department had released plans to water down rules on how directors run and report on their companies. And, as with the summit’s dress-down code, the theme was relaxation…”