With Bio-Waste Spreader: "A plan to produce 30 percent more food with 50 percent less environmental impact by 2050 – the so-called '30:50:50 mission' – arrives in a new report from the all-party parliamentary group on science and technology in agriculture. Called Feeding Britain Sustainably to 2050, the MPs suggest a much-needed and long-overdue reset in UK farm policy. But have they really looked at the best ways to achieve their goals?…"
With M.D.: "'When the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Health and Social Care published the plan on 3 July 2025, they made it very clear that the NHS faces a choice; reform or die, and that the only answer was to choose reform.' So states the Department of Health and Social Care's written evidence to the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB). But as Andy Cowper, editor of Health Policy Insight, observed, telling people "the only answer is reform" is hardly a choice…"
With Dr B Ching: "Politicians who praised LNER train staff for their response to the 1 November knife attack should be thankful the perpetrator happened not to board a Thameslink train at Peterborough – 12 carriages with no requirement for any staff except the driver. During the attack, staff quickly got the train diverted to the nearest available station for police to intervene, and LNER's Samir Zitouni sustained serious injuries as he protected passengers. Police are certain he saved lives…"
With Remote Controller: "Even before the BBC roof fell in on Sunday night, it had been a busy week for Panorama. The 72-year-old current affairs veteran occupied the 8pm BBC1 slots on Monday 3 and Tuesday 4 November with investigations into why a brother of the British head of state had given up his titles and, the night before, how the American head of state had achieved his. Within days, an earlier take on one of these subjects had stripped BBC director-general Tim Davie…"
With Old Sparky: "In a long-overdue move, wildly over-optimistic government assumptions about how much electricity can be relied on from intermittently generating windfarms have been reduced by around 30 percent – with big consequences for energy secretary Ed Miliband's 2030 decarbonisation plan. The downgrade makes wind power much less attractive as a contributor to decarbonisation. Costings will now need to recognise the need for more gas-fired generation to make up the difference…"
With Lunchtime O'Boulez: "More chaos at Arts Council England (ACE), whose online funding portal, Grantium, went down this summer and didn't start functioning again until September, causing mayhem for arts organisations. Now it's wreaking havoc on individual creatives with the sudden announcement that its scheme to help freelancers develop projects will be 'paused' until spring. The only funding alternative is the tortuous process of a National Lottery Project Grant…"
Letter from Juba
From Our Own Correspondent: "As our cousins in Sudan slaughter it out in gruesome battles that the international media is only now briefly remembering, here in South Sudan, the world's youngest country, we also are familiar with forgotten violence. We've had two murderous civil wars and one border conflict just since independence in 2011, which itself only came about because of a generation of blood-letting. Back in those good old days…"
With Gold Digger: "A crucial question hangs over the growing private corporate credit market, through which investment funds and other 'shadow banks' finance companies away from the regulators' gaze, according to Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey. Was the recent collapse in the US of one such lender, Tricolor, through its exposure to a dubious car parts company, a 'canary in the coalmine' or 'idiosyncratic'?..."