With Bio-Waste Spreader: "Given how loudly and often farmers complain about their financial plight, environment secretary Emma Reynolds has put a surprisingly positive spin on the latest Farm Business Income (FBI) figures for England. Incomes for all farm types (except specialist pig farms) have risen sharply over the past year. But do the figures disguise a growing crisis in the profitability of food production that threatens the UK's food self-sufficiency?…"
With Dr B Ching: "Britain's negativity towards trams (Eyes passim) explains the eye-watering £1.7bn estimate for London's Docklands Light Railway (DLR) extension to Thamesmead, trumpeted by the government in the budget. The 1.9-mile extension with just two stations (each side of the river) includes another tunnel under the Thames – already crossed by the DLR to reach Woolwich and Lewisham and by the Elizabeth line to reach Woolwich and Abbey Wood…"
With Remote Controller: "Since the BBC's reputation and leadership crisis over a falsified Trump Panorama and other allegations of editorial bias (Eye 1662), remaining managers have been charged with trawling output to identify potential partiality pre-broadcast. This emergency balancing act, though, seems somehow to have missed Civilisations: Rise and Fall, even though it falls within the genre of history coverage that was a problem area plausibly identified…"
With Old Sparky: "Consumers will get slightly less exorbitantly expensive electricity bills after reality dawned in chancellor Rachel Reeves's budget. As Eye 1658 predicted, the Treasury has lost patience waiting for energy secretary Ed Miliband's ‘cheaper renewable energy' to deliver the £300 energy bill reductions that were promised in Labour's manifesto. Instead, we'll shortly get relief of half that amount at a stroke, by no longer having to pay the costs of two green policies…"
With Lunchtime O'Boulez: "A study for Bristol city council earlier this year found, unremarkably, that arts activities generate economic benefits, in Bristol's case to the tune of £892m in 2023/24. Yet the council still plans to chop more than £600,000 from the arts budget over the next three years, subject to a vote in February. The reason is a hole in the coffers. But with the report showing that every £1 spent on arts activities brought £88 of investment…"
Letter from Bishkek
From Our Own Correspondent: "Kyrgyzstan's president Sadyr Japarov and his sidekick, security head Kamchybek Tashiyev, are adept at spotting coup plotters at every turn. In the run-up to snap parliamentary elections on 30 November (Japarov supporters swept the board, though most Kyrgyz didn't bother to vote), another dastardly coup attempt was uncovered that, to no one's surprise and without much evidence, was linked to the few remaining champions of our embattled opposition…"
With Gold Digger: "If the increasingly circular AI investment frenzy – in which big US players like chip giant Nvidia and ChatGPT developer OpenAI concentrate "compute" power in a few interlinked hands – should end badly, there will be repercussions for the British end of the business too. The largest part of what the government puts at £100bn worth of AI investment in the UK is the Stargate UK programme..."