With Bio-Waste Spreader: “Tragically, for thousands of farmers, the latest iteration of the government’s flagship agri-environment scheme, the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), quickly descended into farce. This year’s application window for the scheme launched on 22 September at 10am but had to be closed less than six hours later as the £290m subsidy pot ran dry, leaving thousands of farmers out in the cold. The scheme has replaced the old EU farm subsidy for most English farmers…”
With MD: “And so, just 17 years after Gordon Brown’s Labour government first promised a National (Social) Care Service in England, Andy Burnham has promised it again – but only if Labour wins the next election. In 2010, Brown wrote the foreword to a white paper titled ‘Building the National Care Service’ and set out a route to ‘meet the needs of people when they need help, free when they need it. It will be for all – whoever you are, wherever you live, whatever your circumstances’…”
With Dr B Ching: “The government has thought of another excuse for avoiding thorough rail electrification: inadequate future power from the grid. Its rolling-stock and infrastructure strategy, published last week, at last shows Whitehall accepting the stupidities of rail fragmentation which the Eye highlighted during the Blair/ Brown Labour government and since. The future Great British Railways (GBR) will coordinate rolling-stock and infrastructure planning…”
With Lady Liberty: “No one has done more to smash through expected standards of political behaviour – sexual, financial, ethical – than Donald Trump. The bar for scandal in American politics is now far higher than it’s ever been before. In what must have seemed like a hot scoop, the New York Times recently revealed that Mary Peltola, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Alaska, was accused of ‘angry outbursts, slurs and firings’…”
With Remote Controller: “Three weeks into its 24th series, Strictly Come Dancing was perceived as being in trouble. Scandals over guest and professional conduct and the departure (through non- scandalous choice) of hostesses Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly made this the first time that the whole presentation team had changed. The last BBC ratings banker to do that, Top Gear, set an ominous example of decline followed by hiatus. After much BBC furrowing, the duo became a trio,…”
With Old Sparky: “What are we to make of Great British Grid, Andy Burnham’s plan for taking more public control of our electricity system? Details were lacking in his conference speech, but it seems it won’t get any new money, just a share of a modest £4bn pot allocated to Great British Energy – so it’s a million miles away from nationalisation of the £56bn National Grid plc, just one of three large private companies that own and manage the grid...”
With Lunchtime O’Boulez: “An awkward moment at the Royal Opera House last week, as culture secretary Lisa Nandy complained during a panel discussion that ‘it does my head in that people think I’m a Philistine because I’m from Wigan’. But in truth those present were probably less concerned about Nandy’s origins than her future plans. The Royal Ballet and Opera has been courting Nandy in an attempt to dodge cuts to its public funding…”
Letter from Lusaka
From Our Own Correspondent: “‘I don’t have a lawyer, I cannot speak’ has become the infamous tagline on social media here in mineral-rich, democracy- light Zambia. It simply means that this is a time of repression, and any criticism of the authorities can land you in jail. The tagline has become more pronounced following heavily disputed presidential and parliamentary elections in August…”