idk capitalism seems to be doing a pretty good job solving poverty

On the Free Day in the middle of our retreat and off to see the remains of the Black Prince’s palace in Montauban. The shadow of the Rape of Limoges, however, hovers over the trip.

It seems Sue Gray is discovering that the political spotlight isn’t so fun when it’s turned on her… telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/…

Imagine being such a ghoul that you go to a city in the middle of a war and mock the fact that, two years after a life-or-death siege, its citizens can go to bars again. Better not tell him about London after the Blitz - though he’s probably on the other side of that one too.

'The moral and financial abuse of Army families is a national disgrace…the champagne socialists may look down on us, but it is us who do the fighting, so that they can be free to protest and complain. We come from every corner of these isles and every social strata.'

I’ll bet they do!

Put this on a t-shirt

This is totally trivial but • The correct use of “Dear Secretary of State” • The keeping this to one page • The use of an actual signature really pleased me. More getting things right please, MPs. (One improvement: addressee at bottom left after the sig, not at top)

Sixty years of ecumenism really is lovely.

recently learned is that Alexandria was still a multicultural city dominated by ethnic Greeks until the *1950s*, when Nasser expelled them the Ottoman collapse, creation of Israel, & Arab nationalism killed some of the most intact remnants of the ancient world

👀 🧐 👀

Huh, had not realised the *official* Russian line was still that their joint invasion of Poland with the Nazis, starting WW2, was a *a good thing actually*, and done to "help the local population". These guys never change.

Britain's productivity "puzzle"

Is he a charity shop?

Striking chart on UK railway ridership across different eras: After the industry was nationalized in 1948, ridership steadily fell. After the industry was privatized in 1995, ridership soared.

But of course she is

As we remember Arnhem and Operation Market Garden, never forget that it is likely to have been Anthony Blunt who betrayed 17,000 of his fellow citizens & allies to their deaths in order to help Stalin reach Berlin first. thetimes.com/world/russia-u…