Absolutely brilliant letter from Darren Jones MP to Rishi Sunak asking for detail about how much he was paid re RBS tipping over the edge in 2008, what "shorts" the hedge fund held against British banks, if Sunak held monies in offshore accounts (jurisdiction held) ANSWERS NEEDED

The Taxpayer's Alliance used to push this daft story every year, as if councils should sell off their museum collections. Bizarrely, the BBC is now pushing the same story, and of course quotes the Taxpayer's Alliance.

Louis XIV in Sun King ballet regalia. He formed a bond with his older cousin James Duke of York during the Stuarts’ first French exile, and the two performed in court masques together in the 1650s #StuartSaturday #history

There’s often a pause I suspect

Boris Johnson faces ‘serious questions’ over new business with uranium entrepreneur theguardian.com/politics/artic…

What a lovely surprise to arrive home and find this in the post. Thank you Mary Going & Dr Kathleen (Support Unions) Hudson for putting this amazing volume together and for publishing my chapter on Le Fanu’s ecoGothic

Nice piece here about the Catholic MFA program at St. Thomas started by James Matthew Wilson and Wiseblood Books & co. americamagazine.org/faith/2024/09/…

Important piece from a medic on the BMA Council on how it got to its appalling position on the Cass Review, in tomorrow’s Observer Undemocratic and secretive: the BMA no longer speaks for doctors trying to protect children | Jacky Davis theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

Poetic ecology and the biology of wonder – superb read for anyone who loves nature and its resonance with our human nature themarginalian.org/2023/12/05/bio…

One for john milbank

It makes me so happy that The Museum of English Rural Life enjoys wild social media success that huge corporations who spend a fortune on social media teams could only dream of

The danger of AI in education is not the tech itself - though that's bad: climate damage, messing up the info environment, dataset bias etc - but how it will be enrolled into and exacerbate existing political priorities like continuing to underfund education and devalue educators

Always the fault of civil servants — who can’t easily defend themselves — never ministers. Sunday Times tomorrow.

Terribly sad to hear of the death of Herbie Flowers. These are just two of many records that were transformed by his remarkable bass playing. RIP

Does religion matters for economic growth? New evidence VoxEU 👉 “How, when, and where it matters is context specific, but economists disregard religion at their peril” cepr.org/voxeu/columns/… Sascha O. Becker CEPR Ludger Woessmann

The rot that has infected Scottish taxpayer-funded organisations thetimes.com/article/2efe2b…

Prof Bob Davis Dame Averil Cameron Philip Anderson britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/si…

Some extraordinary stuff here. Looks as though the nationalist movement is free-falling into fragmentation & recrimination. More to come no doubt, with the next Act of the Salmond drama in rehearsal. A huge task for Mr Swinney to reverse all this. bbc.com/news/articles/…