GPDenley

[Anthony Boutall @anthonyboutall]

Unlike the Falklands - which were uninhabited before the British arrived - Argentina belonged to Indigenous peoples prior to Spanish colonisation, including communities such as the Mapuche, Tehuelche, Qom, Guaraní, Wichí & Diaguita.

Much of what is now known as 'Argentina' was incorporated into the expanding Argentine state only in the 19th century. This is after the British had returned to the Falklands after temporary occupation by the Spanish.

Patagonia, for example, contained long-established Indigenous peoples, & the 1879 'Conquest of the Desert' was a military campaign through Indigenous-held territory.

While the Falklands were unclaimed prior to British settlement, Argentina was inhabited by peoples whose land was taken by the Spanish/Argentinians.

An interesting question follows:

Should Argentina itself return sovereignty over parts of its territory to the pueblos indígenas who preceded Spanish colonisation?

[Nick Gibb @NickGibbUK]

Delighted by today’s PISA results for England:

Science - 8th position (up from 13th in 2022)

Reading - 9th position (up from 13th in 2022)

Maths - 10th position (up from 11th in 2022)

[Simon French @Frencheconomics]

The "controversy" should be that UK gas is trading at 4.5x the level of US gas (rather putting to bed the "global price" argument) with all the inflation and de-industrialisation implications that that entails. Energy independence is quite the economic prize.

[Douglas McWilliams @DMcWilliams_UK]

Silly to suggest that taxes have to rise to sort out bond crisis. If tax rises could have solved the crisis, those in 2022; 2023; 2024 and 2025 would have done so. Only cuts in welfare and bloated central government headcount will work.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

Amnesty International has truly lost the plot. It is promoting a so-called “Arday's law” which would to impose state-mandated limits on press coverage of one person. No doubt thru an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’ Truly totalitarian.
Defund @AmnestyUK.

[John Stepek @John_Stepek]

Britain's political problem is not "comms", and nor are we "ungovernable". We simply don't have politicians in place who are able to rise to the challenges we face. The problem does not lie with the voters, much as many seem to want to blame us/them.

[Helen Thompson POLIS @HelenHet20]

The present political crisis can only deepen when the noise from Labour entails further disowning the fragile electoral terms of its 2024 win: moving left, taxing more, chirruping about the ‘heart of Europe’ are as legitimacy shredding as Truss and Sunak repudiating levelling up.

[Paul Johnson @PJTheEconomist]

Courts insisting that shop workers and warehouse workers should be paid the same ignore economic realities. Yet more costs and inefficiencies that will see all of us worse off.

https://t.co/Q9mQjuFjYP

[Simon French @Frencheconomics]

I am all for reducing frictions to the UK supply side (and anything that reduces trading frictions with the EU is in that vein) but - assuming not SM/CU membership - it is not an economic game changer. Pulling back from having the highest cost of energy in the IEA, accelerating a building rate that is just half the G7 average, and lowering the cost of capital - which is at a 20% premium to peers - would be a proper reset. All are, and were, domestic competencies pre-2016.

[ابو درندش العسكري @AlaskreeDrndesh]

@AhmadNa46570931 @grok كروك مسكر حاليا فيه صيانه

[Melissa Chen @MsMelChen]

The state of the UK's armed forces, once the envy of empires, is now a fading shadow of its former self.

It's so hollowed out that the British Army has only about 50,000 medically deployable soldiers out of a total of 73,000, making it the smallest since the Napoleonic Wars. It's also shrinking further, with net 300 soldiers leaving each month. With reserves, the UK could currently mobilize 180,000.

Maybe you think this doesn't sound so bad. Let me put these numbers in context.

My home country of Singapore (a former British colony) is a tiny island nation state with a population of 6 million. The UK's is more than 10X larger at 68 million.

Yet, the Singapore Armed Forces has 51,000 full-time active personnel and it can mobilize a total force of >300,000 (with reserves).

That's 300,00 for a population of 6 million (Singapore) compared to 180,000 for a population of 68 million (UK).

Now also consider:

> The Royal Navy has shrunk by 75% since the 1982 Falklands War

> ammunition stockpiles are so low that the Army has enough for only a light brigade to deploy and fight briefly

> all 19 howitzers have been handed over to Ukraine; the Army now relies on temporary loans while waiting for replacements

> Submarine readiness is threadbare: Only 0-2 Astute-class attack subs are available at any time (vs. the expected 3-5), forcing patrols to stretch over 200 days, with crews scavenging food and facing medicine shortages

> The frigate fleet is down to 13 operational escorts (below the required 19), with one Type-45 destroyer sidelined for over eight years and another (HMS Lancaster) scrapped overseas because it was so worn out it couldn't even make the journey home

> Recruitment is in crisis: the British Army hit just 63% of targets last year, with a 12 month gap from application to training

> only one in 10 applicants succeed; just 11% of 18-27-year-olds would risk their lives for the country

Budget cuts, bureaucratic rot, and political cowardice - this is more than managed decline. It's symptomatic of the malaise plaguing Britain on ALL fronts.

Watch the full episode here⬇️

[Ian Leslie @mrianleslie]

More wisdom about human learning in this exchange than in most education PhDs

[BBC Radio 4 Today @BBCr4today]

“It’s so good… It’s wisdom.”

Reflecting on his guest edit and leaving In Our Time after almost 30 years, Melvyn Bragg gives an emotional reading of Thomas Hardy's 'She, To Him'.

[James Melville 🚜 @JamesMelville]

“I just don’t get it Keir. We’ve put up taxes to record levels, massively increased government borrowing, spent even more money on useless things like carbon capture machines, bought £40bn worth of oil and gas from Norway from the same North Sea that we have banned new oil and gas licenses, given Ukraine £3bn a year, punished small businesses into closures and yet the economy just won’t grow. It’s an absolute mystery why not.“

[Professor John Hearn @jbhearn]

@"The second worst budget in my lifetime"https://t.co/PWmsJM6dYx on @LinkedIn

[The Access Group @TheAccessGroup]

#GivingBack is in our DNA at Access.
• 136 miles cycled from London to Amsterdam – £87K raised
• 80 miles walked in the Big Ness Walk – £84K raised

That’s £171K raised (matched by Access) for Young Lives vs Cancer. Thanks to everyone involved! https://t.co/aFWXFSqSWR

[Liam Halligan @LiamHalligan]

Ahead of her Spending Statement on Wednesday, Chancellor Rachel Reeves faces a set of national accounts drenched in red ink.

But @Nigel_Farage's Reform party has a plan which, at a stroke, will apparently bring about a multi-billion-pound improvement, paving the way for higher public spending without more borrowing and even allowing for tax cuts.

Over the weekend, Reform’s Deputy Leader @TiceRichard wrote an explosive letter to @bankofengland Governor Andrew Bailey – as exclusively revealed in @Telegraph – accusing the UK’s central bank of “systemic misuse of taxpayers’ money...at a time when the nation’s accounts are already under very severe pressure”.

Tice's claim are NOT outlandish. I believe they should be taken seriously and openly debated – as do a range of widely-respected, politically agnostic economists, including two former Deputy Governors of the Bank of England.

My latest "Economic Agenda" column in @Telegraph

🧵1/6

https://t.co/8UowJwhPy8

[GPDenley @DenleyGP]

@gituverma @historyrock_ I was at Amnesty concert too. Tracy Chapman made a big impact - and Springsteen closing out the evening was epic.

[Sam Hall @samuelhall0]

This is a beautiful passage from @matthewsyed’s piece in the Sunday Times on how the treasures of our natural environment, like the Sycamore Gap, provide a link to the past and are powerful expressions of our natural identity.

[Lord Ashcroft @LordAshcroft]

If you agree with this opinion in the ⁦@dailytelegraph⁩ I would appreciate a repost…