Mr Tydfil

[Mr Tydfil @MrTydfil]

@AaronBastani Returned from Caen myself earlier this month thinking the same thing.

Compare Saint-Sauveur square now to what it was fifteen years ago. Check out Google street view photos from 2010. Now a superb public space.

It can be done.

[Mr Tydfil @MrTydfil]

@FUDdaily @ollieparrot I've been a reader of you and your father's output for a decade and a half. I used to think, "ohh, they're good, but I wish they weren't so harsh on UKIP and Farage". But you were right on UKIP. Then Vote Leave. Then Reform. I suspect you'll be proved right about Restore too.

[Dan Hitchens @ddhitchens]

Morning all. Will be tweeting the Lords committee on the assisted suicide bill.

The background to today's session: an increasingly fractious debate on the role of the Lords, and this week's revelations about the possible origins of the bill: https://t.co/0OIB9dr4J8

[Dan Hitchens @ddhitchens]

My lecture on assisted suicide from Euripides to Stephen Kinnock: https://t.co/dL6cIE72Wc

[Dan Hitchens @ddhitchens]

Laudable intent. But politics is also about credibility.

Here are 10 things worth knowing about Stephen Kinnock’s record, as Care Minister, on suicide prevention:

[Dan Hitchens @ddhitchens]

1. After four days of expert testimony to the Lords committee, it’s clear:

The Keir Starmer-backed assisted suicide bill poses a major threat to disabled people, the elderly, the mentally ill and the marginalised.

[Dan Hitchens @ddhitchens]

Since last Monday several important bodies and major institutions have given their verdicts on Lord Falconer’s assisted suicide bill:

[Mr Tydfil @MrTydfil]

@FUDdaily Some proposals on tax reform for @policyprojectX to consider

https://t.co/VoarZSfdAZ

[Dan Neidle @DanNeidle]

Every second a Labour MP spends campaigning for a wealth tax is a second that could be spent campaigning for real tax reform that could make the tax system fairer, boost economic growth and (unlike the wealth tax) actually happen.

A thread:

[Mr Tydfil @MrTydfil]

@AntoineVanner Hi @AntoineVanner , I do not seem able to access your old blog posts anymore. Are they no longer available?

[Dan Hitchens @ddhitchens]

Major unresolved problems with the Leadbeater bill: an A-Z guide.

A is for Anorexia.

Eating disorder charities and experts have warned that the bill leaves the door open for sufferers to qualify and receive an assisted death:
https://t.co/0AjGuNLjt6

[The Megalithic Portal Ancient Sites & Stones @megportal]

Win a signed copy of the wonderful new book Stone Lands by Fiona Robertson. To enter please retweet and like this post and follow us if you haven’t already. More… 1/

[Collingwood 🇬🇧 @admcollingwood]

Sadly, it should now be clear to everybody paying attention that Reform is simply not up to the once a century electoral opportunity that presents itself. In fact, the election of Reform would likely set back significantly the cause of breaking the two party duopoly and pursuing a counter revolution/restoration against the liberal progressive, professional managerial class grip of the country.

Reform is, and will continue to be, a repository into which a massively disaffected electorate can protest. It will therefore poll well, and might indeed win the next general election. Alas, not only will this singular opportunity be wasted, but it might in the long run aid the establishment parties.

First, Reform is led by instinctive Thatcherites, an ideology designed to solve the problems of the late 1970s. We do not today face over-mighty trade unions and economically disastrous labour relations. Nor do we suffer untamable inflation. Nor have a state that controls vast swathes of the economy through nationalised industries. Nor a top rate of income tax of 83%.

Our problems today are entirely different. They include excessive migration; high housing costs; inadequate infrastructure build and R&D spend; the absence of a serious industrial policy; identifying a grand strategy that fits the nascent multipolar world, the return of realism, and Britain's actual means; unfit public administration; and third world levels of inequality across the rich-poor, north-south, and intergenerational axes. And that's before the existential issues of the Celtic secessionist impulse, the legacy of multiculturalism, and the unmooring of the elite's values from those of the people they govern.

Addressing these problems will require seriously considered policies drawn from first principles, not rewarmed Thatcherism. Furthermore, as 'events, dear boy, events' happen far too rapidly in government to think for very long, instincts are important, and the right wing liberalism of Messrs Farage and Tice will neither be able to make sense of the world nor put forward useful solutions to Britain's problems.

You see it already. Reform gives no sense of having thought seriously about policy, and gyrates between their right wing liberal instincts and what would actually be popular like a drunk slaloming home. There is therefore no coherent policy platform, and individual policies—such as their energy policies, or introducing a wildcat burqa ban policy at PMQs—are disgracefully amateurish. This matters because in government the lack of policy coherence and the paucity of serious thought will mean a Reform government is either easily controlled by the Civil Service or goes Truss-on-Steroids and absolutely smashes the country.

Both outcomes would obviously be wonderful for the establishment and the political duopoly, which will say to an increasingly demoralised and disenfranchised electorate "See? We told you so".

The second problem is Nigel Farage himself. Mr Farage is a brilliant media performer. He is greatly responsible for Reform's success so far. Yet he is also happiest running the party, as @Dominic2306 puts it, himself with the aid of a mobile phone. That simply won't do. He needs to build a branch network and an army of election ground game volunteers, but he doesn't look as if he has the energy for this dull, exhausting and detailed work. Likewise serious policy thought and the hard choices about who to upset. He also needs to build a great senior team with the policy knowledge, intelligence, wisdom, energy and managerial skill to take over running the country from day one. Mr Farage, on the contrary, looks as though he struggles to share the party with anybody other than anonymous lackeys, or make decisions based on anything other than his mood in any given morning. This has been the case since his UKIP days, and the treatment of @RupertLowe10 and @benhabib6 suggests it's still the case.

Reform is a ticket to nowhere.

[DOGE Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿💰 @SeneddWaste]

In Wales, there’s an accountability gap.

Too many people don’t know what the Senedd does, or who their Senedd member is.

It means they get away with wasting millions of pounds, with no scrutiny.

It’s our job to change that.

That’s what DOGE Wales is about.

[Mr Tydfil @MrTydfil]

Shocking

https://t.co/JDRh3iwPya

[Mr Tydfil @MrTydfil]

Parked in @StDavidsCardiff car park on Sunday to spend a day in the city. Spent just over six hours there. Cost: £25. Appalling.

[Dan Hitchens @ddhitchens]

It’s been said that the next UK political scandal is probably already happening in plain sight. And it is. It’s been happening all this week at the assisted suicide bill committee. A thread:

[Pete North @FUDdaily]

Politics: the last vestiges of democracy https://t.co/U0yYIrJCzB

[Mr Tydfil @MrTydfil]

@cosmorxn @edwest Free entry in a global megacity v €20 admission & €10 for kids to the acropolis museum in Athens (not to say tourists don't visit Athens)

And I don't think Greece can claim exclusive cultural patrimony. The story of the marbles is not purely greek, not even purely European

[Mr Tydfil @MrTydfil]

@CapelLofft I enjoyed From The Holy Mountain by William Dalrymple recently

[Mr Tydfil @MrTydfil]

@IanDunt There are some serious issues with Milliband's plans...

https://t.co/Vcp2tf6ngl

[Andrew Montford @aDissentient]

Last week, I looked at some of the implications of Ed Miliband’s mad plan to expand the renewables fleet. I’ve now taken the analysis further to see what it might mean for household bills and the rest of Mr Miliband’s plans. This is rather startling. (THREAD).