#cambridge has once more outdone #Oxford ! On a related matter one of the parliamentary bills lost because of the #GeneralElection is the one #michaelgove introduced to prevent boycotts of goods from particular jurisdictions by #localauthorties .
"How the renowned physicist started out as a Zionist but ended up opposing the occupation of Palestine, and why everyone would rather talk about his science than his politics"
These are #european bison rather than imports from the #us . Thirty years ago they were almost extinct - small populations in north east #romania and north east #poland They have since been introduced elsewhere - including the #netherlands and even the #english county of #kent - somewhere normally not at all keen on anything #european !
Haaretz Editorial: The Shame and the Shambles of Israel's Policy on Gaza Aid
It explains who are attacking the aid trucks and why the Israeli law enforcement officials did nothing to stop them. #gaza@palestine
The Western leaders are allying themselves with these extremists. Far-right religious and ethnonationalist extremism is fundamentally incompatible with any liberal democratic regime. We are going back to the 1920s.
Even if #BenjaminNetanyahu may not be an extremist himself - the jury is out on that one! - his political survival depends on people like #ItamarBen_Gvir - who is the minister to whom those police report - and #BezalelSmotrich - who is doing his best - or worst if you prefer - to keep any humanitarian aid from going through the port of #ashdod . He cannot overrule them and stay in office - unlike #RishiSunak who was able to sack #SuellaBraverman and remain in office.
The HoC Public Accounts Comm. has concluded the civil service lack both skills & capacity to property oversee infrastructure projects contributing both to the evident delays & budgeting problems.
Civil servants have become too reliant on outsourced expertise (consultants & the contractors) for evaluation, with the state no longer able to act as an 'intelligent client'.
The Tory attrition and politicisation of the civil service has (and is having) sigficant detrimental impact.
Effectively the development of 'learned helplessness' at institutional level. In the end it gives the #uk the honest but wholly incompetent #DidoHarding - arguably even more of a problem that the traditional corrupt grifters!
A coup from either side ahead of the parliamentary elections scheduled there for later this year would be wrong. Far better that the elections are scrutinised to ensure that they are free and fair. As someone who visited #georgia a score of years ago I can remember just how economically ruinous for #georgia the security policy of #russia in the #northcaucasus was. It destroyed the export trade in fresh fruit and vegetables to #russia#georgia had relied on .
Deeply telling about how far the Overton Window has shifted in 40 years that Ronald Reagan took a harder line with Israel than Joe Biden, never mind Mitt Romney.
(But then, per wikipedia Romney was best buds with Benjamin Netanyahu at university. So this tracks.)
@mythologyandhistory Roman #africa continued to supply #Rome with grain until some way into the 5th century of the current era. Presumably by then the labour force there was 'free' at least nominally,
Shipping costs and sailing time - particularly from Tunisia - to Rome - or rather Ostia - would have been lower and shorter so #africa would have been preferred as a source - also #egypt did not have latifundia but tenant farming and free labour. And of course in the later #RomanEmpire - from early 4th century onwards grain from #egypt would have gone to #constantinople . #Rome was not the first city to import grain by sea - #Athens got it from #ukraine / #crimea !
Andy Burnham (still Mayor of Manchester) on social housing:
'One of the main reasons why the country has not built enough social homes for decades is because of the right-to-buy policy. Councils do not have an incentive to fund the building of new homes if they can be sold off cheaply & quickly. In the face of a desperate housing crisis, the existence of right to buy means we are in effect trying to refill a bath without being allowed to put the plug back in'!
@ChrisMayLA6 And over time 'right to buy' has spawned 'buy to let' and the expansion of the private rented sector! Even if it were to remain politically impossible to end 'right to buy' entirely in #England then the qualifying period could be lengthened and the discount reduced substantially - also there could be a power to suspend it entirely in local authority areas with a demonstrable shortage of housing - say for five years.
Just a warning that I shall be looking at the election results over the next few days as they come in. I may even be foolhardy enough to prognosticate before then - although not until after the polls close. You have been warned!
Before then an update on the issue of #voterID . #survation have produced a really good map - ward by ward across #london - unfortunately you have to go to the bird site for it. It has implications for an otherwise assembly seat which I will discuss. Another item of interest is a table from today's #guardian suggesting a correlation between #multipledeprivation and #voterturnout - the more deprived the lower the turnout.
Interesting to note that the most recent #conservative literature delivered to my door does not mention their candidate for #LondonMayor . An oversight or some residual sense of shame ?