The latest edition of my weekly political polling round-up, The Week in Polls, is out. As it says: Welcome to the 157th edition of The Week in Polls (TWIP) which goes back in time to the earliest national political polls in Britain, showing how unpopularity and failure do not always go hand in hand. Yes, it is time to graph Neville Chamberlain's approval ratings in 1938-40. Find out more by reading this edition of The Week in Polls here, and you can sign up below to receive future editions direct to your email inbox:
There was a good letter to the Guardian this week about one of the downsides of the rise of muilti-academy trusts. Jonny Crawshaw, a Labour councillor from York, wrote: A cursory look at the published accounts of the many multi‑academy trusts (Mats), which now control at least 80% of state secondary schools in England, shows an explosion in chief executive pay, with many new ancillary roles - chief finance officers, executive headteachers and trust performance directors - also adding to "central services" bills. Many of these roles didn't exist a decade ago, yet they leach millions of pounds each year ...
The judges are always pleased to be able to make our Headline of the Day Award to a new publication, so well done to the Watton & Swaffham Times on its first win.
I saw Jethro Tull at the National Exhibition Centre in 1987 and we were cracking jokes about them being old then, yet here is a track from from the album, Curious Ruminant, that they released last month. Ian Anderson's voice has aged, but they still sound like Tull. In fact they sound more like Tull than they did for some of the 1987 concert - that was the era when Anderson had been listening to too much Mark Knopfler and rather fancied himself as a guitar hero. Most importantly, judging by the comments left on YouTube, the band's fans are ...
The Observer reports that Labour MPs opposed to the government's massive £5bn of benefit cuts say they will refuse to support legislation to implement them, even if more money is offered by ministers to alleviate child poverty in an attempt to win them over. The paper adds that this major rebellion appears to be hardening on the Labour benches rather than subsiding, despite frantic efforts by whips and government ministers to talk MPs round. The source of these MPs' ire is legislation being introduced to the House of Commons in early June to allow the cuts to come into force. ...
Trumpian chaos has dealt another blow to Ukraine. The American president said that he would end the Ukraine war in 24 hours. He would bring peace to the region even before he was inaugurated. Trump had a special bond with Vladimir Putin. The two men had chemistry and he could use it to the end war. Zelensky meanwhile was a "dictator". Ukraine started the war. Zelensky needed to sign over his country's mineral rights to pay an inflated price for past help. And then, Putin isacting unreasonably. He is sending in missiles and killing children when there is supposed to ...
A superb colour photo of Edward Street of old - photo from the Joseph McKenzie collection. With thanks to Mark Mcl and Real Dundonian History.
Unsurprisingly since Wednesday morning, people keep asking me how I am - and not in that very British way we ask when bumping into each other. And I've struggled to answer anything but "numb". But that's not quite right. I feel that physical feeling you get from grief, when it feels like someone has reached into your chest and pulled out your sternum, when it feels like there's a raw, ragged hole in the middle of your chest, when it feels fragile to breathe. The feeling I've only really felt when my parents died, or those few days when I ...
