Reading this and it is good (as are the other papers in the series) An early minor quibble - I'm not sure that the 1997 Labour government did chop and change so much. It retained and built on things like regional Government offices.

I'm still praying for some respite from the punishing heat.

Is this surprising on the first vote? I'm a bit surprised given national polling. findoutnow.co.uk/blog/greater...

Quite excited that the Bayeux Tapestry is coming to the UK… I'll finally get a look at its little-seen and long missing final section.

This would likely generate a bunch of 'yookay' on X. However, I'm in the Scottish Stores on Caledonian Road and I remember what the neighborhood and the pub were like in the 90s.

Relax, everyone. Crisis over.

I expect it's all too boring and complicated for them

Anyway, I'm having a sensible solo pint in the Harrison in KX. Every time I'm back down here these days I'm struck by the success of the congestion zone. Away from a few main bus/taxi/cycle routes it is so peaceful - like Amsterdam.

Listening to this. I own it on vinyl but the youths are playing video games. They are listening to music too but I got in after three pints and groovily asked oh is this pink panthress, but it was Charlie xcx. That's why I'm in the garden.

Spotted this creating a bit of chatter on X. Chatter that's apparently impervious to low engagement accounts like mine saying it's not showing (only) cash transfers.

I don't know how much to trust this poll, but it's got to be hard for reform to win on a supplementary vote sytem.

I bemoaned too soon. One of them secretly baked me a tea loaf.

Really, it's not complicated. Or shouldn't be.

Have to worry about what kind of private conversations people like Cole are having. Is someone already writing the book on middle class online radicalisation?

This is getting a bit of traction on X. Whatever questions there are for Burnham and Manchesterism, is economic activity being clustered in the urban core a gotcha? Manchester has been explicitly about agglomeration for a long time. What do people think that tram network is for?

That ballooning welfare bill again.

Nice today. Pleasant. See. You all used to laugh at how cold and dark it is here... ...you'll not be laughing at our 'moderate' temperatures and large reservoirs when you're waiting at the standpipe with your water ration book.

I didn't know Radio Caroline still existed. I'm surprised the recorded message wasn't announcing the death of Winston Churchill.

Or...

Starmer sounding like a beleaguered football manager whose team is hovering a point above the drop zone and hemorrhaging goals with no wins in eleven.

If Reform do as well as expected, I'll be reposting this on the hour all day tomorrow.

Stuff has gone up now - lots of graft from the local concillors involved - but maybe too late.

This from google maps is a classic example from near my mother's house. They must have been bought and slated for demolition well over a decade earlier.

I think we probably have some ideas over here on our liberal left echo chamber, and not all of them complicated.

This lad must be bored to tears. I swear he's been saying this every week since I signed up for twitter 15 years ago or whenever.

I've a load of 90s relics like this - review copies of things that have been immediately flogged to music and video exchange (record and tape exchange) in Camden. Probably not worth calling Sean, Debs or Tim on that 0171 number.

I'm having one of those reguarl attempts at understanding local and regional funding, what's new, what's not, and how it's landing. This kind of 'royal Maundy' distribution of 18 million quid to do things councils just used to do when they weren’t broke ramains deflating.

Not as funny as when Kaufman described Adorno the "godfather of critical theory"... like Philomena Cunk and Barry Shitpeas discussing the Frankfurt School

Can anyone who's read this tell me what it's saying? I've read it in bursts and I still don't know.