Markets and bicycle racing . Ne faites pas de boogie woogie avant de faire vos prières du soir

I wrote for the @TheCriticMag about why I don't think that the French political violence will spread to British streets as it has in Belgium, Italy, and Spain - Britain has its own problems, but most are disconnected from Continental European dynamics thecritic.co.uk/will-french-…
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Britain also lacks the European multiparty systems that help form strong political clientelism, and in particular the religious and ethnopolitical clientelism that accellerates The Camp of The Saints scenarios.
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Rock Throwers will always ask for a greater share of the free stuff available. The answer isn't to capitulate to rock throwers, since they will always ask for more, but to drastically reduce how much free stuff is up for grabs.
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I like this for its approach as much as anything. Far too many people are fixated on French style public disorder, and the idea that reform means facing down petrol bombs. Instead, Britain has a great deal of really boring problems that it just needs to nibble through rather than trying to eat the whole aeroplane at once.
Britain is broke. And to fix it, we need to start growing again. That’s why Reform’s Economic Rescue Plan includes these 64 pro-growth measures I’d take if I were Chancellor: 𝗨𝗻𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗡𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗵 𝗦𝗲𝗮 1. Approve Rosebank 2. Restart oil and gas licensing 3. Legalise onshore exploration 4. Abolish the Energy Profits Levy 5. Restore maximum economic extraction as the North Sea regulator's objective 𝗥𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗕𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻 6. Abolish the Emissions Trading Scheme 7. Halt the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism 8. Repudiate AR7 contracts for difference and scrap AR8 9. Implement the Fingleton Review on nuclear in full 10. Automatically approve French and South Korean nuclear designs 𝗚𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗛𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗖𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 11. Cut affordable housing requirements on brownfield sites 12. Permitted Development Right for brownfield housing 13. Repeal Biodiversity Net Gain 14. Exit the Aarhus Convention 15. Repeal and reform the Habitats Regulations, including Nutrient Neutrality 16. End the boiler ban 17. Legalise air conditioning to meet overheating rules 18. Remove mandatory EPC improvements 19. Revoke the Future Homes Standard 20. Repeal the Renters' Rights Act 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗡𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗜𝗻𝗳𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 21. Legislate approval for new runways at Heathrow and Gatwick 22. Auction airport landing slots 23. End 'target-consistent' carbon pricing in project evaluation 24. Ban carbon emissions considerations in planning applications 25. Fast-track all water reservoirs as nationally significant projects 26. Make Development Consent Orders a true one-stop shop 27. Restrict judicial review of ministerial planning decisions 28. Scrap Net Zero construction rules 29. Scrap the social value test in procurement 30. Lift launch limits at SaxaVord Spaceport 31. Open completed sections of East-West Rail 𝗝𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗜 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 32. Review regulatory barriers to AI adoption 33. Permit on-site gas generation for data centres and industry 𝗥𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗛𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗕𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘀𝗵 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗲𝗿𝘀 34. Cut Employer NI back to 13.8% 35. Introduce a migrant worker levy 36. Repeal the Employment Rights Act 37. Clarify that workplace rights don't require mandatory training courses 38. Let experienced tradesmen work on government contracts without CSCS qualifications 𝗨𝗻𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗘𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝘆 39. Review bank capital requirements to boost lending 40. Rule out Net Zero in financial regulators' remits 41. Repeal climate-related financial disclosure rules 𝗚𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗠𝗼𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀 𝗠𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 42. Scrap airport 'surface access strategies' 43. Abolish the electric vehicle mandates 44. Apply domestic GB hours to all UK HGV trips 45. Ban Low-Traffic Neighbourhoods 46. Back the M4 Relief Road 47. Move a new car's first MOT to four years 48. Abolish the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation 𝗨𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗕𝗿𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘁 𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗼𝗺𝘀 49. Replace GDPR with a New Zealand-style Privacy Act 50. Fully re-legalise Imperial units 51. Review all unchanged EU law 52. Automatically repeal remaining EU law in 5 years unless retained 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗗𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗴𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗠𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲𝘀 53. Make quarterly Making Tax Digital reporting voluntary 54. Reduce legal obligations on SME Non-Executive Directors 55. Double permission-free event days from 28 to 56 56. Make pavement dining licences automatic and permanent 57. Let shops open until 10pm, except Sundays 58. Repeal board diversity and inclusion rules 59. Remove the Sustainable Aviation Fuel mandate 60. Abolish the packaging tax 61. Scrap BBC and Channel 4 priority on streaming platforms 62. Remove the Public Sector Equality Duty 63. Five-year sunset on all QUANGOs 64. Five-year sunset clause on all new regulations And there are more to come! Britain’s full potential is waiting to be unleashed 🚀
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Fwiw, most of these reforms *could* also be enacted by the Conservatives, and there is little *in theory* that they would baulk at on an individual item basis. But they created a lot of these problems, and there is not really any reason to ever trust them again.
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The protesters smashed every bus stop and vandalised every advertising hoarding but left the Shaun The Sheep Halloween Special completely untouched. What did they le mean by this?
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Clocks changing mean an extra hour in bed for everyone No, parents, not you
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Your concept of an extra bit of time in bed will have no meaning to them, they will not try to understand, they will make a fire with your hour gained with reversion to standard time
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In Toulouse the police tear gassed the protesters to disperse them at the end of the agreed route and the fight is happening in the HLMs. Nose and eyes burning even from here.
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Merrily telling one of the protesters that got tear gassed that if you think that's bad, I've been dealing with two kids and it's half term 🚬🍷, but his laugh was, I le fear, more out of politeness more than anything
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Police confiscating protesters' goggles, face masks, and eye wash kits. Bad day to not want to be teargassed.
Mobilisation du 24 octobre | Contrôles préventifs et saisies de matériel interdit en amont de la manifestation Dès 10h ce matin, bien en amont de la manifestation de ce jour prévue à 14h, à #Toulouse, des personnes ont été contrôlées en possession d'armes par destination, de mortier ainsi que de matériel de dissimulation et de protection en dépit de l'arrêté l'interdisant. Le matériel a été immédiatement saisi. ⚠️Pour rappel, le port et le transport d’équipements de dissimulation et d’attaque manifestement destinés à commettre des violences contre les personnes et les biens est interdit.
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Fwiw, I think that there's a reasonable chance that protests will be a lot more muted today, not least because it's Toussaint holidays so the student population is way down in lots of places
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All the shops shut, all the banks boarded up, all the parks, museums, and public spaces closed off. Not completely out of the ordinary for big French protests, but there's something that feels like today is going to be policed in a very different way to recent pitched battles.
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Good for her for keeping some pressure on the trigger and not listening to nagging from Reddit finger guys. The first rule of gun safety is to be yourself and have fun out there.
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In the five minutes that it was a headline policy, the Government spent the piddling revenues from the change in IHT rules on small farms a dozen times over in new giveaways. It's very funny to suggest that decades of governments would have maintained a sovereign wealth fund.
NEW Britain’s missing sovereign wealth fund… Treasury officials have modelled that had the UK done what Norway did with North Sea revenues, there would be a £1 trillion fund… As Chancellor sets up Energy Wealth Fund, a look at the long historical argument about where the oil windfall went, including from interviews with those who have run Norways $2.4 trillion fund, now the biggest in the world, filled from the proceeds of the same North Sea. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm4g…
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C’est quand même fou les progrès de l’IA… 🤣🤣🤣
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I often think that Horatio Nelson isn't more of a dominant figure in British folklore because his bravery and his greatness and his belief in England and its exceptionalism were so absolute that it's a bit like looking straight at the sun
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The 2002 BBC poll of the greatest Britons of all time ranked Horatio Nelson, whose bravery and decisiveness confined Napoléon's army to continental europe, six places behind Lady Diana (a woman for a time married to the Prince of Wales) and one place behind pop singer John Lennon
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I know that's a slightly odd thing to say about our country's greatest hero, but his singular bravery and belief changed the world
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