Sharing this (pay wall free) article again in light of posts about 24 hour work e mails. Comments afterwards emphasised the right corporate culture over ‘easy fixes’ like fruit at meetings. Stress and burnout: an FT investigation via @FT ft.com/content/f32a4a1a-9f41…

#FingerPostFriday #grosmontpathsgroup at work with support from @MonCountryside and @RamblersCymru making finding your way a little simpler @visit_mon @VisitAberG #Skenfrith for @ChepstowWalkers festival walk

#AlphabetChallenge #WeekLforLookingIn Day 5 The Angel Inn, Grosmont @visit_mon

We were told outsourcing would transform our public services. But the reality has been far from the pitch. Our new report, in collaboration with @unisontheunion and @RMTunion , outlines why insourcing is needed across the public sector. common-wealth.org/publicatio…

A woman was assaulted in public, on camera, at a party conference. He got a caution. Not a charge. Not a court date. A caution. That's all. If we can't get this right when there's video evidence, what hope is there for the women who don't have any? #VAWG

Historian @rutgerbregman : "The people getting the biggest handouts are not down around the bottom, but at the very top. Yet their perilous dependence on others goes unseen. Almost no one talks about it. Even for politicians on the left, it’s a non-issue. Many modern rentiers have convinced even themselves that they are bona fide value creators. When former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein was asked about the purpose of his job, his straight-faced answer was that he is “doing God’s work”. The Sun King would have approved." Archive pick: evonomics.com/no-wealth-isnt…

'More fundamentally, it begs the question: what sort of country do we want to live in?' 📺 Director of Policy @alfie_stirling was on @BBCPolitics Live today, commenting on what the impact of Conservative proposals to cut Universal Credit would mean for those on low incomes. 🔽

England's new school food rules ban the fried egg at breakfast and ration the sausage to twice a week, 120 years after the school dinner was invented because the boys were too small to fight. The standards were published this month and take effect in September 2027 once Parliament nods them through in October. No deep frying, so fish and chips is gone. Sausages, nuggets, ham and anything in breadcrumbs limited to two portions a week between them. More wholegrain, more fibre, two portions of veg a day. At breakfast club, pastries and fried eggs are not permitted, chocolate spread, honey and syrup are banned, and low-sugar jam is allowed. The state has been feeding schoolchildren since 1906, and it started for the army rather than for the children. Britain went to war with the Boers in 1899 and could not find enough men. Across the country 38% of volunteers were rejected, for bad hearts, bad sight, bad hearing and rotten teeth, and that was after the army had dropped the minimum height to five feet. In Manchester four in ten were sent home. Ministers looked at the empire and then at the recruits and panicked. In 1903 they appointed the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration, and its 1904 report said what the teachers had been saying: the children were hungry, hungry children could not learn, and undersized children became undersized soldiers. It recommended free meals for the poorest. A Labour backbencher, William Wilson, got the Education (Provision of Meals) Act through in 1906 over the objections of the Lords. Bradford ran the first proper trial in 1907. Breakfast and dinner for forty of the poorest children in the city, weighed and measured weekly: porridge with milk, bread and dripping, meat pies and stews. They gained weight in term and lost it in the holidays, and the city doctor wrote it up as proof. By 1914 there were 200,000 children on free meals, and the point of every one of them was a taller boy. So the school dinner began as a programme for making the working class big enough to be useful, and its tools were milk, dripping and meat, because those were the things that made a child grow. In 2027 the same state will take the fried egg off the same table, ration the sausage, and add fibre. The state fed a century of children to make them bigger. The 2027 menu is the first one written to make them smaller.

HMRC have filed a petition to wind up online estate agent Purplebricks. Purplebricks told me it had been lodged in error and withdrawn by HMRC, but they have not substantiated this despite repeated requests. And their accounts are three months late.

#AlphabetChallenge #WeekLforLookingIn Day 4

Ecologists walked identical 200m transects across wildlife-managed solar farms and neighbouring cropland in the East Anglian Fens. 35 birds on the solar side. 12 on the crops. Species richness: 13.5 vs 5.5. Red and Amber-listed birds: 19.4 vs 7.8. Corn bunting and yellowhammer, down 83% and 61% since the 60s, are among the species finding refuge between the rows. But it only works if someone actually manages the land that way. Solar farms with mown grass and stripped hedgerows averaged only 17 birds. So maybe we need to legislate this kind of regulation before solar becomes Big Solar. scienceblog.com/a-ecologists…

Transport problems can be a major barrier to young people accessing work or training. If this affects you - or a young person you know - we'd like to hear from you. Please comment here or fill in our short form: ow.ly/GtO850ZPxSU

#AlphabetChallenge #WeekLforLookingIn Day 2 VIP visit @GreenFlagWales

Oops

Reform has a new leader in Wales, but it was far from a unanimous choice. I understand that there was a vote for either Helen Jenner or Jason O'Connell among Reform Senedd Members. In the end Ms Jenner won with 17 votes to Mr O'Connell's 15. I have spoken to multiple sources close to the Reform group who have told me that there is a fear "we will be back here in 6 months" with another leadership race... Just last week another Reform MS James Evans said that he had support of the "majority" of the group to be leader but didn't want the role. This is not a happy ship.

Those saying solar farms are a problem for taking up land should note this image. Also note that land can be used for animals/crops and panels at the same time in many cases.

Let's Talk about life in Monmouthshire Tell us what matters most to you and your community by completing our 2026 Resident Survey. Take part by 30/10 👉 letstalkmonmouthshire.co.uk/… Paper copies and Easy Read versions are available from Community Hubs & Libraries

Oops We know what we are doing but will carry on anyway 🤔

£179m has been given by individuals donating more than £1m to a political party within a single year since 2019. That's 72% of all £1m-plus individual donations made since 2001, despite the period since 2019 accounting for less than a third of the years covered by the data.