Andrew Lay
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apwlay.bsky.social
Andrew Lay
@apwlay.bsky.social
Teacher. Quiz show alumnus. Economics, politics, sport, food etc etc -all the usual
It's a bit slow, but feels a bit snowball-y to me; seems to have some momentum and these decisions are getting reported. The "they've gone, should we?" pressure by comparison will escalate

But yeah, should have been some time ago, and still needs some big players to take a lead.
January 13, 2026 at 10:40 PM
...on migration etc have Reform actually got a coherent ideology/programme?
Davey - more sensible-ism?

Maybe Polanski/Greens are the only external group who you might think could delegate by sense of direction.

So is "sense of direction" only likely to emerge from within Labour as things stand?
January 13, 2026 at 4:28 PM
Stephen has been vocal about the sense of direction aspect, of course, but this framing makes me think: where does that person come from, right now? Is it only likely to be an internal Labour replacement? Because let's be honest, Badenoch is an inconsistent mess, Farage... Apart from the obvious 1/2
January 13, 2026 at 4:28 PM
This was the exact framing of some of the No side adverts in the AV referendum. It infuriated me at the time. A) No it's not a race, and b) what "winning" means is exactly the issue up for debate
January 13, 2026 at 8:29 AM
And by implication mixed income density - need some people to staff the low wage retail (or students?!). Enough rich to sustain it, enough of the right people to staff it, and even if they don't use it much, some in between will enjoy it being there
January 11, 2026 at 6:18 PM
Yes, and as hinted in article, there's sort of a choice between cheap (illegal?) shops that might actually be able to survive, and where enough high income people exist, some low employment, low productivity, but high priced bougie shops - there are some lovely high streets in some parts of London!
January 11, 2026 at 6:11 PM
My wife can tell you I had the same rant at the R3 news. If your basic format it "WH says this; Trump admin has done this" you're never going to tell the story. It's only a summary/headline bulletin but it's going to be the modal news service for some and I'm sure there are ways of doing it better
January 10, 2026 at 9:18 AM
#FridayFive
1. Symphony No1 "Winter Daydreams" - Tchaikovsky
2. January Hymn - Decemberists
3. The Battle on Ice from Alexander Nevsky - Prokofiev
4. The Snow is Dancing - Debussy
5. Winterreise - Schubert
January 9, 2026 at 8:06 PM
Spotify doing weather now?
January 5, 2026 at 7:25 PM
My insight is that I lack language for anything in the 25-50% range
January 5, 2026 at 6:01 PM
Dunno, I'm down the road from you and bbq-ed for NYE!
January 3, 2026 at 4:51 PM
Just rushed outside with the infant to see ours: "bin lorry! Bin lorry gone!"
Wooden version a pale imitation
December 28, 2025 at 7:39 AM
... making a combo of your list - "deficient in the leg department" - doubly unknown
December 27, 2025 at 6:57 PM
Well, that exhausts my knowledge of "things which might have occured on 25th Dec", then...!

Plus, the meta clue if Duncan not guessing the answes pretty much ruled it out too
December 25, 2025 at 10:09 AM
Only thing that occurs to me immediately is Romania for the revolution?!
December 25, 2025 at 9:45 AM
You can sort of infer it from (lack of) growth, but I'd love to see the inverse data too: % of children earning *less* than parent
December 20, 2025 at 9:14 AM
B) struck me as something I'd not seen before: when small, local start-up (ie not a major chain) is choosing a bit of tech over (presumably at least some) labour, then we're presumably seeing the NI/NLW policies starting to bite (plus the tech is cheaper)
December 16, 2025 at 8:25 AM
Anyway, drive past this morning and I see they're installing McD-style ordering touchscreens. a) odd choice perhaps given it's an indie with two branches, and presumably wants to push customer connection and locality rather than tech-interface anonymity but
December 16, 2025 at 8:25 AM
I was driving past a new indie coffee shop being fitted out near me the other day whilst coincidentally you were on Briefing Room citing hospitality employment growth in discussing productivity. Turned this into a small extension lesson about those issues.
December 16, 2025 at 8:25 AM