Today's 70% fall in net migration to 205,000 was not one of the six stories in BBC ten o'clock news.

Ta massive assymetry in whether rises in immigration and falls in immigration are considered newsworthy by broadcasters

Down by 140k isn't thought to be.

Up by 140k undoubtedly would be.

One of the strangest ironies of the last ten years has been watching Britain immersing itself as deeply as ever in memories of WW2 while proudly turning its back on the project that emerged from it.

2.3% to 2.5% of GDP on defence feels like the first step of several. Important and necessary but unlikely the end point.
Sort of reminds me of the economic policy response to the pandemic. The March 2020 budget felt (and looked) big at the time. Was quickly out-dated.

This is why you don't design curricula around "jobs of the future".

We can't predict the future but we do know what general skills and knowledge will be valuable whatever job you do.

In the space of six months, Angela Rayner has made substantive progress on:

- workers' rights
- planning reform
- renters' rights
- local government reorganisation

The people saying this are broadly just addicted the drama of recent years and only understand politics through the prism of the Tory party. The Labour Party mechanism doesn’t work in the same way and even if it did there’s no equivalent discontent or political split in the current Labour party.

REF talked up a lot. But 1) the big two parties are already alive to their threat four and a half years out from a GE. 2) Lab + Con’s mutual interest is to strategise for them to fail - and they’ll have a lot of time + more resources to do that (read somewhere that reform only have 18 staff members)

Barry Keoghan set to star in Beatles biopic, claims Ringo Starr