Flick 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/11/ai-doesnt-have-to-go-rogue-to-break-the-world.html

I want to talk about AI hacking. There are three aspects: people hacking AI systems, people using AI to hack other systems, and AIs hacking systems on their own, not even maliciously. The last two matter more than the first. The third is the weirdest and potentially the most destabilizing.

I started writing about this in 2021 and in my 2022 book, A Hacker’s Mind. Back then I said it was mostly still science fiction, but not stupid science fiction. We’re seeing it more and more, especially in the past year. The trends I’m describing don’t require a major breakthrough in AI. They’re starting to happen now, and they’ll happen more often as AIs get better at autonomous problem-solving. And it will involve far more than computer code.

AI will hack all sorts of social, economic and political systems. It will find vulnerabilities and exploit them. This is a difference in kind, not just degree. We’re not ready for it, and we need to think about the implications now.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/11/13/after-piddington-can-anything-stop-illegal-immigration/

The case against the Piddington camp is so overwhelming and obvious that it is incredible it needs to be stated. Villagers will soon be outnumbered by illegal immigrants by four to one. Women in Piddington will be outnumbered by eight to one. Anyone who so much as glances at a newspaper will understand the dangers here. Every single man in the camp will have arrived in Britain illegally. None will have faced any serious vetting. Many will come from countries that are so misogynistic the Foreign Office advises women not to travel there. The new arrivals will likely even be given one of the Home Office’s new guidebooks, asking them not to rape, sexually abuse or harass any women or children they encounter. Downing Street’s insistence that the safety of locals is its ‘top priority’ is an insult to the nation’s intelligence. It is about to spend £250million on a project that is all but guaranteed to make Piddington less safe.

The fact that even the Piddingtonians are to have a migrant camp foisted on them is especially disheartening. Their campaigns have been well-organised, disciplined and eye-catching. The symbolic referendum, in which residents voted overwhelmingly to declare independence from the United Kingdom in protest against the migrant camp, hit international headlines. The fears of local women, as expressed in a local letter to all female MPs, had a similarly outsized impact on the migration debate. Senior figures from Reform UK and the Tories have visited the village, hoping to bolster the locals’ campaign and embarrass the Labour Party. Yet none of this has made the slightest dent in the government’s determination to house illegal migrants here.

https://spectator.com/article/why-did-britain-ever-grant-a-hamas-bodyguard-asylum/

One wonders how much more conspicuous Mohammed Alfatih Naim’s association with Hamas would have had to be for the British authorities to decide that he was not a suitable candidate for asylum. His father was a senior Hamas politician. He had worked as a bodyguard to Ismail Haniyeh, the terrorist organisation’s leader, and there were photographs of him doing so. He had even been detained in Egypt on suspicion of operating a Hamas smuggling tunnel. One might have thought that establishing his credentials would have required rather less than the full resources of the British intelligence services. Yet, having entered Britain illegally in 2014, he was granted asylum in 2015 and British citizenship five years later.

Anyone tried these fancy M&S soups?

Pre-winter pantry check.

Oh, joy.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/11/13/the-welsh-parliament-has-banned-dissent-on-immigration/

In the past few years, the Senedd has developed a patrician distaste for debate. What it prefers instead is censorship masquerading as a ‘kinder’ politics, by which it means a sort of comforting soup of consensus. In January 2025, a Conservative was prevented from asking questions about grooming gangs because he risked ‘inflaming any kind of discrimination’. In June this year, Irranca-Davies himself let the cat out of the bag when he formally ordered members not to use language ‘that has the potential to inflame debate’, as if debate were not the entire purpose of a parliament.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cmvg2r3dq7xno

He was accompanied by others whom the Pentagon identified as members of the 3rd US Infantry Regiment, known as the Old Guard, which is responsible for holding vigil over the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

There’s a whole regiment that does nothing but guard it? Wow. I always assumed it was a rotating duty that pulled in soldiers from all over the forces.

https://freespeechunion.org/news/even-muttering-something-under-your-breath-in-a-car-with-the-windows

In April 2025, an FSU member — let's call him Craig — was driving his four-year-old son home to Glasgow after a day out at an amusement park in Falkirk when another car cut him up as he was exiting the M80. Craig had to swerve to avoid a collision. He suspected the other driver was drunk and called the police from his car.

Both vehicles eventually stopped, and the police arrived. They declined to breathalyse either driver, but took Craig's dashcam footage to investigate whether any laws had been broken.

A week later, officers contacted Craig to tell him that an offence had indeed been committed — by him, not the reckless driver.

His "crime" was muttering the words "smelly black bastard" under his breath seconds after almost being driven off the road. The windows were closed, so nobody outside the car could have heard him. The other driver was not looking in his direction and could not have seen him say it. The only person who might have heard was Craig's four-year-old son in the back.

Brrr! Lovely, though.

https://spectator.com/article/why-do-western-leaders-pay-so-little-attention-to-christian-persecution/

Earlier this year in the country’s Taraba State it was reported that Fulani militants killed 70 people, attacking 35 churches. As of 1 April 2026, the total number of internally displaced people (IDP) in Nigeria is a staggering 3.8 million.

Despite the scale of this crisis, the UK government’s policy for supporting those fleeing violence in the Middle Belt has been sketchy to say the least. In October last year, President Donald Trump designated Nigeria a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ and subsequently ordered US missile strikes against Islamic State in north-western Nigeria which he described as ‘a Christmas present’. But despite Trump’s fleeting intervention many of Nigeria’s Christians feel that the West has abandoned them.

First frost. Smart pooch.

This is the first time I’ve had frost before snow since I moved up here.

I have a bad feeling about this bird ‘flu season.

We’re already at mandatory biosecurity measures, I really hope they keep the stricter rules to >50 birds like they did last year.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/11/11/the-david-walliams-expose-is-a-victory-for-press-freedom/

Some of the stories of the women making allegations against Walliams are heartbreaking to read, but they are not in the same league as rape and sexual assaults committed by Brand. […]

Walliams is creepy, yes. He probably should not have had older teenage girls stay in his house, and should not have made repeated advances towards them. Yet most of the girls seem to have simply left at this point, and others do not report non-consensual sex. We need to be careful not to conflate these cases with those of Brand or to assume his guilt on the basis of allegations alone.

Maddie’s PMQs sketch:

https://spectator.com/article/burnham-should-run-a-meat-raffle-not-a-g7-economy/

In his reply Mr Burnham was back on firmer ground; namely, meaningless statements of intent without any firm commitment to action.

Oops: frozen windscreen….

May have just impulse-bought tickets to see Thomas Dolby next year….

https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/11/10/the-disintegration-of-britains-border-is-complete/

There is a reason these cases no longer spark as much outrage as they once might have done. It is because the British public has been worn out by attrition. There can only be some many cases of rape and murder, and so many instances of government failure and dishonesty, before people eventually begin to shut their eyes and block their ears.

At first, the British public was shocked by the sudden dismantling of its border. Then it was angered to discover that the government spent close to £3 billion pounds a year in housing people who had broken into the country illegally. It was outraged by the wave of rapes and even murders committed by men who should never have been here in the first place. It was speechless when the government’s only response to this crime wave was to give booklets to illegal immigrants in which they were politely asked not to sexually assault people. Now, presented with men like Radiet Meles and Gift Oladele – and thousands of others like them – the public has no more fury left to give.

The brutal reality of borderless Britain has achieved what no government spin ever could. It has numbed the British public to the point of apathy. This is how UK sovereignty dies: not with a bang, but a whimper.

I’m very intrigued about how the UK government thinks it is going to ban under-16s from “Mastodon”.

https://order-order.com/2026/11/11/in-full-the-innocuous-educational-websites-labour-is-set-to-ban-for-under-16s/

Bouncy boy today!

https://spectator.com/article/why-no-one-cares-about-white-working-class-boys/

In the progressive identity ideology which has put down roots in Whitehall, under Labour and Tory governments alike, and which suffuses the curriculum of teaching degrees and post-graduate qualifications, the notion that whites can be victims of racial discrimination or disadvantage is overlooked where it is not derided.

Whiteness is the hallmark of the oppressor and the privileged. White children cannot be habitual victims of a system which progressives say is rigged to their advantage, otherwise the philosophical house of cards upon which progressivism rests would come tumbling down. As such white working-class children are one of the few groups whose ‘lived experience’ is routinely ignored.

Feeling giddy, might delete later.

(Fucking love this song. Very bittersweet memories.)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=espwiaxY1k4&ra=m

https://spectator.com/article/only-in-the-civil-service-could-this-fraudster-have-held-down-five-jobs/

There could hardly be a clearer demonstration of that than Chowdhury’s ability to hold down five full-time civil service jobs. Having one such job should stretch anyone to the limits of their abilities. Having two should be both conceptually and practically impossible. But five? Chowdhury was described by his various managers as “largely ineffective” and his work as “exceptionally poor”, with one manager saying she gave him no work because he was unable to complete even basic tasks.

But it’s not what Chowdhury did – or rather, didn’t – do that makes the real point about his case, but rather that someone as appalling at any one of his five separate jobs was able to remain in post, paid by the rest of us to do nothing, with no one either able or willing to do anything about it. No wonder the number of civil servants has risen by 36 per cent in a decade, from 384,230 full-time equivalents to 523,635.

That’s a lot of packaging for two tiny bottles!

(Dog’s jabs, need to be kept refrigerated.)

Things to file under “stuff I never expected to feature in my life again”:

I’ve been asked on a date.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c85ynn0p5k71o

The National Dormouse Monitoring Programme, led by the conservation charity People's Trust for Endangered Species (PTES), has been monitoring sites in England and Wales since 1998. 

It found that since 2000, dormouse numbers have fallen by almost 60%, equivalent to an average annual decline of 3.5%. 

More recently, however, there are signs that trend may be reversing. The data suggests the population increased by almost 10% between 2020 and 2025, although researchers stress there is considerable uncertainty around that estimate.

The apparent improvement coincides with a period of warmer, drier-than-average springs and summers.

This guy must be very thankful for El Niño!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ck1wvrrgln13o

Lifeguard officials believe he may have fallen overboard at around 02:30, about nine hours before he was discovered.

"It was approximately 15 to 20 miles offshore, pretty much in the middle of the ocean," Newport Beach Lifeguard Battalion Chief Adam Yacenda told CBS. 

Norton credited the man's survival to unusually warm ocean temperatures.

"You have this crazy super El Niño year. This guy was in the water for probably 10 hours, but the water's 76 degrees," Norton said, which equates to about 24C. 

"A different year, no way he makes it," Norton said.

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16276543/Ministers-want-pay-historic-reparations-gypsies.html

SNP Ministers have said they are considering giving reparations to gypsies for ‘intergenerational trauma’.

First Minister John Swinney made a formal apology last year for travellers being homed in ex-military Nissen huts in the 1940s and children being removed from their families because of overcrowded conditions.

Now the Scottish Government has admitted it may give cash compensation to the descendants of those affected by attempts to integrate gypsies into mainstream society.

https://www.gbnews.com/news/deportation-crisis-foreign-offenders-free

Around 20,000 foreign offenders are living freely in British communities despite being subject to deportation orders, new data has revealed.

The figures, published for June 2025 and the first of their kind, also show that removal rates for some nationalities are running as low as one in 20.

For countries including Nigeria and Algeria, barely 5 per cent of offenders awaiting removal can realistically expect to leave the UK.

So nice to be back home with my lovely views!

(It was nice to have my stinky, nobbly hot water bottle back last night, though.)

I had a brain fart last night and forgot to put the ducks’ food in their house overnight.

I think the rodent problem has been dealt with for now:

https://spectator.com/article/the-joy-of-imperial-inches-feet-and-yards/

Happy 150th to the inch, the foot and the yard. Or at least to their official versions: the brass plaque that defines them was unveiled on the north side of Trafalgar Square in 1876, the Commission on Standards choosing a spot ‘close under the retaining wall’ which though ‘perfectly open to the public… cannot interfere with any public path’. This allowed workmen, tailors and others to check their tapes and rods without getting in people’s way. As recently as the 1970s, engineering students would make their way to the square to keep themselves honest.

https://spectator.com/article/britain-has-become-a-chancers-paradise/

Much is viewed in terms of ‘rights’; rarely duties or responsibilities. This represents a profound cultural shift, which is increasingly not only present in the welfare system but in daily life. It’s no longer just the person who refuses to maximise their benefits who feels a mug, but the commuter who pays full whack for his ticket, or the child who sees a quarter of his classmates apply for extra exam time. ‘Take what you can, don’t give back’ has become the prevailing attitude.

https://spectator.com/article/would-you-pass-the-fake-breasts-test/

It seemed obvious to me at the time, as it does to the wider world now, that Rattley is not one of those people who is trying to ‘pass’ as a woman, or one of those in the ‘trans’ community hoping that with a few major cosmetic alterations he might go under the radar and about his business of biochemistry. What Rattley is doing is the opposite of trying to ‘pass’: he is trying to stand out. His dress code is the equivalent of a female lecturer who would like to pass as a man turning up to conduct an Oxbridge interview in a three-piece tweed suit with a giant horse-dildo strapped up front.

The Michaela approach to prisons, so naturally the project has been cancelled.

https://spectator.com/article/how-mandarins-sabotaged-a-rare-prison-success-story/

https://spectator.com/article/the-prison-early-release-scheme-is-already-a-disaster

Four days after he was released from HMP Wandsworth, Michael Bogle was back inside. The 38-year-old had served 11 of 32 weeks in prison for stealing before he was freed last month via the government’s early release scheme. He strolled out of jail, told reporters he would ‘hopefully not’ shoplift again, then stole from a Sainsbury’s a few hours later.

The early release scheme was meant to increase prison capacity. But it isn’t working. Since it began two years ago, 80,000 people have been freed, yet there are just 1,000 extra prison spaces. Last week, the Ministry of Justice revealed that more offenders were recalled to jail in the first half of this year (25,531) than were let out (25,255). More violent and sexual crimes were committed by ex-offenders last year than any previous year on record.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/11/08/there-is-no-future-without-oil-and-gas/

The UK government’s own Jackdaw documents are franker than its speeches. The press release, written for voters, presents gas as a passing stage whose tax revenue will pay for renewables, and says Jackdaw will help ‘heat millions of homes’. The decision document published alongside it says the field, at its peak, could supply ‘about 350,000 homes on a rare cold winter’s day’. And it says what the gas is for: oil and gas ‘will remain an important part of our energy mix for decades to come, including for home heating and power generation during cold winter days, especially when solar or wind power is unavailable’. It also expects Britain to keep buying more gas from abroad than it sells for the whole life of the field, up to 11 years, even with Jackdaw adding about six per cent to Britain’s gas output at the field’s peak.

spinster.club/circle

He did briefly wake up when I got home.

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16273783/Enjoy-night-police-officer-told-grooming-gang-girl.html

Officers placed Ms Goddard in the back of a police car but, having been plied with copious amounts of drugs and alcohol, she mistakenly told them she was 18.

Despite being logged on the police database as an under-age victim of child sexual exploitation, the officers returned her to the hellhole she had just been rescued from.

When they dropped Ms Goddard back at the property, one officer told her abusers: 'She says she’s over-age – enjoy your night, lads.'

Analysis has now revealed that at least 60 police officers were involved in the grooming gang – either actively or by ignoring the sex crimes.

https://spectator.com/article/we-need-to-talk-about-porn/

Regulations banning choking or incest in porn came into force on Friday, and the left are divided. One side seems to think it’s harmless fun, the others see it as a corrosion of the social fabric. But ask a room of young people whether easy access to pornography is good for them and you will struggle to find a defender. When asked whether young people were worried about the impact of pornography, just 2 per cent of Gen Z – those born between 1997 and 2012 – strongly disagreed. 

New polling from the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) has found 70 per cent of 18 to 24-year-old women and 62 per cent of 18 to 24-year-old men thought that the widespread availability of pornography is actively bad for men. Similar proportions said the same about its impact on women, and similar again that it is undermining relationships between the sexes. Clearly, we need to talk about porn.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ck5ynnj05z8no

However, work has begun on some backup systems, such as High Altitude Pseudo-Satellites (HAPS). The government is spending £70m developing planes that can circle over the UK and provide at least a week of emergency mobile phone and internet connectivity at times of crisis. […]

An example of this is the new communication system being adopted by the emergency services, which will replace radio comms with mobile phone network technology, says Lord Harris, "so if the mobile phone goes down it will also impact on emergency services communications".

However, the government insists "moving emergency services onto modern 4G and 5G technologies" is "resilient and reliable".

Oh, joy: the hotel boiler has stopped working….

Knitters!

Look at this that my friend made! Isn’t it gorgeous?

Right, my loves: I’m off away for the weekend. Behave yourselves and message or @ me if there’s a problem or something you particularly want me to see.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/11/05/the-billion-pound-railway-that-no-one-can-use/

The problem for the people of Winslow, Oxford, Milton Keynes and every other town and village along the line is that not a single passenger train has run a service yet. Operations were halted by a union dispute with Chiltern Railways over who should be responsible for opening the train doors. That same dispute now exists between the union and the government. Until recently, the government was content to blame Chiltern for the lack of a resolution, but, in September, it took Chiltern into public ownership. This means the responsibility to open this rail connection, which has already cost us over a billion pounds (and is still climbing), sits with it.

When even the civil servants have realised it’s a bad idea….

https://order-order.com/2026/11/05/exc-home-office-staff-privately-criticise-labour-ministers-over-asylum-centre-plans/

Home Office staff have criticised ministers on an all-staff call over Labour plans to house 1,200 adult male asylum seekers in a North Yorkshire village with a population of 600. Why would the villagers be upset? They must be racist…

The call was held yesterday. It was hosted by Home Office Permanent Secretaries and was open to all departmental staff. In a Q&A section, the following popular comment was posted anonymously by a staff member:

For everyone saying “but why are the freezers connected to the internet in the first place?”:

https://spectator.com/article/can-britain-afford-to-take-its-supermarket-fridges-offline/

The big advantage of having your supermarket fridges connected to the internet is that it allows engineers to deal with some issues remotely. Technicians do not need to turn up in person to trigger a defrost, for example. The connections also allow companies to monitor what is happening in their fridges around the clock. If they break down when there are no staff in store, an alert can be raised, and it is easier to detect refrigerant leaks. IoT fridges can also cut bills as they can lower their energy use when grid demand is highest, and power more expensive, and raise it when demand is lower, and energy is cheaper, over the course of a day, while keeping inside temperatures within the safe range.

I have just spent eight minutes and thirty-four seconds on the phone to my mum explaining to her how to type an @.

(Admittedly not helped by my not being able to remember which number Windows keyboards have it on.)

https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/11/04/labours-conversion-practices-bill-is-an-orwellian-nightmare/

Again, suppose parents want to tell their slightly foolish 10-year-old that they don’t believe he is a girl, and that he should stop being silly. They may not face an immediate police visit, but if that child mentions his parent’s views at school, it is possible the matter will end up with a teacher’s report, and the parents in the clutches of the child protection authorities. Will other parents still want to speak their minds after that?

This is a bad bill, presented largely to keep a collection of pressure groups happy. It is unnecessary, authoritarian and a serious threat to our liberty. It needs to be decisively thrown out.

Went for winter coat and one jumper today, rather than the usual autumn coat and two, and my only regret was skipping the second jumper.

I can well believe the mutterings about a touch of snow next week.

Maddie on PMQs.

https://spectator.com/article/louise-haigh-was-just-as-bad-as-youd-expect-at-dpmqs/

On the subject of the Prime Minister, I suspect this will be the last time he allows his First Secretary of State to stand in for a while. Haigh was exactly as bad as anyone could have expected: a tetchy, screeching delivery was married to a miserably poor grasp of the facts. It was like watching a hungry seagull try to lecture on metaphysics.

https://spectator.com/article/abdul-el-sayed-and-the-dawn-of-american-sectarianism/

The United States has had its first taste of the blight that has been eating at European democracies for five decades: Muslim immigration without integration or assimilation, leading to the election of sectarian candidates whose values conflict with those of the host nation. This, in essence, is democracy’s fatal flaw. Universal suffrage, plus immigration, minus integration, equals the election of illiberal candidates. Nothing about El-Sayed’s election is undemocratic. Nor was there anything undemocratic about Iqbal Mohamed, the independent MP for Dewsbury and Batley, rising in the Commons to defend first-cousin marriage because it ‘helps build family bonds’; or Mothin Ali, who dedicated his Leeds council seat to ‘the people of Gaza’ with a cry of ‘Allahu Akbar’; or Rima Hassan, the La France Insoumise MEP who called Hamas’s action on 7 October ‘legitimate’. They are democracy made manifest. But given enough time, they may destroy it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8vgxyvz6y9ro

French authorities say that fridges used in medical facilities to store blood for donations were impacted by recent cyber-attacks by unknown hackers.

The French Blood Establishment (EFS) said cold rooms storing blood were impacted by hackers, with temperatures set to rise - but staff intervened to protect blood supplies. 

"No health impact has been identified and no loss of blood products is to be reported," the EFS said.

Up until now, only supermarkets were known to have been impacted by the hacks.

Dog has got in the habit of eating a bit of his dinner when I put it down, having a bit more while I’m cooking, and then only actually finishing it off my plate, sometimes with a bit of hand feeding.

That’s meant that he’s barely been eating any of it on a Wednesday, because I go off to Pilates so only step one happens.

That has meant he doesn’t need a poo on his Thursday walk, which is basically the cause of his recent accidents.

So I am incredibly pleased to see this:

You should now be able to change your colour scheme under settings - appearance.

(I am intensely curious about the geodesic dome, but I don’t know the people who live there.)

Might be intermittent down time for a little while.

Videos from bird.makeup Twitter bots should now work.

Hand quilting is definitely a good cold weather occupation!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm0qkxzv3j99o

Chinese authorities have dismissed reports that a suspected China-made artillery shell was found in a commercial shipping container in Papua New Guinea, saying it is a "shell-shaped wine bottle".

This is going to make a lot of people laugh, but… how do you peel winter squash? Like, if you want to cut the flesh into cubes to roast it.

Do you chop the whole thing into quarters / eighths and slice the flesh away from the skin like you would with melon, or do you try to hack the outside layer off as if you were peeling a really difficult potato?

I have literally never done it.

#PatchworkOfTheCrosses

https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/11/03/why-the-white-working-class-deserves-an-apology/

The best way forward is to stop playing the game of racial politics. No one should have to weaponise their identity to garner sympathy, acknowledgement, special treatment or resources. We should judge and treat people as individuals and assess disadvantage according to need, not race. But, if the state and our national institutions insist on organising society through racial categories, then they cannot be surprised when people start asking why the rules seem to apply differently to different groups.

If one group can have its grievances recognised, its history acknowledged and its disadvantages acted on, then the same must be true of every other group. That includes the white working class.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/11/03/the-burnhamwave-is-about-to-bankrupt-the-uk/

Mahmood’s proposals are nothing short of a kick in the teeth. Along with the ILR backdown, they include offering illegal immigrants a path to permanent settlement, fast-tracked to a 10-year wait if they ‘work or study’. In September, the home secretary announced ‘safe routes’ for more Afghans and Palestinians to settle in the UK. The ‘community sponsorship programme’, also confirmed by Mahmood in September, will weaken our border further.

On top of this, prime minister Andy Burnham has opened the door for freedom of movement with the EU. It is clear that the Labour Party now unashamedly stands for open borders.

https://order-order.com/2026/11/03/taxpayers-using-helpline-wait-seven-times-longer-than-benefit-claimants/

Taxpayers trying to ring HMRC are kept on hold seven times longer than Universal Credit claimants calling the DWP. Modern Britain is upside down…

These are the 2025/26 figures, revealed in Parliament by the DWP:

Universal Credit helpline: 1 minute and 48 seconds. Down from 2 minutes 43 seconds the year before…

HMRC helpline: 12 minutes and 35 seconds. It was 18 minutes 38 seconds the year before…

Jobcentre Enquiry Line: 2 minutes 18 seconds

PIP: 12 minutes 13 seconds: the one DWP line that sinks to HMRC levels. It peaked at 19 minutes 21 seconds in 2022-23 and is down to 8 minutes 9 seconds so far this year.

HMRC’s average so far this year is 10 minutes 37 seconds, and more than a third of its callers in August waited over ten minutes. Want help on claiming a disability benefit? This year so far you’ll only wait 8 minutes and 9 seconds…

I stopped by unexpectedly to see the DTs this afternoon (taking them some tins of stew she asked me to pick up).

In hindsight, it made me feel really quite sad: it was getting on for 4pm, and they were sitting by the fire without a light on (so they couldn’t have been doing the crossword that was open on the table), no TV or radio on, no sound of voices when I let myself in….

What curious timing….

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx8dznljndyzo

https://spectator.com/article/the-gender-conversion-ban-could-land-parents-like-you-in-prison/

If the Bill becomes law, a mother who withholds pocket money to prevent her lesbian daughter buying a breast binder is risking five years in jail. So too is a father who removes his autistic son’s internet access to prevent him researching puberty suppression. These are difficult, sensitive decisions. The Bill would give the criminal law a seat at the kitchen table just when family life is at its most challenging and the stakes are at their highest.

And it is not just parents. Teachers, social workers, religious leaders, family members, colleagues, school friends – anybody over the age of ten – would be at risk of punishment for well-meaning conversations which fall short of “affirming” a person’s transgender identity.

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16257973/Henry-Nowak-family-fear-manipulated-darkest-hours-police.html

'The story was evolving every time we had an interaction,' he explained. 'What started off as, "When the police arrived, we administered first aid", moved through a stage where: "When the police arrived, they detained everyone"...

'To: "We actually only detained Henry", to then: "We handcuffed Henry", and then: "We placed Henry under arrest".

'That evolution of what actually happened that night really shocked us, and we felt we were being hoodwinked. We felt we were being not told the truth.'

https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/11/02/the-third-worldist-roots-of-the-islamo-left-alliance/

They will claim that they are protesting against Israel or the actions of its government – an monomaniacal obsession that is troubling in itself. But they are ultimately protesting against us, against our societies and even our broader civilisational heritage. Clinging ever-more tightly to that free-floating signifier of virtue, ‘Palestine’, the Islamo-left is seeking nothing less than the poppy-trampling, Marianne-effacing ‘decolonisation’ of Western society in general.

Again.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq1kd1nee80eo

Dozens of supermarkets across six European countries have been hit by a suspected cyber-attack affecting their refrigerators and freezers.

Around 40 Delhaize supermarkets in Belgium and Luxembourg were affected, while a smaller number of shops were hit in Sweden, Ireland, the Netherlands and Estonia.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/11/01/britain-has-already-paid-reparations-for-slavery/

Landing in the Bahamas, the King brought the goodwill of the British people. What he didn’t take was money. The Commonwealth summit opening in Antigua today will also be light on payments because Britain has already paid.

Any other radio 4 listeners?

One day last week, the weather was just read out by the continuity announcer, and I wondered if it was a cost-saving thing, then on Friday PM the presenter said something about a change to just weather headlines from Monday.

Over the weekend, I didn’t hear the lunchtime weather, but I just assumed I’d turned the radio on too late/zoned out. (Although, in hindsight, Moneybox did say something about the programme being longer.)

Last night, though, I definitely heard the shipping forecast and not the general weather.

Have they just completely sacked off doing the weather?

Feels terribly un-British!

Nice to see they laid on some good local weather for him!

I do wonder how he’ll adapt to being back, though. Would not be surprised if he’s off again pretty soon.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9146yve236lo

British adventurer Karl Bushby crossed the Humber Bridge through thick mist on the final leg of his 31,000-mile (49,890 km), 28-year trek from South America to Hull.

Bushby left Chile in 1998 to head home to the UK without breaking two self-imposed rules: not to return to the UK until he had completed his journey, and not to use transport to advance.

Given it’s topical, I’m going to plug my fab little solar lantern: https://luminaid.com/

Easily bright enough to read / sew by. Also has a USB socket for phones etc.

Oh joy.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cmq5npz5l5geo

Ranasingha had been hoping to settle in New Zealand.

After seeking asylum there, she says she followed an immigration adviser's recommendation to temporarily exit the country to apply for a work visa. But once in the Cook Islands, her application was rejected. And by leaving New Zealand, she had breached the terms of her existing asylum-linked visa.

Now New Zealand is refusing to issue her a transit visa that would allow her to fly home to Sri Lanka.

Australia is refusing too. The only other international destinations she can fly to from the Cook Islands - Tahiti and Hawaii - require her to give biometric information in New Zealand before any visa can be processed.

It’s not foggy!

(Up here, anyway. Looks a bit murky lower down.)

Sigh.

He was doing so well. And did it on the new place-for-him-to-stand-when-eating mat, so I found it by standing in it while going to get something out of the pantry.

https://spectator.com/article/do-i-consent-to-let-you-read-this-piece/

In Britain, a school in Lancashire advises parents to ask their children if they may have consent to sit beside them while they read a book together or help the child put a jacket on. Early years teaching advice proposes a teaching game in which children ask for consent to call their friends ‘buddy’. (I hope an enterprising child in one of these lessons has informed their teacher that they do not give consent for the setting of homework, or for being asked to return from playtime.)

https://spectator.com/article/sod-the-state-the-middle-class-race-to-go-private/

Postwar Britain can be defined by a bargain made with its middle class: pay for public services but benefit from them too.

Private education has always been the choice of a very small minority; private healthcare was reserved for the wealthiest and those whose employers paid for it. Middle England was content to send their children to the same schools as everyone else and use the same GPs, hospitals and dentists.

This is no longer true. State spending continues to grow, yet large parts of the population now pay privately to supplement what their taxes have already provided.