Did he already have 6 points? 5 points sounds like "we don't want to ban you, but if you do anything else you will be banned".

I, for one, wish the Greens would turn to violence over more of their issues.

This makes me want to sing the Tetris theme.

That's because there haven't been any successful economic policies since then.

Drax helps the UK government meet its climate targets because, on paper at least, the power station is treated as emission-free. This is because international carbon accounting rules state that greenhouse gas emissions from burning wood are counted in the country where the trees are felled as opposed to where they are burned.

Such bullshit. All the emissions happen here, but they don't get counted here.

Well maybe the government should stop being so objectionable, and instead represent the people. You know, the thing they're employed to do.

The modernisation of the royal palace has long been used to justify increases in the sovereign grant, which was just £31m when it was first introduced in 2012-2013. Under a “golden ratchet” clause in the Sovereign Grant Act, the amount of money handed to the monarch can never fall, even if the crown estate’s profits decrease.

A Treasury spokesperson said: “The grant has been largely unchanged since 2020 and this temporary increase covers the remainder of the Buckingham Palace refurbishment. We will review the grant in 2026, expecting to bring it back down in 2027.”

How can they bring it down in 2027 when there's this golden ratchet clause that says it never goes down?

My dad claimed to have seen one of these inside a plane when he was in the RAF, although he referred to it as ball lightning.

and working toward something like a wealth cap.

I don't think a wealth cap is necessary. Rather, we should look to US pre-Reagon - there was a 95% tax for earnings over $1 million, and Reagan said "If I get taxed 95% on my earnings for my next movie, I'm not going to make that movie. Then everyone else making that movie will be out of a job!" Nevermind the fact that, if they didn't have to pay him, the movie would have had far more money and been free to make something else. The workers would have had a job, the marketing may have been less effective but the overall commercial enterprise would be by and large unaffected.

Instead, we've got backhand deals. A common scandal story in the UK is an MP being paid a few £10,000s or maybe £100,000 - small fry compared to the US and their Super PAC's. However, the way the Tories have things set up is that there are 60 or so MP's who are on the party's payroll. All you have to do to write law in your favour is engage with one of them and donate to the party. The party will write a law, the whips will follow suit (just like they collectively voted against feeding children over Christmas during a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic) and then the party will pay the MP that negotiated it a healthy bonus. Money is literally laundered through the party.

And the worst part is the Labour party have no plans on changing this. They just want their bite at the pie. The Tories stretch the standard for what MP's can get away with, Labour comes in and draws a line, then the Tories come back in and stretch it again.

Sack the fucking lot of them. We don't need "representatives" to go to Westminster and facetiously "vote on our behalf" anymore. A direct democracy, certainly once it's established, would be better than this.

The company directors of the market have gone into administration, forcing all traders to shut up shop with ‘immediate effect’.

This isn't worded right, let alone a proper journalist's assessment of the situation. First, the business has gone into administration, not the directors. Second, they haven't dug in and provided any insight into why the indoor market business has gone into administration.

Given that it's the stores themselves that pay the bills to the market, I can't imagine that's the reason. The business would put prices up, then the stores would close before the business does.

https://stratfordoriginal.com/news/farewell-to-market-village-in-stratford-centre This is the news article on their website. It also gives no significant information, but states:

We are working closely with the London Borough of Newham to understand the evolving situation

So what's going on here? Who's closing it down, a business or the council? Certainly, the website for the market doesn't seem to be directly connected. If only there was an actual journalist looking at it...

Here is an article from 12 Jan, before it closed, rather than one reporting on the petition to bring it back: https://www.newhamrecorder.co.uk/news/24046578.stratford-centre-confirms-market-village-set-close/

Due to the administration of Stratford Market Properties LTD, we can sadly confirm the imminent closure of Market Village.

"Although part of Stratford Centre, Market Village is not owned by Stratford Centre and is operated as a separate entity.

According to The Gazette (a source for business details of those operating in London), the company Stratford Market Properties LTD was incorporated in 2019. Stratford Market has been around far longer than this. I smell something rotten.

In their first 13.5 months of trading, up until 31 Dec 2020 (including most of covid) they made a loss overall - but only after "administrative expenses" of £785,189, equivalent to 63.5% of their turnover.

The most recent filing from Dec 2022 shows administrative expenses of £1.18M in 2021 (75% of turnover) and £511,743 in 2022 (41.7% of turnover). For some reason, in 2022 there was an "exceptional" administrative income of £67,601.

The balance sheets beyond those basic financials look far worse. There was a £2,442,577 debt recorded in the 2020 filing, which grew to £3,501,446 by 2022. However, this business only started in 2019 - how can a new business have more than £2M in debt when it's only just starting??

Leveraged buyouts, that's one way. You buy a company, but offer less than it's worth (but more than half) and use the company's credit rating to have it take out a loan and cover the rest of the purchase. The new owners take over, but the business is saddled with debt.

I have no idea if this is what's happened here, but I wouldn't be surprised. It's what took down Toys R Us, I suspect it's what happened with BHS and Debenhams, and it's what's happening to Twitter right now.

These rich fuckers are acting with criminal intent to cause harm to society, for their personal benefit.

Also, why the fuck couldn't Ed Cunningham of timeout.com actually dig in and do the fucking job he's labelled himself as having. This didn't take me that long to type out on the fly - I may well have beaten him to publication if we both started at the same time. He should go back to making shitty low-effort J-pop music.

Edit: Also, just in case anyone thinks I'm doxxing the guy, all I did was click the name of the author on the OP website, then click the link in his bio on the website to his music page. I thought maybe his music might redeem him a little, but no.

That's not what this article is on about, at all.

All food is merely a medium for sauce.