Jim Waterson

The "Azizification" of London housing Fire brigade inspections, dubious safety certificates, and a landlord telling Sadiq Khan that it's business as usual.

The “Azizification” of the London housing market

www.londoncentric.media/p/asif-aziz-...

Hereditary peer Lord Mancroft: ‘They don’t care about fox hunting. It’s about us’ [FREE TO READ] The Conservative politician and former master of hounds on House of Lords reform, the pros and cons of privilege — and his numerous tattoos

This is one of my favourite lunches that @henrymance.ft.com has done, and yes, that's a big claim. When I add that we decided you all earned it this week becuase you've tried so hard in difficult circumstances, you should feel very proud. as.ft.com/r/a30e9e3c-3...

Axel Springer poised to buy Telegraph in £500mn deal German media group has gatecrashed a proposed acquisition by the owner of the Daily Mail

I really don't miss having to cover the Telegraph takeover story, the world's most tedious media saga.

But this is INTRIGUING: @danielthomasldn.bsky.social says the Daily Mail deal to buy the Telegraph might collapse and Axel Springer might end up in control.
www.ft.com/content/e5cb...

thank u Oxford clarion this is the only news I’ve enjoyed this morning

What are the other PSBs if they’re just commissioners for iPlayer? Only one place this ultimately ends up, the speed just depends how many egos can take accepting it.

My dad wrote local history books about Yorkshire and refused to accept the new boundaries but NO ONE in Sheffield would buy his history of the west riding. They just kept demanding the South Riding edition. Thousands of unsold books filled our house.

Wealthy Dubai residents race back to UAE to avoid tax bills Some risk spending too few days in the emirate and too many in the UK

Tax exiles stuck in London desperately trying to get *back* to Dubai to avoid becoming tax resident in the UK? Just great stuff. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

The cool thing about this format is the sheer amount of extra injustices it gives people to argue about.

Desperately need to know more

andyplant.co.uk/automata/rid...

cabaret.co.uk/cmt-and-the-...

Oh yeah they HATED to be associated with Middlesbrough in those posh villages.

Always like how Yorkshire Day was started by people in Greater Manchester.

Was trying to find where I'd posted the link to the 1998 World Book Day book and I'll be honest my summary of it reads a bit different now.

One of my biggest regrets in life is I missed Woodstock museum's exhibition of an animatronic "story of human life" bible parody that had been designed for Meadowhall??? in the 1980s. We just don't have enough insane stuff in public spaces these days. This is why the Marble Arch Mound was good.

I think Claude Code can probably do that.

It’s capped, I’ll survive, heating’s almost off anyway.

It's just deranged, the best coders I know are rebuilding whole apps that people on this site are using on a day-to-day basis using Claude. They haven't written a line of code since last year and are doing weeks of work in a day.

Is this good???

tfw your personal geopolitical assessment to recommit to the Octopus Tracker energy tariff may have backfired

My kids secondary and primary schools in the East Midlands sent out emails about this. One sent an email saying it was a trend we had to be aware of, and the other sent one saying it's a viral hoax they want to warn us about.

With apologies to those who aren’t quite as enmeshed in London politics or remember his 2018 deselection, just to make clear Wales isn’t a serving politician but previously led the council for decades. Poor phrasing on my part, assuming too much brainrotted knowledge of past Labour wars.

Sir Robin Wales, longterm Labour leader of Newham council, has defected to Reform UK.

Well now you've said that I'm going to GUILT TRIP YOU IF YOU EVER EVEN CONSIDER STOPPING. Nah but seriously, thank you so much, it really is as simple as "more subscription money in means more money out the door on journalists". We've now had people working these blocks door-to-door for weeks.

London landlord begins evictions ahead of new renters’ rights law Asif Aziz’s Criterion Capital owns several apartment blocks in capital as well as Trocadero centre in Piccadilly

Asif Aziz evictions story is going mainstream. Telegraph and Independent have covered in recent days. Now the FT has done a brilliant piece - including finding another property affected, where a Ukrainian refugee and their disabled son are being evicted by Aziz. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

Plunging Google Discover traffic hits Reach digital revenue Major cost cuts at Reach helped keep profits up in 2025 despite falling revenue across both digital and print.

Interesting to see Reach's financial results are out. Having been hit hard by AI summaries in Google they fled to Google Discover, which is now hitting them hard. Digital revenue down and still basically reliant on print. pressgazette.co.uk/media_busine...

I'll pick one up on the way to Boreham Wood away tonight.

More people on the left should watch a few hours of GBN to understand why it has influence. It knows its audience and it remembers to entertain them as well as shock them. (And if anyone on Bluesky takes this as an endorsement they’re brain dead and can’t read.)

Yeah - if Unilever will pay through the nose for a prominent shelf slot, when does it stop being worth the upside of people popping in for a paper also buying other stuff?

hahaha yesss

Less than many other UK national newspapers!

Telegraph drops WH Smith water promo as pre-tax profits fall 94% Paper will no longer be offered to those buying drinks as focus shifts to digital subscriptions

I got so obsessed with that I wrote a whole Guardian headline on it and frankly, I should have been stopped. www.theguardian.com/media/2019/o...