Not just Carshalton..! Chalk Streams are rare and precious on a global scale. Pure and clean, they are wonderful habitats for all manner of wildlife, and the vast majority of them are in (southern) England.
It is our responsibility to the planet to look after them.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
My kids spent many a happy hour playing in the crystal clear Wandle & visiting the ecology centre 🌱 so important to protect the chalk streams!
Put Trump’s criticism of Starmer and other democratic leaders against his consistent syrupy praise for authoritarian, brutal leaders.
Starmer is in good company. Just remind yourself how Trump praises authoritarian antidemocratic leaders in this thread. It’s an eye opener 🧵 1/
We don’t talk enough about how morally depraved the tech industry turned out to be. Every single ounce of their self-regarding statements of values was an outright lie.
Ofwat £22m fine proposal for South East Water for repeated supply failures.
"Proposal" = companies with criminal convictions negotiate, may never pay.
Thames Water to pay 2024 fines by 2030 or never.
2024 fines on Yorkshire and Northumbrian Water quietly waived.
Execs never fined or prosecuted.
Crushingly predictable. Utterly unjustified by decades of research. A shibboleth in place of a policy.
jaw dropping tweet from Feargal Sharkey. You'll want to be sitting down for this bit. Water companies are currently £82.7 billion in debt, have paid themselves £85 billion in dividends, leak over a trillion of litres of water per year, dump sewage for almost 4 million hours per year, have been convicted of over 1,200 criminal acts since 1989 and an average of 35% of your bill goes on nothing but paying more interest and yet more dividends. And not a single company has ever lost their operating licence. https://x.com/Feargal_Sharkey/status/2018618397278285891
Feargal Sharkey: "English Water companies are currently £82.7 billion in debt, have paid themselves £85 billion in dividends, leak over a trillion of litres p.a., dump sewage for almost 4 million hours p.a and roughly 35% of your bills goes on more dividends & interest payments".
Disgraceful
Feargal Sharkey is spot on
"The government is terrified of dealing with privatisation and has sacrificed water quality on the altar of shareholders and private equity
The only people who will be paying for this are customers and billpayers"
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, just stood up to the Pentagon and President Trump. His company builds Claude, probably the most powerful Al model in the world right now. The Pentagon wanted unlimited access to Claude - including for mass surveillance of American citizens and fully autonomous weapons. When Anthropic refused, they gave him a deadline: comply or get blacklisted. He didn't budge. "We are patriotic Americans," Amodei told CBS News. "Disagreeing with the government is the most American thing in the world." Trump responded by banning all federal agencies from using Anthropic's technology. Defense Secretary Hegseth labeled them a 'supply chain risk', a designation previously reserved for foreign adversaries like China and Russia. It's basically a corporate death sentence, because it bans companies from dealing with Anthropic if they also supply to the US military.
And it gets even worse. Within hours, Sam Altman of OpenAl (the company behind ChatGPT) swooped in and signed the deal with the Pentagon instead. While his competitor was taking a heroic and principled stand, he saw his opportunity. Here's what makes this story so clarifying: Anthropic said no to autonomous weapons and mass surveillance, and got punished for it. OpenAl said yes, and got rewarded. Amodei drew a line. Sam Altman drew a contract. What Amodei did was genuinely brave. He's risking billions in contracts, and the very existence of his company. Not because it was good business, but because it was right. Sam Altman once again showed the world how deeply immoral he is. We need more leaders in tech, and beyond, who are willing to lose something for their principles. And if this story made you rethink which Al company deserves your money: join the international boycott of ChatGPT.
Wow, reposted here after I read on LinkedIn - I’ve put all the alt text in the screenshots.
Join the boycott of ChatGPT here;
quitgpt.org
Love this place ❤️ many an hour spent at the flea market purchasing the weird and wonderful!
Tynemouth Station, North Shields, all lit up, photo by north-east England photographer Sophie Henderson. First opened in 1882.
Outstanding 👏🏻 if you ever fall on (desperately) hard times you could have a bright future at the Daily Mail.
Somewhere, somehow, at a right-wing tabloid, the most deranged Meghan story of all time is being birthed
Naturally, Trump is going to try to cash in on this. Every t-shirt, coffee cup, everything with the airport’s name on it means Trump will make money off it.
The UK was declared measles free in 2017.
Vaccine programs completely eliminated it.
Since then, pro sickness conspiracy theorists and anti science idiots have enabled its return.
Plaque in memory of Ian Hambridge, aged 15 years, of Northampton, who died at St Andrews football ground, Birmingham, 11th May 1985
That there was a major riot at Birmingham City v Leeds United on the final day of the season in 1985 - in which a 15 year old supporter was killed when a wall collapsed - was overshadowed by the Valley Parade fire in Bradford killing 56 people the same day.
Reform have totally let the cat out of the bag about who they are.
Zia Yusuf lecturing that poverty and peoples everyday struggles with rising bills and rent is exaggerated.
A party of the failed status quo, funded and representing big corporate interests.
"We’re charging graduates a higher marginal tax rate than somebody earning £150,000" www.thetimes.com/money/family...
In a taxi in St Helier a couple of years ago and driver insisted on driving us down a back street to show us the best food spot in Jersey. We were absolutely certain he planned to kill us and eat us (he was right, it was amazing)
Or, hear me out, maybe women don't need lectures by the likes of Matt Goodwin?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/reform-matt-goodwin-gorton-denton-children-women-b2918340.html
The hospital waiting list in England has dropped to its lowest level in nearly three years.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
It’s so weird. Crops are failing, emissions are rising & the ice caps are melting but all the media & our leaders want to talk about is anything & everything other than climate. It doesn’t bode well considering what the science says does it?🔥🔥🔥
Something magnificent about Kemi Badenoch's self-confidence, and her claim that the Mandelson affair is entirely down to her asking questions at PMQs. Like a toddler who thinks their plastic steering wheel is controlling the car.
I always believed the purpose of Brexit was to destroy the ability of nation states to take on spiv capitalism. I never expected to see actual evidence of it.
Reform-run Kent council accused of fabricating £40m net zero savings
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Get Palantir out of the NHS
https://notopalantir.goodlawproject.org/email-to-target/stop-palantir-in-the-nhs/?utm_source=bluesky&utm_campaign=PalantirNHS&utm_medium=social_media
The British mainstream media is busy trying to oust Starmer, again, and yet they seem not at all interested in a much bigger and more serious Epstein story involving Farage, Putin, and Brexit.
Fortunately, @bylinetimes.bsky.social is.
This is the video to share and show anyone who thinks brexit hasn’t been done ‘properly’ yet and going further would be good for this country.
Join the @labour4europe.bsky.social and let’s take back control.
Click their account to do so.
