SamScram

This was published on 23 October 2026 i.e. today, and gives a clue on where we are regarding drought status.

The publication. It'll take many weeks of rain to reverse this. www.gov.uk/government/p...

Are you a postgraduate student? Next week, join us for a free online workshop introducing how you can use museums and collections in your study and research. Students from all universities are welcome. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/navigating...

Currently wondering what message the UK govt thought it was sending by dressing up the Minister for Net Zero in a literal Shell logo.

In the coming century, there will be very few people who have seen a coral reef or a glacier.

If we were to cut emissions by 18% in four years, that’s about the same rate of decrease as in 2020 during COVID-19 when the whole world shut down. 🫠

Paris - unlike London - has had the powers to regulate dockless e-bikes. Walking around, you can really see how regulations result in orderly parking. Government is giving UK cities similar powers so we can ensure bikes are parked as well as these in future.

The chance to keep global warming below 1.5°C with no overshoot is gone. But urgent action can still limit the overshoot and bring warming back to 1.5°C by 2100. Current policies, however, put the 🌎 on course for up to 2.8°C this century. New #EmissionsGap Report: https://ow.ly/SNHX50ZZz8l

“A working-class Labour voter is five times more likely to prioritise climate action than a middle-class Reform voter.” Why the real net zero divide is party-based, not class-based, and why opposition is wildly exaggerated. www.arguably.uk/p/is-net-zer...

Nuffield Trust finds that the NHS surcharge (at £1035/year + £776 for students + children) raises 60% more than the cost of the healthcare it covers, putting £2.5 billion into the NHS Rapid drops in immigration therefore hit the NHS finances www.nationalhealthexecutive.com/articles/ana...

University of Nottingham, right now, is cutting 560 jobs. Do we need to rebrand universities as very large, very clean, land-based oil rigs to get government support?

This video camera study showed that less than 5% of people on bikes broke traffic laws while riding bikes, yet 66% of people did so while driving. And perhaps even more importantly, if you REALLY want even MORE bike-riders to obey laws, build more protected bike infrastructure. Via @carltonreid.com

Our website is currently down while we resolve the same PHP issues that are affecting so many other sites. But we're fine, emotionally. And the museum is still open. There's even a scone with your name on it.

As @lukepiper.bsky.social points out bsky.app/profile/luke...

Cardiff's climate-wrecking data centre would have little chance of going ahead if it was not supported by the local MP, Jo Stevens @jostevenslabour.bsky.social, who has thus far declined to take my calls or respond to my emails.

In an ideal world, everyone would follow the rules. But with limited resources, police rightly focus on major causes of harm; last year, 364 pedestrians were killed, almost all of them hit by motor vehicles. In comparison, more pedestrians are killed by cows than cyclists.

The problem is not really Jackdaw, which is pretty small. The problem is the UK's plan to transition away from fossil fuels is still not ambitious and detailed enough. The problem is if Rosebank follows. The problem is if every country develops one last fossil fuel project we're all screwed.

The IPCC is pretty clear that if we want a safe climate there can be no new oil and gas. But every country thinks it has some special reason for why it should be the exception

This would be pretty bad as.ft.com/r/92d7d9ec-7... World headed for warming of 2.8C as fossil fuel emissions keep rising, UN warns

Trial of "Tommy Robinson" for alleged harassment of journalists underway www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Insulating Britain’s homes and investing in heat pumps would do more to cut the cost of living, create jobs and boost the UK’s economy than drilling for new oil @e3g.bsky.social

“Dutch people cycle an average of 2.6km each per day. If this pattern was replicated worldwide, annual carbon emissions would drop by 686 million tonnes. This mammoth figure exceeds the entire carbon footprint of most countries, including the UK, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Australia.” @euronews.com

we built this city on

🤢

No ISBNs in Canada for AI writing. This is a fantastic policy, and every country should do the same. www.canada.ca/en/library-a...

Poll reveals that 50% of young Britons would never fight for UK under any circumstances. Cue meltdown on talk radio stations and X. Well at least that's down on the 60% who said the exact same in an Oxford Union debate in 1933. Because... guess what kids... people don't want to fight in wars.

@yuanfenyang.bsky.social

Farmland bird populations in England have now declined by a staggering 66% since 1970, according to the latest official figures. What's going to turn this around? Not piecemeal grants or trusting in the 'custodians of the countryside', but Landscape Recovery & regulation www.gov.uk/government/s...

“The children who are randomly selected not to receive the birth dose of the vaccine, those who “lost the lottery”, face in their earliest days the risk of contracting hepatitis B, which can cause irreversible lifelong damage.” No words. I am speechless. This violates all ethical boundaries.

A shadowy network of hedgehogs and owls, operating at the highest levels of the British establishment.

New working paper: the Norwegian wealth tax was a huge success. The "exodus" of wealthy people never happened (less than 100 individuals left). Tax revenue increased by 71.5%. No changes in business activity or investment. www.nber.org/papers/w35854

📝 New article on Our World in Data: A 73% average decline in wildlife populations: an overview of the 2026 Living Planet Index report. The 2026 Living Planet Index report is published today. As with previous additions, it can make for a depressing read.

Man who won’t give his employees piss breaks claims many piss breaks on the horizon

The more I think about it, the more I realise how many problems you'd create by the combination of abolishing stamp duty and allowing unlimited exemption from inheritance tax for housing. You'd get a massive demand for "upsizing", putting all your wealth into housing, to avoid inheritance tax.

Kemi Badenoch wants to exempt the family home from inheritance tax. But that creates a perverse incentive for elderly people to *upsize* to save IHT. That could double the cost of the policy, and push £100bn+ from savings into housing. A 🧵 on bad tax cuts.

This is a good illustration of how so much of AI theft isn't indirect (ie, data sucked into a model to train the chatbot) - it's actually **direct** copying, but *enabled* by GenAI. Of course it is: chatbots absolutely suck at creating good, new stuff.

Revealed: Government quietly dropped plan to prepare England for wildfires I discovered via an FOI request that DEFRA’s commitment in the National Adaptation Programme to run a “wildfire risk programme” since 2023 “was not brought into effect”. #ClimateCrisis www.theguardian.com/world/2026/o...

When they talk about reducing red tape, remember this image.

Well, there we go again with the limits on UK trade policy imposed by the need to be nice to major partners. Reports that the UK will impose tariffs on Chinese Electric Vehicles, which will please both EU and US but not the UK consumer... www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Americans are relearning the lesson we learned during the Gilded Age of the late 1890s, when robber barons ran the government and the economy for their own benefit: Oligarchy is incompatible with the common good. I'm hopeful we'll respond with a new progressive movement.

Overheard a well-heeled man in Sainsbury's earlier telling his wife "I can't believe he got 15 years for that and what did the Rochdale Grooming gangs get?" Wish I had this to hand... (turns out he had weapons too) Casual legal experts. The worst kind.

Today, 8 years ago, my friend, Saudi Journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered.

BBC re-running their headlines from 3 years ago when Sunak released 10,000 prisoners early over 6 months....oh wait, no, that went off without a media fuss. Labour are releasing up to 5,000 early over a year - due to Tory failure to build prison capacity. They only built 36 net new places a year.