Hermit pensioner & forager. Former indexer. Scottish Statehood, Greek & Greece, Bee Orchids & the Bronze Age. Nobody should own land as if it was a thing.
In all the incompetence of the UK's handling of North Sea oil, I always wonder if the firms will really be forced to pay for decommissioning (as I believe the licence and tax conditions say) or they'd cut and run and stick us with the bill. If only we'd been more Norway.
Unofficial Guardian (UK) BotBP puts North Sea oil and gas business up for sale
Interesting thread on when and whether consensus is needed. fwiw I think on social care and other things, Burnham shd tackle the 'death tax' attack head on. Even if it is, that is not necessarily a bad thing. It could help with wealth distribution and help to halt our absurd property price spiral.
Jill Rutterthe other question is whether political consensus is a necessary precondition for reform. Its easy to see why @andyburnham.bsky.social wants this - he was burned by the death tax accusations in 2009-10 and May's reform attempt was nixed by the "dementia tax".
Weird (but typical of British media) that this doesn't mention Scotland, where we currently have a system fairly similar to Denmark - all elderly and some disabled get free care including in care homes, but the 'hotel' cost of care homes is paid by those with significant assets or income.
FarrukhExcellent report from #C4News comparing other countries social care "England is something of an outlier amongst wealthy nations when it comes to social care"
This is idiotic. I saw yesterday that the cost of Jodrell Bank is similar to the spend on bespoke stationery for MPs (!) and this HiPERCAM is only £50k. Quite apart from the science and the value to all of us of extending human knowledge, governments seem unable to see the economic value.
Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine HeymansSadly it's not just #JodrellBank losing funding, with deep cuts across the board for UK astronomy. One example is the HiPERCAM project whose funding has been entirely cut to save £50K/yr - peanut-levels of £s. Spectacular fast transient science lost, for what? 🔭😡 www.zmescience.com/science/astr...