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Missing some context here.
There was, in fact, a political party in Israel that long embraced the possibility of a Palestinian state. That was the Labor Party. But then the second intifada happened, the Palestinian Authority abandoned any pretense of democracy, and Hamas was elected in Gaza, killed off the opposition — and then, well, attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, murdering more than 1,200.
Had the Palestinians, at any step along the way, accepted the Jewish state, and embraced self-rule, they would, no doubt, be in a very different place today. They might even have a state.
But because Palestinians can’t push past their hatred of Israel, because so many of their “supporters” insist on viewing them as toddlers and encourage that hatred (financially and otherwise), they remain confined to a quasi-permanent liminality. Which is awful for Palestinians but very useful for those who wish to use them as a cudgel with which to bludgeon Israel.
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Depressing replies to this, implying it’s pure happenstance a couple could have a combined income of £400k and only right they pay their ‘fair share’. Worse, that sentiment is becoming the majority view, and too few people now earn enough to form an electoral counterweight.
I read a piece in the FT this week about the price of being middle class in Britain now and it said a couple earning £436,000 combined take home £216,000. That’s a crazy amount of tax, and it doesn't include VAT on purchases, council tax, stamp duty or other taxes (I think does include pension contributions). I can’t stop thinking about it.
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Labour’s vindictive assault on education has real consequences. Leweston School near Sherborne is closing permanently after half-term, leaving hundreds of pupils, families and staff in turmoil. Nobody benefits from these closures—not even the Exchequer.. dorsetlife.co.uk/leweston-sc…
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I earn £100 grand a year.
I have a detached house. 2 cars and my wife is a full time home maker.
I can just about afford this. I probably couldn’t afford the house I own if I was buying for the first time today.
My salary puts me in the top 5% of earners in the UK.
Top 5% to have a similar standard of living to Homer Simpson.
That is a disgrace.
We have a flatter salary distribution than Soviet Russia and the highest taxes and borrowing costs we’ve seen in generations.
Success is almost impossible because our tax system means hard work makes you a stressed out tax cow, not wealthy and certainly not free.
We need something radical.
Less state.
More family.
Less handouts.
More reward for risk.
Instead. Tomorrow, Labour will offer another batch of policies which will send one message to aspirational Brits: why bother.
I read a piece in the FT this week about the price of being middle class in Britain now and it said a couple earning £436,000 combined take home £216,000. That’s a crazy amount of tax, and it doesn't include VAT on purchases, council tax, stamp duty or other taxes (I think does include pension contributions). I can’t stop thinking about it.
Iranian or Russian bots?
Benjamin Netanyahu: 53 seats
Gadi Eisenkot: 67 seats
Netanyahu’s party loses the Israeli election.
@grok , verify this.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Israel's Oct 27, 2026 election was still underway when this was posted (12:18 GMT). Polls close at 10pm local (20:00 GMT), and official results are published Nov 4. aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/2… Final pre-election polls showed neither bloc with a 61-seat majority. jpost.com/israel-electio…
How is it that our Civil service and public service jobs have to be open to the world by default. Does anyone care that British citizens need to have a first go @KemiBadenoch @andyburnham @Nigel_Farage
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Send them home. We're full up.
famouscampaigns.com/wp-conte…
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The Times has published a searchable list of schools by GCSE results.
Checked the two most kids from my work area attend. The rate of 7-9 grades is just 11% for both, half the national average. 5-9 was 39% and 40%, national average 55%.
Live in the right area and it's 90-100%
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Step 1: Target private school kids for money
Step 2: Target private school SEND kids for money
Step 3: Target state SEND kids for money
So when will the rest of the 93% be ready to pay their £3 a month extra for their own kids instead of taking off the disabled?
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Blaming well educated children for poorly educated children being poorly educated is a couple of tiers above my level of understanding.
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It's bleak out there for young people.
And it's almost entirely due to the actions of government.
By @NeilDotObrien.
neilobrien.co.uk/p/youth-une…
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The fact that our latest and most ambitious Unbaffled video yet, on quantum chromodynamics and discovery of quarks and gluons, has had 0.5M views in its first 4 days confirms that there’s a real appetite for this stuff: youtu.be/fRa8gDCBTLE
Thanks for so many +ve comments too
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You have to be a special kind of stupid to enact policies like this without realising it ends up as a rental crisis worse than the one you thought you were fixing.
This Labour government’s transformative Renters’ Rights Act empowers private renters to challenge unreasonable rent increases.
If a tenant believes a proposed rent increase is above the open-market rent, they can refer the matter to the First-tier Tribunal.
In a recent case in Manchester where the Landlord proposed an increase in rent from £1,650 per calendar month to £1,700, the Tribunal determined the open market rent was actually £1,450 per calendar month.
We’re standing up for renters and our reforms are working.
gov.uk/residential-property-…
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If you instigate a wealth tax at 9.01am tomorrow, you won’t collect a penny in revenue before 2030.
The revenues are fragile, it’s anti-growth, and would take years to implement.
.#loyaltypenalty SKY. Feel like a mug as have been paying £100 plus for ages and now see this. Mind you new customers only @MartinSLewis any suggestions?
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'I draw upon my experiences as a secondary school teacher, university lecturer, educational researcher and mother to argue that, over the course of many decades, education has stopped being primarily concerned with the transmission of knowledge and culture and, instead, has become focused on shaping children’s political outlook and moral values'
New book: The Breaking of the Education Contract - by Joanna Williams
@jowilliams293
cieo.substack.com/p/the-brea…
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Don’t worry - your own freedom of expression includes the freedom to get things completely wrong.
The issue isn’t Sally Rooney’s political views, or even her books. It’s her stated intention to use the proceeds to fund a proscribed organisation.
A rather important distinction.
in my original post about the Sally Rooney affair I have been accused of oversimplifying what has happened. And that's fair - I did. But after going into this in more depth I realise that we end up in much the same place - books not on sale to the UK public because of the entirely unrelated activities of their author. After all who is to know whether the proceeds from books that would have been sold would actually be the money to be be donated to Palestine Action as opposed to money that Rooney has already made or is making elsewhere? Rooney btw, with scant regard for her readers, seems not to be unhappy for this to happen.
I don't imagine that the government anticipated this outcome when it produced the ban and I'm not at all sure that Faber shouldn't have taken the risk of a prosecution that probably would never have happened. The result is the same - books not available for political reasons.