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Moldova seems more likely. Not a NATO member, and Russia has been trying to increase its influence in the Eastern Balkans for years. They already occupy much of Kherson so this could enable them to put the squeeze on Odessa and control the Black Sea.

Even if you support their agenda (I don’t), maybe it’s worth waiting more than the three weeks they’ve had in office to see how it plays out before deciding they’re doing a ‘good job’. But then smashing stuff up is much easier than doing things that actually helps improve people’s lives I guess.

With Ndidi and Okoli in we looked more solid, and Coulibaly did well. But we were absolutely toothless going forward. Buonanotte has to start the next game. Daka is a headless chicken in front of goal but he at least will stretch the game more than Vardy is capable of now.

TNT spent about 2 minutes talking about the protests as a result of the chanting. As one of the objectives was to raise awareness, I’d say it was worth it.

I enjoyed when he said our priority during the January transfer window should be to sign a goalkeeper because we'll have three of them leaving in the summer.

Even if energy generation is 100% carbon free, carbon will still be emitted through industrial processes. Eg. steel manufacturing creates carbon emissions. The idea of CCS is you capture that carbon, reuse it for domestic industrial production and, as you say, export it.

It does cause problems when the government and central bank are working in different directions. This happened in September 2022 when the Bank of England’s main objective was to dampen inflation, while the Truss/Kwarteng budget aimed to increase consumer spending by cutting taxes. In the scenario you outline the Bank’s actions would likely be similar - their aim would be to make sure the currency doesn’t weaken too much, so they’d buy up government debt to shore up the price and maybe increase interest rates.

The creation of GB Energy is perhaps the most significant thing this government has done so far I think. We're starting from way behind other nations and as you say it would have been easier to do this stuff 10-15 years ago when interest rates were rock bottom. But nations who can provide for their own energy needs (and ideally export some as well) will be more secure over the coming decades than those who can't.

My view is that an independent central bank is the lesser of two evils. The alternative is having the Bank of England under direct government control as we did before 1997. The idea of an independent central bank is that they respond to economic conditions and government policy rather than influence them. The USA has had an independent central bank for over a century, the European Central Bank was established alongside the Euro. In China, on the other hand, the bank is directly controlled by government. Before Gordon Brown made the Bank of England independent the government directly set interest rates. The downside of this was that governments would tend to cut interest rates before elections regardless of the economic situation. So in the couple of years before the 1987 election for example, Thatcher's government kept cutting interest rates despite the economy growing. This ultimately created a property bubble followed by a crash which contributed to the recession of the late 80s/early 90s. Governments can also manipulate currency through central banks. So if you want to increase exports you need a weak currency. You can achieve this by increasing interest rates. This is what China has done in recent years. There are weaknesses in having an independent central bank. They can be slow to respond to changes in the economic situation. I think they were too slow to recognise post-Covid inflation for example, so didn't raise rates quickly enough. There's also a question about how effective changes to interest rates actually are in an era when most people with mortgages have them on fixed term rather than variable rates. So, am I going to reign my spending in very much and therefore help keep inflation down if my mortgage payments don't change at all? The inflation of recent years has has much more to do with rising energy and commodity prices, over which the UK has little control, than anything else.

We don't discuss the UK's similarities with Japan enough. Island nation, ageing population, colonial legacy, big government debt, economically dominated by the capital city. The big demographic difference between the UK is their population is in decline due to a very low birth rate and comparatively low net migration while the UK has offset its ageing population and low birth rate with high levels of inward migration.

There are quite a few I've not been to yet - have got The Lion Tavern, Denbigh Castle and Baltic Fleet on my to-do list. Of those I have visited my favourites are: The Roscoe Head The Belvedere The Grapes (small one near the bombed out church, not the one in town) The Vines (used to be rubbish, recently refurbished and they've done a great job - right next to Lime Street) The Ship & Mitre

The Phil has the greatest pub toilets in the world. They are a work of art. Almost feel bad for urinating in them.

It's a competitive field but I actually think Coady is the worst of our centre backs. It doesn't matter who's there if the midfield is as porous as ours has been this season. Soumare is good on the ball, rarely misplaces a pass and progresses well up the pitch. However he is unfortunately a passenger when we don't have the ball (which is often). Winks similar but takes fewer risks. Ndidi walks back into the team once he's fit but the in the meantime we've got to try something different. Skipp has been really poor so far but perhaps as part of a 3 with Soumare and Winks he might be ok. I'd have a back 4 of Justin, Okoli, Vestergaard and Kristiansen for now. Then Buonanotte Vardy/Daka and Bilal up top.

I live within walking distance from Old Trafford and not only am I not going, I won't even watch on TV.

All good choices. Marble Arch is great. Britons Protection has potential to be great but is poorly ran. Pev, Angel and the Castle are all decent. Port Street Tavern is worth a trip, they have a huge selection of beers. Just feel for the size of the city it's not got as many truly great pubs in the centre as it should do. I can think of 25-30 genuinely excellent city centre pubs in Liverpool, but in Manchester it's maybe 7 or 8.

Which pubs did you go to? I live in Manchester and often think we don't have many great pubs in the city centre compared to Liverpool and Sheffield which are smaller cities. Interested to hear a visitor's perspective though.

Fun fact: the UK measures trade flows slightly differently to the US, so according to UK data we have a trade surplus with the US but according to their data we have a deficit. Maybe if we just sit still and stay quiet for the next 4 years they won’t notice.

Don't get me wrong, it's worth a visit. The views from the top of are amazing. Just quite an odd place. When I went there were loads of market stalls selling fascist and Nazi paraphernalia. 'Mussolini wine' and the like. This is 20 years ago though, it's probably changed a lot.

Bologna is amazing. San Marino is quite a strange place. Interesting though.

As others have said, Ghent is lovely. Bruges is half an hour on the train so you can easily do both. Antwerp isn’t as pretty but I really enjoyed it. Great food scene and lots of good bars. Really interesting history and just a cool place to walk around and chat with the locals.

Unemployment is marginally above the last quarter but there's not a huge difference. ONS labour market statistics usually get revised after a few months so I wouldn't pay too much attention to small changes quarter to quarter. It's too early to determine any long-term trends resulting from this government's policy actions. GDP growth is about the same as it was a year ago, i.e. not great. But hard to see how you can blame a government that's been in 6 months for that, rather than one that was in power for 14 years before that. The 'tax burden' is not an economic indicator. There is no relationship between how high tax is a percentage of GDP and the performance of a national economy. If there was then Norway (very high tax-GDP ratio) would be poor and Equitorial Guinea (very low tax-GDP ratio) would be rich.

Genuine question - which indicators?

Enjoyed Ruud referring to ‘The Premiership’ in his press conference, like the true Barclaysman he is.

I think her claims about sustainable aviation are very dubious and won't age well. Heathrow might be justifiable for other reasons, I don't know - I don't live in London or anywhere near it so no skin in the game. But if we were going to do it we should have just gone ahead after the first decision was made in 2009 rather than the hokey-cokey we've had since. Same with HS2.

Not having a go at you personally because I think this is a very common British viewpoint, but maybe if we'd invested in infrastructure 10-15 years ago when interest rates were rock bottom, the economy would have been in a better place. Instead the Coalition government cut numerous energy and transport programmes. There's a famous clip of Nick Clegg from about 2011 justifying the cancellation of some nuclear energy schemes because the benefits wouldn't be seen for "another 10 years". Those nuclear generators would have come online just before Russia invaded Ukraine and gas prices went through the roof. Just because infrastructure takes time doesn't mean we shouldn't build it.