Jonathan Livingstone

A "shameless" fraudster who stole £300,000 from a vulnerable pensioner and spent it on Botox and other luxuries has been tracked down by Sky News in Tenerife. Read more: news.sky.com/story/woman-wh…

We are investigating an antisemitic arson attack on Jewish ambulances in Golders Green. We know this will cause significant concern in the local community and are stepping up patrols and engaging with faith leaders. Read more here: mynewsdesk.com/uk/metpoliceuk…

Right now, in barns and equipment sheds across the American Midwest, farmers are making the most consequential decision of this war. Not generals. Not senators. Farmers. At $683 per ton urea, corn economics have collapsed. Nitrogen is the single largest input cost for corn production. At pre-war prices a farmer could justify 180 pounds per acre and expect a margin. At $683 the math breaks. Soybeans fix their own nitrogen from the atmosphere through root bacteria. They do not need the molecule trapped behind the Strait of Hormuz. The seed decision is being made this week across roughly 90 million acres of American cropland. Once the planter rolls into the field, the choice is irreversible. Corn seed in the ground stays corn. Soy seed stays soy. The acreage allocation locks in. USDA Prospective Plantings reports March 31. That report will tell the world how American agriculture responded to the Hormuz blockade. But the decisions it captures are being made now, in conversations between farmers and agronomists and seed dealers who are looking at nitrogen prices and making the rational economic choice: plant the crop that does not need the input you cannot afford. Every acre that shifts from corn to soybeans tightens the corn balance sheet for the rest of the year. Corn feeds livestock. Corn feeds ethanol. The Renewable Fuel Standard mandates 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol annually, consuming roughly 43 percent of the US corn crop regardless of price. That demand is inelastic. If acres shift and production falls while the mandate holds, corn prices spike. Feed costs spike. The protein cascade reverses. The US cattle herd sits at 86.2 million head, a 75-year low. Poultry and pork margins that were benefiting from cheap feed compress when corn crosses $5 per bushel. This is how a naval blockade 7,000 miles from Iowa reaches the American grocery shelf. Not through oil. Not through shipping. Through nitrogen. The farmer cannot afford the molecule. The molecule cannot transit the strait. The farmer plants soy instead. The corn supply tightens. The ethanol mandate consumes its fixed share. The remaining corn reprices. The feed reprices. The meat reprices. The grocery bill reprices. The decision is not political. It is arithmetic performed on a kitchen table by a person who needs to plant in three weeks and cannot wait for a ceasefire, an escort convoy, or an insurance normalisation that the Red Sea precedent says takes years. The deepest penetrator in the American arsenal cannot reach a sealed Iranian doctrinal packet. But the fertiliser price it failed to resolve is reaching every planting decision on 90 million acres of the most productive farmland on Earth. The war’s most irreversible consequence is not happening in a bunker. It is happening in a barn. And by the time USDA publishes the data on March 31, the seeds will already be in the ground. Full analysis in the link. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

@thatKayFraser @grok @EOCS_Official @Kwajotweneboa @FreeLeasehlders @WelshCladiators @moving_charlie @ZackPolanski @LibdemCharlie @PoliticsJOE_UK @KemiBadenoch Good question. We don’t know yet as we have to be very targeted with the avenues we explore given how expensive legal representation is. That being said, it is something we will be giving consideration to.

We work hard to highlight the reality of dangerously defective new-build homes and the impact of our MP @Keir_Starmer's collapsing support. @myldn - articles that lead people to think our situation has been resolved are extremely damaging, especially without a right of reply.

Camden leaseholders have fought for a payout for years over their 'worthless' new built flats. The council has stepped in an ordered for them to be rebuilt or repaired within 20 months mylondon.news/news/property/…

Whoa… if this works .. a game changer!!

Germany has unveiled a revolutionary salt-air battery that could transform global energy storage. Instead of relying on lithium — a costly, finite, and environmentally challenging resource — this technology uses salt, air, and carbon to create a long-lasting, stable battery with a lifespan measured in decades, not years. The battery works by converting chemical energy into electricity using a reaction between salt and oxygen. Unlike lithium-ion systems, it doesn’t overheat, doesn’t require rare-earth elements, and is nearly 100% recyclable. It also stores energy at a lower cost, making it ideal for large-scale renewable grids. If deployed globally, salt-air batteries could make solar and wind power more reliable by storing energy even during long cloudy winters or calm wind periods. It’s a reminder that nature’s simplest materials — salt and air — may hold the key to humanity’s clean-energy future.

In the early hours of Friday morning, a fire broke out at a Rotterdam synagogue. Thankfully there were no injuries and the fire died down quickly. There is noticeable damage to the front doors. Dutch police are investigating it as a suspected ‌arson. Jewish communities are bewildered. Because this is not an isolated event. Yesterday on March 12, there was a car ramming attack on a synagogue and Jewish school in Michigan. The same evening in Trondheim, Norway, a suspect was arrested for suspicious behavior around the synagogue.

The barrister whose £8m lawsuit against me was struck out yesterday is now whining that he's been treated unfairly. This (from LinkedIn) is delusional. It demonstrates the absurdity of Kamal's libel claim, and the beyond-absurdity that it cost me £146k to defend.

This is a brilliantly silly way of illustrating something real: the inflation of labour intensive, locally delivered products and services vs quality adjusted deflation in technologically advanced globally mass produced goods… a spot of the Baumol effect here, familiar to anyone who has studied economics too ….

I’ve always enjoyed reading books that my friends have written and I’m at the age now where my friend’s children are having their works published. Celebrating #worldbookday today by making a start on Ethan Clerck’s first published work set in Roman Times📕

Thanks to @ITVTonight, I finally asked @Keir_Starmer the question he's been ducking since he became Prime Minister. If he can’t fix existing new builds, how can he and @SteveReedMP promise 1.5 million more? Watch.

@MortgageMikeN2 @struttandparker @MartynGerrardEA Thanks - I’m supposing that the various agents that reached used the same algorithm and / or third party / and / or software to try and match up properties on the market with other agents to postal addresses. It’s a good idea in theory but feels like more checks are needed.

@Jon4HT @struttandparker @MartynGerrardEA Will let Chris at MG know 👍

Many estate agents have written to me (including being bombarded 3 times in 1 month from somone claiming persistence pays) but they have mistaken my property which is not for sale with another which is. ⁦⁦@struttandparker⁩ ⁦⁦⁦@MartynGerrardEA⁩ #Dexters

In the face of a collapsing market for flats as awareness of the legal and financial dangers facing Leaseholders, spreads, LBC is to be applauded for crusading journalism! It urges elected officers to stand up to the deep-pocketed Freeholders lobby and stamp out leaseholding!

This unwanted attention from estate agents is likely a reflection of the fact that the turnover in leasehold flat properties in central London has collapse. It’s the spreading realisation of the financial and legal perils of being a leaseholder.

@gamecounsel @struttandparker @MartynGerrardEA Yes - it’s a flat - @knightfrank have a flat listed in the same street

@Jon4HT @struttandparker @MartynGerrardEA That's so weird. Is it a flat?

Finance Monthly is a scam. This interview with me is fake. Never happened. More soon.