AllertonComms

‘There’s no point in us giving people what we think they want. Let’s give them what we want to do and see how they like it.’ Ciarán Hinds, Daily Telegraph, on Glasgow Citizens Theatre ethos.

@ClarkeMicah One nearly hit me on pedestrian area in central Reading 3 weeks ago. No noise, from behind and doing perhaps 20mph. Had I moved, a broken limb at least. This could easily kill an older person, if not immediately then in days or weeks of collision. Lethal menace.

Has @ClarkeMicah noticed this?

@ArtistCyclist That's a deeply conservative strategy.. and I'm 100% in favour!

Replacing petrol or diesel vehicles with electric vehicles one-for-one is not the solution. We need to build infrastructure to encourage cycling as a regular means of transport, develop integrated & efficient public transport & delivery systems & above all, de-prioritise the car.

🗣️ Nick Abson says his hydrogen fuel cells could power the world for free, but claims his $1bn venture was taken off air Read the full interview below ⬇️ telegraph.co.uk/tv/2026/03/22/…

@ArtistCyclist It's the easy way out. Towns without schools, GP surgeries or libraries. Just put in roads and assume everyone wants to drive a car.

The population of the UK has increased by around 12 million over the last 40 years but we have done little to address the issue of transportation. We have simply allowed private car use to saturate our roads and overwhelm infrastructure. We need suitable alternatives to the car.

At LaGuardia Airport, New York Tower ATC: "I messed up." Another pilot: "Nah, man, you did the best you could."

One of the major causes of traffic congestion is excessive traffic volume. This occurs when the no. of vehicles exceeds the capacity of road infrastructure and the roads become overwhelmed. High rates of private vehicle ownership are a large contributing factor driving the issue.

@RanTeeThree @RupertLowe10 'Don't Rubbish Australia, a brilliant 70s anti-litter TV ad campaign featuring ABBA(!), 'caught' 'litterbugs' in the act and ended with a weary voiceover: 'You're a dope if you rubbish Australia'. It worked.

@RupertLowe10 New Zealand has been running a decades long campaign against littering. The result is very little litter. Even urban areas have less litter than rural Britain. You’re right, it’s a. National pride thing and a population that does not tolerate those who litter.

Drive down almost any country road and you see the same thing. Litter lining the roads. Plastic caught in hedges. Fast food packaging scattered across the grass. Crisp packets fluttering in the wind. Rusting energy drink cans just laying about. What message are we sending to children as they watch the rubbish pile up? It’s disgusting. Nobody talks about it. We’ve just accepted it as normal. It infuriates me. There was a time in this country when this level of disrespect would have been unthinkable. People took pride in where they lived. There was a clear expectation that public spaces would be kept clean and orderly, and that those who did otherwise would face consequences. This was not that long ago. The decline has rapidly accelerated. Britain is increasingly resembling a third world country, and I do not like it. Immigration from said cultures has evidently played a large part. I’ll get abused for saying it, but it’s true. We all know it. Once we start accepting visible decline in the small things, it rarely stops there. It hasn’t stopped there. It will get worse and worse and worse. The filth will pile up. Britain should not look like this. It is not unreasonable to expect clean streets, clear roadsides, and public spaces that people can take pride in. Is that too much to ask for? I think not. A Restore Britain Government would not tolerate it. Proper enforcement of littering and fly-tipping laws. Visible consequences for those who degrade our countryside. Deportation for foreign fly-tippers. Investment in keeping streets, roads, and public areas clean. Compulsory litter picking for non-violent offenders and healthy benefit claimants who consistently refuse work. Most importantly? A cultural shift. Britain does not have to be a dumping ground. It doesn’t have to be like this. We will not accept it. We will change it. We will set an example to our children and grandchildren. There is now a political party that will clean up our country. Restore Britain.

@OldRoberts953 Great Sat read - more like this please

I wrote this tribute to Kenny Everett, in the light of a rediscovered radio interview with him fron 1976 - Link below ⬇️

@CptHastings1916 .. and she was so good in Cinderella.

Comically transparent politicking to one side, all these dramas just look and sound so bad. Leaden dialogue woodenly delivered, and that *horrible* grimblue colour palette.

@ChipsawayRobMar @jonburkeUK @ClaireCoutinho Yep, the highest energy prices in the industrialised West won't have been a factor at all. What would the long-serving management know?!

@AllertonComms @jonburkeUK @ClaireCoutinho Of course they have, easiest way to pass the blame. They made 13k profit last year and less than .5m the year before, nowhere near enough for a company that size. No one wants to pay £45 for 2 mugs anymore

Denby has produced iconic British pottery for over 200 years. They are now on the brink of collapse. Why? Soaring energy costs and employment taxes. We are losing the ability to make things in this country. We must change course. x.com/bbcderby/statu…

Remarkable speech from Pam Duncan-Glancy (Independent): “There will be countless disabled people in our constituencies who haven’t had the choice to have a shower in weeks. People who can’t choose when they go to bed. Some who will already be in bed. “People who can’t choose what to eat. People who can’t choose to go out of their house, because it isn’t accessible. People tonight who can’t choose the care or the healthcare they need, including at the end, because it simply isn’t available for them. “And crucially, there will be disabled people whose struggle is so hard that they’ve given up hope, given up fighting, and will be considering tonight taking their own lives. “I know this, because I have been all of these people I’ve described. They live in fear every single day, worrying about what new limit someone else will put on their lives, and what little power they will have to change it. They live every single day without choice at all… “In a world where so many have little or no choice, we can’t risk making death the only choice they ever have.”

@MarkWoodburn68 @ShoumojitB Thanks. His brilliant No Place to Hide, dramatised in 8 parts on BBC Sounds, has gripped me all week. Any recommendations?

@ShoumojitB Honourable mention to Ted Allbeury. His books were in the same class as Deighton and Le Carre.

Len Deighton was the last paladin of an illustrious line of British espionage writers stretching back to Conrad and including Ambler, Fleming, Greene and le Carré. His Unnamed Spy novels, the complex Bernard Samson cycle & war non-fiction were an integral part of my adolescence.

Must read

#LenDeighton showed us how to be real men telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/1…

@OliverKamm Winter is a terrific family saga and shows how even good people can get sucked into horrible ideologies.

What a terrific writer. Among his many masterpieces, SS-GB is the sole really convincing dystopia ever written of Nazi-occupied Britain. RIP.

@RickGore10 @ArtistCyclist So do buses and trains, with far less damage to environment and social interaction e.g. child's play. Their potential for much greater freedom is long suppressed by the car lobby and drivers who'd do anything but walk or ride. Road death numbers are an ongoing outrage.

@AllertonComms @ArtistCyclist I don’t agree. The ability to move around independently is a fundamental freedom. Cars and roads facilitate this.

Do you remember how lovely & quiet the roads were during the ‘lockdowns’ early in the COVID pandemic? That showed how a better quality of life was achievable simply by significantly reducing the number of cars on our roads. Air was clean, roads were safe & silent, it was bliss.

@ShippersUnbound Let's hope @BBCRadio4 replays this amazing drama bbc.co.uk/webarchive/htt…

Very sad to learn of the death of Len Deighton, who was one of the two greatest spy thriller writers of all time and in some regards was Le Carre’s superior. Anyone who has not read Deighton should try Funeral in Berlin, Bomber or SSGB. Most of all they should seek out Berlin Game, the start of an epic 10 book Cold War series focused on Bernard Samson. Deighton’s writing was sharp, satirical, gripping and often amusing. His office infighting in the intelligence services was delicious and his characters are beautifully drawn. The Samson cycle starts with a meticulously plotted run of five books (Berlin Game, Mexico Set, London Match, Spy Hook and Spy Line) which all stand alone but tell one big story from the jaded but dedicated perspective Bernard a brilliant field operative. Len’s genius idea was to use the sixth, Spy Sinker, to retell the whole cycle from the perspective of everyone else, exposing what Bernard didn’t know and misunderstood. There is then an origin story about Bernard’s dad during the war, Winter, and then a concluding trilogy of Faith, Hope and Charity, which is not as high quality but deals with the fallout from the events of books 1-5. It’s an epic achievement and the greatest long series in spy fiction, accepting that the Smiley series is the greatest short series. Do yourself a favour, give it a try

@Handre The Fountainhead. Brilliant novel, reassuringly despised by many.

Ayn Rand understood something that most economists refuse to acknowledge: the moral case for capitalism isn't about efficiency or outcomes, but about human nature and individual rights. While Chicago School types fumbled around with utilitarian arguments and Keynes pushed his theft-based economics, Rand cut straight to the philosophical core. Her genius wasn't in economic theory per se, but in recognizing that economics flows from ethics. You cannot have sound economics built on the premise that some humans exist to serve others. The collectivist mindset that birthed central banking, progressive taxation, and the welfare state stems from the same moral rot: the idea that individual achievement is somehow a debt owed to society. Rand's critics—mostly government-funded academics and their useful idiots—love to attack her fictional characters while ignoring her central insight. Every economic intervention, from price controls to antitrust laws, rests on the premise that productive individuals have no right to the fruits of their labor. Every regulatory agency assumes bureaucrats know better than market participants how to allocate resources. But here's what drives the statists insane about Rand: she refused to apologize for success. While modern libertarians often accept the Left's moral framework and argue that free markets coincidentally help the poor, Rand said the quiet part out loud. Capitalism is moral because it rewards virtue—rationality, productivity, trade—and punishes vice. The Austrian School provides the economic framework, but Rand provided the moral foundation that makes resistance to state power philosophically coherent. Without that moral clarity, you end up with compromise, pragmatism, and eventually the acceptance of "necessary" government interventions that metastasize into the bloated surveillance states we inhabit today.

@TonyDowson5 AArrgghh. Utter hero.

"Len Deighton obituary: writer who redefined spy thrillers dies aged 97" thetimes.com/uk/obituaries/…