brian collins

The Digital Task Force for Planning has launched the first Digital Planning Education and Training Listing, a major new resource on the Digital Planning Directory ukcric.com/news/first-nat…

Carney: "Europe, Australia, Canada, Japan and South Korea. This is a coalition with a GDP larger than the US, three times China’s trade flows and the world’s largest investment in R&D. We can build a better future" Hats off to leaders who inspire hope and a brighter future.

UK Parliament call for evidence: The House of Lords Select Committee on National Resilience inquiry will address the current context for preparedness and resilience, including the threats which the UK currently faces. Details: committees.parliament.uk/call-for-evide…

@iancolintaylor I doubt Trump knows USA provide such support Ian... And I suspect such like issues have been kept from him to wait out the four years of desecration... I do hope so.... 🤔

Why in hell’s name did Starmer consent to Trump using Diego Garcia even for ‘defensive’ purposes. Did Trump threaten to remove support to UK nuclear weapons maintenance and readiness? We should be told!

@Rainmaker1973 Positive

Post below the first word you see.

Ukrainians who went to the Middle East to teach how to shoot down "shaheds", were horrified by the way the US military does it - The Times - They launch up to 8 Patriot missiles at a single target - Sometimes they even use an SM-6 missile ($6 M) to shoot down 1 drone - Radars often operate without proper camouflage, essentially "shining" like beacons. In Ukraine, however, radars are constantly moved and hidden. As an example, they cite a case where just three cheap drones destroyed an early detection radar AN/FPS-132 worth about $1 billion and another air defense radar (~$300 million), which had long been stationary and easily tracked by satellites. But it’s not all bad news for the US military. Pete Hegseth appears to be able to bench press 315 lbs.

Conference for your diaries: Delivering Infrastructure 2050, 30 June. Bringing the sector together to explore the innovations, investments and practical solutions that will define Britain’s infrastructure today and for decades to come. Register here: bit.ly/4d2Q6dj

@strategywoman Absolutely the right thing to do... Natural beauty in particular. This time of year with spring arriving is energising and will remind you of the best of life.. 👍

I don’t know if what I do is right. But seeing beauty, focusing on something good, helps me live through these long years of war. I want you to see that life in Ukraine goes on, despite everything russia does to break it.

While the world’s attention has been on Iran and the Gulf, Ukraine has been quietly cutting away at Russia’s control over eastern Ukraine. In the last three weeks Ukraine has won back an area of more than 300 square miles.

In 1 hour, the crisis begins. Earth EX Live, 11:00–12:15 EST on Zoom Step inside a rapidly escalating infrastructure crisis and watch how decisions shape outcomes in real time. Join this high-impact online exercise to observe how experts respond, understand grid dependencies, and gain real insight. Last seats → eiscouncil.org/events/earth-e…

Many times I have tried to explain that Russia has gained a lot of experience over the four years of the full-scale invasion: knowledge of the battlefield, new technologies, experience in prolonged land warfare, and military industrial base. I always emphasized that this would have an impact on other regions: Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and other regions. Because Russia has interests in the Middle East. It used to be an ally of the former Syrian regime and still one of the current Iranian regime. They have mutual interests with North Korea – they are allies. They have interests in Europe, like undermining the unity of the EU. Now we can see that even under attack the Iranian regime is fighting back. Countries in the Middle East are not fully prepared to repel such massive attacks. This is what I'm trying to get across – to stop Russia means stopping many different wars. From an interview with i24NEWS and Jerusalem Post (3/3).

@SaqibBanbh90290 18

Brian test...!!! 99% lose 1% win

MHCLG recruits for new ‘chief construction and scientific adviser’ role civilserviceworld.com//professions/a…

@strategywoman Wind and rain came back to southern England today.... A log fire is helping 🍷

Kyiv. Today, we opened the window wide for the first time this year. Victory (still a cat) was happy. Don’t worry, the window has a cat safety screen. Spring is in the air.

In 1939, Britain realized it could starve in weeks if the ships stopped coming—so they handed 80,000 women pitchforks and told them to save the nation. When war broke out, the math was brutal: Britain imported two-thirds of its food. With German U-boats hunting convoys across the Atlantic and men leaving farms for battlefields, the country faced a simple, terrifying truth—grow more food, or starve. The government's answer? The Women's Land Army. They came from everywhere. Shop girls from London. Office workers from Manchester. Teachers, secretaries, hairdressers—thousands of women who'd never touched a plough or milked a cow in their lives. They swapped heels for rubber boots, silk stockings for wool breeches, and city lights for muddy fields at dawn. Their uniform was practical: green jumpers, brown breeches, thick socks, wide-brimmed felt hats. They called themselves "Land Girls," and farmers didn’t know what to make of them. Could city girls really do farm work? Could women handle heavy machinery, twelve-hour days, brutal winters? The Land Girls answered with their backs, not their words. They learned to plough frozen fields, their hands blistering around wooden handles. They milked cows at 4 a.m., mucked out stables, stacked hay, harvested wheat, picked potatoes, and repaired tractors when they broke down. Rain soaked them, frost numbed their fingers, exhaustion made them collapse into bed without washing the mud off. It wasn’t glamorous. It was hard, dirty, lonely work. They lived in drafty hostels and converted barns, far from home. Village locals were sometimes suspicious. Farmers who’d doubted them slowly, grudgingly, began to respect them. Among themselves, the Land Girls formed bonds that would last lifetimes—friendships forged in shared struggle, laughter over burnt porridge, pride in knowing they were keeping the country alive. Under Lady Gertrude Denman, the Women's Land Army grew to over 80,000 strong by 1944. While U-boats sank merchant ships, these women made sure the nation could still eat. They planted. They harvested. They endured. When the war ended, there were no victory parades, no medals, no veterans’ benefits. They returned to lives that no longer fit quite the same way. Many had discovered strength, independence, and capability they hadn’t known they possessed. For decades, their story was barely told. But their legacy endured in every field they saved, every harvest they brought in, every life they sustained. The Land Girls proved strength has nothing to do with gender, and patriotism isn’t only measured in battles fought. They didn’t carry guns. They fought with grit, determination, blistered hands, and refusal to let their country fall. Eighty thousand women kept a nation alive. Their service was quiet. Their impact was everything.

@strategywoman Great music in a great venue... And you can get cheese cake? What's not to like. 👍

Greetings from Kyiv. I came to the railway station to visit an exhibition — and instead saw this: a concert by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine. Wow. I want you to hear this.

BREAKING: The United States has confirmed B-52 Stratofortress bombers are now striking Iran. Understand what this means by understanding the sequence. On February 28, the US sent B-2 Spirits. The B-2 is a stealth bomber. It costs $2.1 billion per aircraft. The US has 20 of them. You send B-2s when the enemy’s air defences are intact and you need to penetrate undetected. Four B-2s dropped 160,000 pounds of bunker-busting ordnance on hardened underground facilities in the opening wave. On March 2, the US sent B-1 Lancers. The B-1 is a supersonic bomber. Faster than the B-2 but not stealth. You send B-1s when air defences have been degraded enough that speed, not invisibility, is sufficient to survive. The B-1s conducted the deepest raids into Iran since 2003. On March 3, the US sent B-52s. The B-52 is a 70-year-old subsonic aircraft. It is not stealth. It is not fast. It has a radar cross-section the size of a barn. It flies at 650 miles per hour at 50,000 feet and it is visible to every radar system on earth. You send B-52s when there is nothing left to shoot them down. That is the sequence. B-2 when defences are lethal. B-1 when defences are degraded. B-52 when defences are gone. The US Air Force just told you, through aircraft selection alone, that Iran’s integrated air defence network no longer exists as a functional system. The B-52 carries 70,000 pounds of ordnance per sortie. It can launch cruise missiles from standoff range without entering defended airspace at all. The US has 76 of them versus 20 B-2s. Deploying B-52s quadruples the available bomber strike capacity, and each aircraft can deliver more payload per sortie than any other platform in the inventory. 1,700 targets struck. 300 new sites added in the latest wave. $779 million in ordnance expended on the first day alone. Six American service members killed. Eleven aircraft lost. The campaign is intensifying, not tapering. Here is where this connects to every post I have written today. The B-52 deployment proves the conventional campaign is succeeding. Iran’s air defences are neutralised. Its underground facilities are being collapsed. Its missile production is being destroyed. Its leadership is being eliminated. And the Strait of Hormuz is still closed. Because the B-52 cannot sink a mine. It cannot intercept a Shahed drone launched from a fishing boat. It cannot neutralise an anti-ship missile on a mobile coastal launcher. It cannot stop a proxy in Yemen from firing at a tanker in the Red Sea. The asymmetric threat that closes shipping lanes operates beneath the altitude where strategic bombers are relevant. The US is winning the war it chose to fight. It is not winning the war the insurance market cares about. The B-52 is the most powerful expression of that gap. 70,000 pounds of ordnance per sortie. And Lloyd’s of London still will not write a policy for a tanker transiting Hormuz. That is the thesis. In one sentence. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

@PippaCrerar @YouGov Comparing PM Starmer with Winston Churchill without also comparing Donald Trump with Roosevelt is.. Not unexpectedly... A very naive exercise...

Donald Trump has criticised Keir Starmer again over the UK’s refusal to back offensive strikes on Iran saying the “relationship is obviously not what it was”. But is the UK public with the US president? In short: no. New @YouGov polling shows that by 49% to 28%, Brits oppose the US strikes on Iran. 50% oppose the US using RAF bases to launch attacks on Iran, so long as the targets were restricted to missile sites, while 32% support the policy. 45% of Brits say govt should neither praise nor condemn US for attacks - 21% want UK to condemn US for its actions, while 12% want it to praise America. theguardian.com/us-news/2026/m…

@Rainmaker1973 President Donald Trump

In 3 words

@strategywoman We can share this now... Share our architecture and culture soon

Just wanted to show you this. I imagine the image saying, “Kyiv is waiting for you after the war.” I hope people from many countries will come when times are calm again. There is so much to explore.