[kreuzberger]

I don't know whether that is a fact, but the in-law siblings were fucked up as recently as yesterday, trying to get from Ulm to Brenner. The Austrian train simply left from Munich East without them and a fair few other onward passengers. They will have had the passenger manifest, thanks to integrated ticketing.

Germans will complain about everything and the Bahn is now the preferred subject of their ire...while complaining the lack of border controls which delay so many trains and cause a domino-effect with connections.

Personally, I am reasonably satisfied with the service. 600 km from here to Bavaria in barely four hours for less than fifty euros? That is most agreeable. And, if there is an hour's delay, you will get at least half that back in compo, which will fund a fine schnizel and a couple of pints.

[Boiler]

Mmm, schnitzel...

[Youngian]

While searching for some more info on this FT paywall story, came across this innovative wheeze by the treasury, confiscate cryptocurrency from crooks and flog it off to mugs. Plenty of them in the US to off load it so maybe that’s what Reeves’s planning with Trump. Bloody hope so, why would markets trust a government that takes cryptocurrency seriously?

Rachel Reeves is eyeing up a £5bn pre-Budget windfall as the government considers selling off seized cryptocurrency to plug a hole in the public finances.

The Home Office is reportedly working with police forces to offload at least £5bn worth of bitcoin and other currencies taken from criminals. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 92402.html

[Killer Whale]

A tax on idiocy. Genius!

[Tubby Isaacs]

Seems like this crypto story has been around since July.

[Tubby Isaacs]

There's another "Starmer just paving the way for Reform" article on the Guardian, I see. I can't be bothered to read it, but one of the good commenters BTL has picked this passage out.

Starmer might observe how much of the UK would simply fall apart without migrants and their children – from your local hospital to the school to the care home. How universities are facing collapse without foreign students and their bumper fees. He might even point out – imagine! – that migrants are human too, with their own lives and dreams for themselves and their families. We could get on to the legacy of empire, and about how the climate crisis and poverty force other populations to move.

Stuff lots of people would accept about students, working visas. Then a last sentence, which means what? Would seem to suggest that what sounds like a very large number of people from the ex-empire should be allowed to migrate to the UK. Note how it's put together in one paragraph as if it's the same (common sense) point, even though it's actually quite a long way on from the first point, and would probably be unpopular.

You can think Labour is drawing the wrong line on international students without agreeing with the second point. I think it would be fatal for Labour to adopt the implied position that objection to large scale economic (as the writer himself says) from much poorer countries makes you basically Farage/Robinson. Tell people they're on Farage's side, and they'll believe you.

[kreuzberger]

Nobody really wants to grapple with the sheer scale of impending displacement due to the climate crisis. Apart from insurers, for example.

https://www.zurich.com/media/magazine/2 ... ed-to-know

Spoiler: There could be 1.2 billion climate refugees by 2050.

[davidjay]

You can talk about the legacy of Empire, climate change and the lottery of being born in a wealthy nation all you like but the people who are tying flags to lampposts and shouting outside hotels will say:
1) We civilised them
2) Doesn't exist
3) Tough shit darkie.