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The skills on show are streets ahead of my attempts at wood butchery. Thoroughly fascinating.

How Brexit should be judged is open to question as no clear criteria were ever set against which success or failure would be judged. The waters are further muddied by the pandemic. However in over 4 years since formal exit there is little evidence of success (and plenty of failure): UK GDP...

Politicians do not get tickets to football matches concerts, any other hospitality or freebies because they are nice chaps or chapesses. They are wined, dined, entertained etc because they have power. Their hosts or donors want to influence how that power is deployed. Yorkieguy is spot on...

Could look at this site Mould. If not sure and it needs sorting it can do no harm to use a mould/fungus remover just to make sure.

Don't know what salt coming out of brickwork looks like - but in a cellar it suggests the walls may be 100+ years old and any salt should have dispersed decades ago. I would be more concerned that it is a fungal growth due to moist, relatively warm conditions and limited air flow. Could be...

The idiots, sad to say, were the British public - incapable of thinking critically and falling for spin courtesy of a confidence trickster. A good reason why referenda are a foolish way of deciding policy - ask those who lack the intellectual competence to make balanced judgements. The...

Complete nonsense. UK private healthcare market is ~£11bn. The NHS spends £181bn pa. I did not suggest insurance based healthcare was a preferred method of funding healthcare. There are issues around staffing and recruitment for whom the NHS provides training. Kings Fund have done studies...

Using Ikea units - particularly if cheap s/h, is a sound idea - there is lots of workshop stuff which needs space without being heavy. For my workshop (recent move) I used Ikea kitchen units, doors, and kitchen worktops for storage and mounting machines - small wood lathe, pillar drill...

A US system can produce very good results - but only for those with money or insurance, and at very high cost. To my mind the UK approach is far better - free a the point of delivery, based on clinical need. The criteria against which delivery should be judged includes safety, speed, cost...

That the NHS operates using private sector resources is nothing new - drugs manufacture, hospital construction, medical consumables, x-ray and imaging machinery, IT hardware and systems etc etc etc. Most would have no issue with this. There may be more concern perceived where the private...

The height probably needs to have some regard for the size and power of the cooker hood - a large powerful hood could be installed much higher than a smaller one and have similar extractive performance. Ideally when cooking the cooker hood should be at a height at which the cook is unaware -...

It's not what you know. it's who you know. Hospitality initiates and builds relationships. Once formed the "donor" can start to exert influence. It is a symbiotic relationship - politicians get to know what the "movers and shakers" in society want, "donors" get to influence priorities...

I would be more concerned about the uneven joists - a couple of mm probably does not matter - but a 25-50mm sag in some joists probably does. It will make fitting the T&G more challenging (but probably doable) and could compromise final flooring - as you note putting laminate down could leave...

The Tories of the last 14 years are not remotely far right. Had that been the case - perhaps the NHS would by now have been largely dismantled with insurance based private healthcare in its place - spend in real terms increased by 35%, staff by 30%. The last government also introduced - for...

As I understand it VAT at 20% is paid on imported goods - possibly plus import duties depending on type and where they originated. The profit made can be manipulated (transfer pricing, management fees, commissions etc etc) to a substantial extent to appear to arise in a low tax regime to...

Liz Truss, Nigel Farage are significantly right of centre. Cameron and Sunak by their actions are very centre ground. The left wing analogue to your comment would be to observe that Tony Blair and Kier Starmer are leading the charge to the left - manifest nonsense.

EU GDP at ~£20tn in total is ~8 times that of the UK. UK exports to EU at £355bn represents ~15% of UK GDP EU exports to UK at £463bn represents ~ 2% of EU GDP The UK is the minor player, with limited negotiating power - the belief that negotiating harder would yield a better result is...

I immediately assumed that the "Springfield" referred to was the home of the Simpsons. It came as no surprise that the Trump supporting community might regard Homer, Marge, Bart etc as "real"

I wholly agree it is a humanitarian catastrophe. Hamas and Hezbollah are unequivocally, by their own admission, and actions in indiscriminately firing rockets intent on genocide. Using civilians to shield military activity is a war crime. Israel have every right to defend and secure their...

The gifts are not over-reported items of trivial significance. £16000 in clothes to Sir Kier is rather more than a free pair of glasses. You can pay a couple of thousand ££ for a bespoke suit. M&S best are up to about £400, John Lewis around £600. To judge from his appearance if they cost...