Happy Friday!

There are words for the state of the country right now, but I don’t have them right now, but isn’t this so much better than chaos with Ed Milliband?

Here are some links:

The era of low interest rates is ending – its legacy is inequality and toxic politics

Our country yearns for unity – but Truss’s government is mercilessly dividing it into rich and poor

Hilary Mantel knew how corrosive deference to monarchy can be – and why we must resist. I do feel that Hilary Mantel is shoehorned into this argument but I don’t disagree with the point.

Britain is crying out for radical solutions, but Labour still thinks it’s in the 1990s

The Tories’ huge gamble offers a fabulous opportunity Keir Starmer’s party must seize.

Not going out: how the cost of living crisis is destroying young people’s social lives

Harry Maguire blunders are a warning to England – right now he is not up to it. Been saying this for ages, I don’t get the Maguire love at all!

From the £25,000 wreck to the £25m home with an indoor pool: what three house sales tell us about modern Britain

Asthma attacks in more than 1m people linked to UK cost of living rationing. With winter coming and given that people with asthma have been excluded from the COVID boosters, this is scary. I pre pay for my prescriptions, it’s £10.81 for 10 months and was something I signed up to as soon as I started HRT. My regular HRT and asthma prescriptions would cost about £118 a year so this saves me about £10 a year, however, any other prescription I might need over a year are also covered by this, so no extra surprises if I get sick. Doesn’t help if you don’t have that £10.81 a month in the first place though!

Italy’s Giorgia Meloni is no Mussolini – but she may be a Trump. The thing I find fascinating about Meloni is the way her positions on society are so nostalgic. She’s pro marriage and family but grew up in a single parent household and isn’t married to her partner and the father of her kid because ‘he doesn’t believe in marriage’. She’s been involved in politics since she was a teenager and has as far as I can see never had a job outside of politics. She calls for Italy to be united but didn’t join the coalition for national unity. In this election she’s been able to look at the system and not be implicated in it, so it’ll be interesting to see if she’ll be able to defend that ideological purity when she’s in charge.

The markets are in meltdown – but at least Kwasi Kwarteng’s doomsday cult isn’t to blame