Let’s get a move on with air-con grants 🆒 Despite Labour approving grants for air to air heating and cooling systems last year, 4 heatwaves later and they still aren’t available… Why? Because agencies haven’t approved an accreditation scheme 😐 It’s time to get it done👇

Hello I'm an idiot

It’s a low bar but I am delighted to see this. The UK has had four widespread instances of extreme heat this year. The national May temperature record was broken at 35.1°C in West London, and June bringing temperatures above 37°C in East Anglia.

Excited that @miattafahnbulleh.bsky.social and @andyburnham.bsky.social are creating 5,000 good jobs with the National Grid. Two reasons this will make life affordable (in next post).

"Kew Gardens has had a weather station since 1871. This July was, based on third party analysis of Met Office data collected at the site, the first calendar month on record where no rainfall was measured at Kew."

London's first month without rain

Plus: There's nowhere to bury the dead • London wants to keep its money • When will it stop being so damn hot • Who is to blame for turning off the air conditioning in the tower block?

londoncentric.media

Did you know 50% of the East Anglia One offshore wind farm was made in the UK? Here’s me on board one of their maintenance vessels last week, talking about the site and its in-construction neighbour, East Anglia Three.

Labour Climate and Environment Forum@lcefuk.bsky.social · 3d ago

Last week, our Climate and Energy Programme lead @imogenshaw.bsky.social joined ScottishPower Renewables for a trip to East Anglia One offshore wind farm to see the green transition in action.

We are in the third drought in five years. We have the National Trust and NFU - those radical types - sounding the alarm on unprecedented temperatures. But so little from any single figure in politics talking about the climate crisis.

Climate change is an affordability issue. A burning planet means more drought. More drought means fewer crops. Fewer crops means higher food prices.

Absolutely shameful piece. Even if a "Mediterranean" future were desirable - and a third of a million people are currently fleeing an inferno - what about those parts of the world being made uninhabitable? Where do their people go? Heath doesn't want them here. www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2026...

Britain can’t stop climate change. Scrap net zero and embrace Mediterranean life

We’ve lost the war against global warming so let’s learn to handle hotter weather

telegraph.co.uk

Sheer fantasy to think that climate change is just going to give us 'hot weather like on holiday'. 300,000 people evacuated across France and Spain. Wildfires in the UK barely kept under control. Yes - we desperately need adaptation, but if we don't mitigate things will get drastically worse.

The warmer weather this year is the best it's going to get. This will be one of the coldest years of the rest of your life. A Mediterranean climate is increasingly deadly.

Leo Hickman@leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 7d ago

The Daily Telegraph has raced through all five stages of climate denial this week. But this is, perhaps, the most ridiculous column so far: "Without minimising the severe downsides…especially on some poorer nations, many in Britain would enjoy the kind of warmer climate predicted by modellers..."

++BREAKING++ The UK and Spanish governments have issued a joint statement overnight: "[We] agreed that this summer’s wildfires demonstrated that climate change was now a national security emergency facing Europe and threatening our way of life." www.gov.uk/government/n...

On the day we congratulate Burnham as he enters No 10, I wanted to gift him the good news that climate and environmental ambition speaks exactly to the people he wants his government to deliver for. lcef.co.uk/blog/good-ne...

Glad to see govt spokesperson say the "2035 ban was not up for negotiation", but nor should interim targets that get us to 2035 either. The ZEV mandate creates a clear timeline & certainty - opening it up won't help industry or workers, but instead risks leaving the UK exposed to global competition.

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 2w ago

Carmakers lobbied UK to revoke ban on petrol and diesel cars after 2035

We must remember the Utøya massacre, and remember it for what it was: a far-right attack specifically targeted against democratic socialist activists. Today, the ideologies of its perpetrator are openly espoused by a global network of nationalist oligarchs as they wage war on democratic societies.

Roberta Metsola@president.europarl.europa.eu · 2w ago

Fifteen years ago today, 77 lives were taken - most of them young - on an island that should have been a place of summer, friendship, and first ideas about the world they wanted to build. On that day, Norway grieved, and Europe grieved with it. Utøya. Oslo. We remember.

NEW: Ex-CEO of Southern Water facing charge of conspiracy to defraud, alongside three members of his team. It's alleged Matthew Wright conspired to defraud the Environment Agency and OfWat, the regulator, over the wastewater compliance testing regime.

Really interesting and thoughtful reflections on his time in office, including his mistakes in Rishi Sunak’s Sunday Times column this week:

Rishi Sunak: How it feels as a new PM — my guide for Andy Burnham

The to-do list is long but time is short, so the incoming prime minister will have to choose his priorities and put the right people in charge of them

thetimes.com

Clean air is a silent (and locally led) success - borne from green spaces, active transport, action against polluting vehicles. Labour can and should own the win. An incredibly good bit of work and polling by our programme manager @ralphpalmer.bsky.social, supported by @goodgrowthfdn.bsky.social.

Labour Climate and Environment Forum@lcefuk.bsky.social · 3w ago

📣 NEW LCEF REPORT + POLLING LAUNCH📣 Our new report, Breathe Easy, shows how Labour can build a strong political offer on clean air, based on polling commissioned from @goodgrowthfdn.bsky.social.

It is mad that we have, somehow, allowed net zero - a policy common to all major parties under 5 years ago and supported by a majority of the public - to become a synoym for mad radicalism. It is doubly mad that we've allowed this to happen during the hottest summer on record.

Jo Michell@jomichell.bsky.social · 3w ago

I’m sorry, but what is ‘radical’ about the policies pursued by Miliband?

A brilliant piece on British culture by my mate Sof www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Count Binface represents the Silly Sausage Britain I know and love | Sofie Jenkinson

Mr Blobby, the Liz Truss lettuce, Boaty McBoatface … the Clacton hopeful is part of a rich tradition – and a reminder that it’s laughter that defines us, not hate, says co-director of Round Our Way, S...

theguardian.com

Sofie Jenkinson@sofiejenkinson.bsky.social · 3w ago

So I wrote about it again lads. See what you think. It's just my view of the Britain I think exists. Would love to know yours, and what you think our v specific silly British things are – because there were simply too many good ones to list www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I love this: people say the UK isn’t cohesive or kind or that culture is only something for certain people. I am of the belief we are the funniest nation on earth, and that is the shared culture and joy that I know and love, and that is wholly inclusive. Grateful to Sof for articulating as always.

Sofie Jenkinson@sofiejenkinson.bsky.social · 3w ago

So I wrote about it again lads. See what you think. It's just my view of the Britain I think exists. Would love to know yours, and what you think our v specific silly British things are – because there were simply too many good ones to list www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

So I wrote about it again lads. See what you think. It's just my view of the Britain I think exists. Would love to know yours, and what you think our v specific silly British things are – because there were simply too many good ones to list www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Count Binface represents the Silly Sausage Britain I know and love | Sofie Jenkinson

Mr Blobby, the Liz Truss lettuce, Boaty McBoatface … the Clacton hopeful is part of a rich tradition – and a reminder that it’s laughter that defines us, not hate, says co-director of Round Our Way, S...

theguardian.com

Sofie Jenkinson@sofiejenkinson.bsky.social · 4w ago

I would simply like to point out that what we are seeing rn, from Binface in particular, is Mr Blobby Patriotism in action (@renewaljournal.bsky.social). We are in Silly Sausage Britain and we just have to accept it: renewal.org.uk/blog/mr-blob...

💭 Is air conditioning banned in the UK? Not really. 📺️ Our Programme Manager @Imogen Shaw takes us through why we don't have as much air con in the UK compared to other countries, and what needs to happen for us to start installing air con now.

‘…we need to achieve a minimum of 40% street tree canopy cover, and preferably more, before we start to really feel the benefits of nature’s most advanced air-conditioning technology.’ Me, for Big Issue, on tackling urban #heatwaves…👇 www.bigissue.com/opinion/heat...

🧵 Progressives need to think much more ambitiously about citizenship: it can't only be a debate about the "who" - the boundaries of citizenship. Our new @ippr.org report today makes the case for a new politics of "democratic citizenship": www.ippr.org/articles/the...

The democratic citizen: Renewing citizenship and the public domain | IPPR

Often, this descends into little more than an argument about eligibility for welfare benefits. This is a disaster for progressives, who find themselves fig

ippr.org

I'm not sure "he's not even a real bin" is the winning electoral argument some of Count Binface's opponents imagine. I think the voters of Clacton had pretty much already realised that on their own.

Unfortunately, a stunned Paris is how they all got into this whole mess to begin with

Pop Crave@popcrave.com · 4w ago

‘The Odyssey’ women Zendaya, Anne Hathaway, Lupita Nyong'o, and Charlize Theron stun in Paris.

The hotter our summers become, the more useful solar panels on farmland could be. Across Europe, farmers are using them to shade crops, reduce water loss and generate electricity. Why isn't Britain?

Heatwaves, farmland and solar energy

Could mediterranean style agrivoltaic systems help farmers cope with mediterranean style heatwaves, and improve energy independence?

eastangliabylines.co.uk

Enjoyed this @geoffmulgan.bsky.social piece in @arguablymag.bsky.social which posits that the left must rediscover both hope and faith in the levers of the state to deliver. As always: what is now proved was once only imagined. We must rediscover our imagination. open.substack.com/pub/arguably...

The three fears the left must conquer

Zohran Mamdani and Andy Burnham show how “high-energy” progressives can win

open.substack.com

Nigel Farage has just claimed that men in London are too afraid to wear watches in public, which is just transparently nonsense