statisticalphil.bsky.social
Researcher at the Commons Library. Public spending, local government, anything else that looks interesting.
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On the investment side, defence is getting a larger increase than in recent years, but several departments will see fairly large decreases relative to existing budgets.
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Here's a couple more charts to go with it. Relative to existing budgets, DSIT and the Single Intelligence Account are doing pretty well out of this; the FCDO is decidedly not (because of aid cuts).
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On the investment spending side, it's the MOD that takes the lion's share, followed by Transport.
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Your post was a very useful resource! Publicly available descriptions of how the process actually works are annoyingly hard to come by, so I was glad to have something like that to cite.
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That would be the so-called "Pole of Inaccessibility", which I reckon is just to the north-east of Birmingham (it's the blue flag on this map). There's not a lot in it, but Towcester (green star) is marginally closer to the Wash than the Pole is to any coastline.
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FACT 4 (last one, thankfully): The boundaries of the Norfolk Broads National Park are pleasingly bonkers because water and reclaimed land don't play by your rules.
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FACT 3: The point on the British mainland where you are furthest from any National park is a field just north of Towcester (see red star on this map).
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FACT 2: Eryri National Park (Snowdonia, as was) is the only one with a hole in it, because Blaenau Ffestiniog isn't part of the Park.
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In short, this overview is actively unhelpful, because it's not just wrong, but breezily confident in its wrongness. Please don't trust them for anything that even vaguely matters. (5/5)
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Issue #3: No, the memorandum is not "a document that provides parliamentary authority". The Estimate itself is part of the process to do that - the memorandum just provides further context but has no authority in its own right. If you based anything important on this you'd look like an idiot. (4/n)
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Issue #2: because Google doesn't understand the contents of these documents, it can happily talk about the "Scotland Senedd". This doesn't exist. (It has, of course, conflated the Senedd - that is, the Welsh Parliament - and the Scottish Parliament.) (3/n)
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The first and biggest issue: so far as I can tell, the document I'm looking for isn't actually published online. Doesn't stop Google from confidently asserting things about its contents. As annotation #1 shows, it's basing this on memoranda for two totally different departments. (2/n)
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As best as I can tell, it is literally just showing the website inside an app container. I uninstalled within minutes of trying it out. (Tried replacing it with Ontime, which seems to be working OK for me so far.)
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...and THAT was entirely because Henry VIII was uncomfortable with the idea of having to listen to Parliament talking about Catherine Howard's alleged adultery in the bill that led to her execution. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_A...
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Related procedural note: the Royal Assent Act repealed the Royal Assent by Commission Act 1541, which first introduced the idea that the monarch didn't have to be there in person to pass an Act of Parliament...
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(We do, of course, have a briefing on this, which we'll likely update in the next few weeks to include the new stats: commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-bri...)
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Shooters go to extreme lengths to stay relaxed. I knew of someone who would nestle into a comfy armchair and practice lifting up mocked-up pistol sights, to mentally associate shooting with relaxation.
All of which to say: no surprise that shooters look cool. It literally helps them shoot better!
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Hand in the pocket? That's because you want to remove tension in your non-shooting arm, so it has to rest somewhere. Putting it on your belt buckle is also popular.
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Same goes for eyewear. Blocking off your non-dominant eye might help your aim, but it might also induce tension in your face. So if you can aim properly with nothing else resting on your face, that's an advantage.
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In pistol shooting (unlike rifle), there is only one point of contact between you and the gun, so keeping it steady is very tricky. You therefore want as little tension in your body as possible. So if dressing casually helps do that? That's what you do.
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And as an extra bonus, how about this broader article about how Parliament goes about its job of scrutiny? commonslibrary.parliament.uk/how-does-par...
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...and the second is this shorter article about why this year's procedure is a bit strange. commonslibrary.parliament.uk/public-spend...