They seemed to be softening somewhat on the cap, even Starmer himself had been making more open comments on it. I’ve seen some suggestions this was laying the groundwork for a “rabbit out of the hat” at the budget, either raising or removing the cap.

However, if the Starmer camp feels they still need to project strength and stability, the shift on the cap may now be jeopardised. They could now double back down on keeping it to not be seen as caving in to rebels or flip-flopping.

Time will tell. I hope I’m wrong but we still haven’t seen what the true colours of Starmer’s Labour will pan out to be.

Thankfully everywhere I’ve been today was still taking cards. I had to have an emergency rummage for some extra notes this morning just in case.

That’s one of the few things I miss about the COVID lockdowns. Far less people travelling meant a lot less noise and more clean air.

I’m not sure what it says about us when it takes a disaster to help the planet.

I’ve also been off today, but my plans nearly unraveled because all the trains were cancelled at my station.

Ticket office had all computers down with blue screens, it was chaos. I managed to work around it, but anyone trying to get to airports etc today for holidays are going to be really struggling.

Might seem easy to someone with a technical background. But the last thing businesses want to be doing is telling average end users to boot into safe mode and start deleting system files.

If that started happening en masse we would quickly end up with far more problems than we started with. Plenty of users would end up deleting system32 entirely or something else equally damaging.

There some low cost MVNOs that offer rolling plans. No frills but cheaper than major networks.

Giffgaff have recurring “goodybag” system that can be quite cheap. They keep costs low through things like having minimal customer support.

Depends on your computing platform.

I see another reply has already covered Linux.

On a Mac, press and hold a character key and a list of accent characters will appear. There are also dead key combinations using the option key to enter special characters directly.

Have you got any air quality sensors? Particulates, CO2, VOCs, CO, Radon, there’s a while bunch of sensors, and a variety of DIY projects to put them together.

It also has the practical benefit of maybe improving your health.

Seems a pointless endeavour. The open and enterprise sides are so deeply linked, it makes sense that they share a brand.

Separating them only weakens the broader SUSE ecosystem.

Except in England, where it is still largely grey and miserable. We are still patiently waiting for summer.

Antivax conspiracists have been in the Reform orbit for a while. As have the climate change denial folks (which is more or less Reform policy), most recently the “15 minute city” flavour.

I have a feeling the next branch might be the “cashless society” stuff that’s brewing.

Reform seems to be the natural party for cranks, more so than UKIP was.

The problem is having one singular “industry standard” in the first place. If Adobe is eventually dislodged for something else it would eventually become just as bad, because there would still be no meaningful competition to keep it in line.

Truss is out! Defeated by Labour candidate Terry Jermy by only 630 votes.

There's a chance Liz Truss could lose her seat this time. She previously had a large majority but her failed stint as PM tarnishing her and a strong challenge by a local independent could unseat her.

Global pork markets will never be the same again.

From the results that have come in so far, the right wing populist party Reform UK is quickly rising as a new political force. They've placed second in at least three constituencies so far.

If Starmer's Labour fail to make visible progress to the country's fortunes we could be facing a Trump moment in the form of Nigel Farage.

And as for the S*n, they just put their weight behind whoever is going to win.

I was a bit surprised the S*n did switch to Labour. From what I've heard there still a grudge amongst Murdoch and his minions towards Starmer, due the prosecutions he pursued as DPP during the phone hacking scandal.

After seeing the first few results come in, my main worry is how Starmer's Labour will react to the rise of Reform. If Labour cannot visibly begin to turn things around, and they also fail to effectively counter the building populist undercurrent, we could be heading for some dark times.

We will have to see what exactly Starmer's Labour will actually do once it has power.

First result is in at Houghton and Sunderland South.

Labour hold with 18,847 (47.1%) but Reform second with 11,668 (29.1%). Turnout also down compared to last 2 elections.

Yeah I was hoping they would fall under 100. The exit poll is just another poll though - it still could change yet. Maybe the projections won't properly account for the effect of Reform and independents.

13 seats for Reform feels like it would be more than a foot in the door for Faragism if the exit poll is accurate for them. I hope Labour will be able to provide effective counters to this.

Of course it's also possible that with suddenly gaining MPs in double digits, the inexperienced party might keep tripping over itself before it can trip anyone else.