Charlie Arthur

1/PSA: stop using one or two well-known, insufferable, inflated psychodynamic or analytic figureheads from social media platforms as your straw man. My god. Because one guy majorly sucks as a personality, doesn’t mean psychoanalysis sucks. Or, it doesn’t mean Z clinicians

A good spot from our @JoshHalliday on one of most significant consequences of Andy Burnham’s devolution plans… that predictable revenue streams would let combined authorities take out 30-year loans against projected income to fund major projects. Under the plans, mayors will keep a share of income tax generated in their area from 2028, as well as business rates totalling tens of millions of pounds by April 2027. As they’re currently prevented from funding huge initiatives on housing and transport because they can’t take out private loans on basis of one-year funding settlements from Whitehall, this more predictable revenue has potential to make big difference. theguardian.com/politics/202…

"One of Us" was ABBA's final parting single - so we've adapted it into a 🎶 parody we're calling "Exodus" to reflect on the urinary trickle of Tory departures to Reform UK, most notably two driplets from the bottom of the last government's barrel @RobertJenrick & @nadhimzahawi.

When I was five, I started school. I was bright eyed and bushy tailed. I had loved nursery and I was excited to learn about the wide world out there in Big School. Pretty soon, that changed. It turned out that the big wide world was a classroom, and that my role there was to sit on my bottom. It turned out that the other children hadn’t yet learnt to read, whilst I had, and so a lot of my time was spent watching them sitting on the carpet reading Roger Red Hat while I was sat at a table with a Words Folder to write stories. The carpet looked more fun. Then it turned out that one of the other children didn’t like the fact that I could already read, and she would pinch me when the teacher wasn’t looking. The playground was big and concrete and the hall was echoey and smelly. It turned out that my lunchbox was wrong too and so were my clothes. The oldest children seemed like grown ups to me, looming over me in the playground. I didn’t like it. I started saying so. I didn’t want to go to school. I wanted to go back to nursery where I had loved the teachers and all the activities on offer. That wasn’t an option. I was five-years-old now, far too big for nursery. I wasn’t alone. Thousands of children start school and then things start to go wrong. The problems are often subtle – but what happens next isn’t so subtle. Parents are told to make home less fun, so that their children choose school out of boredom. Or they’re told to force their children in, so they don’t get the idea that school is a choice. Both of these options can make things worse. When a child starts saying they don’t want to go to school, what happens next is crucial. That's what I'm talking about in my webinar on Monday Jan 26th. Please share if you know parents who might benefit. eventbrite.co.uk/e/my-child-…

"Battle Hymn of the Republic" is not a song to be taken on lightly ... but in light of this week's New Year Trumpian news onslaught, we're sharing this adaptation, called "Battle Hymn of the Empire" - as Trump goes marching on, and dragging us all back to the nineteenth century.