Afternoon summary
Labour has said Rishi Sunak should take the blame for escalating costs at HS2 because he was responsible for monitoring spending while he was at the Treasury. (See 1.25pm.) The party challenged Sunak as five Labour metro mayors urged Sunak not to scrap, delay or scale back HS2 as it would “leave swathes of the north with Victorian transport infrastructure that is unfit for purpose”. Other political and business leaders in the north of England have also expressed alarm about the prospect of the HS2 link from Birmingham to Manchester being cancelled.
Suella Braverman, the home secretary, has said it is “flippant” to dismiss her immigration speech yesterday as motivated by the desire to boost her standing in a future Tory leadership contest – but without ruling out that she might be a candidate. (See 3.04pm.)
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Starmer says Labour won't revoke Rosebank oilfield licence because giving investors stability good for growth
Keir Starmer has restated his promise not to revoke the licence allowing the Rosebank oil and gas field development to go ahead if Labour wins the next election.
As Mark Sweney and Matthew Taylor report, the decision by the North Sea Transition Authority to approve the development today has outraged environmentalists.
The field has the potential to produce 500m barrels of oil in its lifetime, which when burned would emit as much carbon dioxide as running 56 coal-fired power stations for a year, and the Green party MP Caroline Lucas has called the move “the greatest act of environmental vandalism” in her lifetime.
In an interview with the BBC’s Nick Robinson for his Political Thinking podcast, Starmer said he would not revoke the licence because he wanted people investing in the UK to have certainty.
Asked if Ed Miliband, the shadow secretary for climate change and net zero, was wrong to say developing Rosebank would “drive a coach and horses through our climate commitments”, Starmer replied:
He’s right that we need to have this transition, but I’m mindful of the fact that if there’s one thing that has killed growth in the last 13 years – and it has been killed – it’s the chopping and changing lack of strategic thinking.
And therefore, as a matter of principle, we will accept, as it were, the baseline that we inherit from the government if we win that election. And – if I’m not getting ahead of myself – that’s why we’ve been very clear that we won’t revoke that licence.
Asked if he was saying, not that he can’t revoke the licence, but that he won’t, Starmer replied:
It’s won’t and it’s deliberate and it is in order to ensure that we have the stability we desperately need in our economy.
Further excerpts from the interview are due to be released tomorrow.
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Why has HS2 ended up so expensive?
A reader asks:
This might be a silly question, but can you please explain why the cost of HS2 has increased so much over time? Is this due to factors outside government control (eg inflation, Covid) or is this partly a result of decisions made by successive Conservative governments? Thanks
Gwyn Topham has answered this question much better than I would be able to do. This is what he published on this two days ago.
Hospitals dealing with too many elderly patients who should be being looked after elsewhere, says care minister
Hospital emergency departments are dealing with too many elderly patients who are not in the right place for the care they need, Helen Whately, the care minister, has said.
During a speech and Q&A at the NHS Confederation’s Health Beyond the Hospital conference in London, Whately said this was something she had witnessed herself as a result of family members being in hospital recently. She said:
I had my own very recent experiences, particularly of the emergency care pathway. I’ve also got several family members with various health problems at the moment so I’ve been spending quite a lot of time on a personal basis in hospitals and in the health system at the moment.
One of the things that I’ve seen through all of that is how hard it is for emergency departments with so many in fact frail, elderly patients who it’s not necessarily the right place for them to be.
And I’ve spent hours, whether it was for my mum in an emergency department, looking round and knowing it’s so hard for so many of those people there who it’s so often not the best place to be.
Whately said a “cultural shift” was needed to move more money and resources to out-of-hospital care.
She attended the event on crutches, having broken her ankle in a road accident earlier this month.
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Priti Patel, the former home secretary, and Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former leader of the Commons and former Brexit opportunities minister, have both received honours today at an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle. They were both tireless supporters of Boris Johnson, and they received a damehood and a knighthood respectively in his resignation honours.
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Only about 10% of Britons think that more oil and gas production will reduce bills and increase energy security, a poll suggests. As PA Media reports, YouGov research commissioned by Global Witness, a green campaign group, suggests just 8% think increasing fossil fuel production is the best way to increase energy security. PA says:
The poll comes after energy secretary Claire Coutinho said the government will “continue to back the UK’s oil and gas industry to underpin our energy security” following the Rosebank announcement.
But any fuel extracted from Rosebank will mostly belong to Equinor, whose largest shareholder is the Norwegian state, and the majority of the fuel is expected to be sold internationally.
This has prompted many researchers, campaigners and opposition MPs to question whether adding a significant amount of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere is worth any economic and security gains.
Campaign group Global Witness, which commissioned the poll, said the results show that the UK public overwhelmingly prefer new renewables to fossil fuels.
When asked which energy source would best serve the UK’s energy security, 56% of the public chose more renewables, followed by 20% who chose more nuclear – compared with the 8% who backed fossil fuels.
Similarly, 53% chose renewables when it came to the best way to reduce energy bills, followed by 18% who chose more nuclear.
Braverman says it's 'flippant' to dismiss her hardline migration speech as part of future Tory leadership bid
Suella Braverman is still in the US and she has been speaking to PA Media about the row generated by her immigration speech yesterday. One Tory peer accused her of using the language of the far right. (See 10.22am.) Here are the main lines.
Braverman said it was “flippant” to dismiss her speech as motivated by the desire to boost her standing in a future Tory leadership contest – but without ruling out that she might be a candidate. When asked about speculation that the speech was part of a future leadership drive, she replied:
With respect, that is a slightly flippant interpretation of what is a very serious issue.
I am here meeting my US counterparts, talking about the epoch-defining challenge of illegal migration and I have set out my observations and my analysis of the problem, inviting international collaboration to find a joint solution.
I think that is my duty as home secretary and I am pleased to be here in America raising the salience of the matter and working with partners.
Pressed on this again, she added:
I am here working as home secretary. I am very pleased to be working hand in hand with the prime minister to stop the boats, as he has pledged earlier in the year.
She dismissed claims that it was unrealistic to expect countries to agree to revise the UN refugee convention. In her speech she called for it to be revised. When it was put to her that this was not realistic, she replied:
I am inviting my international partners to engage in an exercise of review and reform.
Ultimately, I think it’s legitimate to ask these questions whether the definition of refugee in the international conventions is still fit for purpose, whether the definition of persecution has been stretched beyond a reasonable limit, and that’s in face of these high numbers that we are now seeing.
She rejected suggestions that the speech showed she lacked compassion for migrants. When this was put to her, she replied:
No, I don’t think that is true. And what I would say is that we are facing unprecedented levels of illegal migration, not just in the UK but also in countries like the US and other western or European nations.
It’s right that we ask for greater collaboration at the international level amongst like-minded partners and, ultimately, the UK cannot sustain such levels of illegal migration, or indeed, legal migration.
It’s indeed the prudent thing for political leaders to call this out and take steps to address it.
HS2 'crucially important' for levelling up, says former Bank of England chief economist
Andy Haldane, the former Bank of England chief economist who helped the government to produce its levelling up white paper and who now chairs the levelling up advisory council, has said the HS2 is “crucially important” to the project. In an interview with Channel 4 News he said:
On the specifics of HS2, that is a crucially important, totemic I would say, symbol of levelling up in practice.
If I had my way, we’d be talking not about HS2 being thin sliced, but about HS3, HS4 and HS5.
We said in the report that by unlocking the potential in UK cities, you could earn yourself an extra £100bn. That’s each year, which stands comparison with the £100bn you mentioned in HS2 to as a one-off cost. Compare the two – of course that’s an investment worth making, a price worth paying.
Haldane seemed to be referring to this report on levelling up published by the Royal Society of Arts, the thinktank he runs.
"If I had my way, we'd be talking not about HS2 being thin-sliced, but about HS3, HS4 and HS5."
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) September 27, 2023
Andy Haldane, former Bank of England chief economist, speaks to @heliaebrahimi about his support for HS2 and expansion of similar projects. pic.twitter.com/q37kzMgWHl
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Here is the Louise Haigh letter to Rishi Sunak about HS2 costs (see 1.25pm) in full.
The Prime Minister is reportedly 'alarmed' by the rising cost of HS2.
— Louise Haigh (@LouHaigh) September 27, 2023
But as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Chancellor and now Prime Minister he has had responsibility.
Communities and taxpayers are paying the price for years of Conservative mismanagement and chaos. pic.twitter.com/72dRa4bty3
Labour claims Sunak should take blame for HS2 costs almost trebling because as chancellor he had duty to monitor them
Until now Labour has been relatively cautious about getting involved in the HS2 story, because although notionally it is fully committed to HS2, if Rishi Sunak were to cancel the Birmingham to Manchester and the Old Oak Common to Euston legs of the project, completing HS2 would suddenly become an enormous unfunded spending commitment.
But this afternoon the party is making a strong intervention. Without making a firm policy commitment, it is seeking to show that Rishi Sunak should take the blame for HS2 costs overrunning. Louise Haigh, the shadow transport secretary, is making this argument in an open letter to Sunak pointing out that he has been responsible for monitoring HS2 costs for more than four years, either as chief secretary to the Treasury (from July 2019), as chancellor (from February 2020) or as PM (from last year).
Referring to a story in the Times yesterday saying Sunak is alarmed at the rising cost and quoting an official accusing HS2 bosses of acting “like kids with the golden credit card”, Haigh said:
In your present and previous roles – both as chancellor and chief secretary to the Treasury – you have had plenty of opportunities, as well as a responsibility to British taxpayers, to monitor spending and progress.
It is under your direct watch that the cost of HS2 has reportedly almost trebled.
The National Audit Office has found that HS2 “cost increases may not have been necessary” if risks had been “recognised and managed earlier” by the government.
During your time as chancellor, the NAO published a report titled Progress in implementing National Audit Office recommendations: High Speed Two. This report confirmed that: “A detailed estimate of the full cost of the programme has not yet been completed.”
And, as chancellor, you agreed revised funding for phase one of “£44.6bn, including £5.6bn of contingency to be held by HS2 Ltd and £4.3bn of other contingency to be held by government”.
Haigh went on:
HS2 is the government’s largest infrastructure programme by value. I’m therefore concerned that, as chief secretary to the Treasury, chancellor, and now prime minister, you suggest that you had no idea what was happening with the project.
Please can you confirm that HM Treasury receives regular reports from the Department for Transport and HS2 Ltd? If so, did you ever read any of these reports?
Referring to the briefing given to the Times, Haigh also said it was unfair “for politicians to blame officials who can’t defend themselves in public”.
Haigh ended her letter by saying that the government was in chaos and and it should urgently update parliament on HS2 costs, with 2023 prices not 2019 prices.
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Laws demanding UK developers improve local nature delayed
The government will delay new environmental laws that require housebuilders to improve local nature and wildlife habitats when they build a development in existing green space, Helena Horton reports.
Pulling plug on HS2 ‘would be final nail in coffin for levelling up’, Sunak warned
My colleagues Josh Halliday and Jessica Murray have spoken to more than a dozen northern political and business leaders about reports that Rishi Sunak wants to abandon the Birmingham to Manchester leg of HS2. They say this would be disastrous, and “the final nail in the coffin” for levelling up.
A reader asks:
Would it be possible to research the ‘Charles line’ which is mentioned in the HS2 article (‘Northern research group may accept delay of HS2 to Manchester if the Charles line is built’). I cannot find any information about this ‘Charles line’ anywhere and it rather smacks of throwing the north a bone to chew on and stay quiet.
The “Charles line” is what some Tories want to call Northern Powerhouse Rail, the proposed new line or upgrade from Liverpool to Leeds and beyond. (Different versions have been proposed at different times.) They believe that that way it would be a northern equivalent to the recently-opened Elizabeth Line linking Reading and Heathrow with east London.
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Tory London mayoral candidate says she did not mean to cause offence by liking tweets praising Enoch Powell
Susan Hall, the Conservative candidate for London mayor, has said she did not intend to cause any offence when she liked tweets praising Enoch Powell.
Speaking on her LBC phone-in this morning, she said:
If you’re a serial tweeter, you tend to go through liking all sorts of things. If anybody is offended, then obviously I would apologise.
Any offence “wasn’t intended”, she insisted.
She also she “can’t remember” retweeting a post by Katie Hopkins that called Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor, “the nipple height mayor of Londonistan”.
During the phone-in she also said she would scrap Khan’s extension of Ulez, the ultra-low emissions zone, on her first day if she won the mayoral race next year.
When told by a caller that the poorest in London cannot even afford to drive, so they are most at risk of inhaling lethal air, Hall said she would help to reduce any “pockets” of air pollutions by giving councils the ability to bid from a £50m fund.
Tory insiders believe their party could have easily won the mayoral race if a moderate candidate had been selected instead of Hall.
The latest poll by JL Partners puts Hall on 32% with Khan on 35%, which has infuriated a number of insiders who believe her string of hard-right views may have scuppered their chances.
One indication of the lack of support she has from the Tory leadership is that she has not been given an official speaking slot during Conservative party conference.
Asked about the conference snub, Hall told LBC:
It really doesn’t bother me at all. Talking at conference to Conservatives isn’t going to get me more votes in London.
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A reader asks:
Yesterday you wrote about comments made about Suella Braverman’s speech “before we’d seen the text”. I’ve looked at gov.uk since 16:00 yesterday, and haven’t found the text of her speech. Is it available online?
The Home Office has not put it on its website yet. They tell me it will go up eventually; it is not unusual for them to take their time. But the full text is available on the ConservativeHome website.
UK would be 'laughing stock' if HS2 does not go to Euston, says Sadiq Khan
And here are some more quotes from the Labour metro mayors who met in Leeds this morning to discuss HS2.
Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, said the UK would be a “laughing stock” if Rishi Sunak were to just build HS2 from Old Oak Common to Birmingham, as he is reportedly considering. Under this option, the HS2 journey from Birmingham to central London (ie Euston) would be slower than it is now, he said.
We will be a laughing stock if basically we are left with a shuttle service from Birmingham Curzon Street to six miles west of central London …
Only this government could potentially build a high-speed line that’s slower than a Victorian line.
Andy Burnham, the greater Manchester mayor, said regional leaders had been left “in the dark” by government as to what was happening. He said:
We’re in the dark. Clearly there are conversations going on but people in Whitehall don’t think that in the north, where these decisions will impact, they don’t think that we deserve to be told or even included in those conversations.
It is basically par for the course though isn’t it, it is the way this country is run. But they are getting a clear message back from us today and we’re glad the mayor of London is here to support us. Stop treating the people of the north of England as second-class citizens when it comes to transport.
Tracy Brabin, the West Yorkshire mayor, posted this on X/Twitter.
We stand together as mayors to urge the government to stop inflicting economic damage on our cities and the country. Gathering together in Leeds today, we say build HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail in full.
And Steve Rotheram, the Liverpool city region mayor, posted this on X/Twitter.
@MetroMayorSteve and mayors from across the country are calling on government to deliver HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail in full.
In the Liverpool City Region, NPR could generate:
£15bn of economic growth
24,000 jobs
1,000 homes
3.7 million visitors every year
Tory London mayoral candidate Susan Hall says HS2 should go all way to Euston
The Conservative London mayoral candidate, Susan Hall, has said she would “obviously prefer” HS2 to go ahead and run to London Euston instead of stopping in the city’s suburbs, but she “isn’t comfortable” with rising costs.
When asked if she wanted HS2 to stop at Old Oak Common stop, about six miles from Euston, as it would if Rishi Sunak abandons the Euston spur as he reportedly wants to on cost grounds, she replied:
No, it isn’t. And I want the [whole HS2] thing to go ahead. Of course I do.
But equally, the government have got to watch to see how much it’s costing and if they’re trying to negotiate now with everybody saying: ‘It doesn’t matter how much it costs, it’s got to go ahead’, it would put them in a difficult position.
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Sunak will put cohesion of UK at risk if he cancels phase 2 of HS2, Burnham says
Andy Burnham has said that Rishi Sunak will put the cohesion of the UK at risk if he cancels the second phase of HS2. Speaking from Leeds, where he has been meeting other Labour metro mayors, Burnham said:
If they build this line, not even from central London but outer London through the home counties to the West Midlands basically it will become a permanent symbol of the places that Whitehall cares about. It would be a huge message to the north of England that we just don’t feature in their thinking.
And honestly, I think it will build a real groundswell of opinion for people here to say: ‘No we’re just not having this anymore, we’re not having a country that is run like this.’
We deserve equal treatment here in the north with other parts of the country and seriously I think Whitehall are really risking the cohesion of the country if they don’t take a decision that is seen to be fair for everybody.
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Culture secretary Lucy Frazer refuses to say UK remains committed to staying part of UN refugee convention
In her interviews this morning Lucy Frazer, the culture secretary, defended what Suella Braverman said about multiculturalism in her immigration speech yesterday. Frazer said her colleague was “talking about was the importance of integrating people who come here into our communities, and I think that’s a really valid point”.
(In her speech, Braverman referred to the “misguided dogma of multiculturalism” and quoted approvingly from a speech given by Angela Merkel 13 years ago saying in Germany its approach to multiculturalism had failed.)
But Frazer repeatedly refused to say the government remains committed to staying in the UN refugee convention, which Braverman argued in her speech was no longer fit for purpose because it was drafted more than 70 years ago when global migration problems were very different.
Instead Frazer told Sky News:
I think that those conventions are really important, but I do think that it is … what [Braverman] was talking about is whether those sorts of conventions should be reformed.
And I do think that it is up to all countries to look at whether conventions that were signed a number of years ago are still, as they are interpreted today, whether they’re still doing the job that they were enacted to do.
Frazer is not in charge of government immigration policy and she probably knows as little about what the Conservative party will say about the UN refugee convention in its next manifesto as the rest of us. But she could have said that the UK has been party to the convention for decades, and that Braverman was just talking about reforming the convention, not leaving it. Instead, she sounded a bit more equivocal – perhaps because she is not sure where the debate on this in Tory circles will end up.
Here is the clip.
'Will the government commit to staying within the UN refugee convention?'@KayBurley asks @lucyfrazermp about the migrant crisis following the Home Secretary's speech branding illegal migration an 'existential challenge'.https://t.co/PAiZ4D1jU3
— Sky News (@SkyNews) September 27, 2023
📺 Sky 501 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/B8JJz415PA
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Lucy Frazer, the culture secretary, was at the wicket on behalf of No 10 on the morning programmes. Asked about HS2, she said whether or not to cancel the leg from Birmingham to Manchester was a decision for the chancellor and the PM, not for her. She said they were listening to people’s concerns. She told Sky News:
I’m sure the prime minister and the chancellor listen to a wide variety of voices.
But as you will know, it’s the responsibility of the government to keep all projects under consideration. And that’s what the chancellor is doing. He is, as he does on all matters which are spending billions of pounds of taxpayers’ funding, is looking at a whole range of projects to make sure that they are value for money.
Tory peer Gavin Barwell accuses Braverman of using 'language of far right' in her migration speech
We covered the criticism of Suella Braverman’s immigration speech in Washington at length yesterday, in the live blog and in our story.
Overnight more Conservatives have been speaking out. In her London Playbook briefing this morning Eleni Courea quotes several Tories from the one nation wing of the party expressing alarm about what she said. But they have spoken about anonymously, which says a lot about the relative timidity and impotence of the Tory left at the moment.
But one person who has been willing to criticise Braverman on the record is Gavin Barwell, Theresa May’s former chief of staff. He now sits in the House of Lords, which means he does not have to worry activists in his local Conservative association. In a post on Twitter, he said that it was unacceptable for Braverman to say that immigration posed an “existential challenge” to the west.
It’s ironic for her to say this given her background and the make up of the Government she is (regrettably) a member of, but it’s acceptable
What is unacceptable is the reference to migration being an “existential challenge”, which is undeniably the language of the far right
It's ironic for her to say this given her background and the make up of the Government she is (regrettably) a member of, but it's acceptable
— Gavin Barwell (@GavinBarwell) September 26, 2023
What is unacceptable is the reference to migration being an "existential challenge", which is undeniably the language of the far right https://t.co/GaVlJkGyeq
In a separate tweet, Barwell also said that the suggestion that immigrants don’t become full members of society (something Braverman suggested, although in this case he was responding to a tweet by a rightwing journalist) was “deeply offensive”.
What is the basis for the claim that many arrivals live a separate existence in a parallel society? I live in one of the most diverse parts of the country. You’re talking about my friends and neighbours. It is untrue and deeply offensive to suggest they’re not part of our society
What is the basis for the claim that many arrivals live a separate existence in a parallel society? I live in one of the most diverse parts of the country. You're talking about my friends and neighbours. It is untrue and deeply offensive to suggest they're not part of our society https://t.co/yobNHLnaHe
— Gavin Barwell (@GavinBarwell) September 26, 2023
Nicola Sturgeon joins those criticising decision to approve Rosebank oil and gas development in North Sea
Britain has given the go-ahead to develop the UK’s biggest untapped oilfield off the Shetland Islands, sparking outrage from environmental campaigners. Mark Sweney and Matthew Taylor have the story here.
Julia Kollewe has reaction to this on the business live blog.
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s former first minister, has joined those criticising the decision to let the development go ahead. She has posted this on X (formerly Twitter).
Agree with @CarolineLucas. Also, by consuming scarce resources that could be going to renewables, it risks slowing the green transition and the jobs that come from it. That’s not in interests of those who work in oil & gas - they need that transition to happen at pace #rosebank
Agree with @CarolineLucas. Also, by consuming scarce resources that could be going to renewables, it risks slowing the green transition and the jobs that come from it. That’s not in interests of those who work in oil & gas - they need that transition to happen at pace #rosebank https://t.co/tRwfy14V2i
— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) September 27, 2023
Caroline Lucas, the Green party MP, has called the decision “the greatest act of environmental vandalism” in her lifetime in the tweet Sturgeon is endorsing.
Cancelling phase 2 of HS2 would leave north of England with transport network ‘unfit for purpose’, say Labour mayors
Good morning. Governments are judged on the decisions they take. But they are also judged on how they take decisions (arguably nothing harmed Gordon Brown’s premiership more than his dithering over calling an election in 2007), and Rishi Sunak’s handling of the forthcoming HS2 announcement is becoming chaotic.
Aubrey Allegretti has written a good analysis of the problem. Here is an excerpt.
For nearly a fortnight, the fate of HS2 has hung in the balance. Far from seizing the agenda after plans to pare back the high-speed rail project emerged, Sunak has been accused by Conservative MPs of vacillating.
The void has spurred on critics and supporters of HS2 to fight even harder – compounding the difficulty of the situation for Sunak. And with talk of putting off a final decision until the autumn statement in November, government insiders know the row could intensify further.
The immovable event in front of them is the Conservative party conference, beginning on Sunday. With such a significant split running through the party, Sunak’s aides fear Tory MPs will be left squabbling over HS2 at fringe events.
HS2 has the power to become a dominating theme and to distract from the key aims of setting out his stall to voters before a general election and winning the confidence of Tory members who shunned him in last year’s leadership contest.
And here is the full article.
One compromise might be a long delay to the Birmingham to Manchester route, rather than wholesale cancellation. As Ben Quinn reports, the chair of the Northern Research Group of Conservative MPs (who want the full HS2) has signalled this might be acceptable.
Today Rishi Sunak is facing fresh lobbying on this from five Labour metro mayors. They are: Andy Burnham (Greater Manchester), Tracy Brabin (West Yorkshire), Oliver Coppard (South Yorkshire), Steve Rotheram (Liverpool city region) and Sadiq Khan (London).
The mayors are holding a meeting this morning and, ahead of it, they issued a joint statement saying they had been “inundated” with concerns from constituents about the potential “economic damage that will result from any decision not to proceed with HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) in full”. They said:
Investment in transport infrastructure is a huge driver of economic growth – creating jobs, increasing productivity and opening up new business opportunities. HS2 and NPR will deliver this right across our regions.
This government has said repeatedly that it is committed to levelling up in the Midlands and north. Failure to deliver HS2 and NPR will leave swathes of the north with Victorian transport infrastructure that is unfit for purpose and cause huge economic damage in London and the south, where construction of the line has already begun.
I will post more on this as the day goes on, as well as covering the backlash to the immigration speech given by Suella Braverman, the home secretary, yesterday.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Labour metro mayors meet in Leeds to discuss the threat to HS2.
11.15am: Helen Whately, the social care minister, gives a speech.
Noon: Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister, is questioned by the committee of convenors (Holyrood’s version of the Commons liaison committee).
If you want to contact me, do try the “send us a message” feature. You’ll see it just below the byline – on the left of the screen, if you are reading on a laptop or a desktop. This is for people who want to message me directly. I find it very useful when people message to point out errors (even typos – no mistake is too small to correct). Often I find your questions very interesting, too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either in the comments below the line; privately (if you leave an email address and that seems more appropriate); or in the main blog, if I think it is a topic of wide interest.
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