• Victory

No one’s won anything yet, however victory is judged.

Regarding Iraq, Bush famously delivered a speech in 2003 in front of a banner that said “Mission Accomplished.” What mission was that, exactly? Saddam was certainly out of the picture but, as events were to prove over the next eight years, nature abhors a vacuum. Something of the same hubris seems to be hanging over Trump’s remarks; to the extent that he’s accessible to hubris.

Regime change seems to be an aim, ideally accomplished from within. However, appointing the even more hard-line son of the previous incumbent doesn’t seem to be a sign of weakened resolve. Khamenei II is now doubtless on Washington’s shit-list as well: indeed on 11 March it was suggested that strikes have already injured him. There might be as many people in Iran who delight in the USA’s action as who are appalled by it. However, the latter are the ones in control of what’s clearly still a formidable adversary.

There’s also nothing like knocking off one and perhaps two leaders, however unpopular they were, to make many waverers become deeply patriotic. The fact that the country seems divided as to its situation also doesn’t bode well for how matters will be resolved. These opposing factions aren’t going to face off in a well conducted general election with the losers graciously giving way.

As regards future US involvements, in answer to a recent media question Trump interestingly described the conflict as “an excursion that will keep us out of a war.” An excursion? Does that translate as a special military operation, such as is still taking place in Ukraine? Truth is one of the first casualties of war but plain speaking is not far behind.

• An AI war

There’s also the question as to the extent that this conflict is being conducted by humans at all. The Ukraine-Russia war has relied on AI, and would have a good claim to be the first drone war. However the Iranian “excursion” is one that seems increasingly to be waged by bots, with humans asking questions afterwards.

This Washington Post article refers to the fact that the US has “leveraged the most advanced artificial intelligence it’s ever used in warfare, a tool that could be difficult for the Pentagon to give up even as it severs ties with the company that created it.” Trump has form with cosying up to, and then shunning, big-tech firms. Most of these conflicts have not been conducted in battlefield conditions. This one is. Anthropic’s AI tool Claude seems to be both on the Pentagon’s no-no list and essential to the “excursion”. How’s that going to get resolved?

There have been plenty of friendly-fire incidents, including this one in Belgrade in 1999. AI should, it’s argued, have solved this, right? Well, not entirely. The New York Times claims that the devastating strike on a school in Minab was the result of a “‘target misidentification’” — that forces had attacked the site without realizing that it might have had large numbers of civilians inside.” The error may have been caused by the fact that “the school at one point was part of the Revolutionary Guards’ naval base, according to satellite images from 2013”. AI is clearly either infallible nor always up to date.

The day may come when the AI bots can wage war with increasing accuracy and, perhaps, eventually without human involvement. It’s all to easy to see who’ll be the victims in this. If the bots can achieve an idea of agency and sentience – as, in a rather crude way, seems already to be happening – our only hope is if they also recognise that destroying, or killing, their own kind might be a crime worth stepping back from: not that humans are great at this.

Until and if that happens, we could be screwed. Meanwhile, we feed the beast every day by the AI’s bots scraping our websites and, every day, “learning” how to become more human. The word is in inverted commas because, of course, they can’t be human in the way that we can: just as we can’t be like them. Inestimable benefits in, for example, medical research have resulted from AI, so making us live longer. Huge problems await if we allow them to fight our wars for us, which will have the opposite effect…

• Mandygate

The appointment of Peter Mandelson as US Ambassador may rank as the most disastrous decision Starmer has made. This BBC article is headlined with “PM warned of ‘reputational risk’ over Mandelson’s Epstein links”. I think we could all have told him that. The appointment seems to have been “weirdly rushed”. Ditto.

The only defence for his appointment, which Number Ten hasn’t yet suggested, is that a known slippery operator who managed to combine Sarah Ferguson’s attitude to money, Jeffrey Epstein’s attitude to power and Boris Johnson’s attitude to truth was the best person to deal with the White House. The baggage that he brought was not, it seems, considered.

What’s interesting about this, as it was with Epstein and previous issues like the Panama Papers, is that the revelations are being dealt with not by any inquiry or due process but by the wholesale release of documents. Whether this quicker approach is better is a moot point.

• Old loyalties and hard choices

This article in The Week neatly summarises editorial coverage of the significant by-election victory in Gorton and Denton that would, in normal circumstances, have been reflected on for far longer.

It was, of course, a huge victory for the Greens and, to a slightly lesser extent, for Reform and a disaster for everyone else, so in general confirming respectively the trajectory and the position of the former two parties in the opinion polls. It also suggests, as someone quoted as being “an ex-Tory” remarked, “the old loyalties are now gone.”

It also suggests an issue that’s entirely the result of the behaviour of the two former main parties: by huddling together in the right-centre ground they’ve lost whatever constituency they previously held on the edges. Given the perceived failure of political action in the last ten years, this is where more and more people find themselves. Reform and the Greens are cashing in, recruiting members, getting votes and generally positioning themselves as a real alternative.

More significant, though, is the final sobering comment, excellently expressed by The New Statesman article that The Week quotes: it makes little difference who or which combination wins the next election: they’d soon all be hated as “fixing the country will involve taking hard decisions – and in those, the electorate is not much interested.” Nor, it seems, are the parties with their various “painless, fantasy prescriptions.” It is, the New Statesman author concludes, perhaps “a game with no prize.”

None the less, the game will be played and a prize will be won, or shared. Whether any of the new brooms prove to have shot their bolt too early and whether any of the old guard will be able to recover their ascendency remains to be seen. However, a bet on the result of the next general election – or even the next by-election – would seem to be a risky one.

• Net zero

A recent headline in the Telegraph (which, like me, you probably won’t be able to read unless you subscribe) tells us that “Net zero to cost Britain more than £125bn this decade – Green energy transition will only start to deliver annual savings around 2040, report finds.” Not being able to go much further than this I didn’t discover what view tha author had formed of this matter: but I could guess.

The first point that struck me is that, if this is a net cost of investment for the country, then for something on this scale and this important it doesn’t seem so much. It’s only slightly more than HS2, for example.

I then wondered how much it would cost us if we did nothing in this area. An email to someone who knows a lot more on this than I do resulted in a link to the Climate Change Committee website. This suggested that the cost of inaction could easily come to the same sort of sum (and would probably get steadily more expensive). To this much be added an estimated £30bn a year of reduced energy losses from a fully net-zero system compared to what we have now. Expressing this another way, “for every pound spent on net zero, the benefits outweigh this by 2.2 to 4.1 times.”

A crude and brief investigation. There’s obviously a not more nuance than I’ve suggested. However, in financial terms the case appears to make sense. Of course it will be challenging and difficult and there’ll be losers along the way. However, as is becoming increasingly claer to most people, if we do nothing then we’ll all be losers.

• And finally…

• The BBC reports that teams of Ukrainian military experts have been sent to the Gulf to help del with the drone attacks, Zelensky claiming Ukraine had “the greatest experience in the world in countering attack drones.” Quite possibly it does. Asa means of getting support, of course, it’s pretty smart.

• Speaking of which, I was listening to The Law Show on BBC R4 in the car this afternoon and learned that 400,000 drones were bought in the UK last year: at least, that’s the official figure. There are like to me more, with Amazon announcing in January that it’s testing drone deliveries. There’s now a Drone Code that users are meant to adhere to which involves an online multiple-choice exercise similar to the theory part of a driving test and registration of the devices. The presenter of the programme had had hers delivered (not by drone) within 24 hours and for under £20. Did this, the show’s expert asked, have any information about this? “Nope,” she replied.

He also reveals that you can’t, or at least shouldn’t, shoot them down if they’re annoying you as (a) under the legislation they’re regarded as aircraft; (b) as you can’t determine the motive of the visit from an inanimate object; and (c) if you do so and the debris hits someone then you’re to blame. Of course, most people in the UK don’t have guns – yet. What a shame if the desire to shoot down intrusive drones, or hijack  interesting cargo destined for neighbours, should lead to an increase in weapon ownership.

• Thanks goodness the government has finally voted to get rid of the heriditary peers in the Lords, after a bit of horse trading which involved some of the better ones to be given life peerages. I haven’t looked at it in detail but I do very much hope that the bishops are going to go as well.

• Poor New Zealand: runners-up once again in a major cricket competition. India are the team to beat in the men’s game at present: which makes a change from Australia.

• With a record six clubs in the Champions League last 16, English clubs might have expected more than two draws and four chastening defeats (two points out if a possible eighteen) in the first legs. This article on Sporting Agenda’s website takes a look at this sudden seeming fall from grace. I suspect that only Arsenal and Liverpool will progress to the next round. Mind you, I’m usually wrong…

Across the area

• Community-led housing

The March 2026 edition of the Connecting Communities in Berkshire (CCB) newsletter has just arrived and you can read it here. This organisation does exactly what says on the tin. As its website puts it, it is “knowledgeable and experienced in finding solutions that best meet the needs of communities…developing partnerships that foster good communications, which in turn build engagement and deliver strong, sustainable communities.”

Any parish council, village hall, community group or charity is strongly advised to keep an eye on its website and sign up for its monthly bulletins. The aims that it espouses are now more important than ever.

This is particularly the case with rural housing, particularly at the affordable end of the scale. As we, and CCB, have considered before, there are a number of challenges at present which are combining in an unwelcome way.

• Many social-housing providers are divesting themselves of properties which, probably in that community and possibly even in the district, are then lost to the social-housing sector.
• Construction and compliance costs have increased.
• Most commercial developers constantly strive to reduce the number of (comparatively unprofitable) homes they’re compelled to build.
• There’s a disconnect between what and where developers do build, what and where housing associations dispose of properties and the actual needs of the communities.

All of this has led to an alarming reduction in the number of social-rent homes in Berkshire, including West Berkshire, and particularly in rural areas. CCB is in the process of compiling information on the exact numbers.

Knowing the figures is one thing. What can be done about it? Fortunately, the CCB newsletter has an article on this very point.

One solution which is (unlike those listed above) within the power of local communities to realise involves community land trusts (CLTs) and/or rural exception sites (RESs). In very general summary, these permit sites which would not normally be considered for development to be approved, providing that a local need is established and an ownership and tenancy structure created which will retain them for the the social-rent market and, in the case of CLTs, also for the permanent benefit of that community.

CCB’s Rural Housing Enabler, Maria Kelly, described how she had recently attended a meeting run by the Stonesfield Community Trust in nearby Oxfordshire to discuss CLTs.

“We explored how groups can work better together to deliver a growing potential pipeline of community-led homes,” she wrote, “particularly in rural areas where finding suitable land and traditional housing associations to develop homes can be difficult.” She went on to explain how such initiatives “can ensure that housing and other assets are available to the community in perpetuity and cannot be sold off privately or otherwise lost.”

There are several important points from this. The first is that, like anything to do with the planning system, we’re dealing with a process-driven system. Various tasks like a housing needs survey to establish demand and a survey of possible sites to establish availability need to be done, and in the right way. Expert help is needed and CCB can provide it.

The second is that even if a housing association owns, builds or acquires a property in your village, there’s no guarantee that it will not be sold off as a private residence. This approach will prevent that from happening.

The third is that the age (which started with the Atlee government’s post-war reforms) where the system would provide what we need is coming to an end. Whether it’s dentists or social care, pensions or health provision, if we want or need something we increasingly have to source it ourselves. The same goes for affordable housing. If a community needs this and expects that the current arrangements will provide it then it will almost certainly be disappointed. They can, however help themselves.

If you’re interested in finding out more about this issue and how CCB can help plot a path through the system to achieve the result your community needs, contact maria.kelly@ccberks.org.uk. For those outside Berkshire, similar organisations with the same broad goals exist as part of the ACRE network – click here for more information.

• River work

On 4 March, Reading West and Mid Berkshire MP, Olivia Bailey wrote to Matthew Pennycook, the Minister for Planning to welcome “the first ever” recognition for chalk streams like the River Pang and River Kennet in national planning guidance.

“Alongside the action the government is already taking,” she said, “through the Water (Special Measures) Act to get tough on polluting water companies and the action plan set out in the Water White Paper, the recognition within the draft National Planning Policy Framework of their environmental value is a step towards ensuring that chalk streams like the Pang and the Kennet are able to thrive.”

On reading this, our first port of call was to Action from the River Kennet (an organisation that the MP had praised in her statement) to ask for its views. It seems that the situation isn’t quite as rosy as Olivia Bailey says.

As we mentioned last week, ARK has also shared with us its opinion on Channel 4’s docu-drama Dirty Business, which you can read here.

• Fallibility

Few people believe that they can influence decisions made by our national governments easily, or at all. The stark in/out choice comes every four or five years: otherwise, it’s a case of lobbying departments or the MP to get problems changed or at least recognised.

I’m seeing an example of how hard this is with the way that the injustice of the way Community Infrastructure Levy charges are applied is slowly elevating itself up Westminster’s priority list as a result of concerted and focussed pressure from campaigners.

In local government, the connections between the decision-makers and the decided-upon are far closer. The decisions are usually less serious but can – as in the case of CIL, or a  SEND provision – have life-changing results. However, we can with reason expect that the local council has our interests, rather then those of the government or any other third-party, at heart when it makes decisions.

I mention no particular council, at this stage. However, promises are made to communities which are not adhered to and decisions are made which seem to bear no relation to the reality suggested by outsiders. The result is exactly the perceived disconnect between the rulers and the ruled about which the latter so frequently complain.

It’s easy to talk about the need for systemic reform or cultural change. These phrases, however, contain the seeds of their own downfall. They imply a long time period, during which either people will have forgotten what had happened or a new administration will have arrived who will blame the complex or moral failings on their predecessors – and so we go again…

Far more effective would be for councils to admit, right now, that they’re fallible, as are those at the level up from them.

It’s hard to say “we screwed up – we’re human – we’ll do better”: but, boy, does it feel good afterwards. You also then have a moral high-ground which all but your most venomous detractors will be hard-pressed to attack further. It bemuses me that this phrase isn’t used more often.

What we all to often have, however, is one of four things: an assumption of omniscience and absolute rectitude by those who hold power; a refusal to accept that any decision could have been flawed given the processes in place and the people operating them; a lack of recognition that anything that comes from outside the bubble is worthy of consideration; or a denial that anything unwelcome has happened at all.

The reactions to these end up in the basket of corporate defensiveness, when an organisation raises the drawbridge rather than trying to build bridges.

It would do no harm for councils to admit that the systems they administer, particularly with regard to matters such as social care, highways and planning, are both underfunded and highly regulated. They could admit that they turn the handle and a result is produced. Whether this result accords with everyone’s, or perhaps anyone’s, desires or interets is unlikely and often beyond the operator’s control. We could then turn our minds to how the machinery could be made to work better.

There’s also no admission that there’s a human element in all these decisions: that over-worked and often under-financed departments, and effectively unpaid local councillors who oversee the whole thing, sometimes make mistakes. So too do those in Westminster and Whitehall, admissions of error from whom are even more rare

Something needs to change if we’re going to have our faith restored in how the complex apparatus of democracy works. I’m not sure how we get there but recent experience suggests that a re-boot is needed. This, however, requires no revolution – merely a bit more honesty about its fallibility. Is that too much to expect from the people whom we have, at whatever level, elected?

• The case for Ridgeway

As mentioned last week, West Berkshire (WBC), the Vale and South Oxfordshire have put out statements making the case for the proposed amalgamation of the three authorities as a new Ridgeway unitary (single-tier) authority. This is in response to the government’s local government reorganisation which (rightly) wants to abolish the two-tier system that currently prevails in Oxfordshire, though not in Berkshire.

WBC, although already a unitary, has got involved in this process because it sees this union as being in its best interests (other views exist). It would also satisfy another government objective, that all unitary authorities have a population of at least about 500,000. WBC is currently about 170,000 and the three together (assuming the current boundaries are retained) would be about 470,000.

There are currently three proposals: the two-unitary with the above-mentioned Ridgeway and the rest of the Oxfordshire councils combining to form a second unitary; the three-unitary, which is as this but with an enlarged Oxford City Council remaining separate; and a single unitary council for the whole of Oxfordshire, which would leave WBC unchanged. The first is favoured by all the districts except Oxford City and WBC; the second by Oxford City; and the third by Oxfordshire CC.

The above-mentioned statement looks at how certain key services would be changed and provided (or, as the municipal language puts it, reimagined and delivered). The assumption that runs through all of these is that Ridgeway would small enough to be responsive but large enough to be efficient.

Other views exist and yours may be one of them. Whatever your opinion, have your say in this government consultation by 26 March.

• Fly-tipping

Defra has recently released statistics for reported cases of fly-tipping. It’s possible to drill down to local-authority level: doing so tells us that West Berkshire hd 1,043 incidents in 2024-25. These are, as you might have seen them described elsewhere, the “latest figures” as published by Defra but they do not relate to the latest year.

More recent and provisional figures are, however, available from WBC. These appear to support the Council’s recent claim that fly-tipping “has not increased and has instead shown a small decrease” following the introduction of the three-weekly black-bin collections in September 2025, with only fairly and statistically insignificant changes for Q1-3 of 2025-26 compared to the previous year. However, a different picture may emerge as more data is published by Defra.

It would also be worth knowing if other authorities that made significant alterations to their collection arrangements saw any change in reported cases of fly tipping.

“We continue to respond proactively to fly-tipping,” a spokesperson for WBC said. “Enforcement capacity has been strengthened through the recruitment of a dedicated Waste Enforcement Officer, alongside ongoing education work with residents on duty‑of‑care responsibilities. Partnership activity with the Environment Agency and Thames Valley Police is also increasing, including recent joint operations such as stop‑and‑search activity in Thatcham. We cannot share details of any live cases until they conclude, but outcomes will be published when appropriate.”

• Rubbish and recycling

West Berkshire Council says that it is “celebrating some of its best recycling results ever, following the move to three weekly black bin collections back in September 2025.” Several of the figures suggest that there may well be a connection between these two things: comparing the most recent reporting period (I presume Q4 of 2025, the first one following the change) with the same period in 2024, black-bin waste has fallen by 15%, dry recycling has increased by 6% and food-waste recycling by 22%. Allof these are the desired direction of travel.

As mentioned above, fly-tipping does not appear to have increased either although a clearer picture will need to await Defra’s confirmation. Bettwe still, the service “is expected to exceed its £150,000 savings target. While final figures are still being confirmed, savings for 2025/26 are estimated to be around £280,000 after implementation costs and expected to rise to approximately £488,000 in 2026/27.”

More information can be found in this report.

The matter will be looked at more closely by WBC’s Resources and Place Scrutiny Committee next week which should tease out some more information. How if these figures survive the examination then it would appear to be an impressive result.

Some, however, feel that the arrangements don’t work for them: if this describes you, click here to see how WBC may be able to help. For many more, the changes were slightly irksome and irritating, particularly if you get confused about the collection day. An element of behaviour-nudging (which can often be unwelcome) was also involved with people being asked to change decades-old habits and spend a little more time on sorting their waste. This seems a reasonable thing for a council to be doing if the goals (the main one being less food waste being put in the black bins) are laudable.

In any case, councils can’t win. If they tell us what to do they’re accused of being high-handed: if they don’t do anything they’re accused of being  lazy. As long as the figures continue to go in the right direction then WBC seems to have got this initiative right.

• News from your local councils