That may be, but the problem of ambiguity remains. And context doesn't help here, especially given that the UK also has some (ill-conceived) regulations on encryption entering into force.

The core logic of capitalism has always relied on competition between companies to drive efficiency. Monopolies, by their nature, stifle competition, and are therefore deprecated. Antitrust regulations have the explicit and open purpose of curtailing monopolies; there is no "quiet part".

The criticism here is not that striving for excellence is a bad thing. The criticism is that America does not strive for excellence, because so many of those in power believe that it is already the most excellent in the world and therefore has nothing to learn from anyone else.

Makes a change from Europeans having our data slurped by American companies without any of the actual protections that US citizens get.

Uh huh. And how do you explain the bankruptcies of Northamptonshire, Thurrock, and Woking councils? Which were Tory councils, BTW. I'm not saying that Birmingham City Council (or Croydon, or Slough) didn't make mistakes, but with councils from both main parties running into trouble, and an estimated 26 more on the brink of failing, this may not be the party political issue that you think it is.

I think you've perhaps misunderstood then. It is true that England is the only part of the UK where the district/borough council (the local authority) has to be distinguished from the county council, but this is only because Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland do not have county councils at all. But then, this is also true of parts of England as well, including Birmingham. I'd say that the whole point of the term "local authority" is to smooth over the differences between districts/boroughs (non-metropolitan and Northern Irish), unitary authorities (Welsh or otherwise), Scottish council areas, and metropolitan/London boroughs. Oh, and the City of London, which is it's own super funky thing.

To be clear, I was talking about carrier bags specifically, that being the context here. So allow me to rephrase: plastic carrier bags have not been replaced by paper ones, as the OP speculated. Other paper bags have of course always existed. Fast food, for example, usually comes in paper bags, and always has, so this is nothing to do with the carrier bag charge.

The beer can issue is again not bags, but it is new. However, I've not had problems with the new packaging of my favourite beers, so I guess that's just a McEwans problem.

In a word, no. Paper bags are still not a thing here in England.

It can happen like that, certainly. Banging on about the cost of something (while ignoring the wider benefits) is a simple and easy argument to make politically, while explaining the benefits is often more complex and it can be difficult for that to cut through to voters. However, I don't think this is necessarily inevitable; if a public service that is sufficiently well-loved, or even just taken for granted, then it can become unthinkable to abolish it. And of course, free at the point of use is a pretty damn strong draw. One can look at the road network for an example of this; even when the quality of the roads is allowed to slip, people do not go clamouring for toll roads as the fix, and in fact proposing tolls would be political suicide in most cases.

Yes, it would require the political will to fund it properly; going half-baked would probably result in the worst of both worlds. But it seems to me that any government that implements free public transport has already made the necessary shift in mindset to thinking of it as a public service, and that might just be enough to get it right.

Um, yes. "Free" public services means "free at the point of use and paid for by taxation instead". This is considered glaringly obvious enough that it need not be spelt out each time.

Probably, your bus routes got cut for being unprofitable. But then, as you kinda pointed out, these unprofitable routes are necessary for the network as a whole to function. So this is an area where market failure is more or less bound to happen. Zero-fares would remove the profit motive entirely and could free local governments to just design a complete and cohesive network that does serve everyone.

Unlikely. British public opinion has been broadly sympathetic to the recent strikes, and I doubt that Amazon are likely to be ones to turn that around.

1. The law on assisting or encouraging suicide is not changing, since that is already illegal. This is about extending that existing law to cover non-lethal self harm.

2. There would seem to be no realistic probability that Putin can be cyberbullied into committing suicide (if it were that easy, Ukraine would have likely already done it), so it's doubtful that any case would get far in the courts. And that's assuming anyone brought such a case, which is again improbable.

3. Would it actually be any great loss to free speech if Putin and his ilk were protected? I personally have found it rather easy to criticize Putin without having to resort to suggesting that he commit suicide, or self-harm in any other way. Indeed, I'd rather he live long enough to face trial for his war crimes and other atrocities.

It was, but was equalized fully to 16, at the turn of the millennium.

You can also "assault by penetration" and "causing sexaul activity without consent" to the list of not-technically-rape charges. All a bit of a mess, and too focused on penetration, IMO.