Ninety-Eight Centimetres of War

Here we are again. There are certain things you expect a county council to spend three years on. A bypass. A pothole that has achieved heritage status. What you do not expect is a legal war over a 98 centimetre gap in a garden wall in Matlock. And yet here we are. Helene Ball, 81, who has lived on George Road since 1967, has just won. The council cemented a metal fence panel across the gate her family had used since the sixties. A tribunal has now said, in the calm language of people who bill by the hour, that she had a right of way all along.

Derbyshire County Council did this in April 2023 because the car park on the other side was going up for sale as a small housing site. Block the gap, tidy the asset, hope the retired teacher gets bored. She did not. The fence panel came out within a year. The vehicle access did not. For the rest of the fight she was left threading a route the council later marked with concrete blocks, which is the civic equivalent of being invited back to the party and asked to sit on a breeze block.

The judge, Robert Brown, found some of the council’s evidence surprisingly combative, totally irrelevant and most unhelpful. That is legal-speak for “please stop.” Costs: £50,000, to be paid by the council, which has declined to say what the whole performance actually cost. Helene, a retired teacher of nine, ten and eleven-year-olds, said she never expected the council to act so babyish. When a woman who has marked spelling tests for a living calls your strategy childish, you should sit down.

I do not doubt that car parks need selling and housing needs building. I do doubt that the fastest route there is to concrete someone into their own garden and then argue about the 1960s. If your official process is a metal panel and a three-year wait, people will invent a smaller, louder one and take it to a tribunal. They have. A right of way is now written down. The gap is a gap again.

If your own wall is feeling insecure, Amazon will sell you a wooden garden gate. It will not stop a council with a sale board. It will at least be a gate, which is more than Matlock was offered for a while.

Britain is very good at this. We can map a county to the nearest centimetre and still lose a decade arguing about a hole in a wall. Ninety-eight centimetres. Remember that the next time a press officer says they were only trying to be helpful.

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[PODCAST] How to End the Drought

The latest Steve N Allen (almost) Daily is up. This one is called How to End the Drought, which is a bold title for a country that treats a hosepipe ban as both a national emergency and a personality test. Plus the other news nuggets that would not sit still long enough for a newspaper column.

If your lawn has gone the colour of a Rich Tea and you are still waiting for a minister to invent rain, have a listen. If you would rather take matters into your own hands, Amazon will sell you a watering can. It will not end the drought. It will make you look busy.

Have a listen below. If the player misbehaves, the same episode is on Spotify, Apple and the usual suspects. Watch on YouTube, read the Substack, email me@mrstevenallen.co.uk, or tip the host on Ko-fi if the dry spell has left you feeling generous.

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The Council That Missed by a Whisker

There are certain things you expect a district council to fall out with Whitehall over. Bin collections. A bypass that has been “imminent” since the Silver Jubilee. What you do not expect is a High Court case about seven tenths of one per cent. And yet here we are, in Worcestershire, where Wychavon has been told it is “not delivering” because 10.7% of its refused housing schemes later won on appeal. The official limit is 10%. The difference is the sort of margin you would ignore on a bathroom scale and then think about for the rest of the day.

The punishment, handed down in June, stripped councillors of the right to vote on big planning applications. Officers decide instead. The council calls this outrageous. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government says it wants homes and infrastructure built quicker for local people, which is government speak for “please stop saying no.” A two-day hearing is booked for December. Wychavon wants a precedent. Whitehall wants houses. The lawyers want lunch.

The council’s argument is that the government used the wrong window. Look at the year to March, they say, and the figure drops to 5.2%. Use that, and they are model pupils. Use 2023 to 2025, and they are rogues by the width of a planning notice. It is the civic version of being banned from the pub because of a round you bought two summers ago.

Fair enough, the country needs homes. Fair enough, some planning committees treat every new roof as a personal insult. But taking the vote away from elected people because a statistic wobbled over a line drawn at a nice round ten is the sort of precision that makes your brain itch. We cannot find a dentist, but we can measure Worcestershire to one decimal place.

If you are founding a breakaway planning committee of your own, Amazon will sell you a gavel. It will not restore your scheme of delegation. It will make a nice noise when the 10.7 comes in.

I do not expect the judges to settle the housing crisis in two days in December. I do expect someone to leave court explaining that 10.7 is basically 10 if you squint. Britain has always been good at this: when the official process feels deaf, we invent a smaller, louder one and give it a barrister. Point seven of a per cent. Remember that the next time a minister says they are only asking you to play your part.

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[Vid] Almost Nightly: Grounded, Tackled, Banned

The latest live stream is up, and it is the usual pile-up of British news that would not wait its turn. In this one: UK flights cancelled, a flasher tackled, and someone mili-banned. Plus the other headlines that wandered into the studio and refused to leave.

If you were one of the hundreds of thousands staring at a departure board that had given up, this is your recap with jokes attached. If you would rather stay grounded on purpose, Amazon will sell you a neck pillow for the next time Nats has a technical moment.

Watch the stream below. If the player sulks, the same video is on YouTube at youtube.com/@mrstevenallen. Tip the host on Ko-fi if the cancelled-flight energy feels familiar.

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Pulse of the Nation

There was a time when the great battles of the school dinner were about whether you had to eat the skin on the custard. Now the Department for Education has decided the real crisis is deep fat. Not the kitchens that still look like 1987. Not the twelve year old who can smell a Greggs from the ring road. No. The menace is a chip that has met oil.

This is, we are told, the biggest shake-up of school food in England in more than a decade. From September 2027, primary schools will have to serve pulses such as lentils and chickpeas with a main meal at least once a week. Deep fried food is out. Chips may remain, but only if they have been baked, which is the culinary equivalent of being invited to a party and then sat in the hallway. Cake drops to once a week in primary and twice in secondary, and it must arrive with fruit, as if a slice of sponge becomes a vitamin the moment an orange sits next to it.

Breakfast clubs get their first proper rules too. Fried eggs and pastries off the menu. Cereals face a sugar cap, which is government speak for Coco Pops having a quiet word with HR. Schools must publish their menus online. Lucy Powell called the changes once in a generation. That is a lot of weight for a chickpea to carry.

The idea is simple. A third of children leave primary school overweight. Tooth decay is still the main reason five to nine year olds end up in hospital. Fair enough. Nobody is campaigning for more waffles as public policy. But compulsory lentils have the same energy as banning biscuits for adults. It sounds noble. The only guaranteed outcome is a thriving black market in smuggled sausage rolls and a generation who can spot a pulse at twenty paces and walk the other way.

Ministers promise the meals will be exciting. Schools minister Georgia Gould even said lentils are tasty, which is the sort of sentence that should be stress tested on a Year 8 before it leaves the building. If you would like to practise the new national dish at home, Amazon will sell you a kilo of red split lentils.

I do not doubt the fibre figures. I do doubt that a baked chip and a published menu will fix what happens after half three, when the same child meets a corner shop. Still, at least we have a timetable. Primaries first. Secondaries by 2028. Plenty of time for the lentil to become a personality, and for the rest of us to remember that we once survived school dinners that were brown, wet, and somehow still called stew.

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[PODCAST] Tom Cruise Knows He’s Annoying

The latest Steve N Allen (almost) Daily is up, and it is the usual mix of the important, the royal and the slightly unhinged. In this one: the UK pension is failing, a prince saves Dartmoor, Tom Cruise knows he is annoying, and AI needs a kill switch. Plus the other news nuggets that would not sit still long enough for a newspaper column.

If you have ever watched a Mission: Impossible press tour and thought, yes, that man is aware of the effect he is having, this episode is for you. If you would rather rewind to when he was merely hanging off a plane, Amazon still has Top Gun: Maverick.

Have a listen below. If the player misbehaves, the same episode is on Spotify, Apple and the usual suspects. Watch on YouTube, read the Substack, email me@mrstevenallen.co.uk, or tip the host on Ko-fi if the pension news left you feeling generous.

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Piddington Leaves the UK (Sort Of)

There are certain things you expect a British village to vote on. The colour of the new benches. Whether the fete tombola can include homemade gin. What you don’t expect is a referendum on leaving the United Kingdom. And yet here we are, in a place called Piddington, which has just declared itself a principality with the sort of confidence normally reserved for people who’ve had two pints and found a laminator.

Residents of the Oxfordshire village, population about 350, were invited to post a slip in a box outside the village hall. The question was whether Piddington should secede from the UK. Of 312 votes, 285 said yes, 26 said no, and one person spoiled the paper, which is the most British form of diplomacy available when you can’t decide between rage and a sit-down.

The spark is a Home Office plan to house up to 1,256 male asylum seekers at nearby MoD Bicester. That’s roughly four proposed residents for every villager, or, if you prefer the official version, a site “designed to be largely self-sufficient to minimise any impact on the local community.” Which is government-speak for “please stop looking at the numbers.”

There is, of course, no legal mechanism for a parish council to leave the country. You can’t opt out of Britain the way you opt out of a gym membership, though plenty of us have tried both and still get the emails. The vote is symbolic. That hasn’t stopped a “Principality of Piddington” sign appearing on the boundary, which is how all the best micronations start: with laminated card and a very firm tone of voice.

That hasn’t stopped a “Principality of Piddington” sign appearing on the boundary, which is how all the best micronations start: with laminated card and a very firm tone of voice. If you are founding a breakaway state before tea, Amazon will sell you the laminator.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told breakfast television the government would not reconsider. Fair enough. If every village that objected to a planning decision got its own foreign office, we’d have more ambassadors than buses, and the buses still wouldn’t come.

Still, you have to admire the commitment. They’ve got a campaign song. They’ve got a pennant. They’re “the village that roars,” apparently, which is a lot to live up to when the next item on the parish agenda is probably the grit bin. Britain has always been good at this: when the official process feels deaf, we invent a smaller, louder one and give it a flag.

I don’t expect the UN to be taking calls from Piddington this afternoon. But in a week of inflation figures and “challenging” budgets, there is something very us about a village-hall box, a 92 per cent turnout, and the quiet hope that if you print the word Principality big enough, someone in Whitehall might finally look up.

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Banning Kids (from the Internet)

There was a time when the great moral panics of Britain involved things like video nasties, satanic messages hidden in rock albums, or whether showing an ankle on television before 9pm would bring down civilisation. Now the government has decided the real threat to the nation’s youth is… scrolling. Not drugs, not gangs, not the fact that half of them can’t afford a house unless they marry into the Royal Family. No, the big menace is thumbs moving too freely on a screen.

The latest plan, floated with the confidence of a minister who hasn’t spoken to an actual teenager since dial‑up, is to ban under‑16s from using social media altogether. According to the political mood music, the House of Lords is already on board, the Commons is warming up, and within a year we could see “highly effective age checks” rolled out across every platform. Because if there’s one thing the internet is famous for, it’s people telling the truth about their age.

The idea is simple: protect children from doomscrolling, online bullying, and the kind of algorithmic rabbit holes that can turn a perfectly normal 14‑year‑old into someone who thinks the moon landing was faked by lizard people. And fair enough, the online world is a mess. But banning teens from social media is like banning adults from biscuits. It sounds noble, but the only guaranteed outcome is a thriving black market in Bourbons.

We’re told this is all about wellbeing. Ministers speak solemnly about “addictive design features”, as if TikTok is a nicotine patch with dance routines. They promise “rapid implementation”, which is government‑speak for “we’ll get to it right after we’ve finished fixing the potholes, the NHS, and the economy”. Meanwhile, parents are being reassured that the state will finally step in and do what they’ve been trying to do for years: stop their children from staring at a glowing rectangle long enough to remember what their family looks like.

But here’s the problem. Teenagers are better at technology than the people trying to regulate it. These are kids who can jailbreak a phone faster than a minister can say “consultation period”. They can set up VPNs, burner accounts, and entire digital identities before breakfast. If the government thinks a ban will keep them offline, it might want to have a quiet word with Australia, where a similar policy has mostly resulted in teenagers becoming experts in circumventing Australia.

And then there’s the philosophical question: if you ban under‑16s from social media, who will teach the rest of us what the latest memes mean? Without teenagers, the cultural timeline collapses. Middle‑aged people will be wandering around saying “slay” in the wrong context. Society will crumble.

Still, the government insists it’s acting “in months, not years”. Which is impressive, because that’s roughly the same timeframe in which a teenager can create a new account, get banned, create another, and become a micro‑influencer. If nothing else, this policy will give young people a valuable lesson in bureaucracy: no matter how fast you are, the government will always be at least three steps behind.

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When Is Oat Milk Not Milk?

I’ve often wondered what keeps the highest legal minds in the land busy. I assumed it was weighty matters of constitutional importance or deciding who actually owns the rights to a "no-score-draw." It turns out, the UK Supreme Court has spent its week meticulously defining the word "milk."

The Swedish company Oatly has just lost a long-running legal battle with Dairy UK. It’s all over Oatly’s attempt to trademark the slogan "Post Milk Generation." The Supreme Court has ruled that they can't have it. Why? Because under a bit of assimilated EU law, the kind we kept just for the nostalgia, presumably, the word "milk" is a protected "designation."

To qualify as milk in the eyes of the law, the liquid must be a "normal mammary secretion." I don’t know about you, but that’s not a phrase I want to see on a café menu. "Would you like some normal mammary secretions in your Americano, sir? Or are you more of a squeezed-grain-water person?" It doesn’t exactly scream "luxury lifestyle." Nothing says ‘refreshing beverage’ like a phrase that sounds like it belongs in a vet’s report.

Dairy UK, the trade association for people who deal in secretions, argued that using the word "milk" in any context for a non-dairy product is "oblique and obscure." They’re worried we’re all so dim that if we see the words "Post Milk Generation" on a carton of oat drink, we’ll immediately think, "Ah, finally! Milk that comes from a post!"

The judges agreed. They said the slogan doesn’t "clearly" describe the product as being milk-free. Instead, they said it describes the consumers, specifically a younger generation who are "concerned" about dairy. So, you can be a "Post Milk" person, you just can't drink a "Post Milk" drink.

It’s the kind of institutional logic that makes your brain itch. The court even came up with a hypothetical analogy: a "Post Alcohol Generation" drink. They said that wouldn't clearly tell you if the drink was alcohol-free or just low-alcohol. I’d argue that if I’m in a "Post Alcohol" phase of my life, the last thing I want is a drink that’s "obliquely" trying to get me hammered.

What’s truly magnificent is the selective nature of the ban. Oatly is banned from using the trademark on food and drink, but they are allowed to keep it on their T-shirts. Apparently, the law assumes that while you might accidentally drink a T-shirt thinking it’s a pint of semi-skimmed, the risk is statistically low enough to be permitted.

We’re living in a world where the government can't fix a pothole or find a bin man who works on Tuesdays, but we have five Supreme Court justices, Lords Hamblen and Burrows among them, spent months ensuring that your oat juice doesn’t get ideas above its station.

It’s about "fair competition," apparently. Because nothing says "fair" like the massive dairy industry using international regulations to bully a Swedish company over a three-word slogan.

If we’re going to be this pedantic, we need to go all the way. I want "Coconut Milk" rebranded as "Tropical Nut Sweat." I want "Milk of Magnesia" renamed "Chalky Tummy Slurry." And let’s not even get started on "The Milky Way." If there isn't a giant cow floating in the vacuum of space, I’m calling the Intellectual Property Office.

But don’t worry, as a middle-aged man whose knees make a noise like a bag of crisps every time I stand up, I’m clearly not part of the "Post Milk Generation" anyway. I’m part of the "Could Really Use a Sit Down" generation.

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This New Year, DO NOT RESOLVE!

Happy New Year. Or, as I like to call it, the week we all collectively agree to lie to ourselves.

Every January 1st, we decide that the version of us that’s been fueled by cheese boards and cheap Prosecco for three weeks is suddenly going to become an Olympic-level athlete. We sign up for the gym, a place that, for the rest of the year, is just a building we walk past while feeling slightly guilty and we buy enough kale to fill a compost heap.

The New Year’s resolution is a fascinating scam because we are both the con artist and the mark. We tell ourselves, “This is the year I learn Mandarin,” when we haven’t even mastered the art of putting the laundry away in the same week it was washed.

The gyms love it, of course. Their entire business model relies on you paying for a year-long membership in a moment of madness and then never showing up again. You’re essentially paying a monthly fee for the right to say, “I really should go to the gym,” which is a very expensive form of self-flagellation.

By February, the kale has turned into a liquid at the bottom of the fridge, and the only "running" we’re doing is running out of excuses. But don't worry, next year will be different. We'll tell ourselves the same lie, and we’ll believe it again. It’s the ultimate triumph of hope over experience.

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Crocodile Not Dundee: Britain’s Latest Wildlife Panic

There are certain things you expect to find in a British canal. Shopping trolleys. Traffic cones. The occasional rogue sofa. What you don’t expect is a crocodile. And yet, here we are.

Local police recently issued what they described as their “strangest appeal ever” after reports of a crocodile lurking in a Derbyshire canal. Not exactly the tropical climate they’re used to, unless the reptile was drawn by the promise of Greggs and a decent pint.

Naturally, the public did what the British public does best in moments of crisis: they panicked, speculated wildly, and posted blurry photos online. One image showed what looked suspiciously like a log with commitment issues. Another was clearly a discarded inflatable from someone’s stag do. But facts never get in the way of a good urban legend.

Plus, be it a croc or a stag do, you’re happy if you can avoid it on your night out.

The police, to their credit, took the matter seriously. They issued a statement urging caution and asking anyone with information to come forward. Presumably they were hoping for a local zookeeper, or at least someone who’s watched more than three episodes of Steve Irwin: Croc Files. Instead, they got a wave of TikTokers turning up with drones, fishing rods, and one bloke dressed as Bear Grylls who tried to wrestle a traffic cone.

Also, well done to the fishing rod guy. I wish I had that level of misplaced self-confidence.

It’s moments like these that remind you just how British our approach to danger really is. America gets alligators in swimming pools and responds with helicopters and SWAT teams. We get a rumoured crocodile in a canal and respond with sarcasm, disbelief, and a petition to name it “Colin.”

Is that because we Brits are so different to the Americans, or is that one of the differences between crocodiles and alligators? Alligators swim in fresh water, whereas crocodile illicit a piss-taking response.

Of course, the crocodile turned out to be a hoax. Or a misidentification. Or possibly a hallucination brought on by too much WKD Blue. The police concluded there was “no credible evidence” of a reptilian menace. Which is a relief, unless you’re the crocodile, in which case it’s a bit of a snub. Which is also one of the differences with an alligator.

But the story raises important questions. Like: why do we keep imagining exotic animals in British settings? We’ve had panthers in Cornwall, wallabies in Cumbria, and now crocodiles in Dudley. It’s as if the nation collectively decided that Countryfile wasn’t spicy enough.

Every few years people say there’s a lion on the loose in Essex and it’s always a normal ginger cat sat a bit closer than the photographer realised.

Maybe it’s escapism. Or maybe we just really want to believe that our canals are more exciting than they are. After all, if you’ve ever walked along one, you’ll know they’re mostly just damp corridors for joggers and ducks with attitude.

Still, I say let’s lean in. Let’s embrace the madness. Next time someone spots a giraffe in Grimsby or a kangaroo in Kent, let’s not question it. Let’s give it a name, a backstory, and a Twitter account. Because in a world full of grim headlines, sometimes you need a crocodile in a canal to remind you that Britain is still gloriously, eccentrically bonkers.

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One In, One Out, One Back In...

It’s a fun story, if only mathematically. An asylum seeker who was sent back to France under the “one in, one out” scheme has come back to Britain in a small boat.

It raises some interesting questions. Does it mean that the guy who came over here as part of his “one in, one out” now has to go back? Is there a “one out, one in” clause?

If he now gets deported again do we have to take another one back in return? That’s the biggest worry because it would then be possible to have one guy going to and from France and that could slowly empty the nation. Maybe that’s why France was willing to sign this deal. They had a guy who was willing to keep making the trip.

The scheme wasn’t looking great anyway. It was a slow start with very low numbers. It is only a pilot scheme and for a while it was true that it had sent more pilots to France than deportees. For a while, due to rules about people coming to the UK being able to bring family, there were more people who had come into this country than had left. That, in itself, may not be a problem, but it was called “one in, one out”. Even someone scraping a D at GCSE Maths can work out what ratio stats we should expect.

It seems that no one had planned for this eventuality. That’s almost the biggest sin. How could they not have seen this coming? If there is one thing we know about people who travel illegally from France who are then returned to France, they know how to travel illegally from the place they have just been sent to.

It was bad timing, politically. This news broke on the same day the number of migrant arrivals via the English Channel so far this year passed the total for the whole of 2024. And it’s not even Christmas, even though you’d never know that if you look in shops.

It’s a running total of 36,886, beating last year’s 36,816. Maybe it won’t go higher than that if Storm Benjamin can be persuaded to stick around till January.

The man who came back to the UK said it was because he didn’t feel safe in France. There’s a bit to unpack there. Does he feel safer in the UK? Has he seen all the news about knife crime? I mean, he has a point if he’s talking about the traffic around Arc de Triomphe, I’ll give him that.

He said, “When we were returned to France we were taken to a shelter in Paris. I didn't dare to go out because I was afraid for my life.”

It can feel pretty rough in Paris. Especially around Guard du Nord because there are lots of illegal mig… oh, hang on.

But to take his point more seriously, he added, “The smugglers are very dangerous. They always carry weapons and knives. I fell into the trap of a human trafficking network in the forests of France before I crossed to the UK from France the first time.”

So, that evidence suggests this will happen again. People who use gangs to get to the UK will fall foul of the gangs when they’re back in France.

Just 42 people have been returned to France so far under the agreement. Given the name, “one in, one out”, we can see just how far out it’s drifted. It’s 36,886 in, 42 out, 1 back in.

This story is across most of the front pages (Thursday 23rd October) and it is telling that not one of them has found a positive spin on this. The Guardian, the Metro, etc. That shows this isn’t a party political issue.

By definition we are not talking about a successful asylum applicant, and therefore we don’t need to discuss what role the UK should play in helping those needing refuge. If you have failed in your application and been deported to France we know we’re talking about someone who shouldn’t travel to the UK in a boat.

For balance I should mention that Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said the Labour government had detained and removed more than 35,000 people illegally in the UK.

So that’s (36,886-35,000) in, (42-1) out. 1886/41. That’s 46 in, one out. Not as catchy though, is it?

Read more like this on Steve N Allen's Stacked

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Podcast: Radio-Free Day 1

The end of an era. The podcast that has been running for years has been a product of the Time 107.5 radio show broadcast in London and Essex. Well, the radio station has been sold and that brings to an end the daily broadcasts.

Going forwards, the podcast is changing. Now freed from the format of the radio show and the control of Ofcom, the podcast will now become a review of the news in a longer format, more interaction and possibly video coming soon too.

Meanwhile, here's the first episode of the new format. Radio-Free Day 1.

🔊 In this episode: • Would someone cheat on Margot Robbie?
• P Diddy’s back, oh great
• Who’s more polite, men or women?
• Is the Online Safety Act making you go to Amsterdam?
• and something about the new PPI
• Plus other nuggets from the news in podcast form.




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💻 Follow on X/Insta/TikTok/Threads/BlueSky it’s @mrstevenallen for all.
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📧 And email to me@mrstevenallen.co.uk with any comments, questions or listeners’ emails.
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Now, get the podcast on Twicth, as it's being recorded...

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