Prosecco Pong-playing Princess

ALISTER: A million young people now out of work or training, the worst in over a decade, and everyone blames the same culprit. AI. Rubbish. Reed says graduate adverts fell from 180k to 55k years before ChatGPT existed. This isn't the robots. It's a white-collar recession with the bottom rungs sawn off.

MERIDYTH: I'm not disagreeing, but remote work made it worse. Juniors used to learn by osmosis, from the desk next door. Now most Gen Z want a mentor and barely half have one. You can't absorb a job's unwritten rules over Slack.

ALISTER: Tougher, yes, but remote work isn't the villain either. Even the bosses admit it. 95% of firms using AI say it hasn't touched headcount. The rot is a flat economy that's pulled up the ladder behind it, not a Zoom call.

MERIDYTH: But we’ve never built a culture that grows people. Apprenticeships for the young have fallen almost 40%, so where do they learn the trade? No mentoring, no training, just a CV down a black hole.

ALISTER: Exactly. And the govt response is feeble. Milburn warns the lost generation already costs £125bn a year and could hit 1.25m young people not in work, education or training within 5 years. Fix the economy and rebuild the rungs, or keep paying for nothing.

MERIDYTH: Agreed it's rubbish. But the young can't wait for the economy to mend. Make UK, the manufacturers' body, wants the training tax employers pay to be spent only on training, because a generation doesn't pause while we argue causes.

While the rest of the world does parkrun, Gloucestershire spends its bank holiday hurling humans down a 1 in 2 slope chasing an 8lb Double Gloucester. The hill is so steep, nobody stays on their feet, the cheese wins every single year, and the medical tent is built into the running order.

Share this and the AM Squabble with anyone who needs reminding that we are, deep down, completely unhinged. 🧀

🏛️ Blair twists the knife. As ~30 Labour MPs push Starmer to name a leaving date after May's council losses, Tony Blair's 5,700-word essay told Labour to ditch net zero and court Trump. One Labour insider scoffed that he'd been carried "away with the tech bro fantasists." 🙄

🚇 Shutdown over 3hrs/wk. London's Tube drivers are striking on Tues & Thurs, not just over pay (£71k-80k base) but to trim their 4-day week from 35 hrs to 32. That’s only a 3hr difference. And it’s about £43/hour, more than a resident doctor! 🫤

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 12 years, nobody noticed. Peter Murrell, ex-chief exec of the SNP and Nicola Sturgeon's estranged husband, embezzled £400k+ of party funds on luxury goods and a motorhome. The books were supposedly audited the whole time. Uh huh. 🤔

⚡ Nearly fossil-free. For the first time, fossil-fuel power on Britain's grid dropped below 1 GW in April, a clean-energy milestone. The catch? 140 proposed data centres now want 50 GW of connections, equal to the UK's entire peak demand.

⚽ Pundits over pop stars. Coldplay's Chris Martin is curating a World Cup final half-time show with Madonna, Shakira and BTS, but UK viewers will likely miss it. Both BBC and ITV plan to fill the break with football analysis. Very us.

GOOD NEWS… for Swedes who quit smoking using nicotine pouches, after they dodged France's new ban that fines users up to €375k.  BAD NEWS… for French ex-smokers who relied on them, as even possession can now land them in trouble.

🇷🇴 Russian drone hits NATO soil. A Russian drone struck a residential block in Romania (a NATO member) overnight, injuring two. NATO's chief said the alliance will defend "every inch" of allied territory. Putin suggested it might have been Ukrainian.

🖥️ Big tech's hidden bill. Ireland's data centres ate 22% of the country's electricity last year, 3x the UK and US share. Ordinary households absorbed €360 each in added costs between 2015 and 2023. Big tech's energy bill, quietly forwarded to consumers.

🏛️ A German first. The far-right AfD Saxony-Anhalt's branch, formally classified as extremist, is polling to win Germany's first AfD state govt in Sept. Its lead candidate attended a 2023 mass-deportation summit and refuses to vet his own candidates for links to neo-Nazi groups.

💻 Europe's own Microsoft. A European consortium launches Euro-Office on 9 June, an open-source rival to Microsoft 365 and Google Docs that runs on European servers. Digital sovereignty, now with spreadsheets.

🦠 Ebola jab from Covid lab. Trials could start within 2-3mths on a vaccine for the Bundibugyo strain, which has no cure and is behind a current outbreak in DR Congo. It's built on the AstraZeneca Covid jab science. The tech that got us out of lockdown, now going back to work.

☕ Borrowed energy. Your coffee's real cost isn't staying awake, it's shallower sleep. Brain scans show that even after a full 8hrs, caffeine leaves you in a lighter, more wakeful state. Your brain never fully powers down to repair itself. You got the hours, just not the rest.

🧠 It’s not all bad. After a rough night, coffee can repair a brain circuit behind "social memory", how you recognise and recall people, that sleep loss knocks out. So the morning cup really is patching you up before the school run. ☕

🍭 Ice cream van, spiked. BuzzBallz (sweet, pre-mixed alcohol shots) is sending an ice cream van to universities selling them at 99p a pop. Charities say flavours and TikTok branding target kids. The company calls it "pure nostalgia." Mr Whippy’s gone wrong? 🍦

📜 The Vatican says sorry. No pope had apologised for the papacy's own role in legitimising slavery until this week, when Leo XIV admitted 15th century papal orders let European kings enslave non-Christians. Finally!

✈ "He deserves a holiday," BA refused to board a teenager with Tourette's for involuntarily shouting "bomb", despite his family warning them in advance. They rebooked with another airline and flew anyway, because… come on.

By Meridyth

Last weekend I took my 9yo to Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen on a Danish public holiday, braced for the usual theme-park gauntlet. It never came.

Entry and unlimited rides for the two of us was 1,018 DKK (~£116). No Fastrack, because there’s no need. Tivoli caps how many people it lets in, so even on a holiday it never felt like a cattle market.

But the best bit… the ride photos were free! Scan a QR code on the Tivoli app after each ride and download them. No £15 print. No upsell. Alton Towers wants up to £30 just to see your own photos, on top of Fastrack, parking, the ticket. Chessington, Legoland, Drayton Manor, same squeeze.

Denmark proved a day out doesn't have to feel like being mugged with a smile. Why can’t we?

By Meridyth

Not really a meme, but I couldn’t resist. I mean, how awesome is it to see seniors dancing and rocking out! You can’t help but smile… 😃

I’ll be right there, doing the exact same thing, when it’s my turn… and this lets me know that in the Highway to Hell (or heaven), I can still headbang the whole way. 🤣😇

On Friday it’s National Fish and Chip Day! Meridyth still insists on calling them "fries," which Alister treats as a personal attack on the nation. Settle the great salt and vinegar question however you see fit, then come back next Monday for another squabble.

Alister & Meridyth