Sunday [16 till close of play]

(1700) Evening all.

22. Macheath from Orphans on Piddington

The residents of rural Oxfordshire are generally feeling somewhat persecuted, what with the widespread 20mph speed limits, planned closure of lanes connecting villages and the effective ban on St George’s flags in public places, not to mention the massive solar farms blighting the landscape and the Council’s anti-farming policies.

It’s not hard to imagine smug city-dwelling civil servants and local officials happily signing off on policies which will only affect a few insignificant peasants or retired villagers (who probably vote Tory anyway) – the local women afraid to walk their dogs alone or let their daughters play outside are likely to rank very low on the priority list.

It’s already happened to the towns thanks to the placement of asylum-seekers in large hotels; just yesterday, my daughter-in-law – recently arrived from a country regarded as far less secure than the UK – told me she didn’t feel safe walking down the high street of our local town because of the large groups of men sitting outside coffee shops staring at passing women in a way she had not experienced in her (Muslim) home city.

Macheath by the way can be found here

21. Lord Toby’s site this morning

The youngest black professor in Cambridge University’s history, Jason Arday, is at the centre of a plagiarism row after academics came forward claiming large parts of his work are copied almost verbatim from others. The Telegraph has the story.

When Jason Arday became a Cambridge professor at the age of 37, he was lionised by the academic world and became a poster boy for the university’s diversity drive.

He had beaten almost impossible odds to get there. Diagnosed with autism, and non-verbal until the age of 11, he had only learnt to read and write at 18 but obtained a degree and a doctorate before forging a career in teaching.

Now, on the eve of the publication of his autobiography, the University of Cambridge’s professor of sociology of education has become the subject of a bitter row over plagiarism that has pitted his peers against each other.

20. TPA earlier

New analysis from the TPA eggheads this week revealed that there are expected to be 1 million more people paying income tax this year compared to last as a result of the ongoing freeze to tax thresholds. Burnham can talk about the cost of living all he likes but the reality is that tax is the main reason there’s pressure on household budgets. All told, ministers will take an extra £55 billion a year from taxpayers by the time the freeze comes to an end in 2030-31. Check out our full analysis here.

19. Moo corner