“A European intelligence agency distributed a hard-copy report in a manila envelope to some of the continent’s most senior national security officials...inside were details of the commercial and economic plans the US had been pursuing with Russia, including jointly mining rare earths in the Arctic.”

Can't help feeling it would be fairer to everyone to just introduce a regular annual property tax. It might help to make property in general more affordable for buyers too, wouldn't be popular, but there are definitely ways to sugar coat the pill to at least make the patient swallow it.

If the UK military still wants to sustain an influential role then it has to focus on integration with EU partners in a centre of gravity around European territorial and naval defence and abandon wider aspirations that UK society as a whole no longer shares

I thought I might try the same experiment with a bit more context, and - I dunno - it seems to have stumbled a bit with the basic facts…

Yes it is really extremely difficult to compare. I have no idea either, but it feels like a higher quality of at least day-to-day life here and I think that maybe more important than income ultimately