r/Britain

Too many days to be 30-32°C. Can’t imagine trying to sleep in the overnight temperatures as they stay close to 20°C. These warm nights are what causes heatwaves to feel much more draining because our buildings aren’t getting a chance to cool down. London needs to start growing more trees to help the entire city cope with the heat. I don’t think people actually realise the benefit of trees during heatwaves. I’ll list some below 👇🏻

- Trees provide shade that prevents the pavements becoming dramatically hot.
- The air will cool through the evaporation of leaves.
- Trees help reduce the urban heat island effect (concrete, brick, asphalt absorb sunlight during the day and slowly realise it at night - too slowly).
- Air quality can improve helping streets be more comfortable to walk through.

There are plenty of studies to support this if you don’t believe me! Heavily tree-covered neighbourhoods can be several degrees cooler than nearby built-up areas during hot weather. However, I’m not saying trees alone will solve the heatwaves becomes +30°C as we know the unnatural speeding up of climate change has made these heatwaves more common. London would also benefit from more parks, green roofs, lighter-coloured surfaces to reflect sunlight, better building insulation, and designs that improve air flow. It’s becoming much harder to live in these winter homes. They feel like ovens by the end of the week!

I find his stance interesting because he goes beyond the left v right economic argument. He’s arguing that taxation shouldn’t just maximise revenue but should actively shape the kind of society we want to live in. In particular, he’s proposed shifting some of the burden away from pubs, cafes, and high street business that bring people together and towards large warehouses and out of town developments. I wanna know what type of relationship does this economic system encourage? This system shouldn’t reward isolation, endless consumption, and hollow out communities. This is so unhealthy. But if this system is to definitely support gathering places, local communities, social life, and other social venues then I’m heavily in favour of this. The British society needs rebuilding. Our local institutions are disappearing. A pub, cafe, barbers, restaurants… these are more than just economic units. How many friends have we made in these places? How many of us are spared of loneliness because of these places? Communities used to organise themselves here. These are places where we hold our local identities. In these times, we’re in desperate need of connection and cooperation. There’s so much separation and isolation in the world. I hope this taxation will encourage the growth of places that strengthen our bonds. This is a worthy use of economic policy.

However Andy needs to be warned. His good intentions aren’t enough. His policy must actually revive communities. It must genuinely improve lives. He must be careful of the unintended harms elsewhere. I judge this system by its fruits rather than their rhetoric. But I love that Andy rewards activities that contributes positivity to our flourishing. Our society must align itself with the promotion of life, growth, protection, healing, and harmony. We will then see a difference between an economic activity that just extracts wealth and an economic activity that strengthens our social fabrics of our communities. I hope Andy’s proposal would actually achieve this. It’s about time the economy served us instead of us serving economics.

I opened the University of Sheffield website again today.

I hadn’t done that in a while.

When I first got my acceptance, I was on there almost every day. I’d look at the campus, student accommodation, even just wandering around nearby streets on Google Maps. It was like… an escape I guess. A way to imagine something outside of everything happening here.

Then I stopped.

At some point it just started hurting too much. Because getting accepted wasn’t the hard part. Leaving Gaza, covering the costs, actually making it there… that part was still impossible. So I just stopped opening it.

Then I posted here.

I didn’t really know what would happen. I just felt like I had run out of options.

And over the past few days… things changed more than I expected.

We’re now more than halfway to the first goal. From complete strangers.

Today I opened the website again.

It felt different this time. I can’t really explain it properly. Just… less heavy.

I’m still scared. I don’t want to believe it too early. There’s still a long way to go before anything actually becomes real.

But I wanted to come back and say thank you.

To everyone who donated, shared, or even just read the post and cared for a second.

It really did change things for me.

If anyone else is able to help push this a bit further, the link is still there.

I don’t really know how to end this. I just didn’t want to disappear without saying anything.

A small example of a much larger tension in our modern society. Efficiency is competing with identity, profit is competing with heritage, and centralisation is competing with community. The Lloyd’s Banking Group’s decision is largely driven by simplification and cost reduction. I can see from a business perspective, maintaining multiple brands that already share infrastructure, staff and systems can look inefficient. I don’t automatically condemn efficiency but I don’t understand what’s to be gained from this, but I can feel the loss. It won’t just the logo but the 173 years of history. Halifax’s roots were helping to build society by helping the working class buy homes. Each town it lived in had a connection to the people, and it was even named after a town that gave it its name. I personally place a great deal of value on Halifax. In my town, it was part of our identity. I’m weary of this world. So many institutions are becoming larger, more centralised, efficient, and less… human?

The spirit of this institution matters more than its name. Halifax has so much service and trust. It helped my family own a home and supported the community. I hope these continue under a different sign above the door, so the most important things survives. I also hope these values don’t disappear and the brand survives because the name alone will have little value. I conclude we don’t cling to symbols just because they’re old, and shouldn’t discard history lightly in the pursuit of efficiency. I see a wider lesson here. Our modern economy often rewards consolidation for fewer brands and branches, and larger institutions with more automation. Yes this may increase profits and reduce costs, but it’s gonna leave people feeling that similar parts of their communities are quietly disappearing one by one! So many people in Halifax have even expressed exactly that. They hold so much sentiment about the loss of the name. We should preserve what genuinely nourishes communities and belonging. We should also accept that forms and institutions do inevitable change over time. I have sympathy for the sadness many feel at seeing this 173 year old name disappear from high street. Doesn’t matter if the banking services themselves continue unchanged.