It's not about the OBR: me in the FT www.ft.com/content/a06d...

New post: Fascism, Rivers of Blood, and today’s political and media elite mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2025/08/fasc... Spreading disinformation about minority groups is as old as civilisation itself. Once our political and media elite would call this out for what it was, but not any more.

This is the end result of anti-trans bigotry: more harassment of girls and women, more policing of gender roles, more gender McCarthyism.

I remain amazed how political commentary on the bond market still winds me up, because it so often treats that market like a political actor rather than the market that it actually is. So I've just read, from one of the best political commentators in the UK, that 1/4

Great essay by Cory Doctorow on the politics of cheaper guard labour: pluralistic.net/2025/06/26/a...

Blogged: why we shouldn't debate immigration: stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_an...

I just don’t see how an Executive Order saying Mike Love was the real genius in the Beach Boys could be legally binding

2025 is set to be a record year. More tries are currently being scored in almost every single competition than ever before. And it's all down to 2 tiny tactic changes, stretching across the game. So, who and what doubled the number of tries being scored across all of rugby? youtu.be/prrkU9cjeDU?...

I wrote for the Guardian’s Saturday magazine about my son Max, who changed how I see the world. Took ages. More jokes after the first bit. Thanks Merope Mills for being the most patient and generous editor. www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Afternoon plug for my lesser-spotted Substack. On the prosecution of Kneecap’s Mo Chara, and the dull literalism of our time open.substack.com/pub/padraigr...

The absolute state of the EHRC leadership. Really encouraging to see a Commons committee and in particular staff standing up to its mendacious legally illiterate bullshit. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

ICYMI: The mistakes that have led the Conservatives towards annihilation, and Labour copying them mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-... By using Farage's rhetoric, but failing to change things, the Tory government lost large numbers of votes to Reform. Will Labour follow in their footsteps?

Everything you need to know about the trans Supreme Court case: What it said, what it didn't, and what happens next iandunt.substack.com/p/everything...

So basically just sort of banning people who enjoy a sport for fun really?

Shocking stuff. The EHRC didn't think it was worth pointing out that gender reassignment discrimination in providing single sex services is only permitted when it is proportionate to do so. Quite telling of the attitudes held by its leadership www.equalityhumanrights.com/media-centre...

The UK's political and media class has spent years heaping sadism on trans people, and they want to do the same in Ireland next. Calls for civility and calm won't cut it. We need to fight them tooth and nail. www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle-co...

Madness. These exports help fund our own students and funnel £ into the university towns and cities outside London. We should be looking to expand capacity to take in foreign students who would previously have chosen the US.

Y'days post: Labour’s strategic error on tax mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2025/03/labo... The failure to raise taxes further reflects the absence of any serious analysis of what will be required to allow a noticeable (to voters) improvement in public services before the next election.

Blogged: one difference between left & right today lies in what they believe to be the constraints upon government action: stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_an...

New post: Mediamacro melodrama mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2025/01/medi... Just a week ago the UK media was speculating that Reeves was about to be sacked and who might replace her, all because of largely global movements in interest rates. How and why did the media get things so wrong?

The 'markets' are not sentient and do not have nerves. Bond yields have adjusted to reflect expectations of successive short term interest rate decisions, in large part due to Trump's latest escapades www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cg...

The markets haven't "lost confidence" in the UK. They're pricing guesses on the future path of inflation and interest rates.

How do we know the market jitters are about Rachel Reeves? Why do we connect these two things when Reeves hasn't said or done anything market relevant in weeks (months?) Who, exactly, at the BBC has the job of divining what market jitters mean or who is responsible for them?

This article really hits the nail on the head about so-called "ultra processed foods", a meaningless category so broad as to group together tofu and twinkies as if they had the same health impact.

This is excellent. The best post-budget piece on the political economy of Reeves and Starmer I’ve seen by far. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Welcome (although overdue) that the BBC is reporting on why many millennials are living with parents for longer, and often do not feel able to afford children. Housing costs is the obvious factor, but I think it's amiss that the 2012 student loan reforms do not typically feature in this conversation