New UK steel tariffs ‘threaten’ British manufacturing, steel importers warn ministers. Letter from Confederation of British Metalforming to the U.K. trade department warns that protections meant to boost homegrown steelworks risk “severely disrupting supply chains.” www.politico.eu/article/new-...

Reform donor Ben Delo, who has given £4 million to the party, is making legal threats to those who reference his 2022 US conviction for failing to implement anti-money laundering laws, prior to a pardon by President Trump. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

"Mentally unstable President given huge powers by cowardly party threatens to blow up the world" is the headline you're looking for.

Had several very sobering conversations with many able, intelligent and interested potential @cam.ac.uk applicants today in Yaounde. This UK visa ban is the most absurd measure and everyone in higher education should contact their MPs now. This is Home Office under Labour gone absolutely mad. 😡

Wondering what leverage in negotiations looks like? Australia's new FTA with the EU provides 16,830 tonnes of tariff free access for beef. Australia's FTA with the UK, completed with a desperate Johnson administration, provided 35,000 tonnes tariff free, rising to unlimited over 15 years.

The evidence is overwhelming: Brexit has been a disaster for London and the UK. Rejoining the EU is now clearly in our national interest. The option to rejoin should be on the ballot at the next General Election. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

This is cruel to the young people concerned, self-destructive for the UK and will not win over a single Reform voter.

Applications open for our @cep-lse.bsky.social summer internship programme.

Iran’s people were facing a horrible shortage of water before the war began. If we are destroying desalination plants and setting fire to Teheran we are committing unfathomable crimes.

VAR really takes any joy out of football. Just scrap it

Two stories here - the failure of the Starmer/McSweeney political strategy and Reform's toxicity to social liberals. The latter is important and seems underdiscussed. bsky.app/profile/samf...

🚨New report from us BCG CfG today🚨 we take a sector & firm view of UK productivity growth over past 3 decades, including benchmarking against peers. UK is falling back from global frontier but for quite different reasons in different sectors 1/

This lawsuit seems appalling to me, honestly. I feel for people whose student experience was lousy due to Covid but that's not the fault of universities. "I wanted in-person study." I'm sure you did. Nobody gets what they want in a global pandemic

A retired British primary school administrator with a British passport and a valid visa was shackled, chained and detained for six weeks by ICE www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Just want to flag that, in total, the UK trades more goods with the EU than services. It’s a confusing story, because the UK overall has a comparative advantage in services, so has a positive trade balance, whereas we import a lot more goods than we export to the EU…

It is absolute and utter neglect to let this come this close to the wire just as the US has let most of its overseas broadcasting shutter.

I'm not sure I could ever forgive this government if it allows the BBC World Service to die

the loss of the World Service would be a tragedy and huge lost of soft power for Britain

I have been thinking a lot about this question. I saw David's YOLO'd paper, and have done similar things on my own. His paper's abstract is pasted below. 1. It's a remarkable achievement that CC can do this with minimal prompting. 2. The paper is unbelievably banal from a research standpoint.

Disgraceful decision by the IOC

Disgusting remarks, and that’s before you note this is someone who moved to (colonised as he would put it) a tax haven news.sky.com/story/the-uk...

Great discussion between @martinsandbu.ft.com and Michael Sandel on the rise of technocratic liberalism and the populist counter-revolution www.ft.com/content/7804...

New personal piece: Why does regulation often feel so toothless? The news is full of businesses behaving badly and seeming to get off very lightly. Why? As someone who used to work for a regulator, I wanted to set out some of the very simple reasons regulators struggle…

Usually UK companies base operations in other countries to get over barriers *their* governments impose, not ours.

The new LSE Research for the World has a reading list on the workings & future of world trade, chosen by @sjrickard.bsky.social @lsegovernment.bsky.social @thomsampson.bsky.social @cep-lse.bsky.social @lsepublicpolicy.bsky.social & researchers @lselaw.bsky.social @africaatlse.bsky.social & more 📚👇

🚨 New KITE analysis on the EU–India trade deal: Simulations show sizable trade effects from the “mother of all deals” linking ~1/4 of global GDP and ~1/5 of the world’s population. Beyond gains, it strengthens supply-chain diversification and market access in an uncertain global economy. Link here👇

More profiles in cowardice: Target, Best Buy, General Mills, Cargill and roughly four dozen other large MN companies issued a public letter calling for an “immediate de-escalation of tensions” in the state. Stops short of condemning the killings or who is responsible for them.

This country's ability to rinse the young and then berate them as lazy avocado addicts is ridiculous. They're so up against it, it's madness. - as.ft.com/r/094f3968-1...

There’s always a post..

Prioritising balance over objectivity is the most cowardly exercise that a news outlet or journalist can engage in. 'The evidence shows X, but the regime says Y - so it's impossible to know the truth.' Lies should not be afforded the same respect and credibility as the evidence that exposes them.

I’m really quite surprised at the BBC website today. ‘Here is a video, some people say it does not show what it very obviously shows’ is not how you report this.

I just spoke with the White House after another horrific shooting by federal agents this morning. Minnesota has had it. This is sickening. The President must end this operation. Pull the thousands of violent, untrained officers out of Minnesota. Now.

We owe an incredible debt to the Minnesotans who are on the streets protesting and documenting what is happening.

Immigration policy is complex, full of trade-offs—but we can do better. Join Alan Manning, former chair of the UK Migration Advisory Committee, for 3 free lectures using evidence to rethink how immigration affects jobs, services and communities. https://ow.ly/Vpeg50Y0IlI

Fukuyama: “As an American, I say to my European friends: do not back down. Appeasing Trump with flattery has failed and must stop. Europeans think conceding Greenland will mollify Trump. It won’t. He will come back for more later.” youtu.be/SS5Ep3LTqnE

Donald Trump just falls back on this behaviour every time he doesn't get what he wants. Greenland is not for sale and it is high time for the PM to stop pandering and work with our European friends to stand up the bully in the White House. www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1...

Just how unhinged does Trump have to become before Congress or his Cabinet intervene to stop him? If he wants to impose more taxes on US consumers by raising tariffs, Europe (incl the UK) can't stop him, but it definitely can't compromise on principles of territorial integrity & self determination.

📢 Job vacancy: Research Assistant, Programme on Innovation and Diffusion at LSE Work with John Van Reenen on cutting-edge research on innovation, diffusion & productivity, contributing to co-authored, top-journal-quality outputs 📈💡 Apply by 16 Feb

This is a fairly miserable assessment of the economics of vegan restaurants in New York www.grubstreet.com/article/vega... To cheer me up - what are people's favourite vegan/ veggie/ veg-friendly places in the UK?

It would be good to see UK HE withdrawing from X/twitter. There really is no need to be there - plenty of other platforms that many already use, and it would send a signal. Perhaps @lseblogs.bsky.social @lsegovernment.bsky.social and other sites could take a lead …

Not so sure @elpais.com is correct. I could think of software, internet companies, IP rights, movies from Hollywood and tv, energy as major areas where EU sanctions could really bite.

The real question is why sitting members of the UK Parliament are allowed to take on second jobs that run contrary to the stated national interest. If this episode, with failings evident for all to see, doesn’t force reform of the system, nothing ever will.

This online, PhD-level course in the economics of innovation is a huge opportunity. Taught by some of the world's top scholars on this: @heidiwilliams.bsky.social, Chad Jones, Azoulay, van Reenen, many others! (Also: me.) Cost=zero. Applications due January 9th! #EconSky @ifp.bsky.social

One of Starmer and his team's weaknesses is an ability to read many moves ahead. Everything is reactive. You only become at the mercy of events if you do not anticipate them. The UK needs to rethink its whole approach to relations with the US (and how the politics could benefit the government too).

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐭 𝐗/𝐓𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐧𝐨𝐰. Musk’s platform is proving itself a vile cesspit: its AI generating sexually explicit images of children is horrifying. Every day we tolerate this, we weaken our democracies and endanger our future. www.newsweek.com/grok-apology...

Any statement from the UK government on Venezuela yet? Can someone get them on the record.

Every American should be ashamed of who we are and what we have become as a nation today. We have a long history of military misadventures and even crimes but the attacks we have been conducting on Venezuela are among the most wanton, egregious and least defensible acts we’ve ever conducted.

It’s old-fashioned to defend mainstream journalism these days but some of the most reliable reporting from people actually on the ground will be the AP and Reuters the next 24 hours. Your Substack journalist writing takes will be using frontline reporting from them.

It's New Year, so time to look back and forward. These are 10 things I think we need to recognise in 2026. It’s a response to what I think are profoundly damaging mistaken assumptions I’ve heard and read from practitioners, journalists, and analysts in 2025. Warning: very long🧵

We have so much good evidence for cash transfers but so many just refuse to accept that those in poverty can make good decisions.