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.

Incidentally: that’s why the @financialtimes.com is a must-read these days. That global perspective is largely absent in US media, and invaluable to understand the current US moment.

This is not even remotely acceptable, and it is time that EU leaders stop pretending that the US is an ally. Or that kow-towing to it on trade or other issues will produce results. www.ft.com/content/8c0e...

Per NY Times’s Michael Grynbaum on X, this is Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her “60 Minutes” colleagues in full:

A very entertaining account of the many follies of Neom ig.ft.com/saudi-neom-l...

Macro at LSE is hiring predocs for September 2025! Come and work in the best city in the world, on cutting edge macro with Ben Moll, Ricardo Reis, Joe Hazell, Ethan Ilzetzki, and me. Past predocs have gone to places like Harvard, LSE and Northwestern. t.co/2RrUaQl6Pk #econ_ra #EconSky

It has become received wisdom in Brussels and Washington that there is a new “euro-sclerosis”: that the EU economy is lagging the US This view is wrong A little primer on the measurement of productivity – and why reports of the economic death of Europe are greatly exaggerated🧵

Economists judge Brexit Bill to be worse than ever just as politics is shifting www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Right - according to the Whitehall study, about 1ppt of the GDP costs of Brexit are down to customs, far more than gains from FTAs. Question is whether that could be recovered given the pre-existing impact on car industry and the consolidation as we shift to EVs. But there would be gains.

We're half a decade into studies finding that improving airflow in classrooms will reduce disease transmission enormously, and that bleaching surfaces etc. does very little. And yet nothing changes. Waves of flu and colds wash over schools, and the schools pretend it's an act of God.

The most interesting OBR paper yesterday was the one that didn't leak - the justification for their productivity downgrade. There's a very important assumption in it that could make or break the government.

Sometimes wonder if what the UK needs is a thinktank that doesn't do any new research, it just repeats obviously true statements that people try to ignore because they're inconvenient. International students cross-subsidise home students. Your pension is paid for out of general taxation.

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

I think I prepared more thoroughly for my (very bog standard) club tennis game this afternoon than England did for the Ashes

I’m calling on the UK Government to seriously review its presence on X (formerly Twitter) and then leave. It’s not just a communication channel anymore. Read more: www.politicshome.com/news/article... 1/10