This is incredibly good.

Not an ideal first day at the office, but we move

🔵 DUBLIN CENTRAL FULL TALLY Ennis (SD) 19.68% Boylan (SF) 17.72% Horner (Grn) 11.48% Hutch (Ind) 11.46% McAdam (FG) 10.61% Steenson (Ind) 9.51% O Ceannabhain (PBPS) 6.73% O'Dea (Lab) 5.75% Stephens (FF) 4.16% Smyth (Aon) 2.02% bit.ly/DublinCentra...

It pains me to say it but this is a sub par season of Interior Design Masters

The marvellous thing about Mile End Group talks is you'll have a speaker, in this case Charles Moore, and a subject, Thatcher's relationship with Whitehall, and when Peter Hennessy opens it up for questions, the first is Thatcher's permanent secretary and the second her principle private secretary!

Super interesting how much that adult friendship piece cut through

I am so in awe of the young people on Race around the world 🥲

Not sure "careful what you wish for" works here. If an inquiry results in a recall and by election then that's what should happen. If he wins then that's democracy.

A recurring theme with this government is nobody seems to prepare for highly anticipated outcomes. So the touted game changer (still in draft) is (maybe) youth mobility scheme.

The FT @financialtimes.com is hiring a new data journalist to join our US data and visuals team in New York. Great job, great team, great place to work. Apply here 👉 job-boards.eu.greenhouse.io/financialtim...

Great role over with our friends @chathamhouse.org as Director of Convening - overseeing a fantastic programme of public and private events. £85k careers.chathamhouse.org/jobs/7609684...

A colleague didn’t recognise me in my glasses so I tried to joke “I’m Clark Kent” but accidentally declared “I’m Ken Clarke”

Jon Ossoff at 18/1 for next US president, worth a punt IMO

More than anything, today’s result in Hungary is a reminder that much of the public discourse is wildly overstating the strength of authoritarianism (F-word) and the weakness of democracy.

Deeply depressing. Just lazy soundbites and bad economics. Populism without racism is infinitely preferable to the combination. But Greens badly need something that actually resembles a coherent economic strategy. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

For me the best stuff on AI and its impacts is coming from @jburnmurdoch.ft.com and @sarahoconnorft.ft.com. Not downplaying its potential but also not getting caught up in hype. Just really thoughtful data-based analysis.

This is the way

The second best Irish phrase I’ve heard, used to describe someone who’s always engaging in one-upmanship, is “if you’ve been to Tenerife, he’s been to Elevenerife.” My number one favourite Irish phrase, and one of the most crushing burns you’ll ever hear, is “he looks like his mammy knitted him.”

Why is everyone suddenly using the word epistemic

FT coverage is just so good at a time like this at explaining stuff in a really concise, clear way. www.ft.com/content/1355...

I don't think calling the people who voted for the nice woman who thinks working hard should grant you a decent life unhinged extremists is going to work out brilliantly for Labour.

As discussed in this post it's a perfect example of elite consensus across the political spectrum - which is now the most powerful way to shift the news agenda. samf.substack.com/p/the-signal...

Interested in joining our fantastic comms team? You have two weeks to get your application in for our 2026-27 comms internship. Send on to others who might be interested!

I don't think op eds are dead yet but the politician op ed is fully fully dead.

Pleased to see this written up by the FT, and to see my driving analogy make the cut. We need to look beyond just the fiscal speedometer. www.ft.com/content/c88b...

It's a small thing but one of my take-aways from their party conference is that they have a long way to go in making their brand look and feel not weird

We have our Nesta reaction to today's Warm Homes Plan up! What does it mean for heating, fabric and electrification? What funding is available? What gaps are there in the plan? Read all about it here: www.nesta.org.uk/blog/how-wil...

I would have thought condemning an company producing child abuse material on an industrial scale for profit would be an easy one. But here were are.

Sometimes people ask me - where do you think is doing some really interesting local development? Often I respond Barnsley. Here’s why! www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgrnkwjvlgo.amp

Marvellous, moving and wise column by @martinsandbu.ft.com:

The way to go viral on twitter now is to complain about quality street

Merry Christmas one and all x

In case you're thinking (or know people) thinking about a new role in the New Year we're hiring atm for - Training/Development Associate to help people make use of our insights -Comms assistant to help share our insights across platforms Details & apply here: www.moreincommon.org.uk/about-us/jobs/

An insane seven days and I'm finally getting to lay on my sofa with the cat

The best thing about having a cat is when he’ll walk in the room carrying a slice of ham but you don’t have any ham in the house. Where’d you get the ham little guy?

This is a good thread! Every week someone reads out a London Centric story on TikTok without credit and does big views. This isn’t a wah wah moan… more that when a big news outlet steals, they know what they’re doing. I think a lot of content creators sincerely think “reading words” *is* reporting?

This dynamic is in part why Keir Starmer should have a good, regular Substack, because so much of important media is what I think of as 'derived' these days, i.e. it is TikTok or Facebook thread from someone who actually reads journalism repurposed or driving their opinions.

This is a borderline psychotic thing to put in a newspaper.

A hundred times this

I never ever want to hear the word smorgasbord again, thank you.

Festive tradition of my cat immediately trying to toss the tree

If the OBR document is correct, this seems to be the energy bills package: Government taking 75% of the Renewables Obligation levy off electricity bills, at a cost of £2.3bn per year. This is good! The ECO levy (£1.7bn per year to upgrade fuel poor homes) will *end in April 2026*.

I agree with GT here on the actual impact, but if you want to compete politically you need to be a lot less fussy about the rabbits you chase. Do it all.

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Thought this was interesting: medium.com/@jamestplunk...

New essay out today by me and @acjsissons.bsky.social - ‘Getting Britain out of the hole: a plan for the economy’. You can read the whole thing here getting-out-of-the-hole.uk A chart mega-thread follows 🧵

Hard to know if asking your MPs to defend seizing jewellery from asylum seekers will improve morale

Said this a lot before, but there is no politician conveying any sense of what they think the country should look in 2040 or 2050, so no sense they are taking steps to get there.

With the ending of permanent asylum, taxes on foreign students, two U-turns on income tax, a refusal to listen to business concerns about hiring costs, again I ask ‘who are Labour for?’ What is the vision underlying all these choices other than responding to last week’s polls?

The thing to understand about this is that this catastrophe in the UK has redounded to the political benefit of the very same people and political movement that pushed for it! Extremely perverse.