“They studied 51 populist presidents and prime ministers who were in power between 1900 and 2020 and found that after 15 years, GDP per capita was 10% lower when compared with a plausible nonpopulist counterfactual.”

Okay. Tea and work. Let’s roll.

Unrelatedly: what if we had a political movement which began with “don’t be an arsehole” and derived other policies from that?

💯. Progressives have to stop franchising out their consciences to the courts. Politics is about moral choices. The problem with Reform's proposal isn't that "the courts won't allow it". It's that it's grotesque and inhuman. If we're democrats, we must believe that this argument can be won.

Autocorrect’s new vice: “struct”. Apparently this is more likely than “strict.“

Thought experiment: if ID cards are about “accessing services” then they could presumably be designed to keep information on the user side and simply supply a confirmation when queried.

Happy birthday to J.R.R. #Tolkien’s The Hobbit, published #OTD in 1937, with a gorgeous dust jacket and illustrations by Tolkien himself! @tolkiensociety.org @tolkienwonder.bsky.social @uofgfantasy.bsky.social #Hobbit 🐉

I’m not really feeling it, honestly. The US right may think of Truss as some kind of player - and therefore, somehow, Newsweek will talk to her - but I don’t think a UK politician has faceplanted more spectacularly in my lifetime.

It may be symbolic, but it’s not a small symbol.

Yup. We have formally entered the age of illusion.

What a photo. ( @staceywescott.bsky.social )

Would be interesting if someone founded a biotech/de-extinction outfit called “Minutiae” or “Painstaking”.

I’m always careful to avoid “disturbing”.

For my money, this is one of the most important stories of the year. FLF are one of my clients, but I'm happy to put my voice behind this proposition, which looks like it has cracked fusion. /1 www.energyvoice.com/renewables-e...

Sad that the @atticalocke.bsky.social shout-out got cut from this! But here it is anyway… www.theguardian.com/books/2025/s...

Revealed: ‘Corporate capture’ of UN aviation body by industry - Industry delegates outnumbered climate experts by 14 to one at recent ICAO meeting, @influencemap.bsky.social thinktank says #climatecrisis Story by me www.theguardian.com/environment/...

So perfect. I’ll never look at my wardrobe the same way again.

Curiously, literally yesterday I reposted something I wrote about agent de-emphasis whilst I was studying at the OU. paulfernandezexilefromgroggs.substack.com/p/agent-de-e...

Anne's column is really worth reading in full: www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

There are so many weird things here, but the aesthetic is one of the weirdest. Unsigned, headerless single page note in a large unserifed font. The writing… okay: my dad used to talk about a style in C19th reportage and official communication which avoided mention of the self.

Selfie When a lemur grabs my fisheye lens and ask you to take a selfie 📍Jerusalem Biblical Zoo 📷Felix Tchvertkin #flickr flic.kr/p/2rpmhPs

Ohhhh, yeah. This is going great.

And it’s quite a column.

Daily life in 2025. #AI #Tech #JustLetMeBe #FFS

I assume this is obvious, but I’ll say it anyway: The advantage of proscribing a non-existent organisation is that no one can prove they don’t belong to it.

@davidallengreen.bsky.social Would you be able to write a short list of things which could be done to harden our democracy against takeover by a strongman party? Because I think that would be a very good thing to have right now.

Oh. They pulled Kimmel. That’s not good.

The is a very interesting list. Not many Brits on it who aren’t also part of the pantomime. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/17/w...

Also do people really say “hy PER tr’ fee”? Despite the fact that it is clearly hyper and trophy?

Okay: there’s been a couple of cool new books about fungus science recently and I meant to get them and now I don’t know what they were. Send help.

So how’s your week going?

#thiswritinglife #booksky As prescribed in scripture: 1 screeching handbrake turn in plot underpinning 2 yawning existential doubt as to quality of text so far written 3 despair 4 yawning existential doubt as to quality of self 5 profound sympathy for writers who abuse drugs 1/n

So if I pick D I get: Italy, Greece, all the Levantine cuisines, India, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Japan and Australia? I mean…

There are always arguments about what polling does or does not show, but I can’t help feeling that this polling shows that Labour has successfully plotted a course towards pleasing no one at all and has nearly arrived at that goal.

If it doesn’t, can we throw it away?

It occurs to me that the right to asylum is in the UDHR from 1948. Are we supposed to walk away from that, too?

this from my piece on charlie kirk is probably the most important takeaway if you want to know why bad faith, right-wing voices in media are treated as just another set of peers

My all-time favourite actor, Robert Redford, has died. I had the honour of meeting him once. He was a gentleman who loved film and did so much for the industry. variety.com/2025/film/ne...

Am sad. Old friend is being a bit politically bonkers. Nothing I can do about it but I remember them in better times. Going to have some lunch and work.

@dieworkwear.bsky.social I meant to ask you after your thread on suits and silhouettes: is it possible that the classic suit is concerned to emphasise the waist silhouette, while the boxier workwear which is a bit in vogue now is about shoulders?

Gordon Brown's powerful piece on child poverty highlights the urgent need for action. While redistributive taxes matter, our new report demonstrates how school meals can be a pre-distributive mechanism—catalysing innovation across food systems while ensuring no child goes hungry.

@edmorrish.bsky.social Wait, is it original Captain Birdseye or Hot Italian Captain Birdesye?

[me, a journalist who spends all day every day on a social media app where the discovery algorithm is personally controlled by its owner, captain birdseye] you know, a lot of people are talking about fish fingers, we should probably cover that

There’s an “iPhone Air” now? Guys, I would have gone crazy for a fucking iPhone Non-Slip With A Diagonal Not Longer Than The Reach Of My Thumb.

Christ. Is there still a universe in which we go from Starmer to Streeting?

If you see this, quote the energy you bring to Bluesky

This is… something I feel I should have expected. Fascinating.

Um. I’ve recently seen some stuff which kinda suggests the opposite. Hm.

@bloodyscotland.bsky.social was great this year as always! Friends and fun and some criminally good panels. Counting down to next year!