“Hottest country in the world”… well in fairness he’s doing a good job of attempting it.

Fascinating graph from a Swedish study that says a lot about the current approach to special needs children www.ft.com/content/8252...

Lots of positive recommendations in this. Power to smooth budget settlements between years, opportunities in tax devolution, the favourable funding treatment of devolved policy areas, low exposure to PFI leading to better prospects for capital borrowing rates. www.cardiff.ac.uk/__data/asset...

Amid the already dire proposals trailed in the media by the government for the Autumn budget… we’re talking about compensation for Waspi women?? There’s a lot wrong with the handling of it… but £10.5 bn spent on this and not on dozens of more important issues is mad www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Pretty worrying re: inter gov’t relations & devolution e.g. Labour runs edu in E&W. Yet the 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 edu dep’t are given no info abt the 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 edu dep’t re-designing technical qualifications *should* be a big national story - it’s ignored because it doesn’t matter to 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

Came across GB News ‘reporting’ on Charlie Kirk. The host immediately turns it into left versus right, ‘woke’ gets the blame, complaining "the left are perpetrating violent crime” Channels like theirs are fuelling the same toxic political atmosphere that is causing this violence in the US. Madness

Not really the key point of this article but allegedly Ellen DeGeneres is selling her £22.5m home after only living there for 9 months. That’s £2.6m in stamp duty, nearly £300k a month 🤔 on.ft.com/3UtdeqV

Local govt ends up being an area that comes out better than some during the SR: Average annual increase in spending power of 2.6% per year in real terms between 25/25 and 28/29 Will leave spending power 2.7% lower in real terms than in 2010/11 and 15.9% lower when accounting for population growth

Vance doesn’t seem to understand the implications of his government’s own tariffs… unherd.com/2025/04/jd-v...

More should be done by employers and government but how much is down to the poor quality labour market in Wales and other areas in the left-behind UK. When the local jobs are low pay manual/warehouse tasks, it’s inherently less accommodating of disabled people. www.itv.com/news/wales/2...

some interesting reading on zonal pricing for energy within the UK www.theguardian.com/business/202... octopus.energy/blog/zonal-p... Image from Octopus. Seems positive but it will open a can of worms about the boundaries. Boston and Haverfordwest being grouped with London seems controversial.

Fascinating breakdown of the risks of driving, cycling, flying… the most eye catching: “The health benefits of cycling are so profound that over an 18 year period, someone who cycles to work and back has a near 50% lower risk of dying of anything than someone who drives.” youtu.be/vDhGHPHCgqI?...

The Spectator has its own DOGE, promising 'to stop the government splurging our cash'. I'm sure there is excessive spending in the public sector, but most of the Spectator's claims are debunked with a 2 second Google search.

Excited to work on this project with Welsh Gov and 14 councils Unifying admin data nationally will allow proactive help for residents, identify those in crisis, help people claim what they are eligible for & give gov’t a strategic real time view of deprivation policyinpractice.co.uk/welsh-govern...

Ed once again with the best take on the otherwise sensationalised and politicised coverage on UK debt…

🥚Ep208: Curate's egg🥚 We ask @amberarnie.bsky.social, @yralltudion.bsky.social & Wise Dan about three County performances that were - well - good in parts! LISTEN & SUBSCRIBE 🟢 Spotify: tinyurl.com/1912exilessp... 🍎 Apple: tinyurl.com/1912exilesap... 💻 Online: shows.acast.com/1912exiles #ncafc 🧡🖤

This does make me shudder and compare it to the scale of cuts to youth music services where I went to school. A sad violin (or piano) for the private schools complaining about VAT. on.ft.com/3ZVeJAb

4k at the weekend for @newportcountyafc.bsky.social support up 4x in just over a decade. That’s something to be proud of. The same % increase as Wrexham, a division above with Disney subsidising their marketing budget.

I’m actually surprised that home ownership rates are higher now than 2015. And look at that 15% rise in Wales… An artefact of the low rates era, which will over the next few years get cancelled out?

I'm trying to imagine how extremely difficult I'd find it to defend, for example, huge swathes of students who were demanding compensation from the government because they felt they hadn't had student loan increases properly communicated to them

Gov’t-owned pension fund Nest is failing to support its members, due to poor service, fund structure and returns Despite reporting across the media that shows savers are going to be grossly underprepared for retirement, the minister doesn’t seem to think it’s an issue www.ft.com/content/362c...

Bristol has an atrocious public transport system that deters people from moving further out of the centre IMO go for landlord regulation, but it’s a waste of time to even bother with rent controls. Spend the time and energy on fixing the buses.

Right folks, I know, it’s 16 Dec & you’re mostly panicking about the C’mas presents you haven’t bought/feeling smug ‘cos you’re so ready for the festivities, but spare a thought for @stkaye.bsky.social & @indiaww.bsky.social who have poured over the 118 page devo white paper so you don’t have to! 🧵

Some dire reading in last week’s Economist on Welsh public services Imo demographic pressures & broken funding drives much of this (esp re NHS) But Wales having the most people incarcerated per capita is new to me! @lukesibieta.bsky.social is totally right re poor data. Stats devo was a disaster.

Pretty incredible what an outlier the US is (and always has been) among large developed countries.

What a shambles Facebook’s content moderation is A Russian group appears to be carrying out a coordinated scam across the UK impersonating public transport operators with the promise of cheap deals, taking users payment and personal details Backed up by AI-generated users giving false reviews

Now this really is an interesting development (£) on.ft.com/4i8V7kG An online dashboard to enable voters to see whether the Government was achieving its targets is innovative and what Sir Humphrey Appleby would term “courageous”. Some early thoughts.

Funny how car-centric newspapers like the Times focus on the fury of Range Rover owners, and not the views of the pedestrians, cyclists and wheelchair users who I would guess are a fair bit less furious at this proposal. Seems pretty great to me. www.thetimes.com/uk/transport...

We have a new report out from Jisc, our first in-depth examination of the Welsh graduate labour market, focusing on supply and demand and on movement of students and graduates within and outside Wales. luminate.prospects.ac.uk/what-do-grad...

I've put this story outside the paywall for the rest of today, in case you want to see the type of journalism that I'm working on with London Centric. If you like what you read, your support would be much appreciated — and paying subscribers always get the big stories first.

Size alone doesn't fix pensions. Take NEST: biggest fund in the UK. Members are lower earners, SMEs, etc. People gov't want to help most. Gov't control it. Yet provide so little... poor service, no real fund choice, no transparency over methods. Surely needs fixing. www.ft.com/content/0b5a...

Went down to Poundbury for the first time. Now reading about proposals in Kent. Yes it’s car dependent. But it’s a great template for liveable and attractive housing (maybe slightly pastiche). But imo its biggest success is having walkable retail & amenities www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Really feels like the US election has highlighted Twitter’s flaws and driven a new exodus to this side Helped by Americans hopefully moving over. If we could just get a few businesses and public bodies to shift here we’d be pretty much done with X

The NFU & rural Tories are tweeting about the IHT reforms I looked up the the avg farm farm is 81 acres, & worth £9k/acre. So £750ish. Are small holders really affected? Or are the loudest wealthier farmers annoyed to lose their tax free asset?

BBC needs to add the context here - the £10,500 allowance and removal of the £100k cap will cover around 80k businesses in the UK who have 3-5 employees (depends on salaries and directors) It sounds like this pottery business will pay marginally more, or may not at all

I get the pitch that a fuel duty freeze puts Lab on the side of low/middle income (commuting) workers At its heart, Labour aren’t going to do well with pensioners next time but desperately need votes of 30-50s workers Really hurts any aim to reduce household car use, emissions, etc tho…

Distributional analysis of how the Budget impacts different income groups Everyone better off apart from the top 10%. For info, that is people who earned more than about £61k a year in 2023

Quite a reduction in GDP forecasts for the year 2026 and onwards. Explains the heavy trailing of the OBR’s findings on the black hole.

I know that in a challenging budget environment, some things have to give But it feels like the government is professing the importance of certainty and trying to enable forward planning for businesses on the one hand. Eg providing advance clearance through HMRC to investors

Interesting PwC report on performance of UK cities Particularly notable is that Cardiff will record the highest growth in GVA of any city outside London in 2024 www.pwc.co.uk/government-p... Growth perhaps shifting away from the better performers in recent years (eg Bristol)

I don’t know if all parts of London suffer this but it often feels like life in Harringay is blighted by the frequent circling of helicopters at 3am…

Contrary to the bashing of civil servants under the last gov, credit where due: HM Passport Office returned my passport in 10 (calendar) days, despite guidance of 3 weeks. Very encouraging to see some gov’t departments still exceed public expectations. Now sort out my pension, Nest.

BBC: "Why are we building homes when so many are standing empty?" Except we don't have a high % of vacant housing The measures described are one answer. But a large % of properties are going to be hard to get investors to take on and fix www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I knew it’d be low but it still seems really remarkable that the prison population is only 4% female. Not sure what number I would have guessed but not <5%. on.ft.com/3z9AYcA

More nonsense from the hellsite Because public transport always looks like the District Line at Fulham Broadway during Chelsea’s 2014 season Anyone tried taking a Tesla down North End Road? Almost certainly slower.

Really interesting report showing huge beneficial impacts of ULEZ on school journeys. Something the rest of the country could learn from because most areas I see have a driving to school crisis… www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... Full study: ijbnpa.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

Good riddance to the British Isa on.ft.com/4dNlJFf Having recently navigated the HTB/LISA/S&S LISA debacle it’s a mess Give people one type of ISA One yearly allowance Let them save and buy shares. Give a gov bonus for a 1st time property Every other feature is horrible and bloated

Obviously the findings are important and saddening But the enquiry has cost 4% of the UK budget for remedying fire safety issues Shocking how much it costs to hold a public enquiry, and the Covid one is going to overtake this one pretty soon www.theguardian.com/uk-news/arti...

Some interesting observations about China’s debt laden local governments and the parallels you could draw with the UK. I assume UKLG borrows less and raises more tax, but both are too reliant on the centre, dysfunctionally funded, and are calling for more tax & spend powers. on.ft.com/3Z03GHa

Given the wordcount, this a really good summary of welfare policy challenges from Patrick Butler (who afaics isn't on here yet). Everyone will have something to add to the list: mine would be LHA coverage (limited to bottom 30% of local rents). www.theguardian.com/society/arti...