UK Tory opposition leader Badenoch to abandon climate change net zero 2050 target This isn't a new direction but a craven failure, feeding not halting Britain's decline Wrong in so many ways, it fails • Morally • Economically • Socially • Politically 🧵1/5 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Part of being politically effective is you have to start by having an accurate view of a) where the voters are and b) what your political opponent is actually like. Not sure if the underlying problem with Badenoch's positioning on Net Zero is she is missing a), b) or both, but certainly one of them.

Germany did destroy itself almost a century ago. It wasn’t because it took in too many migrants. It was because it fell for arguments uncomfortably close to Vance’s.

Time for a tariff on the word "tariff"? Its etymological supply chain is global - shipped into English via medieval Mediterranean and Latin tarifa ("list of prices, book of rates"), & ultimately sourced from Arabic ta‘rif, "notification" or "definition." A linguistic import tax seems only fair?

Quid pro oh no www.wsj.com/finance/curr...

I don’t think I’m going to be sleeping very well for *checks notes* the rest of this administration. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/12/n...

0%, 25%, 0%, 25%, 50%, 25% …..

Is he “paying” full list do you think? #priorities

US defense companies might never be trusted again on.ft.com/3DtQQZs

I had to bring this here because it’s so good

"Russia’s long-range strikes, by cruise missiles that are among the most costly weapons in its nonnuclear arsenal, are aimed using satellite imagery provided by U.S. companies" From Graeme Wood www.theatlantic.com/internationa...

German magazine ‚Stern‘. (Wordplay on ‚axis of evil‘)

Thank God Keir Starmer is prime minister, part 1,274.

Mexico and Canada should both ban X and Facebook. As well as every other democracy in the world that wants to stay in existence.

Europe’s biggest powers are swinging behind efforts to seize more than €200bn of frozen Russian assets, as they draw up plans for a ceasefire deal in Ukraine www.ft.com/content/6536...

In unrelated news…

presidential ponzi #nuts

"I gotta be honest, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other" - JD Vance in 2022. Explains a lot of today's behavior.

Chris Mason failing to meet this moment when readers need him to explain what happened and why it’s important.

It’s nice how they’ve replicated the middle school dynamic of the insecure bully and his sniveling sidekick picking on someone surrounded by a circle of scared little boys who also try to talk shit so the bully doesn’t come after them. Or as the right calls it, “masculinity.”

The most shameful day for the United States of America in any of our lifetimes.

Why?? www.nytimes.com/2025/02/27/h...

Welcome to the second China shock. China now produces the same goods as Germany. Germany will keep bleeding export markets and GDP as China floods the world with its good surplus. Without boosting EU/domestic demand Merz will not be able to offset the damage. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Kemi Badenoch is delivering a speech tomorrow. Here are the pre-briefed extracts in all their incoherent glory.

Macron, with Trump scowling next to him, says "the aggressor is Russia"

Quite a contrast here. Rather remarkably, Die Linke, which was polling at 3% at the start of the campaign, won the election among young people with the extreme right party, AfD in second place. Among over 70s AfD polling at half their numbers in electorate as a whole. From DW.

No.

map of where some of the "money for Ukraine" went bsky.app/profile/trum...

Worst. Episode. EVER.

Americans proposed that Ukraine concede half of the profits from its mineral rights in perpetuity... in exchange for essentially nothing. This is not a monetary proposition, let alone a "deal," but rather the demand that Ukraine become a permanent American colony. snyder.substack.com/p/recoup-the...

A reminder, from February 25th, 2022:

Pretty disturbed by some of the Kremlin framing on the Trump talks being bought by parts of the media worldwide. It’s as if the genesis of the war is entirely forgotten. This isn’t a conflict which needs mediation. It was an unprovoked act of aggression. It could end tomorrow if Putin just withdrew.

Italy's Corriere della Sera with key observations and data, picking up on Brad and my work. The newspaper highlights how China's aggressive export-led growth model, which is hammering the German economy, is having serious knock-on effects for Italy. The German crisis is a European crisis. 1/x

How Dunning-Kruger works... and travels.

Thinking of those UK Tories who rightly supported Ukraine - but who also foolishly supported this buffoon, who blames Ukraine for being invaded

“Putin has got already got what he wants: the chance to negotiate directly with the United States on Ukraine, … over the heads of Kyiv and Europe - as well as the opportunity to put himself at the top table of international politics.” www.bbc.com/news/article...

Hegseth says return to Ukraine's 2014 borders 'unrealistic' www.bbc.com/news/article...

FFS techcrunch.com/2025/02/10/e...

Ted Gioia “With a better business plan, our Transylvanian count could have raised some serious VC money.“ open.substack.com/pub/tedgioia...

“[V]oices that speak of … connection and … love are once again having trouble being heard. The lines that would divide… seem unbending and are running deep. In a world at odds with itself, Coltrane’s magnum opus remains more relevant than ever.” www.everythingjazz.com/story/john-c...

Well this looks rather fab… www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Wrote about how Leeds is an unwilling lab rat for a particular strand of Treasury thought www.economist.com/britain/2025...