I saw this visual demonstration of ‘car bloat’ on our London high street. Cars are getting wider on average by 2cm per year in a profit-driven trend. The average UK car now takes up 1/3 more road space and win’t fit in a traditional home garage. #autobesity #carbloat #carspread #visionzero

This is hilarious and also, the complete rebuttal to "don't rewrite history" For a thousand years we said the wrong emperor built the wall across Northern England. If you don't know the story, it's brilliant

There's growing evidence of safety risks of bigger cars. Heavier with higher bonnets & worse vision, bigger SUVs are: ⚠️14% more likely to kill you than if you're hit by a smaller car ⚠️increasing to 77% for children ⚠️and 200% more likely to kill a kid under 9 #VisionZeroLDN

We're sure all you can think about today is that it's World Plumbing Day. 👨‍🔧💦 So here's the Palace plumbing - ceramic pipes that carried water around the formal gardens and fed fountains and ornamental basins and the like. (1960s excavation photo) 🧵👇

📕 NEW from @anacostaramon.bsky.social, Michaela Slotwinski, @ursina.bsky.social and Anne Ardila Brenøe: 'Do Mothers Respond to Information About the Long-Term Consequences of Part-Time Work?'

How likely is it that Alfred the Great sent two emissaries to India in the ninth century? ⌛️ Last chance to read this recent History Matters for free www.historytoday.com/archive/hist...

New @trusselluk.bsky.social stats out today: 2.6 million emergency food parcels in 2025 - 1 every 12 seconds. We're seeing really deep and prolonged hardship, especially for families. As well as for disabled people and fast growing numbers of pensioners. www.trussell.org.uk/news-and-res...

Sadly, North Yorkshire has a terrible reputation for raptor persecution - and it seems that North Yorkshire Police don’t particularly care. Thank you for continuing to shine a spotlight on this.

Recent weeks show our reliance on cars, but cycling can help. Most 2024 journeys were under 5 miles, ideal for cycling. Swapping short car trips saves £, pollution & fossil fuel use. Safer roads matter, which is why backing #MyRideOurRight helps everyone. cyclinguk.org/my-ride-our-right

Even if AI doesn’t hit jobs in a big way, unemployment is starting to re-emerge as a policy issue. So it’s good that @sarahoconnorft.ft.com reminds us how low our unemployment benefits are, and how this can lead to people taking jobs below their skill level www.ft.com/content/771a...

At 11.55 here Claude Moraes correctly points out that care workers/dependants are fiscally *positive* every year until about 2045. In response, the Home Office official misstates the facts & clearly doesn't understand either the point or the actual data/analysis parliamentlive.tv/event/index/...

Worried about wild fluctuations from $90/barrel crude to $110/barrel? I recommend you invest in an oil price spike nonchalance machine for your personal transport needs:

Poland’s electricity operator detected a suspicious disruption in late December when several solar power stations suddenly disconnected from the grid despite continuing to generate power.

An unexpected benefit of London's cycle lanes...our would-be Dalek overlords are able to take an afternoon stroll with their human minders, unimpeded

Almost Friday lunchtime. Looking for something to read? How about a blog? The traditional U-shape in wellbeing…?

This is why I write so much about pavement parking

RadStats annual conference 2025 is being held on 14 March at St Luke's community centre. The theme is using data to promote progressive change and there is a wide range of talks and workshops which is still being added to! Sign up now, students go free. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/2026-radic...

Splitting those NEET numbers by disability (small sample numbers, so wide confidence intervals) shows rises with age for both disabled and not disabled young NEETs.

Having now got the data for the latest quarter from the UK data service, here are the percentages NEET and not NEET by individual year of age. The percentages go up by age, and are low (by comparison with 22-24s) for 16-17s. N.B. ONS stats distribute missings to the other groups.

In her speech yesterday, the Chancellor said the question people will be asking themselves at the next election is "are me and my family better off?" So what is the answer likely to be? 🧵

I think there is not enough appreciation to how good this FT visualization is the original is like this 👇

How has today's forecast affected the outlook for welfare spending? There has been little change, and considering spending as a share of GDP it does not look out of control.

Having now got the data for the latest quarter from the UK data service, here are the percentages NEET and not NEET by individual year of age. The percentages go up by age, and are low (by comparison with 22-24s) for 16-17s. N.B. ONS stats distribute missings to the other groups.

We met Andy and Carol Austen of Austen’s in Rochester, plus the veg box operation they run from Medway City Estate. Ten years in, they talk about what changed after the shop moved, what local food looks like in practice, and why their cherries taste different.

Over the weekend I played with using OpenClaw (Opus 4.5) and my new MissingBenefit.com MCP server to conduct mock benefit entitlement sessions. The results were... well, have a look at the video my blog post. loosemore.com/2026/03/02/o...

Last week on Wonkhe: Jim Dickinson assembles cross-national evidence showing Britain's shrinking graduate premium is a demand-side problem – and that closing courses won't fix it

This #MapMonday we have even #MoreMaps for you! 🗺️✨ We've georeferenced the 1,329 first edition Six-inch maps of England and Wales we added in November. Now you can use a special toggle button in our viewers to compare these maps side-by-side. Explore the new tool > maps.nls.uk/additions/#194

"Well, I thought that visit went well, did you get some good photos of me for the press?" "Sure did boss, photos of you looking mean and superior in a severe all black get-up, striding through a grim brick-built camp. Real powerful. Very symbolic."

Our politics and media are riddled with people who simply do vibes on immigration. Rarely do the things they claim match up with the facts of the matter. I have lost count of the amount of times Jonathan, and others, have - in varying degrees of politeness - pointed out the codswallop being spouted.

7 people killed in 2025 by drink drivers in our county. That’s not a lapse — it’s criminal, selfish behaviour that destroys families. 110 arrests during Christmas campaign. Update attached is latest ‘named’ offenders Court outcomes. Accountability matters. www.northants.police.uk/news/northan...

Stationary phone distraction isn’t harmless — the evidence is clear. It impairs hazard detection and reaction time, with effects lasting well beyond the interaction. This is road danger and it can (and does) have fatal consequences. Academic research strongly backs it (see pic). Enforcement matters.

Check out our artefact archive!! 🤩 (serious face...) Archives like ours are filling up fast. Soon there will be no space in Britain to store newly-excavated artefacts and this will be catastrophic for research in archaeology as well as innovation, society, growth and the renewal of nature 😢 1/3 🧵

Take a look at our chart showing how numbers of young people not in education, employment or training has changed over time. ⬇️

Good news: NEET numbers look to be stabilising. Bad news (with data caveats): more are looking for work but need the jobs to find, and rates are higher for 21-24 year olds most of whom aren't eligible for the 18-21 Youth Guarantee in England.

I think the split by age (with caveats about NSA, LFS etc) is interesting too. Higher NEET rates for 21-22 & 23-24. But those are mostly out of scope of the Youth Guarantee in England...

I think those big gaps are largely about education systems and how young people manage (or don't) the transition into work. Obv a huge amount to get into here, but one chart for you: countries with low NEET rates are much better at offering young people opportunities to combine work and education

But a not-much-change stats release is also good chance to zoom out and think bigger about where the UK stands vs other countries. We're not the worst, but look what those top countries achieve. The NEET rate in the Netherlands is a *third* as high as the UK's. That's just such a big difference.

What should Govt do? While youth unemp is rising, pausing convergence of the youth min wage rates with the adult rate would be sensible. And the job guarantee offer should be more expansive - we shouldn't be waiting until a young person has been unemployed for 18 months to offer more intensive help.

There's more movement under the hood - we can break down NEETs by whether they are looking for work ('unemployed') or not ('inactive'). Over the past year, the NEET-unemployed rate has been rising, and the NEET-inactive rate falling slightly.

Re-upping this 🧵from yesterday, going more into breakdowns by age, by educational participation, and by disability. It's crucial context to discussions about NEET young people.

This morning's UK stats for young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) show, as usual that the highest NEET rates are for 21s and over. 18-20s are lower, but the group that may have been rising rather than falling. 16-17s remain at low levels. www.ons.gov.uk/employmentan...

A 🧵with some charts - showing you cannot understand youth labour markets without understanding the role of education participation in the lives of 16-24 year olds. There are nearly as many 22–24-year-olds who are NEET (375,000) as 18–21-year-olds (399,000), with 16–17-year-olds just 63,000.

Also… Modern vehicles — with their power, tech, in-car comms and soundproofing — can detach drivers from the reality of their speed and risk. I feel it when road running as cars surge past. If drivers experienced that perspective, more might focus on their most important task: arriving safely.

Tomorrow the ONS will publish new data on the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET). This is important – and not just because the number is very close to one million…

A 🧵with some charts - showing you cannot understand youth labour markets without understanding the role of education participation in the lives of 16-24 year olds. There are nearly as many 22–24-year-olds who are NEET (375,000) as 18–21-year-olds (399,000), with 16–17-year-olds just 63,000.

With NEET figures published tomorrow, Paul Bivand & Mark Corney provide insights on the education, employment and disability status of 16-24-year-olds, raising issues and ideas for the Milburn Review. Read here: bit.ly/BeatingtheNE... @paulbivand.bsky.social @markcorney.bsky.social

I see @dsmitheconomics.bsky.social has discovered what happens to your inbox when you state some basic facts about the economics of immigration to the UK..,😉 www.thetimes.com/business/eco...

"No species in Prehistoric Planet last forever" #prehistoricplaneticeage #Walkingwithbeasts #ContinueThePrehistoricPlanet

If you add &udm=14 to the search string it clears out all the junk including the ai stuff. You can set up chrome to do it automatically.