An extraordinary new column in the Daily Telegraph (no, that's not a typo!) by Ambrose Evans Pritchard. Yes, it includes two charts by Carbon Brief, sure. But stay for the concluding few paragraphs about the electoral suicide of climate denial... www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...

My brother wanted a London pub crawl. The result? My new Substack post: "Britain Lost 14,000 Third Places. They were Called Pubs. Is Your Local Next?" How private equity reshaped the local, which pubs are most at risk and most importantly what to do about it. open.substack.com/pub/laurenle...

Bluesky is the new science Twitter, new study by @whysharksmatter.bsky.social and Julia Wester concludes! "Results show that for every reported professional benefit that scientists once gained from Twitter, scientists can now gain that benefit more effectively on Bluesky than on Twitter."

With Starmer calling for deeper links with the EU a plurality of Brits agree. 37% think it is best for national security to align with the EU, 18% with Commonwealth/CANZUK countries and 14% with the United States.

An utter tragedy. Science solved this problem, but a bunch of charlatans fucked everything up and brought it back

🚨 EXCLUSIVE: Health officials are racing to contain a growing measles outbreak in London, which has struck down dozens of young children and affected 7 schools and a nursery. UKHSA has warned an outbreak across London could see 40,000 - 160,000 cases: www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcar...

Two weeks ago, Peter Mandelson told us he had no recollection of planning to buy a £2m apartment in Rio via a Panama holding company and a Brazilian company. Yesterday we found notarised incorporation documents for the Brazilian company, with Mr Mandelson's signature.

if you're an older person who finds words like mogg and maxxing annoying, just starting using them. people over the age of 30 have the superpower to end trends by simply adopting them

Where do parents find the time to parent? Less sleep, work and screens. Amazing chart feat. in @alphaville.ft.com Further Reading. homeeconomics.substack.com/p/where-do-p...

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

I am so tired

BBC Newsnight points out net migration fell from 649k (year to June 2024) to 205k (year to June 2025) (Small boat arrivals up 5k to 41k) When only 1/6 people know it came down from record levels, the main bulletins should take 10 seconds to convey the context when reporting

“I’ve reviewed over 50 sticky toffee puddings” is an incredibly powerful way to begin a video

UK regulator @ofcom.bsky.social under fire after refusing to investigate ‘misleading’ GB News interview with Donald Trump - US president not challenged over false claims climate change is ‘hoax’ - former Ofcom exec who drafted the code is “astounded” www.theguardian.com/media/2026/f...

I see we're back to "Johnson resigned because of a party" and not because he employed a known sex pest, lied about what he knew, and more than half his cabinet resigned as a result.

Labour's structural position is bad (terrible inheritance etc + unwillingness to grasp certain nettles) but has been hugely damaged by an obsession with winning over people who will never vote for them, based on a misread of the 2024 election

Morgan McSweeney resigns as Downing Street chief of staff ft.trib.al/cPjBd1p

If you wanted to design an organisation to kill journalism, you would create something very much like Reach.

What fresh hell is this? www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/f...

the Spectator accidentally recycled a subhed from a previous day’s article about Tehran

Good morning and welcome to your FT Weekend highlights giftlink thread. First the Weekend Essay "both Putin and Trump know that we live in a world where being able to impose your story is what matters". Peter Pomerantsev writes that Europe needs to change the story as.ft.com/r/1b2d55d0-8...

The way UK govt funds science is in the midst of a major transition, with creation of a much more direct link between government priorities & UKRI research funding. My attempt to set in context the biggest upheaval in UK science funding policy since the 1980s: softmachines.org?p=3252

If Starmer goes the last UK Prime Minister to complete a full term was David Cameron in 2015. So much for those who say proportional representation leads to instability.

I hope the abyss in @stephenkb.bsky.social's newsletter becomes a returning character

Sass off the charts

Hodlers: an apology for the apology ft.trib.al/7xAjxXu

www.theguardian.com/environment/... Those of us focused on research can forget how much a university means to local economies and societies. 52% of people on this campus were local to its deprived town, many doing healthcare degrees. But the UK's insane migration policies killed the campus. #brexit

I have thought of this quote a lot and shared it with lots of people. Helped me point out how car brained we have been guided to be: we have assumed it is a right to have a car wherever we want and gov should help us store it? Wrong. City spaces are meant for people not cars :)

If you ever want to feel like you live in “the ruins of a once great civilization,” then read a local daily paper from the middle of last century — our predecessors had more and better knowledge of their neighbors, their societies, and their local democracies than we do about our own.

the pitch is being rolled for a BBC/Channel 4 merger ahead of the next director general’s arrival www.thetimes.com/article/6c44...

FT are killing it this week

FT exclusive Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor discussed ways round restrictions on his making investments while an official UK trade representative and shared official documents from the role with Jeffrey Epstein, files released by the US Department of Justice show www.ft.com/content/6b2f...

Yep. Still valid.

Still such a remarkable quote www.ft.com/content/085e...

New Epstein emails show Peter Mandelson secretly advising JPMorgan’s CEO on how to fight Labour’s 2009 bankers’ bonus tax - even suggesting he “mildly threaten” the Chancellor. Mandelson was Business Secretary at the time. A year later, he was seeking work with JPM.

Marginal tax rates for graduates with student loans – add interest and another 6% for postgrads. £25,000: 37% £50,270: 51% £100,000: 71%

It’s frankly insulting that the worlds worst people weren’t meeting in a command center in a volcano wearing ceremonial robes but were all emailing on Hotmail accounts like “want 2 atrosity? With wemen?”

There’s been some concern and speculation in recent days about the future of curiosity-driven and applied research in the UK. This letter from UKRI CEO Ian Chapman provides some helpful context on what’s really going on. I hope you find it useful. www.ukri.org/news/open-le...

Someone who has no interest in football whatsoever sent this to me. It may be the greatest post-match interview ever recorded. From the man known to Bristol City fans as "Skeletor". The good stuff starts at about 1m30s. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Our important work at Kent Council to spend £600k on a car park to provide free parking for Reform councillors while staff have to pay, is all part of our 'We don't give a shit about anyone but ourselves' policy.

Wowsers look at what happened to posts on Twitter/X about London crime after monetisation of posts was introduced… economist.com/britain/2026...

I'm being sued for libel by a man who ran a rental arbitrage scheme involving some of London's priciest properties. The Londoner have been brilliant in standing behind me & refusing to give into this naked attempt at silencing the truth. Read below - www.the-londoner.co.uk/the-londoner...

The BBC is getting played here: if a contributor gets to flat out deny having his own words quoted to him on television (with the viewer not told the denial is untrue) then post about "dropping truth bombs". The mission to inform & counter misinformation is flailing if the editorial controls so weak

Morning Bluesky.

and no I haven't put the Mandelson-Epstein-Reinaldo scoop on twitter we journalists *can* make Bluesky the place to break news

New study finds that emphasizing collective efficacy (people's ability to catalyze large-scale change) is very effective in catalyzing behavioural change. As you can see from my pinned post, I'm a big fan of simple messages that can mobilize public support for climate action!

Bitterly disappointing that the UK has lost its Measles elimination status again. "UN health body says Britain is one of six countries in Europe and central Asia where disease has become re-established"

Reminder that, as of the latest reports, Liam Ramos is still in prison in Texas - now for 5 days. His parents are legal asylum seekers with no criminal record.