'We have historically high welfare spending.' No we don't. 'We have a historically high proportion of working-age people not actually working.' No we don't. 'The number of Britons emigrating is skyrocketing.' No it isn't.

Today's 70% fall in net migration to 205,000 was not one of the six stories in BBC ten o'clock news. Ta massive assymetry in whether rises in immigration and falls in immigration are considered newsworthy by broadcasters Down by 140k isn't thought to be. Up by 140k undoubtedly would be.

Most of the public think net migration increased last year, when in fact numbers halved. New findings from the Ipsos/British Future Immigration Attitudes Tracker show that 56% of the public thinks immigration increased last year. Just 1 in 6 realise it was down www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

This is quite a story for English Higher Education policy. #Budget2025 on.ft.com/4ogqPxZ Threshold for repaying student loans to converge with minimum wage

Big news, income tax is being charged this year. (It has to be renewed each year or it ceases to apply. Because it's a temporary tax, introduced to fund the Napoleonic wars)

my takeaway from climate week nyc is that "climate storytelling" is a little too much "we must reimagine our deepest souls in relationship to mother nature and the moral abyss of the polycrisis into which we must now stare" and not enough "ok but get a heat pump"

I’d imagine this will cause a *lot* of nervousness among universities – especially as quite a few of them are right on the brink of bankruptcy. And whatever the government thinks, it’ll end up stepping in if large universities collapse.

The housing crisis has been brewing for a long time, according to Professor Paul Cheshire 👇

Very good policy from Labour Early signal that taking the railways into public ownership means a better deal for passengers - ripped off for too long by privatisation. inews.co.uk/news/rail-fa...

"Meta internally projected late last year that it would earn about 10 per cent of its overall annual revenue — or $16bn — from running advertising for scams and banned goods, internal company documents show" - Reuters www.ft.com/content/4560...

But what this really reflects is the consistent loading of extra costs onto electricity bills and not gas. It is essential that the government reverses this, and begins removing levies from bills - whether to taxation or rebalancing on to gas.

There’s some very bad news hidden in the Ofgem price cap for January announced yesterday: the electricity to gas price ratio has jumped to 4.67, its highest level since before the energy crisis. This is a big barrier to households adopting heat pumps in Britain, and threatens our climate goals

The Covid inquiry’s findings are shocking but unsurprising now, so the main thing it left me thinking is that without a vaccine we wd’ve been utterly screwed. & if you worked round the clock to make a thing that saved millions of lives globally, to see that legacy trashed by anti-vaxxers…

There have been rumours swirling that the Chancellor might cut subsidies for heat pumps in the budget. This would be a terrible idea, and I've written a blog with all the reasons why... www.nesta.org.uk/blog/seven-r... @nestauk.bsky.social

Should be quite a spicy media committee hearing in the Commons next Monday on the BBC... Featuring e.g... Michael Prescott - of the Trump dossier Samir Shah, Chair of the BBC And Robbie Gibb, controversial non-exec director and member of the BBC Editorial Guidelines & Standards Committee

'Face of the Moon.' (1797) John Russell was the finest British pastel artist of his time. One of his sitters, the astronomer William Herschel encouraged him to buy a telescope, and with this he produced a number of remarkable pastel drawings of the moon.

Imagine escaping the literal Nazis, making it to America, living three quarters of a century there making your life, and then this:

New essay out today by me and @acjsissons.bsky.social - ‘Getting Britain out of the hole: a plan for the economy’. You can read the whole thing here getting-out-of-the-hole.uk A chart mega-thread follows 🧵

Whether it’s Barack Obama, appearing in a tan suit or Donald Trump appearing 1700 times in Jeffrey Epstein‘s emails, both presidents made some highly controversial appearances.

When asked if he thought Trump was a bad president… Pete: I would go well beyond a bad president. 🔥🔥🔥

Prime example of why the contract between the public and the police is breaking down, regardless of long term crime trends. Thames Valley Police don’t even think it’s their job to investigate this. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Long ago on the hell site I made long list of historically interesting things to use in dnd ttrpgs and I'll start dragging them over here starting with 2000 years-old sapphire ring presumably belonged to Roman emperor Caligula, depicting his fourth wife Caesonia.

How to rapidly scale the heat pump market? “The main hurdle is the price ratio of gas to electricity. [Reforming taxation of energy] would unlock a much more market-driven transition.” That’s what I told the FT. Excellent piece.

As things stand the galaxy brains in the Treasury and Number 10 appear to be working on a Budget that will be really quite bad for a green economy that is both one of the few parts of the UK economy that is growing and one of the few parts of Labour's agenda that is popular.

With current pledges, the world's on track for 2.6°C of warming in 2100 compared to preindustrial levels. 10 years ago, before the Paris agreement, it was 3.6°C 20+ years ago, we thought it would be 4-5°C So 2.6°C is better, but the problem is that climate impacts are way worse than we predicted.

Taxes on the typical salary are now 55% higher than on self-employment income. The effective tax rate for a self-employed worker equivalent to the median employee in 2025-26 was the second lowest in 50 years, behind only 2024-25. buff.ly/4ppe7Q8

Applications open: New Generation Thinkers 2026 AHRC is partnering with BBC Radio 4 to offer five early-career researchers the opportunity to work with programme makers, appear on air, and gain first-hand experience of how ideas make it to broadcast. Apply by Jan 2026

‘Thanks so much for joining us on what I know is a very busy day for you. Tell me, what is your vision for the BBC as the corporation’s new director-general?’

Tim Davie resigns as BBC director general after accusations of ‘serious and systemic’ bias in coverage www.theguardian.com/media/2025/n...

i think about this way too much - how tech companies act vs. “legacy” companies that produce consumer goods, news, media or entertainment.

Tech guys six months ago: haha yes we’re cutting all this WASTEFUL spending by eliminating medical research and USAID Tech guys now: yes I think taxpayers will be excited to bailout my non consensual pornography machine

This is quite the graph and reinforces my view that Bluesky is actually quite revolutionary.

One analytical model shows that, as of November 5th, the dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. has already caused the deaths of 600,000 people, two-thirds of them children. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/jUzNSc

This investigation from the @sheffieldtribune.bsky.social is absolutely staggering. It is very common in Sheffield (I live in this bit) to have a leasehold, often with hundreds of years left on and pennies in ground rent. This is extortion pure and simple. www.sheffieldtribune.co.uk/a-london-law...

Amid many a silly “free speech” panic, here is a genuinely chilling case … Sheffield Hallam professor accuses the institution of negotiating “directly with a foreign intelligence service to trade my academic freedom for access to the Chinese student market” www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Great read from @iandunt.bsky.social on whether Starmer should stay or go, including the mystery of how, if you’re launching a popular climate, energy, and growth strategy, why wouldn’t you stage a press conference on it? iandunt.substack.com/p/a-world-wi...

One of the world’s largest industrial heat pumps is coming to Boston. A 35MW system will use energy from the Charles River and deliver steam to heat more than 70 million square feet of buildings across Boston and Cambridge — hospitals, schools, homes, and businesses alike.

They asked me if I had any specific criticisms of the Ghost Train. I said nothing leapt out at me.

It's the end of the road for BBC Science in Action. But science itself is facing growing roadblocks. For this terminal edition of SinA I'm joined by @naomioreskes.bsky.social @drdebhoury.bsky.social @michaelemann.bsky.social & @angierasmussen.bsky.social for where now? www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w...

LONDON (AP) — Buckingham Palace says King Charles III will strip Prince Andrew of remaining titles and evict him from royal residence.

Government has published one of those quiet but important documents that might get overlooked as it is not 'newsy'. The headline finding is that £1 of public R&D investment generates £8 in net economic benefits for the UK over the long term www.gov.uk/government/p...

Extreme heat now kills roughly one person every minute, and about 550,000 a year, finds @lancetcountdown.bsky.social's new report. And scientists warn parts of the world may soon hit limits where it’s too hot and humid for people to survive. My latest for @bloomberg.com (free 🎁 link):

One thing I find really curious is the combination of ‘we can’t risk the triple lock because…voters’ while literally haemorrhaging mid-life voters and not having much more than….’wait for some growth’.

We asked physicists which are the sci-fi films they like the most - two were consistently highlighted in interviews for their depictions of science: 2014’s Interstellar and 2006’s The Prestige — both of which were directed and co-written by Christopher Nolan 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

It's fun how enshittification is driven by two quite distinct forces, the comprehensible one where websites are run for profit and so they try to maximize engagement and thus ad revenue rather than providing a good service, and the incomprehensible one where they just want to put AI into everything

“Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic and made way for parks, people-streets and bike-lanes.” Better for the climate, better for health, better for livability and quality of life. Common sense. Such a no-brainer, it’s remarkable that more cities HAVEN’T done the same.

Interesting..

If you think mis- and disinformation is no big deal , read this: www.nature.com/articles/s41...