Too close to home. For a North London boy, the Millennium Stadium gave the FA Cup final something Wembley can’t. My newsletter, out now.

The marvellous thing about Mile End Group talks is you'll have a speaker, in this case Charles Moore, and a subject, Thatcher's relationship with Whitehall, and when Peter Hennessy opens it up for questions, the first is Thatcher's permanent secretary and the second her principle private secretary!

A love letter to FA Cup finals in Cardiff — because you shouldn't be able to win the cup and make it home for supper. ✍️ www.linestotake.com/p/too-close-...

My reading of public opinion on Brexit rn: ~most constituencies think the UK was wrong to have left the EU ~most constituencies will now be majority Rejoin given national polling (55-33) ~the national lead that Rejoin enjoys in the polls would tighten a fair bit during a campaign*

We will, I think unquestionably, end up needing a higher rate of housing benefit for pensioners down the line

America could have had a gangbusters 2025... were it not for a frenzy of bad policymaking. Careful work by my colleague Alex Domash recovering the "MAGA tax" on America's economy. He puts it at 0.7-0.8% of 2025 GDP growth. www.economist.com/finance-and-...

Life is wearing noise-cancelling headphones on flights to block out that continuous, low-frequency hum and then playing brown noise — aka aeroplane sounds — at home to get any work done.

Too close to home. For a North London boy, the Millennium Stadium gave the FA Cup final something Wembley can’t. My newsletter, out now.

Wes Streeting in "multiple things can be true at once" shocker: 1. As a normie millennial living in London, he really does like the EU 2. He needs to say things that are popular with Labour members 3. It's legit fun to mess with a leadership rival

Wes Streeting in "multiple things can be true at once" shocker: 1. As a normie millennial living in London, he really does like the EU 2. He needs to say things that are popular with Labour members 3. It's legit fun to mess with a leadership rival

On a similar theme, had to use an LLM to locate FedEx's phone number to, you know, speak to a human and sort out multiple 'missed' deliveries that... were surely costing them vastly more time and money than having a well-staffed call centre?

Andy Burnham rows back on Rejoin. As Wes Streeting embraces EU membership, why is Burnham getting cold feet? On Makerfield, Labour factionalism and *those* eyelashes.

Can't believe it!

Starlings are eating me out of house and home: it's like having a gang of feral teenagers descending on the fridge

Really, there is more that unites us than divides us 🥹🤲

I felt fine about turning 37 but being the oldest person at a sports bar and fantasising about going home to read Lloyd Blankfein’s memoirs has served as something of a blow.

Is it ok to like Jeffrey Archer? ✍️ www.linestotake.com/p/is-it-ok-t... I’d been saving this story for my mother’s eulogy, but seeing as it’s Friday and she has the constitution of an ox, here you go.

My first reaction to Spirit's collapse was "I wonder if this means more work for @stevenomadic.bsky.social?" and then lay down in a dark room, contemplating who broke me.

Someone told me recently that the worst part of a watermelon tastes like the best part of a cucumber and it’s been hard getting anything done since.

New personal post by me: Not all time is worth the same I think how we get to use our time is very important, and imo the most promising route for going beyond GDP as a measure of the economy. But something has been bothering me about it: time has a very different value at different times…

Is it ok to like Jeffrey Archer? ✍️ www.linestotake.com/p/is-it-ok-t... I’d been saving this story for my mother’s eulogy, but seeing as it’s Friday and she has the constitution of an ox, here you go.

I wrote about the dirty little secret of office life: getting paid to kill time. (Apologies to my fellow leader writers/UK taxpayers.) ✍️ www.linestotake.com/p/the-dirty-...

George Costanza's advice on how to make your boss think you're busy: "always look annoyed", remains undefeated.

Tariq is obviously right and this sort of thing drives me nuts. Football is a famously low scoring sport! If you want the best team to win, forget VAR and invest your time in basketball!

Apropos this thread: wife just called from work. "Nothing to do here today bc (reasons)" so we ended up spending 10/15 mins talking about Mercè Rodareda, Josep Pla and Rubem Fonseca on the company's dime 🤣

I don't think Jeremy Kyle should lead the Labour Party.

"The Soviet Union... well, it's been a big disappointment, in a way." Delightfully weird documentary detailing the end of the Communist Party of Great Britain through the eyes of two elderly Scottish members.

I wrote about the dirty little secret of office life: getting paid to kill time. (Apologies to my fellow leader writers/UK taxpayers.) ✍️ www.linestotake.com/p/the-dirty-...

No, Britain isn't ungovernable. Each prime minister* since Cameron had to go. *though Sunak actually lost an election. How retro, practically Heathite

Is "Some" in the room with us right now?

How far did you get before you knew this was a Janan column?

I've kept quiet about this for long enough: why did Denis Healey pronounce James Callaghan with a hard 'g'?

Parties that ditch leaders who have demonstrably failed perform a public good. Though recent experience suggests they don’t *always* find a better one.

Totally endorse this message - gettig very sick of this 'UK is ungovernable' schtick - it's just another way for people who've emerged from the machine (after failing) to blame the public. Do better.

Burnham: We will dam the Strait with locally franchised buses Streeting: Only a former health secretary can clear a blocked passage Miliband: Look, these strikes are wrong...

No, Britain isn't ungovernable. Each prime minister* since Cameron had to go. *though Sunak actually lost an election. How retro, practically Heathite

“Our party is hopelessly divided, our economic credibility shattered, we have run out of ideas but would still quite like to keep our jobs”. How not to do a Downing Street reset.

sorry but writing a resignation letter in teleprompter-style 1 sentence paragraphs?? game's gone.

In an infinite universe, all events have a non-zero probability of occurring an infinite number of times — meaning infinite versions of *you* exist out there. Yet even in such a scenario, I still struggle to imagine a world in which Andy Burnham leads the Labour Party.

“Our party is hopelessly divided, our economic credibility shattered, we have run out of ideas but would still quite like to keep our jobs”. How not to do a Downing Street reset.

John Major always claimed 'Back to Basics' wasn't a lecture on personal morality and had nothing to do with ministers' "silly indirections". Sure. But what did you *think* would happen?

Back to Basics included a crackdown on pornography but it was a 'declare your interest' situation as Tory MPs were frankly far too busy having extra-marital affairs to be spending any time alone with top shelf mags.

Unsurprisingly, I don’t think that this is what that section of the speech is saying. The social moralism of “back to basics” was entirely (press officer, later MP) Tim Collins’ fault, in that he was asked if it also meant personal morality and he said “yes”.

John Major always claimed 'Back to Basics' wasn't a lecture on personal morality and had nothing to do with ministers' "silly indirections". Sure. But what did you *think* would happen?

Not being good at the cheery Friday edition, I wrote about intruding on private grief. ✍️ www.linestotake.com/p/intruding-...

Not being good at the cheery Friday edition, I wrote about intruding on private grief. ✍️ www.linestotake.com/p/intruding-...

"Surreal, but nice." ✍️ www.linestotake.com/p/notting-hi... I wrote about the first 45 minutes of Notting Hill.

"Surreal, but nice." ✍️ www.linestotake.com/p/notting-hi... I wrote about the first 45 minutes of Notting Hill.

Take the 6am flight, make the most of that "extra day". ✍️ www.linestotake.com/p/ryanair-mi... My newsletter, out now.