One of my jobs at the Environment Agency was to get the Treasury to pay to fix the navigations we ran. I think it’s fair to say that England’s waterways are not in a great state of repair, and that this could be quite a big headache…

When I was at school, my mum sewed labels into every single item of my clothing with our surname and postcode on. I used to get teased quite a bit about this, but one day a lone football sock turned up in the post, in an envelope with Sissons CH3 … written on it

We've put out loads of work on the affordability of energy and heating over the last couple of months, so thought I'd do a quick recap in case anyone is looking for xmas reading... First, a look at the big picture on energy bills. Is gas still the reason energy is expensive? By me

I agree with this piece by Luke (Don’t pit YIMBYs against NIMBYs), but I think there is a trade off being ducked here. If you want new housing to integrate with nature and come with GPs and schools, you either need to make developers pay more, or you need more public investment…

We've put out loads of work on the affordability of energy and heating over the last couple of months, so thought I'd do a quick recap in case anyone is looking for xmas reading... First, a look at the big picture on energy bills. Is gas still the reason energy is expensive? By me

My main thought on the white-men-in-the-employment-market paper is that given what happens to women's careers post kids, the promotion potential for the ones who do get hired is probably better than it was pre-diversification, so forgive me if my sympathy is limited

Remember, it’s the hope that gets you… (Especially after midnight on a school night)

A very balanced view with some extremely useful perspectives whether you think it’s a bubble or not.

Slow politics fast. New substack. How American ideologies, tech and "might is right" driven by an "alcoholic" White House has bent geo-politics out of shape. And why the UK and EU must go slow - at pace in 2026. anthonypainter.substack.com/p/slow-polit...

Nice piece by my colleague Laurie Smith on what useful things might be left behind if the AI bubble bursts. Probably not railways, but not tulips either… www.nesta.org.uk/blog/what-is...

Re: Leeds tram… It’s worth remembering that there are only a handful of cities in England that already have decent sized knowledge service sectors, where mass transit is very likely to make a difference. Leeds is one of those cities.

This 👇 But not only this, you can also delete the link once the thumbnail has loaded up

Best men’s Test Cricket side in the world if you were picking today, imo: 1. T Latham (NZ) 2. Y Jaiswal (Ind) 3. S Gill (Ind) 4. J Root (Eng) 5. T Bavuma (c) (SA) 6. R Jadeja (Ind) 7. A Carey (wk) (Aus) 8. M Jansen (SA) 9. M Starc (Aus) 10. KG Rabada (SA) 11. J Bumrah (Ind) 12. Kuldeep Y (Ind)

An excellent response from @tomforth.co.uk to the TBI proposal for new R&D institutions outside universities. I agree that it would be better if the UK had more diversity in R&D institutions; Tom brilliantly identifies some blind-spots in the TBI analysis. To pick out a few key points...

This is a really cool video by my friend Henna: how many triangles can you make with three straight lines? It’s meant for children I think, but honestly I could watch this kind of content all day youtu.be/DzGyDn2TA_M?...

Personal view: get a flu jab if you possibly can! Ask your local pharmacies if they have any available, and if not when they might get a new batch in. Sounds like more are on the way (as reported by the brilliant @chrisbaraniuk.com)

Scoop! Some wholesalers have ordered extra flu jabs to cope with soaring demand for (private) vaccines - as I found out for the BMJ. Some pharmacies have run out of jabs after the flu season began earlier than usual this year, followed by a rapid rise in cases. www.bmj.com/content/391/...

Well… it looks like an ideal Bazball pitch, I don’t think Stokes will mind losing the toss, and Steve Smith’s absence is a huge loss for Aus. But I can’t get over England not picking a specialist spinner at Adelaide. Really extraordinary situation #TheCricket

This looks like a very cool job, as CEO of Community Energy England. (Home-based with travel, sadly can't see a salary, deadline this Friday) careers.wearedisrupt.co.uk/job/ceo-4540...

My provisional ranking of kitchen appliances from most to least indispensable: - Hob - Fridge/freezer - Microwave - Coffee machine - Dishwasher - Oven / grill - Kettle - Toaster

Friends! I have one more story about heat pumps to share with you in 2025. It's a biggie! About some real biggies! Behold: the biggest heat pumps in the world www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Someone should do Robert Gordon Tests, where you deprive people of various modern technologies and see which ones they miss the most… Is a toilet really more useful than a smartphone?

Nothing like 24 hours without electricity in your kitchen to appreciate how much the post-war era of economic growth improved our lives

One explanation for this is that the British state is dysfunctional (surely some truth in that). Another explanation is that governing is hard, and more about managing trade offs than pulling levers. And that we have developed a political system that cannot confront trade offs or do hard things

Having an early Christmas dinner and my brother-in-law appears to be using ChatGPT to tell him what to do with the turkey. I hope it hasn’t been trained on Duncan’s old tweets

Really good and challenging piece by Chris, this. Just to point out a couple of nuances (which don't contradict Chris' piece imo): 1. GDP per capita growth has been well below GDP; I think this explains *some* of the surprise 2. Our recoveries from 2008 and 2020 were both slow (in different ways)

The second test, New Zealand v West Indies, just getting underway for those seeking some soothing evening television. The sun is shining in Wellington and there’s a decent crowd at the Basin Reserve

We've got a new Nesta feature on Energy Abundance out today! Longtime readers will know I am an advocate of energy abundance, via renewables. That would mean having a big excess of electricity only some of the time. So, how could we use those periods of abundance to improve our lives?

We've got a new Nesta feature on Energy Abundance out today! Longtime readers will know I am an advocate of energy abundance, via renewables. That would mean having a big excess of electricity only some of the time. So, how could we use those periods of abundance to improve our lives?

Ok, some more cricket chat, sorry to almost everyone, but… This is how you win a test series in Australia:

Turn left up the street Nothing but grey concrete and dead beats Grab something to eat Maccie D’s or KFC Only one choice in this city

For any test cricket fans watching the Ashes, worth tuning in to the fifth day of New Zealand v West Indies now (on TNT). West Indies need another 300-odd to win with 4 wickets down, or bat all day for the draw. New Zealand have lost 2 of their 4 seamers to injury…

Newark, where the employment rate is well below the national average...

We didn’t do it on purpose, but I realised today that our “The Hole” essay did not mention AI once (nor any other technologies really). And barely anyone has pulled us up on this afaik

This is exactly right. The problem in the UK tech sector with VC isn't just cash. VC do two things. They provide cash and more importantly they are a governance structure for providing managerial support. 1. AI start-ups in the UK need more than money share.google/W4CbRwpcYwPG...

The government abolished ECO, its flagship fuel poverty scheme last week, following a string of failures. It now needs to build a new fuel poverty scheme that really delivers for people. But what can it learn from the failure of ECO? Nesta's Alasdair Hiscock has a very good new blog on this here:

The government abolished ECO, its flagship fuel poverty scheme last week, following a string of failures. It now needs to build a new fuel poverty scheme that really delivers for people. But what can it learn from the failure of ECO? Nesta's Alasdair Hiscock has a very good new blog on this here:

The government is backing air to air heat pumps* - great! - but what else might get in the way of people getting them? My colleague Shaan Jindal has a blog up on what else we need to get right to put air to air everywhere * you might even have seen a video about it 😬 @nestauk.bsky.social

Re-posting my piece from last year on what governments can do about the cost of living. Think it’s held up ok, tho I’d forgotten this bleak conclusion: “In an age of increasing volatility, I fear preparing effectively for cost of living crises may be hard for democratic governments to pull off.”

Sorry if this is really obvious, but I wonder how much of the annoyance of inflation comes from fiscal drag? What I mean is: if prices go up 4% and so does your salary, the salary is taxed And fiscal drag means you’re more likely to enter higher tax bands for the “extra” income

Re-posting my piece from last year on what governments can do about the cost of living. Think it’s held up ok, tho I’d forgotten this bleak conclusion: “In an age of increasing volatility, I fear preparing effectively for cost of living crises may be hard for democratic governments to pull off.”

The government is backing air to air heat pumps* - great! - but what else might get in the way of people getting them? My colleague Shaan Jindal has a blog up on what else we need to get right to put air to air everywhere * you might even have seen a video about it 😬 @nestauk.bsky.social

it's not as simple as "hardware has gotten better, software has gotten worse" because a lot of companies making physical devices are lost in the wilderness from a design perspective, but a rule of thumb that anything that charges you monthly gets worse over time works pretty well

i think it's useful to look at areas where the *tech* has gotten much better while tech *interactions* have gotten way worse. streaming has gotten worse, google search has gotten worse, digital cameras are leaps better. apple's silicone is so good it's threatening their user upgrade cycle

Tech has also been the dominant growth sector of the economy over the last decade. Is it really a surprise that growth has slowed down?

Why is inflation still high in the UK? One reason is that, even though the sharp inflation in goods after 2022 has tailed off, inflation consumer services is still running high. @johnspringford.bsky.social and I flagged this as a key issue in our recent essay, and I wanted to say a bit more here…

Not really a comment on this story, but I think we should try to make it easier and more normalised to downsize in your 60s. If left too late, moving house can be incredibly disorientating - and you don’t tend to know it’s too late until it is

Not really a comment on this story, but I think we should try to make it easier and more normalised to downsize in your 60s. If left too late, moving house can be incredibly disorientating - and you don’t tend to know it’s too late until it is

You may remember, of course you do, how a certain 'independent' analyst got a jump in exposure by claiming that the grid was inches away from falling over in January. Well, Ofgem looked into that day too and have released their analysis; TLDR: gas plant tried to screw the system. Little 🧵below

Why is inflation still high in the UK? One reason is that, even though the sharp inflation in goods after 2022 has tailed off, inflation consumer services is still running high. @johnspringford.bsky.social and I flagged this as a key issue in our recent essay, and I wanted to say a bit more here…