On another topic: if Prag wins the candidates and gets to face off against Gukesh, approximately one billion people are going to lose their minds

New Brexit metaphor just dropped.

SHIT i've just been called up for spurs manager duty for the next two weeks i don't have time for this

Market not even pretending to pay attention to his threats any more

Apparently the USA has obliterated the Iranians' ability to function as a state, except it's still capable of Olympic level teasing of the US President. Oh, and missile launches

Did not have this on my bingo card for 2026…

8 million No Kings protesters Zero police officers beaten Zero police officers killed Zero feces smeared on walls.

Refukker Farage trotting out the usual Refukker lie that 'London is broken'. That's the city named the 'World's Best City' for 2026 - and for every year Khan has been Mayor. And the city with a lower crime rate than Farage's back yard of Clacton, something he's done nothing to fix.

Ukrainian forces advanced on the Oleksandrivsk axis, regaining about 440km² and liberating 9 settlements, including 2 in Zaporizhzhia and 7 in Dnipropetrovsk regions. Stabilization measures continue in 3 more settlements as Russian forces attempt to reinforce the area with reserves. #Ukraine

It is absolutely stupid that a major focus of policy response to the Iran War is on the planned 1p rise in fuel duty in September (watching Trevor Phillips interview Bridget Phillipson). Of no help now to anyone to abandon it. Shows how trivial our political debate has become.

marketmonetarist.com/2026/03/25/t... Great discussion by @mamomvpy.bsky.social who is worth a follow

What is Mark Rutte smoking? - www.ft.com/content/fd35...

www.thetimes.com/money/family... "Their household income is around £180,000 a year, a third of which they try to put into savings and investments." This is blatant trolling from a supposedly grown-up newspaper

Skyla seething with frustration

Social media is populist and polarising; AI may be the opposite - www.ft.com/content/3880... good news story from @jburnmurdoch.ft.com

Predictably, Matt Goodwin's GB News debate was a disaster. He opens with defending the idea "everyone" uses AI tools for research now, and it's entirely legitimate. So the book is undeniably a product of using LLMs on some level. 1/

www.ft.com/content/267f... Good, troubling read. The war will increase RoW dependence on a less credible and trustworthy USA

It's annoying to be told the war is "ahead of schedule" They don't have war aims so they don't have a plan. They don't have a plan so they don't have a schedule. They don't have a schedule so they can't be ahead of it. www.ft.com/content/4f09... via @financialtimes.com

Nigel Farage is undermining democracy, not promoting or protecting democracy, when he loudly alleges fraud every time he loses a constituency where there are any visible Asian voters, yet has NEVER once actually brought any evidence to any authority of his allegations, despite OFTEN saying he will

To whom at the FT do I complain about this nasty perjorative headline? "land grab" ? I mean really! What about "The Oxfordshire fields at the centre of Labour’s noble housebuilding endeavour" (subs please alter asap) #WarOnTheCountryside www.ft.com/content/e6db...

Gorgeous blackthorn blossom all over the Common

Brent up about $1.50 this morning and at almost at $110 again. About 12 hours after the latest Truth Social signalled deescalation. The half life of these posts is falling.

Confirmation from the OECD www.ft.com/content/e8bc...

After an initial flurry, barely any market reaction to this latest noise from the White House. TACO ability weakening

so I hit that giant hornet's nest with a huge plank and stood there grinning and can you imagine my shock at what all these hornets started doing, no one has ever understood what hornets do

so it turns out it wasn't the newts, the cabinet write-round policy, or NIMBYs after all

this explains everything

I read that yesterday. Great analysis. Describes the mistakes made to get where we are, potential outcomes, and sets out errors in thinking to avoid. Specifically the difference between tactical victories and strategic defeats; and how the motivations of the parties involved shape outcomes.

people who do not have the pleasure of receiving Tim Congdon's email might want to know that he is predicting an upsurge in inflation in the US on the back of the money numbers - and remember that he got this right in the early 2020s

You might be starting something off here. Food-based acronyms 🤔 PASTA: Ponder Ayatollah’s statements thoroughly, always SAMOSA: Study ayatollah’s messages or statements, always

someone should have the courage to show Trump his or her palm and ask him to talk to it.

I'm still struggling to process the realisation that, in less than a month, the United States has put itself in a position where whoever is in charge of Iran actually has a stronger influence on whether the United States risks economic recession this year, than the US President himself.

Note that, taking stated Green values of pro-Net Zero and anti-poverty, three *clearly* better things to do than this proposed universal bailout could be: - Targeted relief at the poorest. - Give people cash instead. - Spend the money on solar/heat pumps etc. This is bad *on its own terms.*

All this focus on his outbursts is out of date: he may no longer be in control of when this ends, and how. For trading the market we've gone from TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) to PITAS (Probe Into The Ayatollahs' Statements). - www.ft.com/content/bc60... via @financialtimes.com

small pullback overnight in Asian equity indices ↘️, US & European equity futures also soft ↘️, oil & natural gas ↗️, precious metals ↘️, bond yields ticking up ↗️, $ index ➡️ we're stuck in a holding pattern, as US vs. Iran so-called peace talk agendas too far apart; the market has BS fatigue, I think

acoup.blog/2026/03/25/m... "There is a very real risk that this conflict will end with Iran as the de facto master of the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf...That would, in fact, be a significant strategic victory for Iran and an enormous strategic defeat for the United States."

Skyla would like me to throw her monkey, also I can't have it even for a second

Honestly my first, second and third reactions to this projection are all just this: blimey.

Omg this starts well.

When do investors expected a US-Iran ceasefire to be struck? a survey here from Deutsche Bank

useful Substack identifying the UK productivity problem as more on the side of demand for innovation than supply of it open.substack.com/pub/jundu1/p...

Thanks, @gilesyb.bsky.social. Here is my newsletter this week on this very topic: open.substack.com/pub/macroeco...

I was at a meeting yesterday where the most passionately expressed opinion was "the UK needs to channel more money to the SME sector, that is where all the growth is", and I felt I needed to put the data out there, again

"At this point, were Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for being allowed to develop nuclear weapons, nobody could be sure Trump would turn it down. If Iran made him the inaugural winner of the Cyrus the Great peace prize, those odds would improve."- www.ft.com/content/2656...

Rare photo of Russian warship part way through Ukraine's submarine conversion service.

POD O CLOCK me and @robarmstrong.bsky.social , both a bit sniffly to be honest, on: -why do investors listen to the president? -nobody knows anything -although some oil traders got hella lucky? -Short kings -British compliments open.spotify.com/episode/3aUJ...

"The Republican who previously held the seat had won by 19 percentage points in 2024." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Wondering what leverage in negotiations looks like? Australia's new FTA with the EU provides 16,830 tonnes of tariff free access for beef. Australia's FTA with the UK, completed with a desperate Johnson administration, provided 35,000 tonnes tariff free, rising to unlimited over 15 years.