A very good afternoon to the absolute hero who organised and parked this beauty in the middle of little Tommy’s far-right hate march. ❤️

"Number 10 has had literally no strategic or coordinating capacity, outside of national security, for almost two decades, which is frankly insane." It is bizarre & self-defeating that a number of PM's have chosen not to sort this.

London, what an absolute dump

Finally summoned the willpower to finish a half in 2026: strava.app.link/ezcfVHJCb3b But omg those last miles were a mess

Crispin Odey and the £79mn libel battle that wasn’t - www.ft.com/content/edbe... Nothing but awesome respect for the resilience of the FT and victims

Why birth rates are falling everywhere all at once - giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... amazing thought that this incredibly important trend might be accelerated by something as seemingly trivial as smartphone use

I don't like to spoil this feed with too much science, but the only leader to win four general elections also liked tight shorts, therefore it logically follows that....

I wish South Africa ditched leaders as readily as the UK does! Maybe then I wouldn’t have grown up in the Zuma lost decade!

Being good at ditching them is the only saving grace for how bad our system for picking them is..

I feel nothing but sympathy for the government spokespeople being sent out in the media to say "the voters want us to be getting on with the job", when all of the briefing and some very public letters are saying things like "you are not getting on with the job". It is an impossible gig.

Something I find incredibly irritating is how people criticise a supposedly new British habit of flippantly ditching prime ministers. Literally everyone here agrees it was great to ditch Johnson, absolutely vital that Truss should go, and cheered the defeat of Sunak. All show the system working!

"When pollsters at Ipsos separated Sir Keir from his party, 34% of Britons said they liked Labour—more than any other party. Its opponents are beatable" www.economist.com/britain/2026... But some Times commentator says there's no reason for Labour to exist! It's so confusing...

Half-expect to be told next the £5m was for a secure ballroom in Clacton.

If you totted up the sums for every financial scandal in British politics (£2k per parliamentary question for cash-for-questions, £200k for Johnson’s No 10 renovation, the cost of that very nice campervan) even with second tier stuff like Rayner and Polanski, would you get close to £5mn *in total*?

Turns out, if you stop tearing up the seabed, wildlife thrives: ten years after banning bottom trawl fishing, there are 3 times the number of sea creatures + double the number of species in the South Arran MPA, Scotland, than there were before the ban 👏🦪🐟 share.google/2M5WqP3CXwSH...

It's a pity that @bethrigby.bsky.social is more on Twitter than here but the Electoral Dysfunction podcast with Harriet Harman, @jessphillipsmp.bsky.social and Ruth Davidson is obviously excellent this week, and the interview with Jess in particular pca.st/episode/9a28...

Indonesia, the biggest Muslim-majority country, is on a risky path www.economist.com/leaders/2026... The Economist keeps doing it youtu.be/hGYN1ro9Dv4?...

My naive reasoning for why Burnham is much stronger than this suggests: people who normally vote Labour wanted a vote against Starmer! And he offers them a two in one!

Just walked down Tufton Street. A few years ago there were loads of reply guys here willing to swear blind that it controlled the country and was responsible for everything bad in the world. Are they still around? I miss those people

Labour should embrace the Italy comparisons and appoint a technocrat PM for the next three years that's then replaced with someone likeable heading into the next election

Never particularly original, the Weather Gods decided now is a good time to let loose on Westminster a couple of peals of thunder, thereby saving a few lobby journalists the need to find a decent intro to tomorrow's copy.

Please listen to @timdurrant.bsky.social on this splendid @instituteforgovernment.org.uk podcast about how governing is about choosing between often unsavoury alternatives - and sticking to the choice! pca.st/episode/7104...

'All of us who have had to get by with not quite enough' The salary of a GLA member, which Polanski was at the time, is £66k. Thats double the average wage. Come off it with this rubbish.

Angela Rayner was dragged through every front page for weeks... HMRC's verdict: NOT deliberate. NOT even careless. Farage pockets £5 million and chooses not to declare it So where's the wall-to-wall coverage? Tell me this isn't a rigged game.

giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... "as of now, AI looks like an inflationary force, not a productivity-enhancing inflation buffer. See the 11 per cent increase in the prices of computers and other hardware in April"

Nigel Farage’s partner, a former waitress not known to have any private money, bought a £1 million house for cash shortly after he secretly received £5 million from a Thailand-based cryptocurrency billionaire - the same house that he claimed, months previously, that he was about to pay for himself.

www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/u... This really ought to be a huge story. The USA has substantially depleted its own weapon stocks, and Iran is still a threat

Counterpoint: this is literally the archetype of a collective action problem (no single person's actions can rescue the high street); collective action problems are literally what governments are for solving; politicians are meant to steer governments; therefore, look to politicians to solve this.

Not a bad time to read this from Louise Haigh renewal.org.uk/articles/a-n... which cites a great many respectable thinkers. But I do think there could be more frankness about what sort of level of increased borrowing-to-invest would result - that's the whole point, right?

It is not the most important point, but nice to see Jess Phillips cite the brilliant civil servants with the ideas here. The caricature of the change-blocking bureaucrat is badly inaccurate

Am beginning to realise that my strongest prejudice in policy thinking is against people who are simply incapable of editing themselves down to a decent length. The ideas being good or bad is secondary to an inability to stop and think about readers, and be overimpressed by your own language.

"land costs have been flat for a decade" is not the news you want if your *only* policy for fixing housing is something something the planning system something

The entire second world war, the Troubles and Covid have entered the chat

Removing Starmer is a necessary first step but someone needs to get a grip; explaining to Labour MPs & the public how economics works. We've had five years of politicians continuing to borrow billions in the face of high inflation & high interest rates & it's just made everyone miserable.

giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... The problem for the Warsh thesis is that while there may be a productivity boom off the back of AI, it is one that we can all see is massively raising the need for investment, and therefore lifting rates

Damned fine day

I normally love Times Radio but omg I think they just had a discussion of politics with Lionel Shriver on one side 'balanced' by Peter Hitchens on the other, and you could only pity the poor presenter trying to wring a tincture of calm or lucid sense from either.

Probably in my first 50 and it still works. (I dont think I did anywhere near as many dad jokes back then).

Meta thought: if Reform wins the next general election, maybe they could issue bonds denominated in a new cryptocurrency called Nige-coin. I'm sure all of their supporters would happily buy them up.

Call me crazy if you want, but I tend to think the government should avoid currency speculation.

I don't think it's a great idea. Some interesting additional thoughts in the replies to this post. bsky.app/profile/domw...

The big lesson of this piece appears to be that everyone should read @tobyn.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/76bf...

I suspect the top comments under the article have nailed it

Sounds like Hannibal’s story really cut through

whenever I hear a Party say the problem is they need to tell more stories I a. despair because it means they think the answer is more power to the comms spads and b. immodestly remember a tweet of mine from 2022

OK, expert gilt traders etc: what is the view on Tim's idea here for the UK to issue more Euro-denominated debt? www.ft.com/content/e709...

China thinks America is declining but still uniquely dangerous www.economist.com/china/2026/0... From The Economist Pretty astute in places

Greatly enjoyed The Devil Wears Prada 2 and somewhat astonished it hasn't gotten sued by a certain multi billionaire

Omg what were the odds www.nytimes.com/2026/05/10/u...

“What matters is having health, and time.”