magnificent second mention for plumber: "local pipesman"

Nigel Farage’s claim that he paid for a £1.4mn house with his fee from a reality TV show has been challenged by corporate accounts that appear to show that the income remained on his company’s balance sheet after the property purchase. www.ft.com/content/88ce...

This is a circular argument How does the UK demonstrate it is serious? By having a govt actively pushing for it soon, arguing in favour and getting the gears moving on the necessary procedures (like a referendum) Being ready and serious to Rejoin is not outside of the British government's control

Great piece: The jobs apocalypse: a (very) short history economist.com/finance-and-... from The Economist

It’s me, Mark Rutte

🚨Have added 400 words and a couple more charts to the gilt plonker premium post. Because there was more to say. www.ft.com/content/5a81...

Many such cases; a feature not a bug The tarts and vicars party economist.com/britain/2026...

Burnham stan who argues that gilt markets are actually pricing in Andy's pro-growth policies as he brings the Manchester Model to Britain.

Brilliant piece

Just make Rayner health secretary. Job’s a good un

Fantastic charts. Chomp, chomp

The local elections in one chart. Labour has been squeezed between the Greens in young wards and Reform in older working-class wards www.economist.com/britain/2026...

Starmer batters Streeting in a head to head says @labourlist.bsky.social / @survation.bsky.social polling of Labour party members

Or perhaps the Conservatives and Labour are just going the way of the Whig Party

All takes are either obvious or wrong so went with obvious this week

www.economist.com/britain/2026... and now with cartoon

As part of the 2.5 journalists in a trenchcoat, I'm delighted that our work is up for two Orwell Prizes

In a nutshell: Labour have turned into the Tories. Mad leadership contests, feral MPs and being incapable of distinguishing from national and party interest www.economist.com/britain/2026...

*eeeeesh* BuzzFeed sold for $120m. I’m forever grateful to the venture capitalists who backed the company at a $1.7bn valuation in the 2010s and let us burn through all their money, it was incredible fun. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

www.economist.com/britain/2026... column on where we are

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

This one! bsky.app/profile/dunc...

Hahahahaahhahaha faaaantastic

Recall that Johnson won a confidence vote about a month before he was booted

The reason we cant do austerity now is that we did too much of it in the 2010s. Its politically toxic. Don't understand why people cant see that... fiscal policy should have been loose in the 2010s and tight now...

Time and again, parties' internal constitutions have been rewritten with no consideration of how they would interact with our actual parliamentary constitution. The ability to change PM at speed was once a boast of the British Constitution. It is now yet another symptom of its dysfunction. [END]

www.economist.com/britain/2022... Wrote about why members directly electing prime ministers is a rotten idea here

And the potentially ludicrous spectacle where a leader loses confidence of cabinet and MP and yet is returned

This (from Lou Haigh via soft left Tribune Group) shows why the idea a Burnham/Rayner leadership would mean an unfunded spending splurge is wide of the mark - though they do want to make more room for govt investment.

Ah of course, the Park Run Putsch

(with apols for shamelessly jumping on Duncan's nascent col) Soft Labour. Blue Labour New Labour Brown's Labour(ious) Briefcase Labour Lanyard Labour Reform-race Labour Barnyard Labour (not) Market Labour Carked it Labour Liberal Labour Wibbling Labour What’s clear Labour: This Keir’s no saviour.

Briefcase Labour is rising up!

Wrote this back in Sept 24 and holds up www.economist.com/britain/2024...

Deliverism is dead Did you deliver anything No. Nevertheless,

Sad numbers, sad politics :(

I like the idea that barbers are stuck in a The Producers style romp, where they want to do money laundering but are instead vastly popular salons

Interesting polling on the selectorate of the Labour party (from Feb) labourlist.org/2026/02/keir...

Still staggering how few public defenders Starmer has

If you can remember the 90s you weren’t really there, amirite

He really does look like Phil Leotardo

Hiring Gordon Brown, is it

this is how we get the ghost of tony crosland into downing street

Always thought a pledge to buy the back gold would be fun populist policy. The Golden Lock!

Big queue for a perfunctory bag check at Tate Modern

www.economist.com/britain/2026... Wrote about how the 1990s has a chokehold on Britain, whether it is a luvvies reminiscing at the Groucho or a Jim Davidson gig in Purfleet

You can put that next to 1990s pieces in The Economist lamenting how the 1960s have a chokehold on Britain

Among my rolling, picturesque range of deathhills is that it was only 28 years of hurt, the hurt having begun not with England's win in 1966 but with the defeat in Euro 1968

Bring back proper jingoism!!!!