In a previous era this would have been the kind of headline you put in a film about a future dystopia

Tapping the skeet: bsky.app/profile/indy...

I’m old enough to remember when Paul Ormerod was regularly name checked as a leading UK systems/complexity thinker. Of course, those of us outside the club noticed the glibness even then.

As ever, the oddity is that this is amazing to the me of 30 years ago (and potentially could generate really useful things) and at the same time a very specific kind of search operation rather than a general research setup.

We're starting to FOI the gift policies of gov departments, and worth highlighting the MoJ's policy explicitly mentions tickets to sporting events as unacceptable gifts. That's perfectly standard, but yet in a three week window so many MPs have accepted them that it'd be work for me to list them.

Always fun when trade experts get condescending about stuff they haven’t published on. Osborne/Pickles introduced specific dysfunctions to local government. Of course that would be expensive to reverse, but doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

One of the problems with our discourse is that despite the evidence many people struggle to believe that the UK government has in fact (selectively, via Osborne’s priorities) been totally incompetent for years.

Good from @nilsgilman.bsky.social about how "long-term demographic projections are ideological fictions that tell us more about their authors' hangups than they do about the future" nilsgilman.substack.com/p/the-future...

FPTP is like The One Ring of politics in the UK. They know they need to destroy it, but once it's in their hands they think "Why shouldn't we keep it? We can use it for good!" and then everything goes dead-Boromir-shaped

The talk of British reindustrialisation doesn't even grasp how central universities are to German and Chinese industrial models

the massive impact of education on productivity is widely studied and the results are ignored as convenient

You can actually see the signs of the pathogens in British politics that @nesrinemalik.bsky.social is left to write this urgent piece while qwhite mainstream commentators think “Well that Sam Bowman is a nice guy, if he thinks mass deportations are necessary, maybe they are.”

Urgent, necessary and articulate from @nesrinemalik.bsky.social

As ever, the discussion around gold-plating reveals that the people involved don’t think about Scotland (and replacing air travel) at all. Which is not to say the correct speed was chosen, but measuring it via journey time to Brum is foolishness.

One for @sonofsuntzu.bsky.social

@dougbelshaw.com Just read your self hosting piece. If I may ask, how fast is your internet connection?

"Couch potato" is the archetypal metaphor for laziness. Yet if you leave a potato on the couch it will sprout without soil, relying solely on its internal reserve of water. What is this if not grindset? Are we not all, now, relying on our internal reserves to grow, on the computer?

It's a weirdly pedantic point, but I have no particular desire for a change of Labour leader, but the country does need a leader prepared to put Farage and the Home Office below the interests of the nation, instead of above. And Starmer has completely failed in this regard.

We don't actually talk enough about how the majority of our political parties and journalists have surrendered to the Faragist ideal that the priorities of the Interior Ministry come above those of the economy.

Just because we've been doing something since New Labour doesn't make it an essential part of our "variety of capitalism."

I spoke to Ed Committee chair Helen Hayes about today's critical report on the government and the HE financial crisis. One thing she told me was that DfE needs to fight its corner against damaging policies from Treasury and Home Office. Full story: www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-p...

Some have correctly pointed to Brexit, but another connected issue that is leading to political instability is that our entire political class is dedicated to policies on immigration that are damaging to the national interest and economy.

Anyone interested in standardising political ad libraries on AT? We could get all parties to post (under their legit handle) in this way and have a unified-but-decentralised transparency database that way.

One good thing you can say about the UK is that we're spoilt for metaphors

It can be perceived as a minor issue, but it does seem like the only way to get a change at DCMS is to change the party leader.

Let's never forget that @frasernelson.bsky.social normalised this sort of disgraceful 'content' during his time at the Spectator, and he would love it if you overlooked that while he's busy trying to reinvent himself as responsible grown-up voice in the media.

I can’t work out which is more 2026, PM Streeting or PM Mahmood

One might even say it’s not ungovernable, just they gave up trying to govern.

In the run up to the 10th anniversary of Brexit I think we need to remember what was promised by the Brexiters and what threats they made about what would happen if we didn't leave. Here's Farage 10 years ago this month. www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-p...

Been a while so thought I'd check out the Persimmon costs and operating profit per housing plot data. Big rise in build costs and operating costs since 2022. Current operating profit is effectively just the house price inflation since 2021. Land costs flat for a decade.

We can all resonate with the emotion, but the unwillingness of the MP to go on the record kind of highlights how we go here (they are part of hte problem.)

The UK has a real problem where lots of load-bearing institutions have simply quiet quit their jobs, but still aggressively demand the respect that would be due to people who are still actually doing something for society

huh

Miracles of UK democracy part infinity. Look carefully at the 22% support for the Conservatives in the least well off bracket. Think about Conservative policies since 1979.

Rayner campaigning for Burnham to enter a by-election lottery might not all be about her desire to see him enter parliament. Just saying.

Invoice for buying up Britain. @theobserveruk.bsky.social

The thing about FPTP is it keeps out fringe parties, yeah.

It may seem odd to say this when the announcement is part of a "£10 billion program" but where this government has very much been a continuation of the previous ones is that many announcements are made and then somehow the money doesn't turn up.

And will there be any money to solve the IT problems that underlie a lot of this?

The FT seems to have missed the large donations to the party from 'posh george's' Mum.

I mean - I agree with all of this, but Keir, you are not Shabana and Rachel’s minder to stop them coming to blows! If you agree with the Treasury view on this, intervene to remove the barriers the Home Office is putting to a deal! You are the prime minister!

One of the many good points made in this podcast is the marked contrast between the media scrutiny and outraged that accompanied Starmer declaring gifts of spectacles and clothes and the virtual silence around Farage receiving £5m in secret open.spotify.com/episode/57H8...

Miracles of British Democracy part one billion

Name your UK Labour figure who could pull this off.

i just found out about early modern epigrams. they're just tweets! books full of epigrams! the mind has always lusted for short form content!!!

Emotional moment: speaking as Hungary's new PM, he apologised to those who the state had failed, who hadn't had the opportunities they deserved because of the families they came from. And I think of Marcsi, a brilliant woman from a very poor family, who never got the chance she needed. Requiescat.

One of the oddest things about Starmer’s notion of “secure borders” is it doesn’t extend to defending our democracy from foreign oligarchs (and yes the crypto guy is also a mini-oligarch).

One for @timoconnorbl.bsky.social

Starmer not liking the "chaos with Ed Miliband" option some people on here keep proposing:

So the basic message from the British Electorate to the under 65s is : emigrate now, while you can.