Interesting that the idea of another EU referendum is regularly discussed on broascast media as something that would cause division and thus a bad idea. But plans to deport literally millions of people are discussed as administrative questions.

This is what I also believe - and will have a short piece on the subject soon. Question for me is when US and European politics will accept that China now has this power. That will accelerate process towards some sort of compact. www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

Yes, sorry, this isn't correct. Or to quote a government official in Istanbul, "there's only one thing worse than having the Customs Union with the EU. And that would be not having one" UK-EU negotiations are permanent, under every relationship model. That's painful.

Wow. This is alarming (though sadly not at all surprising). Violent rioters are also violent thugs at home shocker!

Nothing personal to those discussing UK-EU relations, but would you advise a friend to get back with an ex who was showing that they'd behave in exactly the same way again

The story of government-company relations is going to become ever more important in today's political economy.

inside of me there are two wolves and one of them says "well it is odd that people are feeling so down when sure, prices are rising but wages are keeping pace with them!" and the other one spends every day going "how much does this fucking cost now? why is everything so fucking expensive, fuck off"

Idle thinking on a hot bus that the problem with the common UK view that public spending needs to go up is that would create even more pressure to spend in all areas - making prioritisation in some ways even harder.

If you'll forgive the hyperbole, feels a bit warm to me.

Just what we need, Treasury officials finding another reason to interfere in the work of the rest of government. Little discussed outside government - how the Treasury being handed control of growth has led to cuts and lower morale in other departments. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Strange isn't it that the same thing is happening in so many different countries? Almost like there is some greater trend at work... but no, we must all be terribly logical about politics but also surprisingly parochial in this place.

Nothing like reaching the end of the writing process for provoking the thought that this is junk and should be chucked. To be fair far more gifted folk have had the exact same thought for their writings. This is also why I probably couldn't write a book.

That'll be the Lancaster born Scott McTominay?

Has anyone in the UK noticed yet that the weather is quite warm and sunny? I think some tutting might be in order, maybe even a bit of a sigh and murmur of "typical" under your breath

Alberto Tarantini (one of the stars of the 1978 World Cup and later a player for.... Birmingham City) setting a high bar for players meeting Trump (or Infantino) this summer.

The actual world is proving such a letdown for politics dominated by right-wing social and traditional media. And thus does the gap between politics and reality grow.

These events are starting to have the feeling of those ones you see advertised on scratty posters around universities by various Marxist fringe groups.

Schrodingers Iran peace agreement. Agreed sufficiently for oil prices to come down. Not agreed sufficiently for it to be obvious that Trump lost as a result of a totally ill-conceived operation.

Just noting that the social media age is almost exactly the same period as that of low growth since the global financial crisis. Correlation, causation, and all that.

Anyone here not marginalised or left behind in some way?

Europe has famously never subsidised anything until now. Ever. Airbus subsidies didn't exist. No factory ever receives incentives to set up. Agriculture is entirely left to market forces. Such is the state of the debate when powers lose hegemony. Must be solely down to cheating.

Alberta is rich by any standards. Yet still the populists are in the ascendancy as elsewhere. Global progressives with their typical pained desire to help the left behind are the useful idiots in this story. Social media the prime obvious culprit. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

An Everton goal might make things interesting. Though an Everton shot would probably be needed first.

Remarkably Sunderland are currently 7th in the Premier League table and heading for Europe. Old school, sign one really experienced central midfielder in Granit Xhaka to kick the opposition and his own team into shape

I've been thinking about this a lot recently but this has really helped crystallise it in my mind. The biggest problem we have is that so much of our lives is governed by people and organisations that we do not have means to hold to account

This is the only optimistic case I can make for Burnham right now, that he will speak and act human as PM, and thus seem to be more in touch with people than an incumbent who can't even convince that he is genuinely a football fan.

The jobapocalypse is another case of the lump of labour fallacy. This is what people do, AI can do some/all of it, therefore people will have less or nothing to do.

My local Tesco supermarket is now about a week into a complete breakdown of all its fridges and freezers. And what strikes me most is the almost complete disregard being shown to customers. A few printed A4 notes of apology. I suspect staff are being treated equally badly.

I’ve only just become aware of this glorious Basil / Clash creation by @sirpaintalot.bsky.social - magnificent work jimll.co.uk/products/bas...

Quite a silly article really. If the EU doesn't want to be distracted by UK debate, don't follow it, if you're so busy elsewhere. Just focus on current negotiations. Which shouldn't be affected. But all part of the sense of a drama neither side can ever escape.

An Iran peace deal if it happens should limit what was looking to be an inevitable inflationary burst later in the year. Globalisation defeats President Trump again almost like we should be getting used to this being the modern reality.

I have meetings on Tuesday and I am not amused by this weather. I blame the government. Or someone else. Someone must be to blame.

Not to add to the food discourse, but just made a salad from what I bought from the market* today and it was delicious * Not a farmers market, just an ordinary one

I too am angry that governments do not possess magic wands.

The new global order is already here and it was driven by technology and companies. Governments are struggling. None of this should be as difficult to understand as it seems to be.

Desert Island Discs...

We better hope that this emerging consensus on Burnham doesn't turn out to be correct because UK politics needs the change that was promised and not delivered.

Bit worried for supporters of Hull, Middlesbrough, Bolton, Stockport, Salford and Notts County who by and large aren't going to be used to this weekend's temperatures in London. Near total northern cast for probably the hottest play offs we've had.

But I'm afraid this is the new norm. A general commentariat unthinkingly passing on their own or others prejudices then telling anyone with any greater knowledge that they're wrong. And this is bleeding into government making a hard job worse.

Do sometimes wonder why I bother hearing and reporting feelings from Brussels and London when I could just keep saying the same thing over and again whatever the circumstances...

How is it possible that senior UK officials have apparently learnt nothing about negotiating with the EU over the last 10 years? This is why there is widespread distrust of the UK across the EU, because it is believed we still want to pick and choose our membership model.

I don’t say this to undercut Duncan’s excellent column, more to share an epiphany I had during it: yes, the bang average (and indeed the most successful) parts of the UK are “left behind”, because that’s the consequence of underperforming our peers and weakening our comparative advantage.

To use a technical term, this is nuts. US trade policy is utterly failing to bring back manufacturing and alienating potential partners. Fortunately for the country its services sector is propping up the economy. France thinks this is worth emulating?

Oh dear, I seem to have upset someone again. All because I dared to use the experience of having been through a central government redundancy round (and several in the private sector) to push back against a lazy generalism. Modern political debate...

Also (and cf competency-based assessment) the people who are very good at working out how to make a case that they have the competency/perform well aren’t necessarily the ones who have the competency/perform well.

Just finished a training session on UK EU relations and can do similar for anyone who can afford the resulting therapy bills

Look, it could probably be a lot worse than this. @jenwilliamsft.bsky.social for the FT Inside Politics Newsletter (I've just checked and the nearest Booths is in Burscough, which is miles away)

Obviously affordability is part of the story of discontent. But I don't really buy it as the fundamental one, and perhaps as importantly I'm not sure that government in one term can make that much of a difference when there are so many factors eg minimum wage, energy prices, war in Iran.

Yesterday two European institutions published this extremely good paper on future UK-EU ties. It deserves proper attention coming from there so to speak and being based on serious engagement with experts on both sides. Some key points follow... www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/en/publicati...

Once again that difficulty of accepting that companies trade rather than governments, and right now European and Chinese ones want to work with each other even if their governments are going to put obstacles in place. www.ft.com/content/5529...