After that, I kind of wish the assassination attempt on Nick Mohammed’s character had been successful at the end of the latest series of Slow Horses.

Next time someone tells you that train drivers "just push buttons" show them this from the BBC

Today is the official UK publication day for Silicon Empires! I'm excited to have it out and hear what people think. There's an enormous amount happening every day in AI, and it's difficult to gain a stable perspective. I wrote the book to try and get some secure hold on that constant flux. 🧵

Or, as @brettchristophers.bsky.social’s put it in relation to the renewables energy sector, the price is wrong. It’s not supply and demand so much as profitability that matters. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... New homes: even if you build them, there’s no one to buy them

Co-authored with @andrewleyshon.bsky.social for a forthcoming special issue of @finandsoc.bsky.social, this essay takes Elon Musk's planned FinTech makeover of X as a provocation for a critical analysis of so-called 'embedded finance' and the evolution of FinTech www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

If you enjoyed @kateconger.com and @rmac.bsky.social's Character Limit, and wondered about Musk’s ambitions to turn X into a fintech behemoth, then you might be interested in a new Open Access paper by @paullangley.bsky.social and me on fintech's 'disappearance'. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

New post just out: "On the edge" On my unexpected week in hospital and five things I learnt about the state of the NHS. (Free to read) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/o...

This thread should be of interest to all those working in Departments of Geography at UK Universities who sometimes ponder why their UG student intake often skews to the privileged. This skew is then exacerbated through the use of exotic field classes as marketing and recruitment bait on Open Days.

It's alive!

David Harvey at 90: A Verso Series www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/... @versobooks.bsky.social First essay by Eric Sheppard now posted.

If you want to know what a new UK digital ID for immigration would mean, read "States of Ignorance" a book that came out of an ESRC project comparing the development of UK control with two countries with ID. From this research, I think it's a dangerous idea 1/ www.cambridge.org/core/books/s...

Kyle perhaps should be more interested in rigour than vigour: then he might not have conflated Stanford with the entire US university system. There are historical and geographical reasons why students who want to be founders might chose to go to Stanford.

today, Rachel Reeves meets BlackRock & Blackstone bosses to ask what British derisking state can do for them. New Rip-off Britain project by @cmmonwealth.bsky.social shows what institutional ownership has done for us: 200bn from our pockets to Big Finance!

Farewell Evernote, it's been ... expensive 🧵

I've finally deleted my Evernote subscription, which I started using in 2012, intially for taking notes in the meetings I was having as HoS, but stuck with it for ease of online clipping. I've ended up with a large collection of notes & notebooks. But it's got ridiculously expensive over time . 1/4

Music platforms pushing back against AI music with the use of detection software. Deezer calculate 33% of tracks uploaded are AI (!), but account for only 0.5% of streams. But if one gets through, & makes a playlist, it can generate a lot of income. www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/nearly-a-thi...

Music platforms pushing back against AI music with the use of detection software. Deezer calculate 33% of tracks uploaded are AI (!), but account for only 0.5% of streams. But if one gets through, & makes a playlist, it can generate a lot of income. www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/nearly-a-thi...

Interesting that @pjtheeconomist.bsky.social argues that financial market concerns that a populist party might win the next UK election helps explain the interest rate premium attached to UK debt. Might this see PR being mobilised as a necessary step to remove a punishing burden on growth?

More reporting on how electricity rates for individuals & small businesses could rise as tech companies build data centers: “Despite tech companies’ professed desire not to burden others, they often push regulators to impose some of the upgrade costs on everybody.” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/14/b...

From the piece, a pair of paragraphs about money and banking as close to perfection as you’ll ever see. Shot:

Since search is dead, how soon do you think Google Scholar is headed for the Google Graveyard? I'm betting it's soon, and academia is NOT prepared

We are greatly saddened by the passing of Michel Callon, a key contributor to debates in our journal about economization, marketization, and ecologization. RIP www.csi.minesparis.psl.eu/articles-ved...

Late to this: a good example of the difficulties most artists have in making a living in the contemporary music economy. Long-standing indie band @fieldmusicmusic.bsky.social moonlight as a Doors cover band to make ends meet. I'd happily pay to watch them in either form! tinyurl.com/49b37t54

A cultural industries colleague, who studied science fiction, argued it was 10/9/2008. This was the day the Large Hadron Collider was switched on which, she argued, led to the proliferation of infinite multiple universes. This version of ourselves just happen to be living in a wrong track universe.

Balancing a desire for innovative growth through fintech expansion with the pervasive fear of another systemic financial crisis, personified here by UK CEx Rachel Reeves and BoE Governor Andrew Bailey, has shaped the evolution of fintech economies since the GFC. #FinTechCapital on.ft.com/44ShfuP

As @andrewleyshon.bsky.social and I show in our forthcoming book, JPMorgan Chase has been competing against, partnering with, investing in, and buying up FinTech startups since at least 2014. They have long been leveraging their monopoly position in US banking to shape FinTech economies

They are clearly doing this on purpose now.

This is definitely getting worse.

@jonawils.bsky.social may be a great football historian, but he’s got his arithmetic wrong here. John White was 21 when moved to Falkirk: he wouldn’t have been 25 until 1962, after he’d won the double with Spurs.

Such an important feature on TotalEnergies by ITV Cycling and Matt Rendell on the Tour de France rest day programme this evening. In support: a repost of this drawing.

The Economy and Society Early Career Paper Prize 2026 is now live. £1000 prize. Submission deadline: 15/12/25 Details here and in the News and CfP section of our website files.taylorandfrancis.com/economy-and-...

“Nothing can possibly go wrong!” www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Really good follow up essay from Gillian Tett on Geoeconomics, revealing more sources & some useful interviews. Still bemused by the lack of reference to 1980s Japan & the concerted US campaign against Japan’s perceived mercantilism. Worked too. on.ft.com/40b9ayH The new age of geoeconomics

Better late than never I suppose re: Thatcherism. on.ft.com/44iwZHl The roots of the British malaise lie in a sick economy

Nearly a quarter of foster places in England provided by private equity-backed firms

Me, @allanwatson1.bsky.social and @andrewleyshon.bsky.social spotted in Foyles - huddling together in solidarity. The critical filling in a chunky sandwich of handbooks and how-to manuals...

Wrote this last year anticipating the problems of Labour's economic inheritance & the need to find ways of keeping the financial markets at bay. After the Wefare Bill debacle, the markets are unhappy. Absent any substantial growth, the choices are spending cuts, tax rises or fiscal rule changes.

If The Velvet Sundown are indeed AI generated with over 600k monthly listeners then the investors that own the music rights and those invested in AI music algos are going to be very excited about the possibilities of this business model. This 'band' may be blown, but there will be more. Many more.

Klarna's FinTech identity crisis continues. Investors are increasingly impatient for IPO. As @andrewleyshon.bsky.social and I argue in our forthcoming book, Klarna's inability to generate profits dates from its costly expansion into the US, driven by VC logic of scale up on.ft.com/3Gh8st2 via @FT

I know it dates me, but can I be the only one who watched Jake Shears on stage at Glastonbury with the Scissors Sisters last night and thought, “Well, er … the trousers”. youtu.be/gB0MxBMMKHM?...

Hell of a chart, this, from @financialtimes.com. Spot the JCPOA. on.ft.com/4kSuQYO

The Rise of the Platform Music Industries, written by me and @allanwatson1.bsky.social, was formally published yesterday. The physical version is available from all good bookshops (as well as a few bad ones). It’s also available as an an Open Access pdf): www.agendapub.com/page/detail/...

'The artificial intelligence boom means the Environment Agency has no idea how much water England will be short of in future decades, as datacentres do not have to report how much they are using to cool their servers.' Maybe the policy of 'turbocharging' AI everywhere & all the time needs thought?

Given the real problems academic journal editors are experiencing in sourcing paper reviewers at present, one thing that they and their publishers should really pay attention to is the increasing tendency to omit the authors comments when asking for a re-review. It's happening more and more.

"Academic journal publishing is a licence to print money". Discuss, using this example as an illustration.

Given the real problems academic journal editors are experiencing in sourcing paper reviewers at present, one thing that they and their publishers should really pay attention to is the increasing tendency to omit the authors comments when asking for a re-review. It's happening more and more.

NB all the mayors want a visitor levy, that’s not just a London thing - they collectively issued another letter on this last week, led by Liverpool’s Steve Rotheram

Is he offering to go himself or send his kids to work down the pits?