This is incredibly obviously going to be the rolling problem with a “tougher” immigration stance. We still need people to do things. And, ultimately, either we hire/retain them or the things don’t get done. Everything else is hollow rhetoric.

This by the excellent @jburnmurdoch.ft.com confirms my view that political trends are being driven by the halting of the upward economic conveyor belt - striking charts: www.ft.com/content/30a4... Welcome to the age of zero-sum politics

If you're lucky enough to be able to read the @financialtimes.com these evidence-based conversations between @jburnmurdoch.ft.com and @sarahoconnorft.ft.com are particularly fascinating. Here's the latest.

This is fascinating and disturbing from @jburnmurdoch.ft.com on rise of 'financial nihilism' (cc @aminsamman.bsky.social !) in the asset economy www.ft.com/content/c17a...

Starmer and Reeves run probably the most economically left-wing government of past five decades and yet bleeding support to its left thanks to dumb strategy www.economist.com/britain/2025...

Attention is on NEETs today, but the problem is much worse. NEETs include stay-at-home parents & jobseekers. Strip those out to focus on people not working, not seeking work, not in education & not parenting: this group of economically & socially dislocated young adults has *doubled* in a decade.

Worth noting: • Upward revision applies to entire 2021-2024 series — the *trend* in emigration is *roughly* flat • As infuriating as big revisions are, they mean data is getting better • BUT wild that we ever used a survey to gauge movements into and out of the country instead of counting people!

ONS is so bad. (This is about specifically British nationals.) www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

Excellent column from @stephenkb.bsky.social on what @alanmanning4.bsky.social refers to as the “infernal circle” of immigration policy www.ft.com/content/1144...

The basic problem with the temporary refugee status policy - especially one lasting up to 20 years - is it leads to very few removals (based on Denmark's experience) but does significantly worsen integration.

Is AI making job recruitment less meritocratic? We're getting some v interesting research studies on this question now, and the news is... not good. @jburnmurdoch.ft.com & I dive in, in the latest edition of our newsletter The AI Shift www.ft.com/content/e5b7...

Quick thread on the BBC and the political and societal significance of recent developments: One of the main reasons the UK has historically been so much less polarised than the US, is that Britain has a shared source of information, consumed and trusted by most people regardless of their politics.

Tax policy on the British left is pure "anti-bedtime left". Bizarre idea that you can have a big social democratic welfare state without everyone contributing properly www.economist.com/britain/2025...

Zohran's relentless disciplined campaign was truly impressive - he brought every message/issue back to the cost of living and built a model for what bringing attention to a positive affordability message can look like Proud to have Blue Rose do ad testing for the Zohran IE! x.com/alimortell/s...

NEW: The End of the Line: the centrepiece of Saudi Arabia’s Neom gigaproject - a 500m tall, 170km long wall-like building intended ultimately to house 9 million people - can’t get out of the ground, say more than 20 former Neom architects, engineers and senior executives. ig.ft.com/saudi-neom-l...

NEW from me: Political hostility, high visa fees and (in the case of the UK) stagnant incomes are making the UK and US less attractive destinations for top international talent. That steep decline in the appeal of moving to the US after 2016 is 👀

2nd edition of our The AI Shift newsletter is out. The question today: could AI be making us LESS productive? @jburnmurdoch.ft.com www.ft.com/content/2480... At the individual level, it's clear we're not reliable witnesses on this Q. At an organisational level, it gets even more interesting...

Read the headlines and you’ll see wildly different conclusions about whether AI is taking jobs or not. @jburnmurdoch.ft.com and @sarahoconnorft.ft.com break down what the data actually shows in their new newsletter The AI Shift. It's free to read here: on.ft.com/4niHdxo

Exciting day: one of my fave colleagues @jburnmurdoch.ft.com and I are teaming up on a weekly newsletter to track what's really happening with AI & the labour market. No hype, just spreadsheets & shoe-leather. You can sign up here to get the first edition at lunchtime today! ft.com/AIshift

Wild story. The US Federal Reserve has long used additional data from payroll-processing company ADP to buttress official jobs numbers. During the shutdown this third party data is extra important for filling the gap. And ADP has stopped sharing the data. www.wsj.com/economy/cent...

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...

Grid scale batteries are changing our electricity system. Excellent new visual story on batteries in FT today shows just how far this technology has evolved. Fasten your seatbelts, this is just the beginning. ig.ft.com/mega-batteri...

New: How mega batteries are unlocking an energy revolution. A boom in grid-scale storage is solving renewables’ reliability problem and extending the use of clean power. Latest visual story w/ @nassosstylianou.bsky.social @samlearner.bsky.social @inari-ta.bsky.social 🔋👉 ig.ft.com/mega-batteri...

Incredibly useful new story by @jburnmurdoch.ft.com on the 'crisis' for young college grads. Most analyses compare mid-20s workers with/without a degree. But as John points out, the relevant comparison group is actually *new entrants* with/without a degree - most non-degree workers enter at 18-19.

"if anything employment outcomes are worsening more rapidly for those with fewer skills looking for blue-collar jobs than the highly skilled seeking knowledge work" on.ft.com/43eYeRZ @jburnmurdoch.ft.com as ever doing the essential work. It's not just AI. And education still matters

Lead is leaching into the environment and lurking in our homes. It's in soil, in water, in food, in our housing. And it's poisoning people. The first episode of Untold: Toxic Legacy launches October 22. Trailer here: open.spotify.com/episode/6M4H...

Terrific weekend essay by @henrymance.bsky.social

Not to make light of the editorial failure, but look how far Twitter lies now permeate in to normal discourse. We think we know about the racism but the utter contempt for truth since Musk bought the platform is deliberate & very dangerous. You can’t foment racism with fact checkers in the building.

Spot the North-American anomaly: only region where social media use is still growing. Great work by the FT’s @jburnmurdoch.ft.com www.ft.com/content/a072... “Have we passed peak social media?”

Have we passed peak social media? @jburnmurdoch.ft.com here www.ft.com/content/a072...

Eeee the cover for the UK edition of How to Win a Trade War is out! Pre-order your copy here... www.amazon.co.uk/How-Win-Trad...

Excellent thread. I’ve seen the same point made in the US, where the tight post-pandemic labour market saw significantly stronger wage growth among the lowest-paid workers, including hospitality, and sure enough the complaints about the cost of takeaway and eating out came flooding in.

On the morning of Keir Starmer's conference speech here's a new post on an odd psychopathology in British politics - our main parties don't like the people who vote for them - the dreaded Professional Managerial Class. And so they are acting out like a divorced dad seeking cooler voters. 1/n

My essay in this weekend's @ftweekend.com, featuring terrific charts and analysis by @jburnmurdoch.ft.com:

🚨 New working paper! 🚨 @grattonecon.bsky.social and I just completed the first draft of "The Rise and Fall of Technocratic Democracies". Excited to present it in Munich this week—thanks to Laura Seelkopf, Christoph Knill & others for hosting us! 🧵👇 ▶️ Motivation Many democracies have undergone a

Shot, chaser Young men more likely to vote Green than Reform. Young men second most progressive group of any demographic. Combined right-wing vote barely bigger than Green vote alone for young men

It’s journalism’s obesogenic environment problem. Everyone knows you’re meant to eat your greens (speak to domain experts, double-check), but social media has created a sea of cheap and convenient (open an app), hyper-palatable (sensationalised, alarmist), nutrient-poor (dubious veracity) options.

Grimly crisp illustration of the mechanism whereby toxic and unrepresentative social media shapes mainstream coverage. Prominent journalist logs onto X, sees claim, assumes truth, repeats in national broadcast from trusted mainstream news org. Happens all day every day, just especially stark here.

British economic sentiment is following the US in becoming an increasingly partisan signal. There has been a red-blue sentiment gap for decades, but it’s widening (data: @ipsosintheuk.bsky.social / @keiranpedley.bsky.social)

British NIMBYism is truly a sight to behold. “We are rejecting this solar farm, because one time I saw an electric vehicle on fire, which reminded me that decades ago a coal mining disaster killed lots of children”.

If a Labour government with 400 seats which has nailed its colours to the masts of planning reform and the green transition can't steam roller people like this and their ridiculous selfish BS objections, then what on earth is the point of it?

Great to see a really positive development in the UK’s social science data infrastructure.

Often see the assumption that although Labour is losing more voters to the centre-left than the right nationwide, the opposite must be true in the north of England. In fact, the only region it's true is Scotland. It's not 2019 any more!

Extreme views are heavily over-represented on social media Social platforms’ tendency to reward hostile content creates incentives that systematically reward simplistic messages and extreme positions and this fuels populism www.ft.com/content/9251... via @jburnmurdoch.ft.com

NEW: The first evidence of a solar take-off in Africa☀️✈️ x33 rise in Algeria solar panel imports in the 12 mths to June 2025, compared to previous 12 mths. x8 in Zambia x7 in Botswana x6 in Sudan x3 in each of Liberia, DRC, Benin, Angola, Ethiopia 🧵

In a few weeks (Saturday 6th September), Greg Jackson and I will be speaking with Pilita Clark at the FT Weekend Festival. Do come along if you're interested in clean energy, climate change (and many other interesting talks at the festival!). ukftweekendfestival.live.ft.com

Ever stared at a table of regression coefficients & wondered what you're doing with your life? Very excited to share this gentle introduction to another way of making sense of statistical models (w @vincentab.bsky.social) Preprint: doi.org/10.31234/osf... Website: j-rohrer.github.io/marginal-psy...

AI replacing jobs is generally (and understandably) framed as a bad thing, but if LLMs mean huge numbers of poorly-paid people no longer have to spend their days watching the most abusive, graphic and violent content the world has to offer, that feels like a good thing www.ft.com/content/d277...

A rare, somewhat personal thread/appeal. Recently, @jburnmurdoch.ft.com wrote in the FT about the crime paradox - a sense that while violent crime is falling, 'disorder' is rising, "compounded by the sense that criminals are operating with impunity." www.ft.com/content/7488...

This is a truly excellent piece by @stephenkb.bsky.social Face it guys, you have to pay the doctors www.ft.com/content/e263...