Some great live-posting on the Hungarian election here.

The University of Michigan has been measuring consumer sentiment since 1952. We just got the first Iran-afflicted measure for April, and it's at the lowest level ever recorded.

Our neighbour has put wind chimes up in their garden. That rules out relaxing in the garden forever! If the LibDems promise to ban them along with blasting your phone on public transport, oh and throw in putting your seat right back on planes, I will actively campaign for them at the next election.

You just did the impossible and mobilised Gen Z to vote in droves in the mid terms.

Good article, as always, by @robertshrimsley.bsky.social. The answer to the question in this passage is ‘renewal’. That was Labour’s word, ‘a decade of renewal’. The problem is they have been too timid and frankly unprepared to deliver it. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

Hilarious how for years serious people have said that you can't rely on renewables because they are prone to disruptions in supply www.ft.com/content/19f1...

This is a great point. I left because of Musk’s manipulation of the Twitter algorithm, but an algorithm does make microblogging sites more appealing because you see the best content.

AI GP Receptionist 😩🔫

Well, after last night’s GBNews debate I no longer need to explain to students the risks of using AI to write papers since Matt G has done us all a favour by having a fever dream meltdown trying to justify it. And to think we thought his contributions to academia were over.

Good article here from @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social on Labour's sudden realisation that 'retail offers' are nowhere near enough to govern effectively in the polycrisis. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Ok, who gave ChatGPT acid? It is seriously hallucinating today. Some passive/dishonest students could be in deep trouble with their assessments!

Would be really cool if @economist.com made their Insider shows downloadable.

If the Financial Times was at 80% the country would be in a much better place.

Quelle surprise!

NEW BLOG | Should England’s metro mayors have the power to introduce a visitor levy? Ontario shows why local leaders are best placed to set rates and decide how revenues are used👇 buff.ly/xk7l0Ch

Venture science is the missing link in the UK's innovation policy. What if: - Tech Transfer Offices acted more like founders - Regional procurement was used to leverage innovation - We convened 'national sprints' to accelerate R&D on critical problems. New paper. drive.google.com/file/d/1w8tY...

The chancellor delivering her unprecedented second Mais Lecture on St Patrick's Day means I've only just read it. She does not have the greatest political antennae but is the govt's deepest thinker and really seems to understand the UK's problems. Can she deliver though? www.gov.uk/government/s...

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Really is some great analysis. Also a great example of an academic’s PhD topic and monograph suddenly becoming extremely hot.

How it started ... How it's going

Someone I went to school with has shared a reel on Instagram of a girl who blames ‘country traitor green voters’ for a violent assault on a woman. The assault is shown in the clip. The assailant was a person of colour. This is the type of far right propaganda littered across social media.

As Gita Gopinath, the former deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, has argued, an AI bubble burst would be far worse globally this time, given the significantly greater global exposure to American equities compared to the dot-com era.

This is why reforms to the civil service which simply look at headcount are completely wrongheaded. The civil service needs to focus on (re)developing its capabilities so tasks can be done in-house instead of by parasitic consultancy companies. Ditto universities. www.ft.com/content/f7ff...

Looks like we’re going to get more demand management to attend to a supply shock.

I mean this is the kind of headline Starmer (should) be dreaming about. Probably too little too late but some distance between him and anything Blair-flavoured is his only hope of survival.

Absolutely this. My brother is a surgeon; he's used Claude to write an app for his patients. It's not a masterpiece and it won't change the economy, but it is easier for them than trying to fill in timesheets of how much exercise they are able to take. Sensible scepticism has to recognise reality.

Starmer walking into Downing Street later.

This. New Labour wasn't just wars & media spin. It was a serious attempt to apply an updated social democracy to new socio-economic conditions - eg NMW, tax credits, expanding HE. This govt is making no comparable efforts (maybe coz, given economic stagnation, it's harder.)

The logical outcome of the McSweeney ‘efficiency’ strategy with an electorate in distinct voting blocs.

I have a feeling that the British public are closer to the Starmer position on Iran than this gung-ho commentary suggests www.express.co.uk/news/politic...

Imagine there was a war on in the Middle East and the US president was using his time to talk about curtains...

Well, no, they’re not just as wrong. The bigger error is not seeing that “trying to win over voters from a party on the opposite end of the spectrum, whose values your core voters oppose” is not same as “chasing voters from party on same side ideologically whose values your core voters like.”

Iran is four times the size of Syria. If the country collapses into civil war after US military intervention there would be an enormous refugee crisis for Europe.

Starmer clearly still logging on to McSweeneyGPT for today’s lines.

I was wrong. It’s not humorous.

Someone introduce the esteemed BBC Political Editor to the First-Past-The-Post electoral system we have in the UK.

Over the past eighteen months, the political science consensus on the nature of Labour's vote has been absolutely correct - and yet also completely ignored by pundits and strategists who continue to get it wrong.

There are going to be a lot of over-confident claims made about the realignment of British politics. The reality is far messier and the processes have been underway for a long-time.

Morality and ethics of individuals aside, the problem with bringing a load of Blairites in is in 1997 median voter theory was a plausible electoral strategy, in 2026 we are in an era of bloc politics and so the old approaches will simply not work.

Hahaha completely forgot about them!

Given Starmer can’t sack McSweeney twice, he’s going to have to reshuffle his cabinet to signal he understands this defeat. Shabana Mahmood should be demoted from the cabinet.

This size of the defeat is actually good for Lab at this point in the electoral cycle. Shows that every part of the governing strategy has been wrong. Still has a huge majority and time. What is needed is: - New leadership - More ambitious public investment - Better comms - A new electoral strategy

I’m SHOCKED that punching your electoral base in the face for 19 months has produced this result!

Will be darkly humorous to see how Starmer manages to learn all the wrong lessons from this defeat.

Not. Even. Close.

Impressive to hit the nail so firmly on the head at 4.17am!

People say that Labour hasn’t delivered, but after just 18 months, Gorton and Denton have joined the new elite.

It would have taken Burnham at least a year to topple Starmer. This result is going to hasten his demise much sooner than that!

The funny thing about 21st century British politics is it turns out anyone hailed as a political sage is anything but: Steve Hilton, Nick Timothy, Dominic Cummings and Morgan McSweeney all have been disastrous.

On Gorton and Denton it does look like, at this point, the feeling is Greens most likely winners and then maybe actually Labour. Betfair etc shifting sharply on high turnout and activist whispers. We shall see - I won't rule out Reform until I see results! But as I write Betfair now have Lab 2nd