A reminder that Wall Street is not lined with gold for European companies... www.ft.com/content/dbe5...

We're used to thinking that UK equities have been a uniquely terrible investment but today I learned that over the past five years the UK market has significantly outperformed the world excluding the US (in both £ and $ terms). So we're not uniquely awful - instead, the US has been uniquely great.

I know a lot of people think Microsoft Excel is a dreadful piece of software, but I would rate it October 10th.

Really interesting article but it's important to note that the 'cost' of these schemes is more than just the cash cost. Moving to a funded model would make them more sustainable, reduce the cost of funding them, boost investment + improve the UK's net investment position www.ft.com/content/afa6...

This is going to hammer sales of Cadillac and Chevrolet in the UK

In the Navy, NASA, and the Senate, I’ve served under many presidents whose integrity and dedication to upholding our Constitution made our country stronger. On Presidents’ Day, I’m especially grateful for the leaders throughout our history who’ve embodied those principles.

This looks more like a small number of member states trying to get ahead of what they fear may be coming down the pipeline from the EU (like the 'Finance Europe' initiative last year...) than a serious attempt to create a 'unified capital market' between them ... 1/2 www.ceps.eu/finance-euro...

This is a great example of challenging the prevailing approach to reform of "let's take a really complicated and dysfunctional system that we inherited and try to make it a little less complicated and dysfunctional" with a "maybe we could just stop doing it that way and start again?" approach.

New post out: We have a guest post today from the excellent @dsquareddigest.bsky.social. "Build the Rail! Save the snails!" Or how we don't need to sacrifice the environment to speed up our mad planning processes. (Free to read) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/b...

'I'm sorry that my choice of alternative facts has offended some people in the UK and Europe and caused concern' says the man who owns 100% of Manchester United, is worth £75bn, and who only paid £12 in UK tax last year.

btw, Man Utd’s last starting 11 had the following nationalities: Belgium, England, Argentina, England, Portugal, Brazil, England, Ivory Coast, Portugal, Cameroon, Brazil

‘Jesus, look at his butt muscles’ - my wife watching the French pair in the Olympics ice dance final

‘If Labour, with a massive majority, 18 months in office, & no immediate economic or security crisis like the 2008 financial crash or COVID to deal with, can't govern effectively, what does that say about British democracy?’ Good read from a former Tory spad www.linkedin.com/pulse/watchi...

A welcome vote of confidence in the U.K. that Alphabet thinks sterling will still be around in 100 years

The good news about the latest spasm in U.K. politics is that one way or another we’re finally going to have a grown up debate about trade-offs, winners and losers, the role of the state, long-term policy, and what of sort of levels of tax everyone needs to pay if we want European style services…

Just caught up with the News. Not to sound selfish but I literally filed my final book corrections ONE HOUR AGO and I simply cannot cope with another British Prime Minister before it comes out in June. I already went mad writing in 2025 because EVERYTHING IS CONSTANTLY CHANGING.

Forza Azzurri www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-...

Oren Cass uses serious economics to trash finance in the NYT cepr.net/publications... Why don't all economists?

Ireland have 20 minutes to do the funniest thing

Capping the cash ISA allowance should be in the top right of this chart if it had been asked: lots of people aware of it and lots of people in favour. But it would probably be in the bottom left...

Mad chart from NYT which might be of interest to folks comparing marginal tax rates across countries (yes, I know it's not a tax) www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/u...

A fascinating and very topical deep dive on the UK's largest pension fund:

USS has had some high-profile investment failures in recent years and its returns have lagged other open DB schemes. But its funding position has improved dramatically and a higher hedge ratio now makes the fund look more resilient. Has its investment strategy worked? www.ft.com/content/f0e9...

Peter Mandelson is telling the truth on one thing: the idea he was bought for a $4k “bursary” or a $75k gift is ridiculous The real incentive was a post-government payday - one so big he *rejected* a $3–5m-a-year offer And Epstein enabled that payday Here’s the evidence. 🧵

This case may turn out to be like the Staley appeal last year where you have to keep reminding yourself that they actually chose to bring it to court

Imagine Mandelson is under a lot of stress right now so just as well his husband is a trained osteopath.

Not the biggest news today, but this is not a photo of Richard Knox from HM Treasury (it's someone called Tim Cruttenden from something called VenCap)

The right way to get into the Epstein files.

This was a minor story on London news this morning - but suspect is a real cautionary (and alarming) tale of an older man getting radicalised online. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Long day. The replies and quotes on this made me smile.

A million times this:

Lads. You've invented Rumbelows.

I'm trying a new "see how well AI image gen is" test. This time I'm going to ask it to draw a map of the world, and then zoom in to Europe, the UK, Yorkshire and York to see when things start to get hazy. All of these are with the free models using the smart/thinking variants. 1/n

From Viz, three years ago: The Brexit Opportunity Detector. Still looking.

RIP Mark Tully. Born in Calcutta in 1935, under the British Raj, he returned as the BBC's voice in India for thirty years after 1964 trusted not just by British but by so many in India as the chronicler of a country & of Anglo-Indian relationships transformed in many ways during his lifetime.

Just turned on Radio 3 and caught the adagio from Rachmaninov’s symphony no 2 in E minor. Look it up and listen - I promise it will make your weekend a little bit better

Exercise commanders had to ask 🇫🇮 reservists, the most formidable Arctic warriors, who were playing the role of invaders in the war games, to go easy on the Americans. “The Finns had to be told to stop beating the Americans as it was embarrassing and demoralising for them,” a mil source said.” 3/

Republicans are in favor of having a gun to defend yourself from a tyrannical government unless you have a gun to defend yourself from a tyrannical government

Write to your MP. Stop the pervert glasses.

A good thread on the painful gap in risk capital (particularly late stage VC) between the US and EU and a recent initiatives from France and German to address it. However... 1/2

1/ First, what is the problem? Europe has a formidable research and innovation system, but struggles to produce global tech champions. Over the past 50 years, it has produced only a handful of firms with a market cap > EUR 10 billion, compared to hundreds in the US.

The US granted visas to Jews but only allowed 30,000 in from Germany a year. You had to wait for your number to come up. Meet Robert Smallbones. An unassuming British diplomat who 'hacked' this system so effectively (saving 48 THOUSAND Jews) the UK government kept his scheme secret for decades /1 🧵

NEW When the United Kingdom annexed a north Atlantic island The 1955 story of what has been described as the last expansion of the British Empire A post to help lighten your mood by me emptycity.substack.com/p/when-the-u...

There’s a ‘Goodbye, Lenin’-style movie to be made where everyone around Trump pretends he is still President

Is there a transcript of that speech and why isn't it running verbatim on the front page of the New York Times and FT tomorrow?

The textbook argument is that money flowing into stocks should barely raise prices. But a new working paper argues that stockmarket demand is inelastic, and does not fall much as share prices rise: econ.st/4jJQdLR Illustration: Satoshi Kambayashi