Besides these excellent reasons not to cut tax and diesel taxes, there’s a more straightforward one: it’s perverse to respond to a shortage of something by increasing the incentive to buy that thing. If we want to compensate people of limited means who have to drive, give them cash payments.

In order to help guarantee this ceasefire, Britain should probably now request all US bombers leave UK bases as soon as possible.

#Artemis II - A beautiful new image released The Moon, seen here backlit by the Sun during a the solar eclipse. Captured by one of the cameras on Orion’s solar array wings. A bright spot visible below the Moon’s right edge is Saturn. Then a bright spot at the right edge of the image is Mars. 🚀🌓🌒

On the day humanity witnesses a new Earthrise, the planet's most powerful leader thrratens annihilation for one of the oldest civilizations ever to exist upon it.

Don't subsidise energy prices during a supply crisis: give cash transfers to low-income and vulnerable households instead.

Trump's war on cars is having sickening global consequences. When will it end?

The virgin US carrier strike group vs the chad RFA Lyme Bay.

Pay attention to Lebanon. Trump and Netanyahu started a regional war in the Middle East, creating a humanitarian disaster. And now, the Israeli army has killed over 1,000 people in Lebanon—about 20% of them are kids. Congress should not bankroll this escalating war of choice.

if Trump doesnt TACO, this crisis will be a March 2020 kind of crisis - over that year, the Bank of England purchased 90% of all gilts issued by the Conservative government. why are we not talking about that reaction function, instead of absolutely mad interest rate increases?

There's a whole array of strategic bungles in this operation, it deserves a thread. 1/ below

"Oh no, a supply shock! Let's make it more expensive to invest in measures which could mitigate that supply shock" is what the world's central banks are likely to do by raising rates.

I didn't know Ed Miliband had been cast as the villain for the next Superman movie.

Seems pretty clear Israel's objective is to prevent any possible diplomatic off-ramp for the USA by assassinating anyone who could conceivably make any agreement on a national level for Iran.

Some of the world's largest businesses urging governments to back the electrification of economies as quickly as is feasibly possible. This is so self-evidently true that it remains utterly mad that it is somehow still up for debate. www.businessgreen.com/news/4526980...

Fully expecting Keir to just go along with this without even trying to get anything from Trump in return. www.lbc.co.uk/article/trum...

All Iran had to do was paint one of these things gold and gift it to Trump as the inaugural "Middle East Peace Prize" and they'd have had all sanctions lifted by now.

I wonder why he'd say this now, of all times 🤔.

note that it's the right-wing parties, who have complained that UK should have joined US strikes on Iran, who are now also demanding the Labour government steps up household help with energy bills

Thank you for your attention to this matter - IRGC!

Jesus christ. All UK Labour had to do was say "That Trump fella.. not a great guy." about once a month and do normal centre-left things and they could have this.

I mean, should the UK have a few more operational frigates/destroyers at any given time available - sure. But also, the whole thing is part of an integrated NATO force. The idea that THE FRENCH!! might escort a UK carrier with some of their frigates is a very normal thing that's supposed to happen.

Starmer approval +5pts if he calls a press conference specifically to tell Tony Blair to go throw a shoe at himself.

Trump stops supplying Ukraine with advanced air defence munitions so that he can start Gulf War III instead. Meanwhile Putin abandons Iran to launch large missile strike across Ukraine. Shows how dangerous it is being a loyal junior 'ally' to these powers.

They're going to write books about all the big brain moves of this gang of imbeciles and among them will be "Spending a year trying to kill renewable energy and then launching a war that sends oil prices soaring"

A fascinating bit of convergent evolution that the McSweeney-Starmer project has basically ended up leaving Labour in the same position as its Western European peers…as a result of deliberate, wholly avoidable choices.

The luge is the breaststroke of sledding. Do we really need to find out who is the quickest in the world at the slowest way of sledding? #WinterOlympics

There's no guarantee that making a marine an MP will go any better than making a random MP become a marine.

This sport here where it's a guy scrubbing the floor really hard whilst his wife yells at him from 20ft away to scrub harder. Great sport. #WinterOlympics

What if the British government adopted this novel new Canadian strategy of trying to be popular, instead of the opposite of that.

David Cameron: "Well, well, well, not so easy to find a Prime Minister that doesn't suck shit, huh?"

Even the bond vigilantes don’t like the fiscal rules.

Saying you would take a "much tougher stance on immigration" than the Labour government is (or should be) discrediting for the same reason that saying your budget plans would be "very fiscal" would be. What does it mean?

If some random MP's can meme Al Carns to leader on the basis, essentially, he was in the military we can meme Yuan Yang leadership from Bluesky on the basis of her dog.

A law mandating that all new vehicles must look very derpy, would reduce traffic deaths by at least 40%.

The Matrix, but instead of growing humans in pods for energy, it's to feed the AI with human-creative input to prevent the machines from turning themselves into AI-slop.

US & UK seem to be competing in some sort of perverse self-immolation olympics.

Any centre to centre-left government would probably be making a good bet to just copy exactly whatever Carney's government does and says over the next few years.

It's almost like Trump timed his backdown over Greenland perfectly to make all his biggest boot lickers look as dumb as possible. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

What if we brough back The North Sea Empire and made Greenland an alternative proposal?

While i thought "defund the police" was terrible framing back then because people heard it as 'ABOLISH the police', i think "Abolish ICE" is fantastic framing today because people hear it as "ABOLISH ICE".

I already agree with this in principle - citizenship is an untouchable status or it is nothing - but also for reasons of prudence. “The Home Sec can revoke citizenship when he/she deems someone’s online output sufficiently offensive” is a v dangerous precedent to set with Reform leading all polls.

Can I just shock you? I think public transport infrastructure is good and these people should fuck off.

If the government can and should step in to prevent mass unemployment during an emergency, why should it not step in to prevent small scale unemployment at all times? Should be an easier task right? www.independent.co.uk/news/busines...

I read a book on making money in ancient Athens recently (by Michael Leese, it's great), and the Greeks absolutely believed that the endless pursuit of wealth was a serious moral defect and personality issue no different than being a drunk or sexual deviant.

I mean, these people somehow delude themselves into thinking you can partner with the French in a next generation fighter jet programme...

Why "up to 55,000" and not - however many are needed? We desperately need a New Deal style Civilian Conservation Corp and a universal Job Guarantee scheme. I'm tired of shitty little tinkering policies. Do it properly like the good ol' days. www.mirror.co.uk/money/young-...

A Peace Prize from FIFA? That's like getting a "Best restaurant" award from a tyre manufacturer or something dumb that would never happen.

If you're broadly on the left of centre of politics and someone asks you to name three economists you listen to, you should probably mention any of - @kateraworth.bsky.social, @mazzucatom.bsky.social, @stephaniekelton.bsky.social, @isabellamweber.bsky.social, @claudia-sahm.bsky.social.

I'm wondering how these numbers change if the question was "Should donations to political parties using cryptocurrencies (the kind of bullshit people like Elon Musk like) be banned in the UK?"