Can Reform ever be YIMBY? takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/can-reform...

It's not just the MPs. The intellectual centre of gravity on the right is moving to Reform. Read the rest: takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/can-reform...

Can Reform ever be YIMBY? takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/can-reform...

FRANCE'S MACRON: THIS MEANS MASSIVE INVESTMENT IN ENERGY GRIDS, WE NEED TO BUILD AN INTEGRATED EUROPEAN GRID

This idea is pretty obviously unworkable but I wish we could dream big like this! The question to ask should be how can we change the state to make a project like this feasible?

Bluesky AI haters: you need to know that it is coming and it cannot be stopped and you need to help. Ask anyone in coding and you’ll hear that AI is a freight train heading our way. You need to get past ‘it doesn’t work’ and ‘I hate Elon Musk’. I know it sticks in the craw. But please start thinking

Since i went out a couple of hours ago I’ve thought of maybe six different tasks I wish I could task an agent like OpenClaw with. Still no way I’m installing it, but I’m looking forward to Apple somehow building a more secure, local version into MacOS.

Always good to have a back up option in case the current job doesn’t work out.

I love Jon Stewart, but since his return his hit rate has definitely only been about ~50%. www.theargumentmag.com/p/jon-stewar...

Lots of people have been saying it! www.abundancepod.com/p/manchester...

He's running

If only he'd liberated the Postcode Address File when he had a chance, this could all be playing out so very differently.

In the future, everyone will be Prime Minister for 15 minutes.

Ambitious cabinet minister hoping for a new job soon? Why not appear on YIMBY Pod and tell us where you're at on 'abundance' issues?

Having a great first day as the new Downing Street Chief of Staff. Have just got my emails sorted and completed the health and safety training. Now before I begin work, it's time to take a big swig of water, and check the latest news.

ICYMI it on Friday:

This week's pod is a good one!

New YIMBY Pod! 🥴 @mjrobbins.com asks: Does AI make you stupid? 📗 Does the new Green Book make trains value for money now? 🤖 And we speak to @iosad.fyi and @eleniarzoglou.bsky.social on how to rebuild government for the AI era. Listen/subscribe! www.abundancepod.com/p/does-ai-ma...

It's that time of the year when I open up the Wikipedia page that explains the rules of American football.

Just broke the news to Boudicca about Morgan McSweeney.

To my mind it is not so dissimilar from the Blair/New Labour 1997 debate - Blair/Starmer weren’t responsible for the conditions of victory existing, but they played a role shaping the manner & magnitude of victory. And in what was done with each victory.

I don't disagree with this per-se (it wasn't just McSweeney!), but I do think it was pretty important that McSweeney and Starmer successfully repositioned Labour – with all of the pain that entailed – so they could capture as many seats as they did.

we're all celebrating now but remember we've just released a new substacker and podcaster into the wild

The real question now is who will be the first to argue "Let Starmer be Starmer".

Maybe he can be the new Envoy to the Nations and Regions.

Having a great first day as a Westminster operator whose entire relevance and power is derived from the patronage of my powerful boss. I've had a great morning threatening rivals and picking fights, knowing that Morgan has my back. Now to take a big swig of water, and catch up with the news.

Theories of power, cattle grids and a blep takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/theories-o...

I wish we had France’s problem of too much abundant clean energy.

Theories of power, cattle grids and a blep takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/theories-o...

There is some pretty misleading framing here - the number of subscribers for each Nazi publication is the total *free and paid* subscribers (which is what is publicly visible). The actual number of paid accounts is likely much smaller. www.theguardian.com/media/2026/f...

(Whispers) Do they realise the software sell-off is because the market thinks AI will be *too good* and not because it shares their view that it doesn’t work?

ICYMI:

What even is an 'AI growth zone', anyway? (FREE TO READ!) takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/ai-growth-...

How the government is trying to solve two problems with one policy – and carefully sidestep around a third:

What even is an 'AI growth zone', anyway? (FREE TO READ!) takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/ai-growth-...

At risk of being an establishment shill, I sort of think spending the money on restoring an internationally recognised symbol of democracy is good!

If Starmer has to go then replacing him with AI isn't the worst idea. GPT5.2 is excellent.

Weird and almost universal revisionism today. Even at the time, it was pretty clear that Mandelson wasn't appointed *despite* his dodgy links but *because* of them. Trump's Washington is a dirty swamp. Mandelson was deemed a man able to swim in it. This wasn't a secret. Everybody said it out loud.

I am not massively optimistic about this given the US version never seems to include any jokes, but I feel like they should give SNL UK a much longer series order – let it bed in! 6 episodes just means "disappointing first episode, ratings underwhelming, axed".

As annoying and bad Elon Musk is, it doesn't seem like an obviously good thing that Tesla is being outsold by Chinese competitors.

Nerds! This looks like it is going to be a super interesting event: www.eventbrite.com/e/chasing-pa...

Surprised this isn’t the scandal shaking the government.

I'm hearing what's really making Labour MPs furious is that the cost of licensing address data from Royal Mail is absurdly high for small businesses and bedroom coders who want to build the apps and services of the future.

This is good but the government needs to put up the cash to move the sewage works! takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/build-stev...

I have spent the day today trying to hack together a solution for U.K. addresses using various Google places API's and let's just say I am now fully on board the @jamesomalley.co.uk "Free the Postcode Address File" ship.

Labour u-turns on devolving powers over cattle-grids: even on such a small issue, the grip of Whitehall is intense lordseyeview.substack.com/p/labour-u-t...

Having a fun morning digging into the very weird usage of AI by Kent councillors.

"Energy is Life" by @zionlights.bsky.social is out today and it is a powerful argument for energy abundance and progress! Strongly recommended reading – and buying for your degrowther friends. www.amazon.co.uk/dp/191745845...