Worth a read. open.substack.com/pub/libertyl...

www.northamptonchron.co.uk/business/a-g... Struggling to get my head around this. We keep being told that it broke even - it cost £300k and took revenue of £122k. The balance was made up of grant funding and sponsorship. That's subsidised.

What local authorities mostly do: news.sky.com/story/englan... #elections2026

"By analyzing $4 trillion of shipments between Jan 2024 and Nov 2025, the Kiel Institute researchers found that foreign exporters absorbed only about 4% of the burden of last year’s U.S. tariff increases by lowering their prices, while American consumers and importers absorbed 96%." WSJ! gift link↓

Treasuries could be Europe’s best defence for Greenland ft.trib.al/1YVzDdx | opinion

I wonder if this guy is related to "Boris Johnson" who introduced "voter id" as Prime Minister in 2023 ... off the back of some crazy US conspiracy theories ... and in the process, made digital ID pretty much inevitable.

"The misconduct hearing found that was one of two occasions when he reported sick to pursue his outside business interests."

New from me, on some of the contradictions within Reform. How does a Thatcherite leadership keep hold of a base of C2DE voters? Can they keep hold of the conspiracy theorists while going mainstream? Do they all agree on immigration? www.joxleywrites.jmoxley.co.uk/p/the-populi...

Just listening to Failed State by @samfr.bsky.social, and chapter 2 on the problems of local government is on point. Reminds me of so much that frustrated me in my short time as a councillor. Well worth a read!

Worth reading thread.

Fascinating.

unherd.com/2025/03/why-... Interesting piece. Worth a read.

(1/3) It needs repeating: in 1994, Ukraine was persuaded to give up its nuclear weapons to Russia in return for the US, the UK, and Russia guaranteeing Ukraine’s sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity.

Slightly late to this but, if you want to see how good social science research can contextualise & rebut a dubious headline, then check out this excellent report and thread from the Kings Policy institute, showing contra Channel 4's alarmist headlines that, no, young ppl don't want a dictatorship

The accuracy of the political cartoons recently is incredibly painful.

Also the collective GDP of the EU + UK + Norway is around $24 trillion compared to $2 trillion for Russia. We have vastly more resources if we choose to use them.

In January 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt answered the "America First" of his day - and foresaw the "America First" of ours: "We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American eagle in order to feather their own nests."

Governor Walz has it right. I miss hearing his plain, common sense talk.

Important to take the week as a whole. Statement from Dominic Grieve:

Downing Street finally speaks

He is about to host Zelensky and most European leaders in London. He’s hardly running away from the issue.

The strength of language on show from UK papers that might often be more sympathetic to Trump goes to show how strong the pro-Ukraine consensus is in the UK. There's no debate over here, hawkishness towards Russia is the only game in town.

Telegraph editorial: "Mr Trump and Mr Vance were indisputably in the wrong, factually, geographically and morally."

Zelensky is a wartime leader watching his people suffer and die under Russian attacks every day. To be lectured and lied to by Trump and Vance, as they defend the war criminal dictator committing these atrocities, is unimaginable agony. An everlasting shame for America.

This is brutal. Donald Trump is only interested in money and power. President Zelenskyy is trying to save his people and country. Russia and US have agreed to carve-up Ukraine, Russia getting territory and US getting mineral wealth. Trump is no ally for any country.

This would be the same Robert Jenrick that said during the Tory leadership campaign: "If I was an American citizen I would be voting for Donald Trump".

No, the meeting did not go badly for Ukraine. It exposed in the most undeniable, unequivocal way possible the pro-Putin commitments of the president and vice president. That was information Americans and allies needed to have clear before them.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk responds, something we hopefully see a lot more of that from other European leaders. It's never been clearer than in this moment that Trump is Putin's ally, not Europe's.

Former Lib Dem leader Vince Cable calls on Starmer to cancel the State visit for Trump.

I have exchanged much of my disposable income for the next few months for theatre tickets to the RSC.

Reform wouldn't exist without Farage but he is very unpopular which puts a ceiling on their vote.

There has been widespread misunderstanding about the elections in May 2025. There are 1,641 seats being contested. Only one authority - Doncaster, which has not had its elections postponed - is currently run by Labour. May 2025 is a contest between Conservatives and Reform.

Nigel Farage Is a 'Political Fraud' Who Must Be Exposed as an 'NHS-Privatising Putin Apologist', Says TUC Leader bylinetimes.com/2025/02/05/n...

Leopard: I will eat your face Bank analysts: Our baseline assumes no face-eating Leopard: Chomp chomp chomp

I remember it being obvious at the time there was a strong, undeclared pro-Brexit impulse in Corbynism, but it's not often admitted as candidly as this.

Labour has to think of the diplomatic niceties: the Conservatives are too busy sucking up to Donald Trump. So it falls to the Liberal Democrats to say what the large majority of the British population would say about him. liberalengland.blogspot.com/2025/01/lib-...

History of UK HE in the last 30 years follows the repeated sequence (1) politicians demand universities act in a certain way (2) uni managements comply against academic misgivings (3) effects are uncongenial for politicians (4) pundits denounce universities for acting that way, echoed by politicians

Noteworthy commons debate this afternoon on electoral reform, which saw Labour MP after Labour MP stand up to pressure the government The minister on duty insisted the govt has “no plans to change the voting system” Thread of contributions via @politics-co-uk.bsky.social 👇

Excellent piece in Private Eye on Musk and company donations to political parties. They make a good suggestion: companies should only be able to donate to parties when the ultimate owner can vote here. Also interesting that Twitter UK is late in filing its accounts, a criminal offence...

Was Simon Case the weakest Cabinet Secretary ever? Perhaps a constitutional historian could identify one who was worse?

Hardly worth debunking this xenophobic garbage from Telegraph. FWIW they seem to to have taken the (implausible) upper bound of @pewresearch.org's old, completely debunked estimate (1.2 m) and then assigning a % of those to London. And then got London's actual population wrong! archive.ph/a8MHX

Funny that The Times is choosing not to cover how News Group Newspapers admitted to illegal practices in court yesterday and paid £10m in damages

The Lib Dems’ Ed Davey is the only UK party leader taking a stand against Musk. Here he writes how the UK needs to hold Musk to account.

Brilliant satirical cover from Private Eye, mocking spineless media organisations and journalists who submit and cower in the face of power 👏

Garth Hudson, founder member of the Band and Bob Dylan collaborator, dies aged 87

If true, maybe he’ll find it easier to fit into Washington DC than I imagined.

Lord Peter Mandelson will still hold shares in the lobbying firm he co-founded as he takes up his new post as the UK’s ambassador in Washington, despite the company’s work for Chinese clients like TikTok www.ft.com/content/f164...

Breaking News: Garth Hudson, the last surviving original member of the Band, died in Woodstock, New York, at 87. The Band was one of the most influential rock groups of the 1960s and ’70s.

This is a clear and authoritative briefing on FE funding in England. researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CB...

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