“Petrodollar” should be reserved for when large US petroleum trade deficits led to $ outflows that needed to be recycled and high oil meant a weak $. It is absurd to use the term for the $s behavior after the shale revolution when it behaved like a commodity currency in response to +ve ToT shocks.

While we’re having a nice chat amongst ourselves, may be worth wondering what the EU is willing to give? Unless, of course, this really is just posturing amongst ourselves.

I was wondering how this might all turn out to have been my fault

The cynics think today's attack on Venezuela is staged and transactional. Maduro is allied with Putin, but in 2019 Putin offered Trump a swap: Russia cedes Venezuela and gets Ukraine. (See Fiona Hill's testimony in Trump's first impeachment trial, h/t @davetroy.com). Even Maduro may be in on it. 2/

Pay no attention to Trump's incoherent rambling. They have not thought through how to expropriate the oil. There is no US oil major that would operate in Venezuela in its current condition.

Packing some fish in a basket just to creel something.

if you can't afford clothes, it's not clothing poverty, it's poverty. If you can't afford sanitary protection, it's not period poverty, it's poverty. Divvying up poverty into little bits hides the fact that poverty is poverty and gives right-wingers an in to say "poor people need to budget better."

I think the key to answering this question is understanding Starmer/Reeves unpopularity among natural allies. A majority of Laboir voters disapprove of him, as do large majorities of LD/Green voters. Hostility from natural political opponents is normal. Hostility from natural supporters is not.

Also just to make the obvious point: without Brexit Cameron does at least a decade in power, probably more. The PM churn since 2015 is largely self-inflicted. But obvs Labour still in denial about that being the country's major problem so it's got to be *waves hands* entirely something else.

From this vg piece on Starmer's popularity, a depressing example of Westminster insularity. There were 7 German chancellors (8 counting an acting one) in the 42 years before the iPhone & only three since. Ditto only 3 Spanish PMs since 2004. Look across the Channel lads. www.ft.com/content/1995...

Same as every year: simply expressing a personal opinion that I for one do not like jazz. Each time the jazz bores descend insisting it’s just that I haven’t listened to the right kind of jazz, acting with the demented fanaticism of those trying to validate their own bad decisions.

Bob Willis’s auntie used to live down my street. She was really nice and gave my mate Richard and me sweets, but if he ever visited her I didn’t see him.

I’m a prime minister with an inappropriate infatuation with a young woman.

In the Herne Hill Sainsbury’s Local early one Saturday morning, I had a sleeping baby in a sling and was struggling to bend down to pick up a Weekend FT. A nice man helped me. It was local resident Mark Rylance. At least I think it was Mark Rylance. I was kind of sleep-deprived and groggy tbh.

Twixtmas is a weird time of year, isn’t it? Really plays with your head. Doesn’t feel like Tuesday at all today. Still. It’ll soon be 2025 I guess.

LeMonde said, not on our watch

I realise this is an incredibly facile gag, but what idiot carries around a tenth of a mobile phone? Would make more sense to share a second mobile phone between you and nine friends. Or just stick with one, if that sounds like it's more trouble than it's worth.

Nothing gladdens the heart like the expression "rail replacement service from Rugby". Still faster and more pleasant than driving though.

Prof No (PhD)

More Cheshire, on Christmas Day.

The Swedish angel chimes which have been in our family for 60 years, this year with beeswax candles from the farm down the road. #ItsClichedToBeCynicalAtChristmas. Happy Xmas all.

And the finest Christmas tradition has arrived — #DuvetKnowItsChristmas is today! 1) Follow @rhodri.biz 2) post your pics of your makeshift Christmas Eve sleeping arrangements and 3) give money to the homeless @centrepointuk.bsky.social

It’s time for one of the greatest Christmas songs ever written. cc @katie0martin.ft.com

The Cheshire plain. Welsh hills safely in the distance.

I've been aware for a while of the work by faith and other community groups to support people seeking asylum. So I asked the @refugeecouncil.bsky.social where there was really vigorous community support. They said Northallerton. Here's what I found when I went there: as.ft.com/r/b3449fbd-3...

About those commitments in US trade deals... www.ft.com/content/c961...

Every year, people mock this tree. But I love it anyway. It reminds us that if we stand together in tough times, we can overcome anything. Merry Christmas from my family to yours. 🎄✨

Literally nothing could ever make Breton happier than this. I wouldn't be surprised if he put them up to it.

“Treachery”. Let us not forget that, ever since the *checks notes* decisive US victory in the war of 1812, the *checks notes again* Semi-Autonomous Republic of Canada owes fealty to the USA.

update: a spokesman for Summers says he didn't know he was one of the executors of Epstein's will

Lest anyone accuse me of inconsistency: yes, I am a free trader. But I am also a patriot. A strong whisky industry means a strong Britain. A nation permanently sozzled on single malt is a happy nation. Here I stand. I can do no other.

Ordinarily I’m against the sort of government agricultural support programmes that buy output from producers at high prices and dump it at a loss on the open market. In this case however

The 2025 Headline of the Year Nominees 🧵

Told you so.

He's not kidding folks. It's a corker. "And yet, for all that this country gets right, Australia is a bit like the hottest girl in your freshman class. She looks fantastic in her crop top but suffers from crippling self-doubt." www.nytimes.com/2019/01/08/o...

It's an amazing feat of customer service that, when asked to find table seats for an adult and two children, the Avanti seat-picker *always and without exception* puts us in three separated non-table seats with an empty table nearby. Is this some form of satire on modern parenting?

If he can't get off on a "personal use" excuse then I don't know what Europe's coming to.

Rare footage of St Paul’s Cathedral testing its giant flamethrower

HASSETT: If the Supreme Court doesn't find with us, refunds would go to whoever cut the check for the tariff BRENNAN: Doesn't the administration claim it was the country that paid that? HASSETT: Uhh --

The Bayeux Tapestry should be destroyed, it encourages illegal immigrants to take small boats and conquer our country

Aujourd'hui c'est le solstice d'hiver dans l'hémisphère Nord. Les journées vont commencer à rallonger! Le soleil ne se lève à l'Est (centre de l'image avec Nord à gauche, Sud a droite) que lors des équinoxes. La position du lever change un peu tous les jours! (©Z. Al-Abbadi)

The doom and gloom about London is ridiculous and harmful. Team FT is Team London - as.ft.com/r/19d3d36d-e...

The bears are right to be pissed off. They put in their Ocado order in good faith and gave the right address and then the delivery driver left it with a neighbour. Poor customer service imo.

Apparently this coming year I will be joining a police academy with a group of lovable misfits.

Competent experienced career FCDO diplomat. Good. Just the person for the job. (NB quite apart from Epstein, Mandelson's clever-clever trade and tech deal with the US is falling apart. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...)

My Trade Secrets column today. The EU has been talking about "economic security" (insulating itself against esp geopolitical shocks) for years. As the electric vehicle saga shows, it hasn't got far. First 300 reads free. See also 2 other great pieces coincidentally published today... 1/2

Ministers and senior MPs have warned that the UK’s agreements with Donald Trump are “built on sand” after the Guardian established that the deal to avoid drug tariffs has no underlying text beyond limited headline terms. #R4Today

Labour should be yeeting the tories into next week over Erasmus. Not quibbling about the size of the ‘discount’ but saying we’re serious about ‘Global Britain’ and cleaning up the midden these people left behind. Fight back for goodness sake.