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THE ASSET CLASS, my first book, will be published by @wnbooks.bsky.social on 9 April 2026. It’s a narrative investigation of private equity, a secretive and relentlessly destructive wing of finance that penetrates almost every aspect of our lives - and it’s available to pre-order now!

Excited to say that the beautiful Guardian Long Read Magazine is out now, ft. work by @mrkocnnll.bsky.social, @imogenwk.bsky.social, @jackgoulder.bsky.social, @tessairini.bsky.social, @hettieobrien.bsky.social + many other brilliant writers. Order your copy here guardianbookshop.com/long-read-50...

There are so many interesting threads in this piece - the explosion in fraud over the last decade, the rise of private policing, the former CPS lawyers and police officers spotting the business opportunities that austerity presented. Plus a con artist brought down by his furious ex-girlfriends.

My latest Guardian Long Read is about a shadowy area of criminal law that has exploded since austerity, and what “two tier justice” really means in Britain: www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...

“Blair may be creating new realities, but few would want to inhabit them.” - excellent piece from Oliver Eagleton on Tony Blair’s imperial fantasies www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I’ll be interviewing Cahal Moran (that’s @unlearnecon.bsky.social to people on here) at the Conduit Club next Thursday about his new book, Why We’re Getting Poorer - you can sign up here: www.theconduit.com/upcoming-eve...

We hear a lot about privatisation, but rarely are the numbers laid out so starkly: £193bn paid to shareholders and private equity firms, a £250 premium for every citizen. Only Russia, Hungary and the Czech Republic have shed public wealth faster than Britain www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

This is a great story.

New piece: been working on this for the best part of a year. But really it's trying to draw on everything I've seen and thought about since I first started reporting on far right politics in the late 2000s. Online now and in tomorrow's LRB. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

“I felt there was a need to bring to third world countries God’s principles of running an economy” is just one of many jaw-dropping lines and plot twists in this gripping @hettieobrien.bsky.social long read www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

if i were very very rich i would be so terrified by this piece i'd hire a private investigator. happily i am not so i can enjoy it for the brilliant piece of writing it is @hettieobrien.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

I’ve been piecing together this Guardian long read for over a year - about a thoroughly plausible, utterly crooked lawyer who pretended to be the perfect gentleman while he spun a web of deceit. Thanks to @davidedgarwolf.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Today’s Guardian long read is an absolutely stunning piece of reporting and storytelling by @hettieobrien.bsky.social about a gentleman lawyer who was not what he seemed… www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Brilliant piece. Some fine lunchtime reading

Take some time today and read this incredible story, by @hettieobrien.bsky.social and then tell me you don’t want to read a whole book about it. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

You should read this fantastic article by @hettieobrien.bsky.social. It's got it all: crooked lawyer, inept British police, sordid offshore behaviour. theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

I’ve been piecing together this Guardian long read for over a year - about a thoroughly plausible, utterly crooked lawyer who pretended to be the perfect gentleman while he spun a web of deceit. Thanks to @davidedgarwolf.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

if i hear the word “playbook” once more, i’m gonna explode

“I have lost count of the number of times a self-identified climate progressive has explained to me that our individual consumption and emissions are irrelevant” - this excellent piece from @brettchristophers.bsky.social is worth your time: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

"Industry executives told the Financial Times the deregulatory push was akin to “doubling demand” for the private capital industry..." Currently state plans (pink) are the main conduit for retirement capital to get into PE hands. Now they're eying green and orange. Prize is huge, and they'll win.

Many months spent reading + meeting + emailing + party planning @whitingfoundation.bsky.social have led to the best part of the job - announcing a terrific cohort of nonfiction writers at work on books that will change lives. Read all about it! whiting.org/nonfiction

"It is a strange kind of businessman who avidly accrues property, only to let much of it moulder – but Smith has a strong claim to being Britain’s strangest businessman" - this long read on the Sam Smith pub empire is an absolute delight: www.theguardian.com/news/2024/de...

The main thing I’ve learned from having flu? The haters are wrong about the godfather 3

over the moon to have been awarded a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant for my forthcoming book - alongside such a brilliant group of writers. You can read more about it here: www.whiting.org/writers/crea...

Congratulations to @hettieobrien.bsky.social, recipient of a 2024 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant for the book DIMINISHING RETURNS! Read more about her work here: www.whiting.org/content/hett...

over the moon to have been awarded a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant for my forthcoming book - alongside such a brilliant group of writers. You can read more about it here: www.whiting.org/writers/crea...

back in my favourite city (sorry, London) watching the sun rise over Brooklyn

I will be joining my colleagues at the Guardian and Observer who are on strike for 48 hours over the sale of the Observer For more information please @gonuj.org and @nujofficial.bsky.social or visit nuj.org.uk/savetheobserver

Saints were once recognised by popular acclamation, creating what scholars have called an “unregulated saints market”. It was only in 1170, after a Swedish bishop tried to canonise a monk killed in a drunken brawl, that the Vatican took over the process. by Linda Kinstler

I loved this elegiac piece from @danhancox.bsky.social about living on an island that is slowly shrinking, as its coastline is devoured by the sea: aeon.co/essays/how-t...

the place-brandification of London knows no limits. Sorry, no matter how hard you try, “fleet street quarter” is never gonna be a thing

Finally listened to all of this, and it really is the best thing I’ve heard on Trump and his agenda for a second term — plus, what role the state has in capitalist society today, and the complex and contradictory trends in the new right. Brilliant

Sign up for The Long Wave, our weekly newsletter on Black life and culture around the world brought to you by @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/global/2024/...

Excited to share the cover for my debut non-fiction book WE WERE THERE, which is out 17 April 2025 via The Bodley Head + is a cultural history of Black Britain in the Thatcher era. Please pre-order it via the link if you feel inclined! www.penguin.co.uk/books/453942...

I've been enjoying what @londoncentric.media are doing, and this tale of the Dickensian underworld on westminster bridge is a lesson in the value of local reporting, with cup-and-ball shell games, illegal ice cream vans and pickpockets... www.londoncentric.media/p/westminste...

"The craziest thing about this story is that it is all perfectly legal." Worth reading @petergeoghegan.bsky.social on Elon Musk intending to donate $100m to Reform - the starkest evidence of why our election laws need updating: democracyforsale.substack.com/p/musks-100m...

Got a new piece up at the Guardian about how Democrats underestimated the opposition, overrated their own GOTV efforts, and ignored the year-round issue-based organizing that's needed – and that is changing minds and elections in the places where it is happening. www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

Seems pretty clear that Labour have decided they can attach some mild social democratic reforms to a reboot of British capitalism - without seeking to challenge the dominant right-wing framing of social policy issues (benefits, asylum etc etc). Can see the logic, but... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

reason number 1,001 that rolling back post-2008 reforms of the finance sector is a bad idea from Reeves: the UK's main financial regulator is "incompetent at best, dishonest at worst” and "complacent, conflicted and captured" www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Another banger from @hettieobrien.bsky.social: “The government knew it couldn’t have a political argument about winding back environmental law, because the public likes environmental law. So instead, they set out to kill environmental law by stealth.” www.theguardian.com/environment/...

“Dear Secretary of State on behalf of all of us here at BlackRock, please find attached a formal letter of congratulations from myself and our UK Chair, Sandra Boss. And may I add, on a personal note, it is a pleasure after all these years to address you as such!” open.substack.com/pub/thedarka...

“If it is to win a second term, Labour needs a narrative about how it is improving people’s lives.” Found this piece from @jomichell.bsky.social v useful: www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/bey...

How did Britain's post-industrial towns become hubs of badly paid work and disenchanted politics? They were not forgotten or 'left behind', but actively remade. My report for @cmmonwealth.bsky.social two-towns.common-wealth.org

if you haven't already, it's well worth reading this piece by @isabellamweber.bsky.social on the politics of inflation and the need for a toolbox that contains more than just interest rate hikes: www.nytimes.com/2024/11/12/o...

This podcast on the role of management consultancies and the protection of the fossil fuel industry is fascinating! Adds to the growing research into how consultancies obfuscate the climate crisis (& will be in my consulting course next semester!): drilled.media/podcasts/dri...

my brilliant writing buddy @danhancox.bsky.social is on bluesky - and you should follow him!