I’ve written an article for @worksinprogress.bsky.social about through running. It’s the most cost-effective way of upgrading railway lines in nearly all British cities. worksinprogress.co/issue/the-ma...

1760: 🇫🇷25 million people 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿5.5 million 2025 🇫🇷68 million 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿56 million If France’s population growth had kept pace with England’s, there would be 250 million Frenchmen and another 320 million abroad. What happened? 🧵 www.worksinprogress.news/p/570-millio...

I’ve seen so many people saying that the Supreme Court are a bunch of TERFs. That’s not what happened. Instead, Parliament passed two Acts that weren’t easily reconciled, and the UKSC had to work out what the provisions meant.

I’ve written a Substack post about why Leeds should have a tram-metro (aka a Stadtbahn), not just a tram. This is what Hannover has. Hannover is the same size as Leeds, and offers a compelling model for better public transport. open.substack.com/pub/springbe...

I’ve got my crayons out, and have proposed a new Tube line: the Chelsea–Hackney Line. open.substack.com/pub/springbe...

In an ideal world we’d have built Boris Island, but that idea is dead in the water so Heathrow it is.

I’m sorry but this just sounds like an offcut lyric from either ‘The Best Day’ or ‘Never Grow Up’.

If you went to uni, 1. What was your career goal when you started? 2. Your initial program? 3. If you changed programs, what did you change to? 4. What do you do now? 1. Something in politics or IR 2. Arabic & Hebrew 3. Linguistics while I as at university, and later law 4. Studying for the Bar

I suppose of the TikTok ban, one has to ask: would you approve of your young sons, young daughters—because girls can scroll as well as boys—scrolling this app? Is it an app you would have lying around your own house? Is it an app that you would even wish your wife or your servants to scroll?

Keir Starmer. He told us how proud he was to have stopped the CPS prosecuting people who took their relatives abroad for assisted dying…

Wien Hauptbahnhof, a project several orders of magnitude more complex than Brent Cross West Station, cost some €900 million. There is really something off with infrastructure construction in the UK...

It’s also wrong, isn’t it? Brighton, Eastbourne and Hastings are all in East Sussex but are served by Southern not Southeastern. And Surrey doesn’t get a look-in.

Make of this what you will.

The fact there’s a street in the City called Little Britain never fails to tickle me

Surprised to learn song ‘APT.’ (ROSÉ and Bruno Mars, 2024) does not refer to the Advanced Passenger Train (British Rail feat. Queasy Rider, 1981)

Distinctly tempted to ask this guy what’s up

I pity learners of English as a second language. ‘Have to do’ and ‘have to do with’ have such very different meanings.

Surely people who bought farmland because of the tax benefits were advised this could happen? Didn’t Clarkson’s wealth adviser / accountant tell him this was a risk?

This website feels like I’ve stepped foot in a time capsule to Twitter ca. 2018, down to the UI. Even the logo looks comfortingly familiar!