I started reading Arrow’s “The Limits of Organization’ for the first time in many years:

Good morning. America is now one big bet on AI - on.ft.com/4pTQ3US via @FT

*gasp*

Latest post from by far the best analyst of global economic issues

Been to Manchester central complex many times for conferences and rarely has the main hall been so light on outside exhibitors. Lots of padding with empty stands put up by central party

The main reason Farage is in a position to win a majority with 30% of the vote is the implosion of the Conservative Party. The easiest route to preventing that outcome is the recovery of the Conservative Party. Everyone on the left, and all the groups the left cares about, have a stake in that.

It's fascinating how there are still replies on this, and indeed on every post about the decline of the Tories, with people on the left and centre-left people going 'good'. Honestly, I don't know how big of a warning sign you need that the death of the Tory party is bad for your politics!

Interesting piece in the FT suggesting that SMRs aren’t a particularly cheap technology because there are big economies of scale in nuclear plants and the type of fuel used. Important because the U.K. has followed the US down the SMR route.

From ping-pong champ to Nosferatu in just a few short years.

I just have no idea who the Tories think the audience is for full bore authoritarianism plus austerity. Very few who want the former want the latter.

And me.

Just the US correspondent of GB News

Just to confirm the popular stereotype of my generation, I've spent a windy and wet Sunday afternoon watching a war film ☹️

When a nearly 30-year old textbook is still the best on the digital economy www.enlightenmenteconomics.com/blog/index.p...

More great writing via @manchestermill.bsky.social. Nuanced and personal piece on Jewish and Muslim lives in Cheetham Hill, by @ophiraophira.bsky.social manchestermill.co.uk/jews-and-mus...

News to me but 🤷‍♂️

For reasons that aren't too difficult to discern, I was looking at the Wiki entry for XTC. It would be hard to find a worse deal than that.

Looking very busy

If you're in Denia these are great rides but, speaking from experience, the Espresso rides are rather faster than suggested 😬

Small case in point - I was at Euston yesterday, which meant inevitably you get a great view of the ongoing troubles of the West Coast Main Line - something that currently, Labour's plan to fix is 'by 2029, it will still be bad, but we will be branded as our fault'.

Of course, it is that simple. Just The Spectator claiming that the middle class are ruining running. Since I suspect the middle class make up the bulk of its readership, this self loathing is an interesting phenomenon

"Hordes of overseas workers still in government employ" Not difficult to see where this is going.

Is it?

This is spot on. The only I would add is that this spiral of madness is being turbocharged by a national media that is also increasingly unhinged and vastly exaggerates the public demand for these policies. Westminster is trapped in its own reactionary bubble.

Going to launch a campaign for British withdrawal from the OECD, just for a laugh

I'm in Manchester for the Conservative conference, where some of the views on show are likely to be fairly extreme. As one example, these quotes from a Kemi Badenoch interview in the Telegraph are the sorts of things which not very long ago would have only *ever* been said by the racist far right.

Has fly tipping stopped?

Interesting piece by one of the most thoughtful journalists covering the sport "It's clear that while naming teams after nation states may have brought new wealth into a sport that has long been financially fragile, it has also brought a new raft of ethical problems" observer.co.uk/news/sport/a...

Johnson’s cull of MPs prepared to tell the truth about Brexit consigned the Tories to the absurdity & irrelevance they currently enjoy. The media’s pitiful complicity in & failure to explain this lets Farage move in to the vacated space despite embodying the stupidity & bigotry that did for them.

Operation "blame the OBR" in full swing. No doubt Truss would have argued that the OBR wouldn't have taken full account of the "dynamic benefits" of her tax cuts and Reeves is quite at liberty to take the political decision to ignore the OBR views and to explain why she has done so

We haven't done this for a while so GOOD MORNING and welcome to your FT Weekend highlights gift links thread. Simon Schama returns to the essay with the historian's response to Trump's attacks on America's liberties. Make the defence of freedom heroic again! www.ft.com/content/650a...

I remembered the other day that people of my generation grew up before the cassette recorder and it was very rare to hear recordings of your own voice. Most people were very surprised, even shocked, to hear what they actually sounded like.

Click bait at its finest. This isn't a secret that people need to be "warned about by a former DWP worker" State pension age changes and retirement age increases | Age UK share.google/uFlOavaJhecP...

Totally wild..

Good piece by @daveproudlove.bsky.social (who knows a thing or two about housing) on the proposed Adlington New Town. open.substack.com/pub/thefootb...

This article manages to name her husband before it names… her.

No notes. on.ft.com/3KqBUhZ

Particularly over lunch 🤔 OnlyFans chief Keily Blair: ‘People can be quite uncomfortable talking about sex’ - on.ft.com/4pU3wMm via @FT

My essay on stupidology (originally published in N+1) is in today's Guardian www.theguardian.com/news/2025/oc...

The PM this week set out a new "Starmer doctrine" of "principle tempered by pragmatism" And yet on multiple fronts his punchy new message was fading within 24 hours www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/712...

I know that I shouldn't, but the world's going to hell in a handcart and the weather's awful.

Staggering fact here, and suggests that we’re a long way from being in the vanguard of producing cheap EVs

New post: Misunderstandings on the left (and elsewhere) about the OBR, independence and the bond market mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2025/09/misu... The government delegating some highly technical tasks to independent experts doesn't create a democratic deficit, but it does avoid wishful thinking.

This is both pathetic and, quite frankly, distasteful from Mone www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Meanwhile Nigel Farage: - has talked about taking up a rifle/knife - courted Elon Musk who is calling for violence on our streets - lionised someone who admitted to inciting racial hatred and violence - refused to condemn violent riots last summer

The English pay no attention to Northern Ireland - Part 3094

Which reminded me of this paper by @paulnightingale.bsky.social which wasn’t quite so optimistic demos.co.uk/blogs/the-my...

I think it would do people good to spend more time looking at and thinking about this graph. From the excellent www.gov.uk/government/p...

Interesting that the latest album is the length of a traditional vinyl album. Never let it be said that she doesn’t pick up on cultural trends on.ft.com/4mNSKVg Taylor Swift: The Life of a Showgirl album review — charismatic as ever, but lacks sparkle

Careful, powerful reportage by @manchestermill.bsky.social. Thank you for writing this.