Starmer spoke to Trump. "The Prime Minister also set out his position on Greenland.”

UK says it had a hand in the Bella 1 seizure

When Starmer said that cowardly politicians had surrendered decisions to arms’ length regulators who in turn blocked decisive government, it was meant as a compliment

Farage positioning himself against new drink-drive laws is an interesting and tricky position given the likelihood of him actually being in power. Similarly, what becomes of his decades-long opposition to smoking bans. Dog meets car...

My first newsletter as a political correspondent! I'm excited to have joined the Britain department this week for a stint covering politics 🇬🇧

holding up....

Political cabinet is political; but I don't think Cameron would have publicly ruminated on polling or his prospects at the next general election in Jan 2012.

job news. This month I'll be filling @tomsasse.bsky.social's large shoes as the Economist's public policy editor, based in the Britain section. I'll be focusing particularly on the most interesting question in politics at the moment - what's gone wrong with state capacity and how to fix it

Just a few more days left to apply for the Paul McLean graduate trainee programme at the FT. This is an amazing opportunity for any aspiring journalist job-boards.greenhouse.io/financialtim...

Perhaps less an aspiration than a fait accompli. The agreement on agricultural and energy will require dynamic alignment on a much wider field of EU law than most MPs appreciate.

We are looking for a writer with deep knowledge of American business. The successful candidate would be expected to produce original and ambitious journalism capable of holding the cover of The Economist. Interested? Apply by February 20th

An essay in political agency www.ft.com/content/5b0e... ‘ ‘A stream of negativity and abuse’: why are Labour MPs still sticking with X?

This is easy, boring and predictable from CCHQ and in the long-run a terrible bet. If the project is to survive - and for the first time you can see a circumstances in which it doesnt - then it must become more pluralistic and broad-based. The constituency for the deal of 2020 is shrinking...

Britain could have joined Erasmus five years ago; an agreement on funding was completed between negotiators but vetoed “at the very last minute” by Boris Johnson. From Stefaan de Rynck’s book

Piece on HS2 makes the inhabitants of one of the richest places on earth sound like Victorian peasants encountering the steam train. Did it really cause a murrain of cattle? www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...

Intriguing blast at taxes on landowners from a member of the Socialist Campaign Group

Smut Reform was always going to top Bible Reform. The political wing of Clacton Pier

One of the upsides of Brexit was that politicians would not be able to use “Brussels doesn’t let us” as a pretext for their own indecision

In a matter of months Nigel Farage’s right-wing party has raced from the periphery of British politics to its very core. Claims that its support has peaked are probably wishful thinking

Rare Janan miss. Poor regions are characterised less by a brain drain of talent, and much more by producing far too few graduates in the first place, low levels of population movement in either direction than more dynamic regions

All the photography in this week's Economist Britain section is by Martin Parr

You hear sometimes - including from senior figures in government - that Reform has hit a "ceiling" as its polling plateaus. That seems unlikely. Bit on fascinating new research from @profjanegreen.bsky.social and Marta Miori www.economist.com/briefing/202...

Quite possible that in 20 years people will be as embarrassed of their discourse around the “Boriswave” as they are now of the response to 2004 EU enlargement

You hear sometimes - including from senior figures in government - that Reform has hit a "ceiling" as its polling plateaus. That seems unlikely. Bit on fascinating new research from @profjanegreen.bsky.social and Marta Miori www.economist.com/briefing/202...

"The Brexit gambit demands a bold and full-throated argument made over a long period of time." A good piece on Starmer's greatest weakness, an unwillingness or inability to litigate his own case for ID cards, Chagos, assisted dying, winter fuel and much else.

Much to celebrate at GB News with the elevation of so many regular contributors to the upper house

Quite the character reference: "Within the IRA, Scappaticci was known as a “bully” about whom “no one had a good word to say”." www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Europe... stands on the brink of civilisational erasure bsky.app/profile/henr...

Nothing Starmer does in government will be as consequential - for Labour and the country - as voting against a high alignment + customs union agreement three times after a long campaign to sabotage it. For reasons that were pretty incoherent.

No one is talking about it yet, but this will soon be the most important question in British politics: How can the country’s broken electoral system be fixed? www.economist.com/interactive/...

The logic is compelling but it ratchets to full rejoin very quickly, which is why Burnham is probably right to plant his flag there. Why sink capital on a "single market minus membership" option that is feindish to negotiate, unpalatable to much of the British state and satisfies few voters?

Enjoying this

👇👇 l

A consistent Truss trait, for a self-styled radical, is just how stale and derivative her content is; from the minibudget to the vlogging career. Americans were doing "the MSM/deep state tried to silence me" over a decade ago. Where's the new material?

When the electorate fragments, first past the post electoral system becomes a slot machine. In an election tomorrow, a remarkably wide spread is possible. This week's UK cover story on the coming legitimacy crisis featuring @owenwntr.bsky.social's new model www.economist.com/leaders/2025...

Full interview now live www.economist.com/insider/the-...

When the electorate fragments, first past the post electoral system becomes a slot machine. In an election tomorrow, a remarkably wide spread is possible. This week's UK cover story on the coming legitimacy crisis featuring @owenwntr.bsky.social's new model www.economist.com/leaders/2025...

Interesting piece - regulatory divergence is also an issue within the EU. Though I think it's striking that - contra to all the current calls to slash red-tape - the logical way out of the problem is *more* EU legislation to harmonise standards giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

Starmer: Reform is institutionally “pro-Putin or Putin neutral.” It would pull the UK from the pro-Ukrainian Coalition of the Willing. “There is no way on earth that the UK could be part of that configuration with Nigel Farage as prime minister.” economist.com/britain/2025...

“If there is a Conservative government, I can sleep at night.” A right-wing populist Reform UK government, however, “is a different proposition”. Starmer speaks to @zannymb.economist.com; note by @duncanrobinson.bsky.social www.economist.com/britain/2025...

The disappointing English cousin to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth

OBR: No, you are the leaker

It was the most botched budget briefing since Truss… but this is increasingly wild. It is not an unsubstantiated “claim” that the OBR priced the productivity downgrade at £16bn in foregone revenue!

Rather unusual for a chancellor to be told to resign for not increasing taxes as expected in light of better-than-expected revenue forecasts.

It's possible that Reeves' "simple workaround" becomes politically impossible to unwind in future, and very expensive - a de facto second class of personal allowance. The new fuel duty escalator... www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...

Wave of the future right here:

The grunting and yelling of an Olympic weightlifter for a 5lb dumbbell of a budget

Britain's absolutely-impossible-extremely-difficult-no-good-options fiscal bind: latest

For a chancellor for whom the threadbare school library was a well-told origin story, these are small numbers