First senior member of the royal family to be arrested since Charles I...

NEW: Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has appointed Dame Antonia Romeo as the first female Cabinet Secretary and head of the Civil Service, it is understood.

New post from @ldfreedman.bsky.social On the fascinating story of how the Russian army have lost access to Starlink and Telegram. With inital evidence on the damage it's doing to their operations. And how it's helping Ukraine fight back. (£/free trial) samf.substack.com/p/left-in-th...

I'm going to write properly about the SEND plans when the white paper ie out next week and we can see the full detail. I suspect the leaks are broadly accurate but need to see the detail.

He's in politics for senior executives at kitchen appliance companies? Niche.

I don’t think people can fathom quite how hard this would be to implement. I suspect almost all of the senior judiciary would resign immediately, as would a large proportion of the rest of the CJS.

"5 Pillars" runs a Podcast called "Blood Brothers", which has hosted some of Britain's most notorious neo-Nazis & far right activists, like Nick Griffin (BNP), Mark Collett (Patriotic Alternative) & Jayda Fransen (ex-Britain First), to rant about Jews. Now the Greens are cosying up to them.

This is very convincing on why British planning is such a mess samf.substack.com/p/build-the-...

Something very British about our wannabe fascist dictator being the guy who messed up running Southampton football club.

Keep reading articles about how impossible it is to be a successful centre/left PM these days. And then I look at Mark Carney...

My latest post looks at how Russian forces came to lose access to Starlink and Telegram, why they lacked reliable satellite communications of their own, and the operational impact, including on the current counter-offensive. (£/free trial), open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/l...?

Robert Jenrick announces Reform UK will keep the OBR and Bank of England independence, with an emphasis on fiscal discipline, signified by restoring the two child benefit cap. The speech is essentially the same as every Tory chancellor's conference speech in the last 10 years.

They'd already changed it to pay for their cheaper pints policy. Apparently we can afford that.

New post from @ldfreedman.bsky.social On the fascinating story of how the Russian army have lost access to Starlink and Telegram. With inital evidence on the damage it's doing to their operations. And how it's helping Ukraine fight back. (£/free trial) samf.substack.com/p/left-in-th...

The thing about bubbles is they can happen even when the underlying innovation is transformational. Indeed almost all major technologies from railways to the internet were accompanied by an initial bubble.

Kent County Council latest: Seven KCC councillors have defected to Rupert Lowe's Restore Britain tonight. They are Paul Thomas, Brian Black, Oliver Bradshaw, Maxine Fothergill, Isabella Kemp, Robert Ford, and Dean Burns. Most had already been kicked out of Reform, with the exception of Burns.

Really good piece by @aliceolilly.bsky.social on MPs' mounting constituency casework. A big problem that lies at the heart of so much else IMV:

Another triumph for Goodwin's campaign. No doubt he'll continue to pretend he cares about anti-semitism. www.thejc.com/news/uk/matt...

As someone who was on this commission I wholeheartedly concur with this analysis.

Giving Braverman the education brief is quite a choice for Reform. I was on an education commission with her once before she went completely mad and she knew absolutely nothing at all.

How many plumbers does she think we need?! A staggeringly illiterate understanding of the labour market apart from anything else.

This is a great example of challenging the prevailing approach to reform of "let's take a really complicated and dysfunctional system that we inherited and try to make it a little less complicated and dysfunctional" with a "maybe we could just stop doing it that way and start again?" approach.

Discussed in my post from the weekend. At very least Reform has hit a ceiling that they're struggling to break. samf.substack.com/p/why-have-r...

Argh two fourth places for poor Kirsty Muir in freestyle skiing. The unluckiest Olympics.

Lots of worry and misery in the world but Australia lost in the cricket again so there's that.

This is excellent. Takes a major policy problem seriously (rather than as a way to sneak in priors) and entirely reframes the traditional debate to reach some viable potential solutions.

OK so on the one hand this is good for democracy but on the other means I have do loads more work for my local elections predictions post.

A cut above everything else you read on planning.

(Free to read)! Then no excuses - read it. Identifies the holistic failures in the planning of major infrastructure and a major change that can fix them. Featuring my favourite misunderstood part of the UK system - common law, and how fear of judicial review causes costs to rocket.

New post out: We have a guest post today from the excellent @dsquareddigest.bsky.social. "Build the Rail! Save the snails!" Or how we don't need to sacrifice the environment to speed up our mad planning processes. (Free to read) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/b...

New NBER paper based on a survey of CFOs. Firms report no productivity increases due to AI adoption so far but expect a 1.4% productivity boost over the next 3 years. www.nber.org/papers/w34836

Reform are now averaging 28% rather than 31% in the Autumn, as @samfr.bsky.social notes & looks at why open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/w... @markpackuk.bsky.social shows it is a real dip in Reform support, not an artifact of Don't Knows moving around open.substack.com/pub/theweeki...

This is part of a bigger story that hasn't had much coverage about the FCDO being cut to ribbons. Development funding has been slashed but foreign office staff are also being reduced by 20-30%.

Two golds in one day for Team GB. Never done that before in a whole winter Olympics. And two for Matt Weston who becomes the most successful male winter Olympian.

This is a fair summary from Sam on joining a customs union vs single market. I suspect the rule taker point has less importance for voters than for politicians/commentators. The FoM point is maybe tougher, esp if we now reach net zero migration. The case for immigration still needs to be made.

This is also a problem for Reform of course. To win they need voters who don't actually like them.

Just got back online to see a second GB gold at the winter Olympics for Huw Nightingale and Charlotte Bankes in snowboard cross. First ever GB gold on snow and first time we've won two at the same winter Olympics.

Palantir: too bad to be untrue. bsky.app/profile/samf...

I see he's now dressing like a temu Mussolini. Going all in.

New post out: Why are Reform's poll ratings falling? How worried should be about Palantir? How long does Starmer have left? And lots more of your questions... Topics covered listed below. (£/free trial) samf.substack.com/p/why-have-r...

"Would you vote for the mystery party?" polls are always pointless, but I am fairly confident that actual support for Restore is incredibly low. When Your Party was taking off, you did see 'shadow' support, with higher numbers of Lab/Grn voters saying 'other'. We don't see that with Reform voters.

Exclusive: Labour politicians raised concerns about Keir Starmer’s plans to give Matthew Doyle a peerage in the weeks before it was confirmed, citing intimidating behaviour, particularly towards women. observer.co.uk/news/politic...

Couple of things... First, as far as I know, Gavin Williamson and Susan Hall are still on Lowe's "advisory board" while being Tory members. Second, the more the right bloc splits the better for Labour/Libs in the short term.

At least we beat Scotland in the cricket. Sigh.

Valentine's day through the generations... My son and his new girlfriend: sharing romantic gifts and planning a day of activities. Me and my wife after 20 years of marriage: going to buy drain unblocker after partially flooding the bathroom.

Don't think this is a big problem for Reform yet - it's all very online. But it does pull Reform to the right to protect that flank.

New post out: Why are Reform's poll ratings falling? How worried should be about Palantir? How long does Starmer have left? And lots more of your questions... Topics covered listed below. (£/free trial) samf.substack.com/p/why-have-r...

GB finally win a medal at the winter olympics and it's gold for Matt Weston in skeleton. First man to win a gold for GB since Christopher Dean 42 years ago.

This illustrates nicely a point I've come back to a few times: Trump was unusually reliant, for a Republican, on lower income voters in 2024. They believed he would help them. He hasn't. And that's a big reason why his approval ratings are so bad.

Wow! Palestine Action win judicial review - Guardian report. This is a *big* legal win. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...