'Review tnis policy without considering the obvious drivers of the problem' sums up quite a lot of what's wrong with the UK.

Leaving aside the specific case... it does feel like there's a lot of slightly exotic money in Westminster. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

A move guaranteed to spark fury for every metro mayor in the country. What does it mean for PCC powers in Manchester, West Yorkshire etc? Going back to some sort of police authority structure would be an extraordinary retrograde step.

The gilt markets are basically your current affairs obsessed uncle who spends all day flicking between 24 hour news channels.

Very occasionally I imagine an alternative history in which Tony Blair didn't take us into Iraq. He would have been PM for longer, the 2010 election might well have gone differently, maybe no Corbyn. He might even be remembered as a bit of a hero. I wonder if he now thinks the war was worth it?

Great job.

It really is.

If London is the economic engine of the UK, why is it home to millions who live in poverty? Could experimenting with more wide-ranging policy, and then fiscal devolution, empower the Mayor to make improvements directly?

Slogans about change are inversely correlated with the willingness to actually make change.

As so often with Whitehall reform speeches, I am struggling to work out what will actually be different. This year is the 40th anniversary of the next steps agencies. Four decades since the last substantial reform of the system.

This is a vg list if you don’t want to live in an echo chamber (polite reminder that if you never want to hear from another Tory again, there is always the option to just go on your merry way without feeling the need to say so)

BORING. institute.global/insights/pol...

Maybe we just don't need X?

It's tax return season so I asked AI to help me work out a few things. It's been at least a bit wrong about almost everything, including some basic maths.

'Economics are the method. The object is to change the soul.' Thatcher's vision was deeply focus on morality.

I'm oddly fascinated by James Orr. It seems incongruous that Reform's philosopher king should be an academic theologian who runs a religious commune on the Cam. And weirder still that his political roots lie in rather parochial campus struggles over wokery.

This is so important. The community power debate risks going down a zero sum dead end - weaker councils, stronger neighbourhoods. As Anthony says, that way lies the big society. We need more power closer to citizens, full stop. And that has to mean more power for #localgov.

Community renewal both improves quality of life and increases trust in democratic institutions. So yes, it is an important part of the democratic as well as social fabric. It *must* be alongside local government renewal - fiscal power - to avoid the mistakes of the big society.

Among my most conservative-coded beliefs is that this is bad. When I were a lad about 7% of people got firsts. If 40% of people get the top grade... is it really still a top grade?

I get very Marxian about election campaigns. Was 2015 Lynton Crosby's brilliant election strategy or a big fall in the price of oil? I suspect the latter played a much bigger role.

She's right... and it comes down to money. SCS salaries are down 20% in real terms since 2010. You have directors on less than £100k. The main reason we still have a functioning SCS is Stockholm syndrome.

Do not invent the torment nexus etc etc.

“Show me what comic you loved when you were 13, and that's all I need to know about you.” OH MAN. I cannot express to you how formative 2000AD in general and Slaine in particular was for me.

I can't quite get my head around the politicisation of power generation. The fact is that solar is cheap, easy to instal and happens to be renewable. Crack on. We'll need nuclear too but it's expensive.

I’m writing a show called PROCUREMENT where nothing escalates quickly, action is buried in paperwork and villains get caught in the registration portal, their evil plans thwarted by a transfer to a new software vendor.

This is the best evidence we have that the #localgov finance system remains broken. Reform desperately wants to find savings so they can reduce council tax increases. They have not been able to, because the savings are not there to be had.

My pet theory is that the British elite was simply more coherent during the trente glorieuses. Our state had more capacity because public and private sector leaders went to the same schools, dined at the same clubs etc. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I don't really get the whole UK civil war meme. It seems to me that countries only go to war with themselves when they face existential dividing lines that can't be resolved politically. Is England a protestant nation? Should slavery exist? We just don't face anything like this.

The best document of London in the 80s and 90s is Only Fools and Horses. The first series has Rodney chucked out of college for smoking weed and falling out with his post punk bandmates. Over the series right to buy happens, the yuppies move in, the pubs change.

Yes this. I have mixed feelings about the redevelopment of London but the city is vastly safer than it was when I moved there in the 90s.

Trump's 'no wars' claim increasingly relies on claiming that bombing countries and kidnapping presidents is not being at war. I suppose militarily occupying Greenland will also not constitute being at war.

Love this. I think there's sometimes a danger of assuming that many men are emotionally stunted compared to women, rather than just finding emotional connection in different ways. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Social Justice Warriors, sir. Thousands of them.

Unconditional cash transfers for the poorest are a very good thing. End of.

This year's Xmas movie turned out to be Armageddoh. First time I'd seen it. Really quite astonishing how bad it is.

Antidote to the madness.

I don't think we should mock Geldof tbh. As far as I can tell he cared passionately and was desperately trying to do the right thing with the tools available to a pop singer. People who do this often get attacked both for virtue signalling and for not being virtuous enough, which is a bit crap IMHO.

"Much of MMT is neither new nor wrong: it’s just standard economic theory presented in different language. The disagreement arises not over whether government can compel the central bank to finance its spending, but to what extent government should do this." criticalfinance.org/2025/12/19/w...

"Every time I pull a lever" says the Prime Minister. This dead metaphor is killing his ability to get things done. There aren't any levers. There's only leadership. howtorunacountry.substack.com/p/there-aren...

I love @instituteforgovernment.org.uk very much, but goodness me this annual conference line-up is a bit stale. www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/event/govern...

🔔 New report out today 🔔 🪴 Rewilding Civic Life 🪴 Today at @kinship.works, we’re publishing a Working Paper that pulls together the evidence from Big Local, one of the world’s biggest-ever experiments in revitalising civic life and restoring social capital. 1/n www.kinship.works/publications...

I *loved* the best of Twitter and Bsky is a pallid replacement. But X contrived to replace stimulating discussion with ragebait. I found myself being edged into angry political discussions I didn't want to be part of. I am not obliged to use a product that's farming me for outrage.

Fond memories of the days when I spent a lot of time with very senior civil servants. Never have you met a more powerless crew. They knew what wasn't working but somehow never thought they could fix it. These people literally ran the country.

Let's assume MMT is right (I find it interesting descriptively). The idea that it allows you to spend as much as you like with no constraints except inflation glosses over the fact that inflation is a really, really big constraint.

Blue Labour covering itself in glory once again. www.desmog.com/2025/11/28/l...

“Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic and made way for parks, people-streets and bike-lanes.” Better for the climate, better for health, better for livability and quality of life. Common sense. Such a no-brainer, it’s remarkable that more cities HAVEN’T done the same.

You will be visited by three spirits.

Wrote about how serious games can help public sector organisations align their structure with their purpose. Shout if you think the game we've developed and/or the thinking behind it can help you design (government) organisations better! openpolicy.blog.gov.uk/2025/12/09/s...

I cannot overstate the ridiculous level of uncertainty we are working under in #localgov. Ministers have completely reset the entire funding system and we won't know what it means until next week. Our budget papers need to be finalised in mid-January. It's no way to run a country.

TIL about a memorial ceremony in Iceland in 2019 to mark the end of a glacier, changing the place name from Okjökull to Ok (jökull = glacier). Uncompromising wording on the bronze plaque: "This is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it".