Merry Christmas everyone! Remember Santa's maxim: if your body complains, force more down.

My tablescape is slap it down, watch as it gets devoured in 10 minutes, gaze at the blast radius around each plate

Feliz Navidad? Yeah, we’d love to bring the boy here, just trying to get the deal sealed before midnight

Brilliant column by @sarahoconnor.ft.com on the Employment Rights Act:

I always enjoy how, on the topic of farmers, the usual politics of the welfare state are completely reversed.

A brutal watch. Bravo to Sharyn Alfonsi for taking a stand against her editor's efforts to censor it.

Snuck out just before Christmas, the Government has confirmed that one of the conditions of the UK rejoining the EU's internal market for electricity will be the UK once again being signed up to the Renewable Energy Directive, or obligations tantamount to it. /1 www.gov.uk/government/p...

This is a very simple coordination problem. No one Labour MP can solve it. But No. 10/the government could, tomorrow, with one letter from the Cabinet Secretary. Both in their own self-interest and for the sake of our democracy, they should.

Anyways, its a classic collective action problem and the only way to win is to leave. The govt doing so en masse would be enough I think

This by the excellent @jburnmurdoch.ft.com confirms my view that political trends are being driven by the halting of the upward economic conveyor belt - striking charts: www.ft.com/content/30a4... Welcome to the age of zero-sum politics

So what the hell just happened? Two things: Ukraine will get 90 billion euros. And Orbán did not veto that even though he could have. How so? Short thread:

The danger of getting angry about the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive, rather than doing a proper cost-benefit analysis

Eurobonds becoming the emergency funding mechanism of choice. Note too that this was (de facto?) enhanced co-operation. www.ft.com/content/e569...

This is well worth your time

Mike Leigh's finest work, IMO

Great to see our idea to extend climate-based buy European conditionality extended to corporate car subsidies. It covers about 60% of the EU market and is a key lever to respond to the China shock. And given that the EU is revising its corporate car directive soon, it was an obvious move. 1/

Disagree on the second bit of the second sentence :) getting-out-of-the-hole.uk

Succinct and elegant, as per. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Just as with the UK, my prior is this is about current-account deficit countries' tendencies towards higher inflation and monetary policy has to be tighter to constrain it.

Once you see it, it's hard to miss it. Statements condemning violent attacks targeting Jews that don't actually mention "Jews" or "antisemitism". This is a choice — and it's central to the crisis. My newsletter, out now.

Some thoughts on Bondi Beach, the sliding doors surreality of knowing my sister could have been there, and how it feels to be lighting candles tonight to celebrate our resilience www.newstatesman.com/world/2025/1...

This was fun when the CER set up its Berlin subsidiary. There were negotiations over whether we needed a professional translator, given my high-school German, or whether the notary's would do.

This long-term thread will collect stories about Germany's absurd, over-lawyered and court-heavy bureaucracy following my Free Exchange column this week. www.economist.com/finance-and-...

This is very sensible

The problem is how. Broad-based tariffs on Chinese goods? IRA-style subsidies to the manufacturing sector as a whole? An attempt to devalue the euro? When you get to the policies bit things start to look very risky.

It has become received wisdom in Brussels and Washington that there is a new “euro-sclerosis”: that the EU economy is lagging the US This view is wrong A little primer on the measurement of productivity – and why reports of the economic death of Europe are greatly exaggerated🧵

According to the @centreeuropeanref.bsky.social, the grid also needs one-third more interconnectors to allow renewable energy to flow from windy or sunny areas and help the bloc advance its overall transition. buff.ly/VHIPW9j

Lonely postbox, Isle of Yell, Shetland, 2004, photo by Martin Parr (Magnum).

Migration Advisory Committee report on fiscal impact of main work migration routes. Key table: they estimate 2022/23 cohort (those arriving in 2022/23) will over lifetimes pay about £47 billion more in taxes than they "cost" in public spending. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/693810...

A 2018 Whitehall study estimated that leaving the EU customs union was responsible for about 1 per cent of lost GDP, according to @johnspringford.bsky.social of the @centreeuropeanref.bsky.social think-tank. buff.ly/2vbkXts

My piece on a Brexit settlement that might actually work, for @ukandeu.bsky.social. A lot of effort will be needed to get there, but it's encouraging that the debate is shifting. ukandeu.ac.uk/the-continui...

“Cut-price luxury and exorbitant necessity” is a great phrase by @stephenkb.bsky.social. The internet has made culture (and other superstar markets) more scalable and unequal, pushing up the price of necessities in places where superstars congregate. www.ft.com/content/b49c...

On the NBER paper, customs unions and dealing with the Brexit damage, for @ukandeu.bsky.social ukandeu.ac.uk/the-continui...

Very interesting walk-through of the impact of Trump on clean tech

Nice mention for our essay in Polly Toynbee's latest. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... Here's the essay getting-out-of-the-hole.uk

What's your most miraculous food, in the sense of cheap ingredients converted into deliciousness? Mine's daal.

Oh to be a fly– or another kind of bug – on the wall of the emergency Starmer, Zelensky, Merz and Macron meeting in London tomorrow. European leaders have been obsequious about Trump’s zigzags in public; but much more honest in private if last week’s leak to Der Spiegel can be believed. 1/

What Europe can learn from Ukraine - fascinating Elina Ribakova essay. www.ft.com/content/9864...

It's so dispiriting that this is what the UK and the EU are finding time to argue about.

The Buckingham Palace council tax scandal. @johnspringford.bsky.social discusses 👉 linktr.ee/ohgodwhatnow... #buckinghampalace #royalfamily #scandal #podcast

I'm on the latest episode of @ohgodwhatnow.bsky.social, talking about our essay on the messy UK economy. Hope I did it justice, @acjsissons.bsky.social www.podmasters.co.uk/oh-god-what-...

you know how i know im a 44yo dad? how much i laughed at this shit

"Never, ever say ‘nice to meet you’. To anyone. There’s a high percentage chance that you have met them" This is true. I mess this up all the time

Football is played on foot, as opposed to on horseback.

This is very good by @anandmenon.bsky.social. The EU shouldn't be indifferent to the choices the UK makes, merely setting out conditions for UK asks. It should have its own strategic aims on energy, security, export markets, access to Britain's knowledge economy www.ft.com/content/0e5e...

The economic impacts of Brexit: new research from my @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social colleague Paul Mizen et al brings together macro (top-down) and micro (bottom-up) evidence. They find a large and persistent negative impact on GDP, output and productivity. ukandeu.ac.uk/brexits-impa...

@catherinedevries.bsky.social joined @armida.bsky.social and @zecsaky.bsky.social to discuss the far right and democracy in Europe in the latest #CERpodcast. Listen to the episode here: buff.ly/O0nYJk6

Giles is tweaking @jamesomalley.co.uk's nose here, but there is a very serious point about how the Abundance movement manages to be extremely anti-corporatist (laudatory) without ever making it explicit. Let me explain. /1

As @johnspringford.bsky.social and @acjsissons.bsky.social said

Cheers John! People, it's on all platforms here: linktr.ee/ohgodwhatnow...