Happy Eurovision to all who celebrate

Largely agree Britain is governable, but it does have a media problem, both social and legacy. Higher standards would help a lot.

If the actor with British accent is evil then you’re watching Sci fi. If the actor with a British accent is good then it’s Fantasy. If the actor with a British accent knocks something over then it’s a Rom com.

I was in Essex last month and the flag-hangers apparently didn't have a cherry-picker, so the flags were all at half-mast. Maybe just stop the cherry-pickers, take the flags down, and it'll peter out.

The use of coercion to maintain pre-eminence only hastens relative decline. We Europeans have a lot of experience here.

1/12 Very good article by Greg Ip. I think the most important point he makes is this one: "The Achilles’ heel of Chinese industrial policy is its cost and waste. China runs bigger budget deficits relative to economic output than the U.S." www.wsj.com/world/china/...

Just patriots who want to show their love for country latest. If communities want to fly the flag great but it shouldn't be down to far right thugs whether they do. Those who vandalise community property and threaten and harm people should be arrested. Basics. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Warren G, Tonya Harding, Raheem Stirling, The Stig, Sandi Toksvig and Snoop Dogg.

No one's saying we're not

Very even-handed.

Gah. What are health levels correlated with? Age, educational attainment *and income*. The median age of a place also has an impact on the local economy: we found that a lower median age is increasingly associated with higher regional productivity www.cer.eu/publications...

If no change in strategy was needed, and they just needed to keep doing what they were doing and eventually voters would come round once the results were seen, or if a replacement leader was going to do the same thing anyway, then the 'chaos' argument would be valid.

Reeves might be right, but what is going to cause much more chaos is a Reform or Reform-Tory govt, and if a change in economic and political strategy is needed to stop that happening, and she and Starmer don't accept that diagnosis, then better to suffer the smaller, shorter dose of chaos.

Must read ONS blog on seasonal patterns in GDP data (Of course we know GDP fell in Q1 as it always does, so the poor ONS has to work out what the underlying moves are at a time when spending patterns are changing - this is hard) blog.ons.gov.uk/2026/05/14/h...

Another strong start to the year for UK GDP. But there were strong first quarters in 2024 and 2025. www.ons.gov.uk/economy/gros...

The small gaps in my blind are making pinhile cameras. The moving shadows are the clouds going across the sky!

BREAKING: Nigel Farage is facing a formal investigation by the parliamentary standards watchdog over a £5m gift from the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, which he did not declare.

'We appear to have reached a tipping point. The Government wants more from its relationship with the EU than the current negotiations will provide. This will confront them with some stark choices'. https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/brexit/2026/05/brexit-is-back-and-it-is-consuming-keir-starmer

European electrification is edging forward. New Eurostat data show electricity's share of final energy demand rose by 0.7 percentage points between 2021 and 2024. Growth, but not at the pace required to meet 2030 or 2040 targets.

This is a flat out horrifying article. It may be too much for some to read. But this should be documented, and we should know this is happening.

Here's @rafaelbehr.bsky.social at the absolute top of his game.

No. I don't want my pasta to scar my throat.

Great appointment

See also social care, energy, tax.

I was happy to contribute to this NYT story by Eshe Nelson. My main point: I think the shift to EVs, heat pumps and solar panels is likely to be sustained, because there are two factors at play here, driving the behavioural response: the price factor and the shock-awareness factor. 🧵

How is the Iran war preventing Europe’s #LNG plans? New analysis from @agathedemarais.com#LNGexplores how the Iran war is disrupting global gas flows, putting Europe’s energy diversification plans at risk. 👉 Read the full commentary: https://bit.ly/3QQQ9Q8

From the many conversations I've had with my Labour colleagues in Parliament, there is a consensus about the importance of setting out clear fiscal rules and getting the cost of borrowing down. The best way to address the cost of living is to get growth up and inflation down.

There must be much more to economic policy than fiscal policy. The big issue is rather how to improve the supply side.

There is a tendency to blame Brexit for everything which encourages the savvy to downplay it, but we know that leaving the EU has reduced growth significantly, and hence tax revenue, and public finances are more strained as a result. 1/

As @johnspringford.bsky.social and I wrote here, if you fix those two constraints, Labour’s economic strategy can absolutely work. On Europe, rebuilding the state, easing the gilt markets, lowering business taxes, it’s all downstream of removing these two barriers

Whether we get a new government or not, there are two things it absolutely must do: 1. Adopt a more balanced approach to migration, and drop the red line on freedom of movement with the EU 2. Raise either basic income tax or VAT, and use this to kick off a rolling programme of tax reform

Sunder's right here. It would have to be a manifesto commitment to negotiate rejoin, which the EU would agree to open negotiations on, and then a referendum on the treaty. There would be then be a pre-accession period, although it could be short because the UK hasn't diverged much.

Good line. The rest of the article is a bit dubious (political problems solved by tax cuts, North Sea, more defence spending etc)

I know it's been said a million times but honestly, honestly, the US-Israeli war on Iran is genuinely one of the most fucked up things I have seen in international affairs in my life. It is genuinely shocking to me, in a way I think it would be bad to lose sight of, just how bad this has been.

I cannot tell you just how many of the problems the UK currently faces would be materially eased by Starmer getting up and saying “we’re modestly raising income tax”

It will be a week of taking apart govt policies as the cause of Labour's woes One they should leave alone? Oil & gas. It might make people feel nice that security lies in the North Sea, but the numbers on production or tax don't stack up www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/techno... @ippr.org

Oh gosh, now we are back with the music. Really striking how responsive the crowd was to Reform’s Richard Tice. The tone of his address was anger and the crowd really responded. Compare with the fury directed at Pat McFadden /7

The government spent a year or so saying it had "no plans" for a youth mobility scheme, citing its manifesto commitment on free movement.

Completely unacceptable from the Board of Deputies. This nakedly partisan hypocrisy does not represent me or many other British Jews. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

It says a lot about our politics that this is perceived to be, and perhaps was, the government's biggest political mistake

I am once again thinking of the French girl attempting to say "Burger".

Some things to bear in mind for politicians considering spouting nonsense about gilts (again) Me, 300 free clicks: - as.ft.com/r/031c1f71-5...

A wall of crypto money is powering Nigel Farage, both politically and personally. And much of the British media just shrugs app.prospectmagazine.co.uk/story/73421/...

For example, my impression is that the PSNFL / investment stuff has been very, very slow. These things take time, of course, but given the level of priority I’d have expected ministers to really drive it through faster. And more widely my impression is that civil servants are very nervous to…

Political nerds, I made a thing! How well do you know the UK electoral map? Could you find ten constituencies, picked at random? Test yourself! play.jmoxley.co.uk

The electorate is polarised and attempts to triangulate via immigration haven't worked; the attempt to keep the US onside has lost votes; the red lines have restricted economic policies that might change outcomes. RIP MacSweeneyism.

Longtime followers have read my complaining about this in increments of 280-300 characters for about a decade so here it is in 1000 words. www.ft.com/content/631a... American healthcare costs drive global imbalances

It feels very copey to say "ha, now that people have a Reform Council they will certainly find out what it's like to have vital services neglected because there is no money for anything other than statutory responsibilities, to the presumed electoral benefit of us"

And the Occam's razor story on economic policy is 'don't frighten the horses' can't get you very far, because it doesn't change outcomes much getting-out-of-the-hole.uk