This BBC drivel was parodied 44 years ago by Alexander Cockburn: harpers.org/archive/1982... It is - literally - beyond parody.

This shows the function of "independent" regulation. It is not to improve the working of an industry, but to allow the government to avoid responsibility.

My and Cosma's version of this with a toy model. Equally, and more on this soon, algorithms do have consequences even if they cannot solely be blamed as villains dl.acm.org/doi/epdf/10....

The far right aren't trying to tell the truth. Instead, they say these things to demarcate their tribe of believers from the rest of us. It's a category error to argue about facts with them.

New substack: why politicians should not be like newspaper columnists: chrisdillow.substack.com/p/more-than-...

btw, this is the original bit of writing I did about what being a careworker is like. It was succeeded by a much longer essay for Renewal but I think this piece, written in my head as I rode home from work one April evening in 2020, retains more of the viscerality. medium.com/@bickerrecor...

Amazing wrongness here. 1. If you're arresting 00s of peaceful pro-Gazan protestors, you don't believe in free speech. 2. Even if you do believe in it, it doesn't extend to child porn. 3. You can't debate with fascists. 4. You can put a counter-narrative (if you have one) onto civilized platforms.

I'm hoping that Starmer's publicly supine response to the attack on Venezuela is his equivalent of Arsene Wenger's "I didn't see the incident" - a desire to have his arguments in private rather than public.

This 70s nostalgia is like the yearning for a return of manufacturing or the hopes for civil conflict. All are founded upon an ignorance of what the 70s or old-style manufacturing or violence were really like. The right has become detached from reality.

"We frequently see the respectful attentions of the world more strongly directed towards the rich and the great, than towards the wise and the virtuous. We see frequently the vices and follies of the powerful much less despised than the poverty and weakness of the innocent" - Adam Smith.

It's the hypocrisy that bugs me. By all means go with "might is right"; cynical realpolitik has its place. But don't then lecture us on law & morality. You can't ride two horses with one arse.

"if you are pronouncing a new law that wherever Communism reigns against the will of the people, even though it's happened internally, there the United States shall enter, then we are going to have really terrible wars in the world". Margaret Thatcher, 1983. www.margaretthatcher.org/document%2F1...

If you are complaining that London is worse than in the 80s or 90s without citing the closure of Rock On records in Camden as exhibit A then you are an idiot whose opinion should be disregarded.

Phil Burton-Cartledge on the origins of the "stakeholder state". averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/2026/01/what...

Venezuela is about to become a peaceful pro-western liberal democracy - just like Iraq or Libya. But I guess all decadent ruling classes are like the Bourbons; they forget nothing and they learn nothing.

In capitalism relations between people "assume the fantastical form of a relation between things" - Marx.

🎯🎯🎯See also long-winded intros to Substack articles. As Sir Brian Harrison used to tell his students, have a good first sentence.

This post by @carriejenkins.net has prompted me to write up some thoughts at Crooked Timber on the threat AI poses to art

I like this. The concept of over-optimising is important in many contexts. I've done it with my life, such that I slightly resent even the nicest invitations as a disturbance to my routine.

Our last 6 PMs have not been up to the job - some of them very much so. The time has come to think not about individuals but the system: why does it consistently select inadequates?

If immigration is high, the government has lost control of our borders. If it's low, it's because the country is in such a mess that nobody wants to be here. Labour is never going to win these people over, and it should stop trying.

Save this, it's perfect.

New substack: why so many people are content with economic stagnation: chrisdillow.substack.com/p/wallowing-...

"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...

Of course you can argue that there was much wrong with Labour after 1945. But that's a case for being a LibDem or Tory or Marxist or Green. It's an utterly silly thing to believe whilst being a member of the Labour party.

"Better keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it and remove all doubt" - Denis Thatcher.

“the only way to get to the truth is by speaking to one another” no it’s research, you’re thinking of research, that’s why you don’t get given a medical degree for debating whether bones exist

The government's keenness to protect "good jobs" in manufacturing contrasts with its inaction in the face of the destruction of "good jobs" in universities. What's going on here is something other than economics.

The BBC has travelled a long way since The Great Philosophers and the Ascent of Man.

Third rate Marxist - at last, a politician I can identify with.

New research! Austerity and the labour market in the UK. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... Headline result: austerity reduced wages, increased employment rates, and contributed to weak productivity. 1/n

A graph that tells you everything you need to know about why British politics is in the state it is in.

I suspect you’ll find a lot pin this you agree with @daveproudlove.bsky.social , including the references to toxic landlords and market manipulation. Like the idea of a Troubled Buildings Programme (probably spend the entire budget in Stoke 😬) open.substack.com/pub/howtorun...

An obituary to the IMF's chief nemesis and a lovely caring man, Peter Doyle . Thanks to my co-author and substack host @generaltheorist.bsky.social moneyinsideout.substack.com/p/peter-doyle

Their inaction would be understandable if they were free speech absolutists. But given that they support the arrest of 00s of pro-Palestine protesters they are not. That leaves the explanation that they're simply scared of the right-wing media. They're cowards.

In a quick scroll down my TL, I've seen lots of references to various right-wing nutters but none to intelligent leftist ideas. Which shows one of our problems. "Flooding the zone with shit" actually works - by stealing cognitive bandwidth from worthwhile things.

Three myths about NEETs in the UK. (The awful acronym NEETs covers young people in the UK who are not in education, employment or training, whose number is approaching 1 million). blogs.lse.ac.uk/inequalities...

I consider the plight of the silent ignored majority, which is to say that there's not really very many of them, we can't stop paying attention to them and they won't shut up backofmind.substack.com/p/what-is-on...

This was going reasonably well, until he crassly drags in Zack Polanski and gives the impression that patriotism must be pro-capitalist: renewal.org.uk/blog/a-unite...

I'm very much enjoying this: Galbraith is the definition of sardonic. There's no way the BBC would make such a programme today: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

BITD Arsenal fans had the chant: "We got Dennis Bergkamp, we got Dennis Bergkamp; you got Iain Dowie, you got Iain Dowie."

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...

It's a shame that the practice of calling one's opponents mad was discredited by the Soviet Union, because many on the right now really do seem to be genuinely detached from reality.

New substack: a portion of a dictionary of politics: chrisdillow.substack.com/p/a-short-le...

I'd be more than usually grateful to those who share this because of the personal importance to me of the event commemorated macdonnchada.substack.com/p/raul-alfon...

New post: Labour, a supply side explanation for the rise of populism, and the growing acceptability of xenophobic discourse in the UK mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2025/12/labo... Labour's 'tougher' stance on immigration/asylum and right wing populists' response has shifted the Overton window.

Arsene Wenger once told a press conference: "if I walked on water, you'd report that I couldn't swim." His point generalizes.

I went on a tour of the Corrie set last month: it was fantastic.

"He did get a degree of sorts at Oxford, and I suppose you can always fool some of the people some of the time" - P.G.Wodehouse.

Top tip: if you want a decent England cricket team, try teaching the game in state schools so the team isn't drawn from just a minority who have dads who love the game or who are privately educated.