Chris Dillow
@chrisdillow.bsky.social
📤 4624
📥 1074
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Bourgeois interests, proletarian instincts.
"The right of asylum is an untouchable provision of the English law" - Roger Scruton. (England: an elegy, p8)
about 11 hours ago
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When I was young Orwell's line "if you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever" was seen as a description of communism. Today, it applies to the Labour right.
1 day ago
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New Substack:
chrisdillow.substack.com/p/on-incompe...
Parts of the Labour party and BBC simply don't know what their jobs should be.
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On incompetence
Much of our political culture is fundamentally incompetent.
https://chrisdillow.substack.com/p/on-incompetence
2 days ago
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It doesn't follow that rejoining will give a 6-8% boost to GDP, as much of the hit came from uncertainty reducing business investment, & we mightn't get this back. If a man's been hit by a bus you don't restore him to health by reversing the bus.
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3 days ago
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Dead right. I used to advise my readers to never base investment strategy upon forecasts but rather upon the range of possible outcomes; we need resilience in the face of uncertainty.
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3 days ago
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reposted by
Chris Dillow
Paul Waldman
3 days ago
Millions of people have, probably unknowingly, streamed a dreadful country song created entirely by AI. This is a harbinger of things to come. It's going to get increasingly more difficult to hang on to our humanity, but we have to keep at it. My latest:
paulwaldman.substack.com/p/todays-ai-...
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Today’s AI Slop Panic That Is Both Fake and Real, In the Worst Way
What's here now is bad, and what's coming is worse. Hang on to your humanity.
https://paulwaldman.substack.com/p/todays-ai-slop-panic-that-is-both
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reposted by
Chris Dillow
Phil Norman
3 days ago
Next election's in the bag for the party that promises to shut the power off at ten every night and start a mainland bombing campaign.
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Yes I know all economists love a policy trilemma. But what we have now is a simple dilemma: you can pay attention to political reporters; or you can have intelligent economic policy. Choose one.
3 days ago
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Turns out that bond markets think there should be more to fiscal policy than looking behind the sofa for loose change. Every day's a school day.
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4 days ago
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This. It's odd how Labour wants to appear businesslike, and yet there's not a business anywhere that avoids advertising itself whilst telling customers that their rivals have a good product.
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4 days ago
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Chris Dillow
dag
5 days ago
NEW The letter the BBC could send back to Trump A proposal for a reply to his $1bn claim By me. Enjoy.
emptycity.substack.com/p/the-letter...
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The letter the BBC could send back to Trump
A proposal for a reply to his $1bn claim
https://emptycity.substack.com/p/the-letter-the-bbc-could-send-back
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Read this alongside Reeves' inability to make a coherent case for her policies and the BBC's atrocious journalism (of which the editing of Trump's speech is but one example) and we have a picture of a political culture characterised by plain technical incompetence.
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5 days ago
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True. The fact that there are busloads of tourists in Stratford shows that culture is big business. Not supporting it isn't merely philistine; it's also bad economics.
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5 days ago
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Intelligent question: what, if any, social democratic policies might rejuvenate the economy & defeat the far right? Stupid question: should Streeting replace Starmer? The fact that the political class are discussing one rather than the other is the problem.
6 days ago
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There was a time when this would have been seen as a case for relaxing fiscal policy.
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6 days ago
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The big problem with the BBC isn't so much a bias against left or right, but a bias against understanding:
chrisdillow.substack.com/p/being-a-ne...
There's little chance that a change of DG will remedy this.
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Being a news avoider
Even with the best journalists, the news gives us a distorted picture of the world.
https://chrisdillow.substack.com/p/being-a-news-avoider
8 days ago
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Tesla is a meme stock & Musk is key to it remaining so, just as Kim Kardashian is key to the appeal of the Kardashians. So he's got a lot of bargaining power. This has less to do with car-making than with the economics of superstars. See eg Moshe Adler:
pdodds.w3.uvm.edu/files/papers...
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https://pdodds.w3.uvm.edu/files/papers/others/1985/adler1985a.pdf
11 days ago
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New substack: why governments cannot offer competence alone:
chrisdillow.substack.com/p/on-compete...
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On competenciness
Centrists don't offer actual competence, but merely a false illusion of it.
https://chrisdillow.substack.com/p/on-competenciness
11 days ago
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reposted by
Chris Dillow
Tomas Hirst
11 days ago
Salami slicing your way to fiscal headroom introduces more tax complexity, likely means poorly targeted measures increasing deadweight costs, raises uncertainty (where might they look to tax next?), and reduces flexibility going forward (pulling all but the obvious levers sends a signal in itself).
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On average, more than one prisoner a week has been wrongly released in the last ten years (
data.justice.gov.uk/prisons/addi...
) Strange how the buck stops with Lammy but not with any of his predecessors.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
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Chris Mason: The justice system is failing and the buck stops with Lammy
Problems in the prisons and the courts are not new but they are growing and the government doesn't have a grip on them.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crmx82ng9gyo
12 days ago
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reposted by
Chris Dillow
Carsten Jung
12 days ago
NEW: Today I co-published a report with think tanks from across the political spectrum. We disagree on many issues, but share common ground on the basics of UK tax reform. Our tax system is riddled with loopholes and irrationalities, holding back growth. This means that..(1/3)
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The case for tax rises is stronger & clearer than Reeves pretends. It's that, given our lack of productive capacity, we have an inflation problem, which means that the alternative to tax rises is either infeasible cuts in public spending or higher mortgage rates.
13 days ago
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Of all the things that are holding back the economy, the national debt is not one. That Reeves thinks she should focus on this shows that she's taking her agenda from the Tories, not from reality.
www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...
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Reeves refuses to say she will stick to manifesto pledge on tax rises and insists she must face world ‘as it is’ – UK politics live
Chancellor says she is focused on priorities for British people in pre-budget speech laying ground for expected tax rises
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2025/nov/04/rachel-reeves-speech-tax-budget-labour-keir-starmer-latest-politics-news-live
14 days ago
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New substack: how the government can raise economic growth:
chrisdillow.substack.com/p/increasing...
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Increasing economic growth: some modest proposals
Commodify, enshittify, skillify.
https://chrisdillow.substack.com/p/increasing-economic-growth-some-modest
14 days ago
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I see a lot of people on here saying what journalists should do. It's all pish. Journalism is just a job like another other, and an employee's duty is to their employer.
15 days ago
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Chris Dillow
Mike Pitts
17 days ago
Updated thread on The Lost King film: I’m digging over old ground but I have to challenge Steve Coogan's line. He claims it’s all true (as has Philippa Langley): Langley will be celebrated for her achievement, Richard Taylor & his personal gripes will be forgotten So what’s the real story? 1/15
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Tom Forth
18 days ago
"Evil or Irrelevant: pick one." > I wrote up why I'd usually prefer to have an 'evil' company succeeding in Leeds than a good one succeeding in London. (But really it's about Stoke-on-Trent).
tomforth.co.uk/evilorirrele...
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Evil or irrelevant: pick one.
Why I’d probably rather have an evil tech company in Leeds than a good one in London.
https://tomforth.co.uk/evilorirrelevant/
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Good thread this. For more, read Karl Hagstrom Miller's Segregating Sound.
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17 days ago
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Chris is right. Some of these (eg charging for medical appts) aren't cost cuts, but cost shifts. As I wrote here, there are no magic money trees:
chrisdillow.substack.com/p/no-magic-m...
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18 days ago
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reposted by
Chris Dillow
Dan Davies
19 days ago
Increasingly I think the point of a wealth tax is not to raise money but to create space for raising income tax. The lethal thing in politics is when the compliant middle class feels like they have been taken for mugs; if you want to get money out of them, someone else needs to pay more too.
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New substack: the government could pay a heavy cost for increasing military spending:
chrisdillow.substack.com/p/some-costs...
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Some costs of remilitarization
Raising military spending is economically and politically damaging
https://chrisdillow.substack.com/p/some-costs-of-remilitarization
19 days ago
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The asylum seekers issue could be reframed as one of corporate welfare for failing rentiers.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
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Home Office 'squandered billions' on asylum accommodation, MPs say
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr43ww32xx0o
22 days ago
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reposted by
Chris Dillow
Lion & Unicorn
24 days ago
"Parkinson’s audience listens, laughs and understands. The exchange between Kenneth Williams and Jimmy Reid assumes a level of cultural literacy and curiosity that television rarely dares to credit its viewers with today."
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/10/23/l...
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Last night on YouTube: Parkinson
FINLAY McLAREN watches Kenneth Williams and Jimmy Reid going at it (ooh matron).
https://thelionandunicorn.com/2025/10/23/last-night-on-youtube-parkinson/
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The mistake many in Labour are making is to think in tribal terms. What matters is a question of fact: can it fix the economy & public services? It should do whatever it takes to achieve these, & worry about factionalism later. Whether it can do this is another issue.
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22 days ago
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Basic economics. Same incentives = same behaviour.
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22 days ago
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Alternatively, learn enough social science to know selection bias when it stares you in the face.
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25 days ago
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This is a challenge to Marxist theories of the state. Yes, govt & state are different things, & relative autonomy etc. But even so, the state has not served the common interests of the bourgeoisie.
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26 days ago
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Even if we ignore the racism (not that we should!) this entails a massive loss of freedom, a hit to the economy & worse public services. That's a huge price to pay for "cultural cohesion". Which suggests these people are irrational fanatics.
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26 days ago
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It would help our blood pressure if we regarded journalists as mere peddlers of product and propaganda rather than as dedicated pursuers of truth. It's the exceptions to this we should note, not the countless examples.
28 days ago
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What we need to do now is to ask what it is about our political culture that caused us to get so important a decision so wrong.
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29 days ago
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Feature, not bug. The govt needs to shift labour from consumer-facing sectors to public services & investment. Gambling should be among those sectors to shrink.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
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Betfred says all its shops may close if Reeves hikes gambling tax
The company's co-founder says it would be forced to close all its sites, putting 7,500 jobs at risk, if gambling taxes go up.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5ydpmy7mj1o
29 days ago
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This poses the qn: what does it say about our political-media system that it incentivizes people to behave like racist morons? Unless Jenrick has misjudged these incentives, it is utterly damning of the system.
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about 1 month ago
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Old-fashioned opinion: the Chancellor's problem isn't so much the public finances as the state of the economy - slow growth & above-target inflation.
about 1 month ago
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reposted by
Chris Dillow
Jonathan Calder
about 1 month ago
The remains of the Burley on the Hill fish ponds, the lost buildings of Hambleton and the graves of Hambleton Wood...
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The drought revealed Rutland Water's hidden ruins and relics
Lord Bonkers isn't going to like this, because he's convinced that Rutland Water has always been there. How else, he would ask, do you expla...
https://liberalengland.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-drought-revealed-rutland-waters.html
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This poses basic questions eg: what is the overall correlation & causality between news consumption & political knowledge? And if the media does misinform folk, isn't the instrumental case for media freedom weak, given that ignorance is a negative externality?
www.theguardian.com/media/2025/o...
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GB News viewers more likely to wrongly believe net migration to UK rising, study finds
Research also finds majority of people are against letting politicians front current affairs programmes
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/oct/15/gb-news-viewers-more-likely-to-wrongly-believe-net-migration-to-uk-increasing
about 1 month ago
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In A Glass of Blessings (1958) Barbara Pym says the post arrived 2-3 times a day in the run-up to Xmas. Which reminds us that technical regress is a thing: enshittification isn't just for the internet. Here's one I wrote earlier:
chrisdillow.substack.com/p/technical-...
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about 1 month ago
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Two things can both be true: 1. Many people don't invest as much in equities as they reasonably could. 2. Using the tax system to encourage them to do so would do nothing to boost growth, other than enriching high-charging active fund managers.
about 1 month ago
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Good this. The thing is that Macmillan could be a one-nation Tory because British capitalism then was working for millions. Today it is not. That removes the economic base of one-nation Toryism.
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about 1 month ago
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This and this
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
confirms that politics has been bought. It's unclear how this might change without big systemic change, given that MPs (unlike other voters) don't vote to make themselves poorer.
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about 1 month ago
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As you might imagine, I disagree. Here's a defence of PPE I prepared earlier:
chrisdillow.substack.com/p/in-defence...
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about 1 month ago
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