Chris Dillow
@chrisdillow.bsky.social
Bourgeois interests, proletarian instincts.
The Hundred may be struggling for spectators, but cricket's One-Day Cup is thriving by using grounds that do not usually see professional cricket. Matthew Pennell explains why in a guest post for Liberal England. liberalengland.blogspot.com/2026/08/gues...
All right then. 1. The Code of the Woosters. 12. Yes: Hardy, Shakespeare, Waiting for Godot. (Middlemarch, not so much.) 19. Tolkien. I'm team Hugo Dyson: "not another fucking elf".
Mo 🌸📚@moplayspoke.bsky.social · 2d ago1 like = 1 book question 📚💙
Private prisons are a victory of ideology over economics: www.leicester.news/hmp-fosse-wa... (h/t @lordbonkers.bsky.social)
HMP Fosse Way: Life inside ‘Hell’
Deaths, misconduct in public office, rat infestations, and a climate of fear
leicester.news
My long review of "The Blueprint: How Socialism Can Work in the Real World" for @liberalcurrents.com. Title is pretty self-explanatory www.liberalcurrents.com/democratic-s...
Democratic Socialism Gets Serious
"The Blueprint" demonstrates how the new generation of democratic socialists are providing real, practical proposals for economic transformation.
liberalcurrents.com
as someone who probably thinks class is more important than anything else: any movement who describes as "class-first" tends to be extremely problematic in practice (see e.g. BSW)
Sharon 🪳🌹@sharonk.bsky.social · yesterdayLiberal England: BBC Radio Leicester's Secret Leicestershire on Oakham Castle If you want to know more about the archaeology of this fascinating site, you can listen to an online lecture by Matthew Morris from University of Leicester Archaeological Services, who has led digs there.
BBC Radio Leicester's Secret Leicestershire on Oakham Castle
It's not in Leicestershire and it's no secret, but Oakham Castle is the subject of the latest short programme in BBC Radio Leicester's Sec...
liberalengland.blogspot.com
Behind the bewildering transformation of British universities, are management consultants being paid millions Really proud to have this vital piece on our unis are being gutted from the inside by @jheathershaw.bsky.social on Democracy for Sale. Do read democracyforsale.substack.com/p/inside-bri...
Inside Britain's university crisis
As teaching staff face job loss, their bosses have netted pay rises and bought advice from a “vampiric” management consultancy, writes Prof. John Heathershaw of the University of Exeter
democracyforsale.substack.com
New substack: some economics of ownership, from Infantino to Coase to Marx: chrisdillow.substack.com/p/on-the-own...
On the ownership of assets
Infantino's failure to sell off the World Cup draws attention to a big but overlooked question: who should own productive assets?
chrisdillow.substack.com
Brilliant piece from @hannahforsyth.bsky.social . Of course, nobody or almost nobody reads academic “outputs”. Their function is to get jobs, secure promotion, avoid redundancy, get better scores on dubious metrics. Which makes AI almost the perfect tool for the unscrupulous professor.
If you can't be bothered writing it, I can't be bothered reading it.
The producerist vision of AI seems to assume an endlessly expanding market for reading. And reading. Well. It is rather more than a market.
substack.com
New post: those wanting Jason Arday to face 'justice' of some kind are not going to get what they want willd10.substack.com/p/how-the-ja...
How the Jason Arday affair will fizzle out
Truth is a social system. Sorry.
willd10.substack.com
This is a genuinely exciting announcement about Burnham's intention for public service reform There are some potentially massive changes to the way that services are funded and operate A few things that jumped out at me 👇 www.gov.uk/government/p...
Rewiring the State – Cabinet Statement (HTML)
gov.uk
Infantino's proposal to sell of part of the World Cup raises a qn discussed by Zingales in this classic paper: josephmahoney.web.illinois.edu/BA549_Fall%2... What does ownership really mean when power in an organization is held by human capital rather than by formal owners?
josephmahoney.web.illinois.edu
This is part of the same story as Reform's attitude to party finance or free speech - laws are only for the little people. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
‘It’s alright for them’: private schools and golf courses stay green despite England’s hosepipe bans
As parks turn brown and paddling pools go unfilled, exemptions mean sports pitches can stay lush – even in school holidays
theguardian.com
1/4 Jameela Jamil clearly had her tongue firmly in cheek when describing British people as “evil” in imperial days. But the reaction does indicate how little most Britons know about the violence entailed in holding on to an unprecedentedly extensive empire. One example: youtube.com/shorts/SaGNs...
Jameela Jamil: Britain Is "The Most Evil Country In History"
YouTube video by Eastern Eye
youtube.com
With "surveillance pricing," businesses have finally found something AI can do way, way, *way* better than people: price gouging. 1/
OTD 60 years ago - a Saturday - England won the World Cup. To look at the crowd, though, you'd think it was Britain that won (eg 1'33" and 3'51"). www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dau4...
1966 World Cup Final: England vs. Germany (Part 2) | Sporting History
YouTube video by Sporting History
youtube.com
In light of Burnham saying that care workers should be paid more, I'll plug one of the few of my pieces of which I'm proud: how "skill" is a matter of culture & ideology, not pure technique: chrisdillow.substack.com/p/skill-as-i...
Skill as ideology
What we think of as skilled work is a matter of ideology more than technology.
chrisdillow.substack.com
The Prime Minister said this morning that care workers ‘’should be the best paid people in society, not the worst.’’ So how do their pay and conditions currently look, and how can they be improved? Plus, what might this mean for unpaid carers? 🧵⤵️
🟣 SUBSTACK The Battle For The Soul of Football By @goldbergradio.bsky.social Read below. ↓
The Battle For The Soul of Football
Adrian Goldberg offers a personal view on FIFA President Gianni Infantino's plan to offer a stake in the World Cup to private equity.
bylinesupplement.com
Johnny Reynolds and the Department of Economic Affairs In his first speech to staff, Johnny Reynolds compared his new department to the one George Brown was given by Harold Wilson. What is the import of that? william.cullernebown.uk/johnny-reyno...
This shows why Tory hostility to net zero makes little political sense: climate change is troublesome for gardeners who are disproportionately older richer folk - the sort that should be Tory target voters.
The Guardian@theguardian.com · last wk.Hotter summers may force RHS to move hydrangeas to north of England
Chez 'stack, I maintain my defense of the position that "rationality" ain't so rational backofmind.substack.com/p/there-is-n...
there is nothing outside the frame
the artificial information environment, again
backofmind.substack.com
Here's my Odyssey review. It's about Jason and the Argonauts. joelmorris.substack.com/p/jason-and-...
Jason And The Argonauts is still the best popcorn-classics movie ever, and Talos is why.
Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion adventure story remains unbeatable.
joelmorris.substack.com
I agree we're not heading back to the 70s. In that decade, labour productivity grew 2%pa compared to 0.4%pa in the last 20 years. We'll not return to that level of economic performance.
Rafael Behr@rafaelbehr.bsky.social · last wk.No, we aren’t heading back to the Seventies. On the intellectual stagnation of UK opposition that got lazy while Starmer was self-destructing. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
New substack: in wanting to reform social care, Andy Burnham risks bringing economics into politics: chrisdillow.substack.com/p/social-car...
Social care: the fight for economic thinking
Reforming social care isn't a left vs right issue: it's about economics vs prejudice.
chrisdillow.substack.com
Dead right this. What matters is the fairness of the tax/benefit system as a whole, not that of any particular tax/benefit. I've shouting into the void on this for years: chrisdillow.substack.com/p/the-fairne...
The fairness error
The fariness of the tax & benefits system must be judged as a whole, not by any individual part of it.
chrisdillow.substack.com
Stephen Bush@stephenkb.bsky.social · last wk.Yeah - I in general think 'fairness' is not that useful a starting point for most tax policy. Ultimately it's not 'fair' that I pay a significantly higher share of my property price in council tax than it would be if I lived the other side of the Fitzrovia border, but that's local democracy at work.
My thoughts on economic growth and education in one place, since it's part of the topic of the day. tomforth.co.uk/graduateprem...
British Growth and the Graduate Premium
Britain's economic problems will not be solved by more graduates.
tomforth.co.uk
Podcasters' competition isn't merely other podcasters on the same subject. It's also Bach, Bowie & the Beatles (to name but a few Bs). As you might imagine therefore, I listen to very few podcasts.
A friend of mine worked with the Pythons BITD. He says Michael Palin is an absolutely lovely bloke, but...
George Monbiot@georgemonbiot.bsky.social · last wk.Just loving how John Cleese, now reduced to one of his own caricatures, rages about immigrants coming to the UK and failing to accept "our" culture, from his home in ... (checks notes) ... Nevis in the Caribbean.
