Elves can fight the orcs, or put a plug in Mount Doom to stop the carbon emissions. We can do anything we want with the resources & labour at our disposal. What we can't do, and what everyone seems to demand, is fight orcs but only if it doesn't cost anything and we don't have to change anything.

"What the west has is a followership problem. Voters reject policies — however objectively necessary — that cost them anything. One result is huge levels of government debt" www.ft.com/content/67f1...

The west does not have a leadership problem

If Friedrich Merz and almost everyone else is unpopular, perhaps governments aren’t the issue

ft.com

give me your most Leopards Ate MY Face?? story www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/u... no no that is too much Leopards ate my face

Paul LePage, a Trump Ally, Says a Family Member Is Being Deported

The former Maine governor, a Republican running for Congress, said the Trump administration is seeking to wrongly deport his son’s father-in-law, who has a work permit.

nytimes.com

Because the ONS has discovered we have had more leisure time (see discussions from @chrisgiles.ft.com @ryanbourne.bsky.social and others), I have generated a terribly subtle allegory gileswilkes.substack.com/p/a-tale-of-...

A tale of Elves and Orcs

Don’t make me spell it out

gileswilkes.substack.com

Reform's task is simple: they must simply select people and policies such that they are not so obnoxious that they are the least-liked, must-keep-out-at-all-costs option for all the other parties www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Tactical voting at next election could push Reform into fourth place, poll finds

Polling suggests Andy Burnham is attracting progressives back to Labour, motivated by desire to stop Nigel Farage

theguardian.com

quick, mega obvious post about how the US economy is crowding out others gileswilkes.substack.com/p/a-short-di...

a short, disturbing thought on AI overbuilding and US fiscal laxity

irresponsibility spreads across borders

gileswilkes.substack.com

still and always one of the ten greatest cartoons ever committed to paper

Stephen Collins@stephencollins.bsky.social · 8h ago

#TBT to this from 2012 in honour of Michael Gove starring as an invasion-battling leader in Sky's new show The Wargame. If you don't know what or who this comic is about... just count yourself lucky and scroll on, no worries.

this is mostly an excellent aide memoire for the best shows, if you can get past nonsense judgments like e.g. The Bear being lower rated than the nonsense Stranger Things www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

The 100 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century

More than 500 influential stars, showrunners and other notable names in the world of TV voted on the best series released since Jan. 1, 2000. See what they chose.

nytimes.com

This is a fantastic conversation. I think Gita Gopinath stands equal to any of the people interviewed by Cowen, and answers all of his questions brilliantly

Marginal Revolution@marginalrev.blogsky.venki.dev · 13h ago

My economics-rich Conversation with Gita Gopinath - Marginal REVOLUTION

BlueSky doesn't need this reminder but remember that Headroom is, roughly, the difference between: - est. revenues a few years out, a >£trillion number - est. spending, similar - removing capital, a semi artificial construct - divided by GDP, Ditto - taken from a self-imposed allowable amount

Apparently this will work, because he says so, and there will be "extensive planning". And these guys are just demons at the business of bureaucratic efficiency. www.ft.com/content/199d...

Reform UK says it would halve size of civil service in radical overhaul

Rightwing anti-immigration party is warning mandarins that they are prepared to counter any ‘sabotage or resistance’

ft.com

While rising global rates are clearly a highly inconvenient problem, it is at least extremely funny how foolish they make "The House" Bessent look, with his puny buying programme swamped by this thing called "reality" www.ft.com/content/2d87...

Global bond sell-off spreads as oil holds above $100

Rising yields strain public finances as expectations of Fed rate rise in October jump to about 70%

ft.com

"This attack on misinformation is an attack on us" is quite the line for a political party to take.

"The BIS study ... establishes quite clearly that the imposition of the European bonus cap had very little effect on bank risk-taking. The removal of the cap in the UK in 2023 might have had some small effect, but not very much." by @dsquareddigest.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/a0c1...

Confessions of an accidental bonus basher

Why bonus caps do kinda make sense (ish) though

ft.com

Really nice post. I learned a lot

Mike Cook@mtrc.bsky.social · 2d ago

New Post: Why I Love AI Next month it'll be twenty years since I went to university, learned to program, and studied AI. I wrote about why I loved it, why I still love it, and why, unfortunately, it no longer exists. www.possibilityspace.org/blog/posts/i...

This week on Origin Story: The life & ideas of John Rawls, the most celebrated liberal philosopher of the post-war period. These are some of the most beautiful arguments in progressive thought. We do it as a one hour crash course. Everything you need to know. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/j...

Liberal Democrat Conference 2026: Does Daisy Cooper’s growth plan add up? @gilesyb.bsky.social found a politician with a coherent plan, albeit one that falls short of setting out decisive action to grow the economy www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/libe...

Liberal Democrat conference 2026: Does Daisy Cooper’s growth plan add up? | Institute for Government

The Lib Dem Treasury spokesperson drew a large crowd at this year’s IfG fringe event.

instituteforgovernment.org.uk

Great to hear the PM say “We are going to be much prouder in standing up for our values and the rule of law” re foreign information warfare. I wonder if he or the Home Secretary might consider doing the same when it comes to masked vigilantes shutting down infrastructure and harassing the RNLI

Nice episode. I used to love Iris Murdoch and even thought I enjoyed "Metaphysics as a guide to morals" in my early 20s and omg that explains a lot of what was failing in my life back then

Past Present Future Podcast@ppfideas.bsky.social · 4d ago

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW! Today is the final episode in our series about the relationship between 20th-century biography & philosophy. David talks to Nikhil Krishnan about the life & thought of Iris Murdoch, a deeply philosophical novelist & a fully committed philosopher. Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

Spectacular thread, go to the beginning

sarah jeong@sarahjeong.bsky.social · 2d ago

i've always wanted to visit iceland sure wish i hadn't been holding that monkey's paw when i said it

The Autumn Equinox was at 01:06 today. The sun is now over the southern hemisphere. It doesn’t return to the northern hemisphere until 20 March 2027. www.rmg.co.uk/stories/time...

What and when is the autumnal equinox?

When is the autumnal equinox, what date does the autumnal equinox fall on and when does summer end?

rmg.co.uk

In just 24 hours, Polo went from a tropical storm to one of the strongest hurricanes on record. Simply remarkable.

it turns out that this is a cross party grumble

Giles Wilkes@gilesyb.bsky.social · 3w ago

My entire twenty years of thinking, writing and sometimes doing public policy has been half the time about asking "this enormous tax cut you propose, you don't know how to pay for it do you?", and it's becoming incredibly tedious

"There are no easy policy levers left, if there ever were: no lever marked “streamline regulation”, no “press here to simplify taxes”, no open door leading back into Europe." My commentary on a spendid event at the Lib Dems www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/libe...

Liberal Democrat conference 2026: Does Daisy Cooper’s growth plan add up? | Institute for Government

The Lib Dem Treasury spokesperson drew a large crowd at this year’s IfG fringe event.

instituteforgovernment.org.uk

Even leaving aside the unseriousness of pledging £17bn of tax cuts, I don’t understand how ‘tax cuts, but not until 2034’ is a good way to address the cost of living squeeze.

I had a glance at today's Public Finance figures and was less alarmed than the BBC seemed to think I should be gileswilkes.substack.com/p/very-short...

very short one on what seems reassuring in the growth figures

where the growth really counts

gileswilkes.substack.com

three of the top four most watched videos on the BBC right now are about solving Rubik's Cubes really really quickly

Started watching Sky’s War Game last night where Michael Gove is the PM during the Russian attack and I’m afraid it is just very difficult to watch it without thinking of this, one of the great cartoons ever published

UK government borrowing surges ... - www.ft.com/content/a17b... but this: "Public sector net debt was £2.985tn, equivalent to 93.8 per cent of GDP. That was 1.3 percentage points lower than a year earlier." The weirdness of debt dynamics... As the ratio goes up, the primary surplus you need falls

UK government borrowing surges in blow to Healey ahead of Budget

‘Dismal’ £18bn figure for August comes as inflation drives up government spending

ft.com

He's the Rembrandt of bad takes. The Da Vinci

Roland Smith@rolandmcs.bsky.social · 3d ago

Right, I'm off to bed.