Institutional decay in the US means no one is even talking about fiscal tightening, despite it being so obviously needed. www.ft.com/content/bcf0...

Soaring bond yields ‘not even close’ to cooling red-hot US economy, investors say

Rising borrowing costs so far show no sign of putting a brake on activity in world’s biggest economy

ft.com

The question for living standards is what sort of leave is being taken. Switching leisure or caring for work can be good, or bad if people are doing so because they hate their job. Illness is always bad.

Simon Pittaway@simonpittaway.bsky.social · 3d ago

The ONS's revisions are driven purely by hours worked: productivity has been revised up because we are producing the same output with fewer hours. Why? Because we're on annual leave more than previously thought. The LFS was undercounting leave, and increasingly so over time.

It's moving part of the M25 in the middle of 20-mile stretch where three other motorways join it, isn't it

Philip Stephens@philipstephens.bsky.social · 3d ago

One day everyone is going to realise that Heathrow is never, ever, going to have a third runway and at last begin a useful discussion about Britain's airports.. www.ft.com/content/0206...

I have a new essay in the newly relaunched IPPR Progressive Journal. It’s intended as a sober assessment of the political economy of Britain’s energy challenge, as we move from the old, dying fossil fuel system to the new world of electrification onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

it's been less than a year, and already the socialists are forcing people to go to the opera

Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani@mayor.nyc.gov · 3d ago

Never been to the opera before? Now’s your chance. We’re giving away 70,000 free tickets to the @metopera at the iconic Lincoln Center. Go to on.nyc.gov/opera to enter the lottery. There’s not a bad seat in the house.

European Commission officials arguing that a customs union is the best way for the UK to avoid 'Made in Europe' barriers. But the issue seems to be Chinese investment in UK plants, not rerouted Chinese imports. www.ft.com/content/5453...

EU urges UK to raise tariffs on Chinese cars to avoid ‘made in Europe’ barriers

London has lobbied intensely to secure equal treatment for British products but continues to rule out a customs union

ft.com

Since start of summer, Ireland, Italy and the UK stand out for high wholesale electricity prices. Expensive gas still setting the price in more hours than neighbouring countries. european-clean-tech-tracker.bruegel.org/s/Qm-ysQ

France's Haddad notably open about rejoin chatter on a visit to London. "It would make all of us stronger... Macron was quite blunt, the EU was stronger when the UK was in it. There's no ambiguity." But he warns it would be "much more fraught" if Britain sought sui generis membership.

Mortgage payments.

G Elliott Morris@gelliottmorris.com · 4d ago

Why is economic sentiment so low when GDP growth is positive? There’s no reasonable explanation, the only possible conclusion is that people are all just doing a mass hysteria (/s)

I think this would be a real mistake. It’s essentially a hope that something will turn up and make things easier in the months ahead. And maybe it will. But there’s a larger chance it doesn’t and then we have months of confidence sapping speculation ahead of the Spring Statement.

Ian Smith@iankmsmith.ft.com · 4d ago

Today's UK front page is on the Q of the government's "headroom" against its borrowing limits. This has been eroded for reasons outside the chancellor's control, as the Iran war pushes up global yields. But he faces a question over whether or not to try and build it back close to Reeves' £23.6bn

One for those of us who believe finance is the main driver of housebuilding, not planning rules

Anna Clarke@annaclarke.bsky.social · 4d ago

New housebuilding figures have been published today - including from the 2025-26 year. They're not where they should be, but have turned the downwards trend upwards.

Raises the question why the Conservatives are against the reset, which would mean rejoining the single market in agrifood and electricity.

Roland Smith@rolandmcs.bsky.social · 4d ago

Not the best video/sound quality but here is Badenoch on GMB talking about the single market being 'a great thing'...

Long read on leftish economic policy thought around Burnham. What's missing is analysis of the main drivers of Britain's economic performance - financial, technology, trade and energy shocks. www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...

Labour’s last chance? The people shaping Andy Burnham’s grand plans for Britain

The long read: The new prime minister has declared he wants to end 40 years of neoliberalism. But is he really prepared to be that radical?

theguardian.com

There is perhaps no car manufacturer more than Volkswagen where Germany’s erratic approach to electrification is having a greater impact.

VW ID. Polo sold out for months ahead - electrive.com

In Europe, a waiting list is apparently forming for the VW ID. Polo even before the start of deliveries — at least for individual configurations. The waiting

electrive.com

It's a fair question, worth unpacking. The OBR 4% forecast is on the lower end of the post-Brexit estimates of the costs. That translates to about £40bn in lost tax revenue.

Robert Saunders@robertsaunders.bsky.social · 5d ago

Rejoining the single market has become the new "magic money tree" of UK politics. I'd gladly rejoin, but are we all now pretending growth was going gangbusters, money was pouring into the Exchequer & there was no pressure on the public finances before Brexit? www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Non-white cricketers made a concerted effort to be recognised as English. academic.oup.com/book/60799 Similar efforts will be deployed against racists like Carswell, and we will win

Windrush Cricket: Imperial Culture, Caribbean Migration, and the Remaking of Postwar England

Abstract. It is generally understood that cricket was of major historical importance in the anglophone Caribbean, that it was a form of cultural imperialis

academic.oup.com

Roland Smith@rolandmcs.bsky.social · 6d ago

Evening. #Carswell

Net zero was political consensus, now it isn't. It has become somewhat less popular as the right has turned against it, but support is still strong. So dismissing the role of the right, including the media, seems parti pris at best.

John Rentoul@rentouljohn.bsky.social · last wk.

This is the Old Labour complaint about the right-wing media in a new form. It says that the right policies are unpopular because bad people control the media

Canada will struggle to deepen economic ties with the EU for the same reasons the UK failed to break them. New MFN: mostfavourednation.substack.com/p/gravity-al...

Gravity Always Wins

Alas.

mostfavourednation.substack.com

Just finished Sarah Hall's Helm. A truly great novel. Highly recommended

Definitely not extremists

Tyron@tyron.bsky.social · last wk.

Lmao, AfD fumbling their one shot at forming a state government in Saxony-Anhalt in the most predictable way possible

Matthew Syed's claim that the AfD is not extremist is laughable. www.thetimes.com/comment/colu... In 2017, Bjoern Hoecke said of the Berlin Holocaust Memorial that ""Germans are the only people in the world who plant a monument of shame in the heart of the capital".

Angela Merkel was the true extremist of our age

History will judge hyperliberals as the vandals who dissolved our borders and ignored Putin’s threat

thetimes.com

Depressing chart.

The Economist@economist.com · last wk.

The Senate presents a far tougher lift for Democrats than the House. Assuming that the party can hold all its seats it still needs to win four additional Republican seats. But as these charts show, that may be possible

Oi Canada! Cosying up to the EU and pushing UK to the back of the line? my new @instituteforgovernment.org.uk blog on the Carney-VDL love-in in Strasbourg www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/carn...

Carney, Canada and the EU: Will the UK’s Brexit hopes fade further from view? | Institute for Government

Fresh EU thinking on Canada may not give the UK more post-Brexit options.

instituteforgovernment.org.uk

The local hotel I worked at as a teenager had airs and graces and used to do silver service. It really wasn't a posh restaurant, as demonstrated by having teenagers do it. My worst spill was meat juice all over a customer's silk dress.

Professor Peter Matthews@urbaneprofessor.bsky.social · last wk.

The hubby and I are off to a posh restaurant (Michelin starred) for our wedding anniversary tonight. So, in the spirit of making BlueSky slightly more fun, what's the most embarrassing thing you've ever done in a posh restaurant?

This UK-EU relations are a function of how UK wants to engage with the world in general

Helene von Bismarck@helenebismarck.bsky.social · last wk.

Instead of debating “should we do what Canada is doing” (which is, so far, unclear), the debate could be: “how has the world changed that the EU and Canada are considering this, and how do we want to deal with this situation?“ Just a suggestion.

One might call it the "gravity model"

Take cars. Should Canada adopt EU auto standards, and make car components for the European market? This would be an enormous shift that would end the US-Canada-Mexico supply chain.

Andrew@andrewke.bsky.social · last wk.

This would make sense if there wasn’t an, uh, external factor impacting that US market access.

Interesting piece. Given the primacy of EU law for members, the rules of a broader grouping will inevitably be subordinate to that. Which means rule-making in areas outside EU competence, or softer forms of co-operation.

UK in a Changing Europe@ukandeu.bsky.social · last wk.

"The very ambition that could make Associate Membership meaningful for Canada makes it difficult for Britain." 🌊 Fabian Zuleeg looks at the meaning of Associate EU Membership & argues while it could work across the Atlantic, it is unlikely to work across the Channel 🔗 ukandeu.ac.uk/associate-me...

Good piece. On the Telegraph/Times being misled about Reform/Verbatim paying for the poll. If someone came up to me and said I've got a poll and I'd like it to form the basis of some research, my first question would be 'why' and my second would be 'who paid for it'.

Ian Dunt@iandunt.bsky.social · last wk.

British journalism and polling are both utterly implicated in the Farage funding scandal iandunt.substack.com/p/british-jo...

AI is superb at rapid generation of complex mathematical models, making it dead handy in quant spaces like energy modelling. The role of the human becomes machine QA, but that is much more productive than writing in a spreadsheet yourself, and also requires more expertise.

Jonn Elledge@jonnelledge.bsky.social · 2w ago

Thinking about AI - granted my online life is mainly on this website which is negatively polarised against it, but it is weird how I never hear the positive case for it? It's always "It will eat your job" or "it will kill the planet" and in exchange we get "slight increase in trend GDP, maybe".