A thread of my more interesting posts

There should be a social reckoning for the 'I've blown up my life, what am I like!’ line of stories constantly being pumped out by British broadsheets. Truly horrific

I think about this a lot, and I think it applies just as much to husbands and wives as it does men and women more broadly. Since the 60s we've spent far too more time around our other halves and it's led to nothing but declining TFR.

I think Max is going to be very close to being correct. Any political promise to “reduce migration” becomes less powerful with the public as it will be at or close to negative. Pretty much all anti migration messaging in my lifetime has been around net numbers and it’s possible that going into what feels like the biggest anti immigration election the net figure won’t be relevant anymore. Net is easy to understand, other stuff is less so. There is already so much of an information gap between what the public at large thinks is driving migration and what is - eg small boats v visas. Silly people get angry, smart people update their models!

My first foray into food art. I call this one “ten years married”

I think @UnderSneege is on the right lines with his argument that men and women spend too much time together and that we need to halt, and reverse, the assault on single-sex spaces and activities.

When my first child lost their first tooth I was on holiday with my sister in law (an artist). She drew an amazing picture and letter from the tooth fairy for my daughter. It was so lovely and established a world and aesthetic well beyond my own creative capability. Fast forward a few years and I’m now up at stupid o clock, unable to go to sleep until I recreate a comparable standard of art work for my idiot son who just knocked his own tooth out at 10pm off a Thursday.

“Under the surface … we can find a system in which political choices cause resources to be allocated in very strange ways, and incentivise behaviours among consumers, investors and producers that run contrary to the interests of prosperity. The ultimate answer of where these resources will come from, and what the corresponding opportunity cost will be — i.e. who pays — is left unaddressed. The wealth is assumed simply to exist because the need exists, and if it doesn’t it will be up to somebody to create it, and hand it over.”

12 Rules for Life 1. Sit up with your shoulders back 2. Abuse yourself like someone you are responsible for abusing 3. Make friends with people who want to leave funny answerphone messages with you 4. Deny who who you were yesterday, and maybe who you are today too 5. Do not let Andrew Sachs grandchildren do anything that makes you dislike them 6. Criticise the world, then set your house in order 7. Pursue what is meaningful (Sarah Marshall) 8. <strike>Tell the truth — or, at least, don't lie<strike> 9. Assume that the prosecution you are listening to might know something you don't 10. Be precise in your speechyweech 11. Do not bother children when they are female. 12. Pet a rat when you encounter one in the cell

I just had to replace a lost driving licence. It involved creating an account, downloading an app, about 20 minutes of verifications, scanning my passport and face, being charged £14, and giving away all my internal organs. Seamless service.

Babe I’m tweeting about how to save the country. I DO NOT have bandwidth to worry about whether my shorts and comfy slipper combination gives you “the ick” right now.

I bet there is a government risk register of Britain’s ability to mobilise for war and I bet this wouldn’t feature. It is such a unique failure of our ruling class because you could walk into any pub in England to ask about the risks it would be one of the first answers you are given.

Youth unemployment keeps climbing and the Government is burying its head in the sand. We have published a new paper which offers a solution. The Government needs to bite the bullet and freeze the rises in the National Living Wage for the next five years. We think this will create nearly 600,000 new jobs, mainly for young people, restoring some common sense to the labour market. Read the whole paper below:

Brasseye Britain

August 2011. The London riots were underway and disorder was starting to spread to other cities in England. I was working in Leeds at the time, and on 9th August the city was ablaze with rumours of riots starting that evening. I was out on a date after work in the city centre and there were groups of teens forming and waiting for something to happen. However, coincidentally Leeds were also playing Bradford in the Carabao Cup that night (a Tuesday), so the city was also filling with football fans and associated police there to keep the local derby calm. Just enough of a deterrent to stop it all kicking off after which it all dissipated. Funny to think of the incidental things that change the course of events.

The Britain the ‘97 Conservative manifesto describes is shockingly functional. World leading in fiscal prudence and economic success: More exports per capita than America, more pension savings than the entire EU, an entire section called “the best place in the world to live”

UK brick deliveries are a useful proxy for new house building starts in the absence of monthly starts data. Deliveries in August 2026 were 8.7% lower than July & 10.1% lower than a year ago according to the Department for BIST (formerly DBT). (1/n) #ukhousing #ukconstruction

We are so, so, back.