New post just out:
"Sovereignty for sale"
The UK is uniquely exposed to the power of US tech monopolies - from Palantir to AI and cloud services.
Why is it so dangerous? What are other countries doing? And what should we do?
(£/free trial)
open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/s...
New substack: how bad government is in part the product of bad incentives: chrisdillow.substack.com/p/bad-incent...
Mark Carney's speech really is terrific: full text is here and very much worth your time.
AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage | Cory Doctorow
NEW: Labour just announced the biggest change in planning policy in 80 years.
My breakdown of the key measures and whether they will succeed.
www.samdumitriu.com/p/labour-are...
The UK’s current budget deficit — the deficit before investment spending — is about 2 per cent of GDP. That is, we are not borrowing (just) to invest, we are borrowing to spend. The backdrop is desperately underfunded public services, especially the justice system and local authority services, and ever growing demographic pressures. The markets do not need the OBR to tell them that this is unsustainable. Indeed, we can simply look to France, whose fiscal framework is completely different but whose predicament is very similar. What markets are therefore — rightly — looking for from the Budget is not projections that hit an arbitrary target for headroom, or yet another change to the fiscal rules, but a package to put the UK on a sustainable path; doing so, crucially, in a way that promotes growth.
It's not about the OBR: me in the FT
www.ft.com/content/a06d...
New post: Fascism, Rivers of Blood, and today’s political and media elite
mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2025/08/fasc...
Spreading disinformation about minority groups is as old as civilisation itself. Once our political and media elite would call this out for what it was, but not any more.
This is the end result of anti-trans bigotry: more harassment of girls and women, more policing of gender roles, more gender McCarthyism.
I remain amazed how political commentary on the bond market still winds me up, because it so often treats that market like a political actor rather than the market that it actually is. So I've just read, from one of the best political commentators in the UK, that 1/4
Great essay by Cory Doctorow on the politics of cheaper guard labour: pluralistic.net/2025/06/26/a...
Blogged: why we shouldn't debate immigration: stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_an...
I just don’t see how an Executive Order saying Mike Love was the real genius in the Beach Boys could be legally binding
2025 is set to be a record year. More tries are currently being scored in almost every single competition than ever before. And it's all down to 2 tiny tactic changes, stretching across the game. So, who and what doubled the number of tries being scored across all of rugby?
youtu.be/prrkU9cjeDU?...
I wrote for the Guardian’s Saturday magazine about my son Max, who changed how I see the world. Took ages. More jokes after the first bit.
Thanks Merope Mills for being the most patient and generous editor.
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...
Afternoon plug for my lesser-spotted Substack. On the prosecution of Kneecap’s Mo Chara, and the dull literalism of our time open.substack.com/pub/padraigr...
The absolute state of the EHRC leadership. Really encouraging to see a Commons committee and in particular staff standing up to its mendacious legally illiterate bullshit.
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...
ICYMI: The mistakes that have led the Conservatives towards annihilation, and Labour copying them mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-...
By using Farage's rhetoric, but failing to change things, the Tory government lost large numbers of votes to Reform. Will Labour follow in their footsteps?
Everything you need to know about the trans Supreme Court case: What it said, what it didn't, and what happens next iandunt.substack.com/p/everything...
So basically just sort of banning people who enjoy a sport for fun really?
Nobody in their right mind would formulate an equality law justification for forcing gay men to use a third set of toilets to protect the inherent dignity of a (not statistically insignificant) group of men who are uncomfortable with doing so.
The nebulous idea that a ban is not necessary for safety, but for the 'dignity and respect' of cisgender women makes me deeply uncomfortable. I know plenty of men from my time growing up who would happily admit they would not be comfortable using a urinal next to an openly gay person
I do not see how banning trans women from women's toilets is a proportionate way of achieving a legitimate aim. The argument that trans women pose a risk to cisgender women's safety is entirely speculative, based on its own prejudices around tran people and is not supported by real world evidence.
On the other hand, an explicit call-out that in some circumstances trans women may be banned from using either the men's or women's facilities. Presumably, this will leave trans people having to ask for the radar key for the disabled toilets. It's nice to know where the EHRC's priorities lie.
Shocking stuff. The EHRC didn't think it was worth pointing out that gender reassignment discrimination in providing single sex services is only permitted when it is proportionate to do so. Quite telling of the attitudes held by its leadership
www.equalityhumanrights.com/media-centre...
The UK's political and media class has spent years heaping sadism on trans people, and they want to do the same in Ireland next. Calls for civility and calm won't cut it. We need to fight them tooth and nail.
www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle-co...
Madness. These exports help fund our own students and funnel £ into the university towns and cities outside London. We should be looking to expand capacity to take in foreign students who would previously have chosen the US.
Y'days post: Labour’s strategic error on tax mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2025/03/labo...
The failure to raise taxes further reflects the absence of any serious analysis of what will be required to allow a noticeable (to voters) improvement in public services before the next election.
Blogged: one difference between left & right today lies in what they believe to be the constraints upon government action: stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_an...
New post: Mediamacro melodrama
mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2025/01/medi...
Just a week ago the UK media was speculating that Reeves was about to be sacked and who might replace her, all because of largely global movements in interest rates. How and why did the media get things so wrong?
