A lot of thought goes into the clothing politicians wear for photo ops. So I’m wondering what Shabana Mahmood was thinking when she decided to wear this coat www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
‘British expats, he claimed, were refusing to fill out evacuation forms provided by the British government “just in case it somehow turns into a tax form instead”.’
No notes.
as.ft.com/r/65cf2b43-6...
Asset managers like Blackstone made two big and desperate bets: that private credit and retail investors would be their saviour. Now, those retail investors are starting to have doubts 👀 www.ft.com/content/7dad...
One of the funniest things to come out of this are the brits who won’t leave Dubai even as it’s being bombed. One influencer adjacent guy went on a live stream on his balcony and said he’d rather be killed by Iran than go back to Wigan
There have been a lot of 'AI and the classroom' essays. But this one, by writer and now high school English teacher @apcbapcb.bsky.social, is, in fact, the best www.theguardian.com/education/ng...
❤️
(and this is an excellent investigation from @edsiddons.bsky.social)
strikes me that one of the most obvious things this government should do is properly resource regulators. There’s a gigantic gap between law and its enforcement, yet politicians always focus on announcing new rules rather than applying the old ones www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2026...
Probably not coincidental that Atlanta also has long been ground-zero for private-equity investment in America's rental housing
I promised myself that I’d make a bit more effort to share what I’m working on this year, so I’ve started posting on Substack. If you like my work, please do subscribe for very infrequent updates on what I’m writing / reading: open.substack.com/pub/hettieve...
every time i look at instagram, i feel like im the only adult who doesn't know how to make money
(from @cedricdurand.bsky.social’s excellent piece on the AI data centre goldrush - and the exotic financial arrangements precariously supporting it) newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...
nothing to worry about here then
WHSmith’s private equity owner is planning on closing 80 stores, affecting thousands of jobs. Pretty sure any of those workers could have told them that rebranding as “TG Jones” while continuing to deal mainly in grubby carpet tiles and dusty snacks was never going to work www.ft.com/content/6d68...
Best of the pods on this so far 🫡 @piercepenniless.bsky.social open.spotify.com/episode/399w...
The tragic awfulness of this government is that it has extended a factional war against the left of the Labour Party into a war against almost all the good things we might have expected of it. It cannot respond to the crisis it faces, because its hatred of the Labour left is definitional.
Good luck with what’s next!
sincerely regretting each of the Danish words I chose to include in this book
I keep hearing that the rise of the populist right is one of the biggest threats to the climate. Watching Trump’s second term it’s hard to disagree
So @tbij.bsky.social looked at what councils controlled by Reform UK are doing on climate
What we found was pretty shocking
would be nice to think this kind of thing had an effect on the behaviour of such companies, rather than something they simply priced in as a cost of doing business www.theguardian.com/environment/...
back in 2019 i went down to essex to write about how coastal erosion was unearthing landfill that was never supposed to see daylight again. A similar story - but this one has far higher stakes www.newstatesman.com/politics/201...
Just another Monday morning.
perhaps building a gigantic £40bn nuclear power plant on the edge of a rapidly eroding coastline where sea levels are expected to rise *wasn’t* such a great idea after all www.ft.com/content/7f09...
Absolutely fascinating piece, this -- with an unexpected, starring role for Ernst Mandel, whose 1972 visa refusal case played an important role in subsequent history of US ideological policing of its border
Really great reporting by the brilliant @pollysmythe.bsky.social on Criterion Capital and the billionaire philanthropist behind “one of the worst mass evictions in our capital’s recent history” www.londoncentric.media/p/asif-aziz-...
On this, really interesting piece on X’s “ideological ratchet” by @jwherrman.bsky.social: the platform is pulling users to the right, even elites who thought they were immune to radicalisation
nymag.com/intelligence...
closest thing you get to a UK McMansion
What a great title for what is promising to be the most interesting book on private equity in some years.
You can read more about it, including some of the things people have said so far - and pre-order! - here: www.hettie-obrien.com
Very excited to share the US cover for my first book, THE ASSET CLASS, which publishes on 9 April (UK) and 23 June (US). I wanted it to feel more like a spy thriller than a business book, so it's full of darkly compelling characters and unexpected twists…
