The coming global food crisis Hunger and even famine are foreseeable consequences of the war on Iran. Now the world must act to shield the poorest from effects that will continue long after the fighting stops

A sobering exploration of the potential global disaster affecting farming and food supplies, triggered by the Trump / Netanyahu campaign against Iran. www.ft.com/content/3634...

I'm afraid it all stinks. You only had to be paying scant notice to Mandelson's decades long career, punctured with sackings, scandal and sleaze, to know that he was unfit for re-appointment to a Government position. And knowing any of it, you'd ask to see the vetting report at the very least.

China shock 2.0: the flood of high-tech goods that will change the world Impelled by furious competition, hefty subsidies and sheer scale, the country’s companies are cutting a swath through the world’s most advanced industries

It takes a lot for a (
very) conventional economist like me to read an article about extreme competition and come away thinking the phenomenon is *bad*- giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

But this from @pmdfoster.bsky.social and colleagues about ever cheaper Chinese stuff almost does it...

Why’d the Ocean Stop Getting Saltier? YouTube video by SciShow

So why are the oceans salty? Because the rocks are salty & the rivers keep moving that salt into the ocean.

I wish I could improve on this SciShow video talking about how salinity varies in response to local ecology.

In fact, I'm feeling salty that I can't.

Well played @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social - the essence of Trumpism.

a man with a beard is sitting in a chair . ALT: a man with a beard is sitting in a chair .

Very Ukrainian accent:

"Oh Mr Vance, is it hard to negotiate peace?

Is it difficult to come to a deal when both sides have fundamentally irreconcilable positions on key issues?

Does not being able to trust your counterparty make things tricky?

Why do you hate peace, Mr Vance?"

Genuine question: how many C-level execs have been held to account for outsourcing their core business competence to inescapable Ransomware-as-a-Service outfits (Palantir is hardly unique in this respect)?

this is a great series - well worth a watch

Stop calling him a master strategist. He may have wrecked his economy, failed to change a regime and had to make a massive "goodwill gesture", but he has NOT taken 1.3 million casualties doing it.

😤

Nightmare Fuel On scarcity, subsidies, and who really pays the price.

🚨NEW BLOGPOST 🚨

The Hormuz crisis has a real chance of causing energy shortages in the UK. The government is insisting it's business as usual, and opposition parties are arguing for fiscal measures that will stoke shortages.

Neither is serious.

open.substack.com/pub/joxleywr...

I do think it is noteworthy that the first two cabinet-level firings were both 1) women 2) doing everything possible to do what he wanted. I mean, Trump’s a misogynist, news at 11, but still.

Now, this is *excellent* (and super topical, locally, I suspect) insight from @athenepallas.bsky.social - thank you!

This is a tremendous thread @explaintrade.com - thanks!

China’s National People’s Congress 2026, Five-Year Plan, and the economy Guidelines and faultlines

www.observingchina.org.uk/p/chinas-nat... in which @george17.bsky.social summarises the fundamental strategic challenges facing the CCP.

After Trump disses Starmer, Irish leader Micheál Martin jumps in to defend Starmer and encourages Trump to get along with him. Martin then pivots to defending Ukraine -- a country Trump also dissed earlier in the event.

Not for the first time, @robarmstrong.bsky.social doing the Lord's work ...

4-Year Elizabeth Gardner Fellowship in Physics/Astro @ Edinburgh!
- early career
- personal background currently under-represented in the School
- Pay Grade: Lecturer (~Assoc. Prof.)
- ***Deadline 20 April 2026***
🔭🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🧪

elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

France's 40 points in Scotland last weekend was the highest ever losing score in the six nations - for one week!

Undoubtedly, and constraining their transport may well hurt - but oil and gas (which clearly has different constraints) seem to be the ones that are most critical to the global economy, and therefore the ones we might care most about - no?

Strait of Hormuz - Wikipedia

Accepting the tanker truck thing is dumb, it still seems surprising that the regional petro-states haven't accelerated investment in oil pipelines to eliminate their dependence on the Strait and its vulnerability to compromise or attack? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_...

marvellous

The hand-wringing over the lack of American strategic coherence should not distract from the likelihood that Israel as the other key actor in this war most likely has quite clear strategic intentions

Nigel Farage takes stake in bitcoin company run by Kwasi Kwarteng Reform UK leader invests £215,000 in Stack Bitcoin

I think these companies might be the purest grift of all the gifts

www.ft.com/content/1518...

Shocked Farage is involved.....

Here's my workings about how they function to siphon money from investors

wp.me/pDsIG-1bR

Here if you prefer substack
open.substack.com/pub/gileswil...

There is arguably no public figure in Manchester - not even the mayor Andy Burnham - whose role matters as much to the prosperity of the city as the one held by Ivison, a 6o-year-old Canadian academic who wears a hangdog expression and speaks with the pleasing precision of a political scientist. The University of Manchester employs more than 12,000 staff and brought in £1.4 billion last year, more income than Manchester City and Manchester United combined. Its research makes waves around the world. Its 46,000 students are so pivotal to the economics of the city that when Ivison was recruited in 2023, Manchester's council leader was part of the hiring process. When the BBC's economics editor Faisal Islam analysed Manchester's success recently, he noted that along with MMU, it makes up Europe's biggest university campus. "Everything comes back to this," wrote Islam, a Mancunian himself. "The knowledge and the educated workforce are the essential raw ingredient upon which this growth has emerged."

Striking statistics on the importance of the University of Manchester @manchestermill.bsky.social MCC has long recognised this (as did NWDA with Martin Harris on its Board) although initially more as a tool of physical regeneration (eg via the merger with UMIST)…

Engels?

Mental - DuPont making a forward pass behind his posts typifies this France performance

Good thread. And a chance to remind ourselves of this superb piece by John Kay: www.ft.com/content/bfb7...

My most unpopular opinion is that farming out the death penalty for child murderers to the hard faced horrible cunts they share prison wings with is a societal failure and instead of relishing when one gets killed, we should be ashamed our prison system is so broken.

So, in the right hand column, the 1st 3 'buckets' add up to 100% (of something), then we add whatever 4 is, if it's not a 'bucket' - to the tune of £2 beeeellion :-)