Going to tell the grandchildren this was The Mandalorian and Grogu.

Resolution has applied my model to data up to 2025. As the chart shows, we can be less confident as time goes on. But firm-level evidence from Bloom et al shows a 6% loss. I think it's time to retire the OBR's 4%, which was a simple average of pre-Brexit forecasts.

A total ban on phones in schools is a completely batshit, over the top, policy which shows, yet again, how out of touch Labour is with the reality of many people's lives. This will be totally unworkable for many people, including young carers as mentioned below. #r4today
bsky.app/profile/lore...

Too late to turn to Europe? How Keir Starmer’s Brexit reset ran out of road

What is missing from this pretty accurate long assessment of UK-EU ties is the bigger picture vision from either side as to the future of Europe in the age of unreliable superpowers - and that is what will have to change for the relationship to move on fundamentally. www.ft.com/content/2007...

On BBC Radio Scotland this morning at 8.30am

It's going to be even worse the next time they appoint Peter Mandelson

Ok, this is fucking awful and crass and foul.

Our new IfG report explores what a better system of employment support for people out of work due to ill health could look like. DWP's centralised approach to date has some strengths, but has limited integration with other services and the innovation needed to better understand what works 🧵

Globe showing the Atlantic Ocean with arrows depicting the AMOC circulation: warm surface currents (pink/red) flowing northward from the tropics toward the Arctic, and cold deep return currents (blue/purple) flowing southward. The background shows sea surface temperature trends, with a prominent blue cold patch, the "cold blob", south of Greenland, contrasting with warming (orange/red) across the rest of the ocean.

1/ There's a system of ocean currents in the Atlantic that shapes Europe's #climate, drives monsoons, and keeps sea levels stable along the US coast.

In the last 5 years, the scientific evidence that it could collapse has shifted dramatically.

Most people have no idea. 🧵

It’s worth reading the whole Palantir piece to see that they are leaning in to being the Legion of Doom.

From “The Simpsons” house genius John Swartzwelder, interviewed in The New Yorker by Mike Sacks

Something extraordinary – yet predictable – has happened over recent days on Facebook.

Fake accounts that usually post anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim content generated using AI to fuel division and hate in UK are now pushing out AI-gen content asking:

"Should the UK produce its own fuel again?"

Today the Prime Minister will assure Parliament that there was no window, or if there was a window it did not break, and if it broke it was not from a ball, and if there was a ball there was no kick.

He will add that he is "furious" about the window that broke from a ball that was kicked. (By him.)

A large white waterfowl with orange feet stands in front of a door. On the door is a cardboard sign secured with tape that reads, "DO NOT LET THE DUCK IN." Adding insult to injury, I think the duck might be a goose.

Whatever you do,

Amazing writing from Jennifer Horgan”: Angry men's blockades stopped my mother being with her dying brother-in-law last week. She was not the only vulnerable person whose needs were trampled on” #speirgorm

Democracy will not come Today, this year Nor ever Through compromise and fear. I have as much right As the other fellow has To stand On my two feet And own the land. I tire so of hearing people say, Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. I cannot live on tomorrow's bread. Freedom Is a strong seed Planted In a great need. I live here, too. I want freedom Just as you. Langston Hughes

GB News headline: GP who asked Muslim woman to remove her veil 'because he was struggling to understand her' is struck off.

Was this GP struck off just because he asked a Muslim woman to remove her veil?

How likely does that sound? 🤷‍♀️

Did he actually ask her to remove her veil 'because he was struggling to understand her?'

Let's take a look at what really happened based on the tribunal reports...

🧵
1/25

Silhouette of a house and chimney, with overhead train lines - the sky is completely grey and the sun is poking through the cloud

Facebook memory reminding me of that time in 2010 when a dust cloud from the Iceland volcanic eruption reached the UK

I was on a train from London to Norwich to visit my sister and took this pic - this is daytime and that is the sun poking through!

Comic cover with the title "What Does HIV Mean?" by Jordan Collver & Jaime Garcia Iglesias featuring a patchwork quilt.

Comic Page 1: A young man accompanies his boyfriend in a clinic waiting room. His phone pings with a reminder for an upcoming Queer Sewing Club session. He kisses his boyfriend goodbye outside the clinic and arrives at the sewing club, holding a Vintage City bag and waving to the instructor. He pulls out an old denim jacket from the bag and and excitedly tries it on. It's covered in badges/patches and a bit tattered but still cool. He feels good in it, but the instructor notices and appears shocked with recognition. TEXT: Most gay men in the UK have been touched by HIV in the UK in some way, whether they live with the virus or not. A central strand running… through the community… but unique to each person. Today, people with HIV can live full and healthy lives. Although there is still no cure… [background sign]: CLINIC thanks to medication like pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and effective anti-retroviral treatments, HIV is a preventable and manageable condition. [phone message]: Reminder: Queer Sewing Club - 1hr And people living with HIV can’t pass on the virus. [building sign]: CLINIC ENTRANCE For many young gay men who have grown up having these options, it’s the only reality they’ve known. [handbag]: VINTAGE CITY “When I first came out… coincided with PrEP becoming more available.” (Caleb, 30, white, HIV– on PrEP) Clinic visits for testing, prevention and treatment are part of everyday life. “The issues of sexual health […] lots of people in the queer community go through as a rite of passage” (Tyler, 35yo, HIV neg) Seen as a matter of routine and responsibility. But it wasn’t always this way.

Comic Page 2: A colourful 80s flashback of the instructor as a younger man wearing the same jacket... it was his! He looks up anxiously at an imposing hospital building and is ushered in through the back entrance by medical staff in PPE. He sits alone in the waiting room. We next see him standing in the middle of a lively dancefloor surrounded by men dancing and chatting. He turns to his right and sees a man unravelling like a spool of thread, followed by a closeup of him stitching a badge onto his jacket with that same colour thread. He turns to his left to see another man in a different colour also unravelling, followed by another badge in the same colour. He is left holding several different coloured threads with a jacket covered in badges. Now he is sitting at a table with a small group of other men who are happily painting some protest signs. Some chat, while one lovingly puts some paint on another's nose. TEXT: Far from it, when HIV was first identified in the early 80s… [sign]: HOSPITAL it was a matter of life and, very often, death. [sign]: STAFF ONLY [sign]: DON’T DIE OF IGNORANCE For many gay men who lived through the 80s and 90s, HIV represents fear, loss, grief – “The AIDS Crisis.” “Literally loads of my mates died in the eighties… I was just going onto the scene at that time and the people that you would bump into…” “…suddenly they just wouldn’t be there…” “and no-one really talked about it.” (Brian, 56yo, white) “It was a fear-filled time… But…” “…there were still times when people showed incredible love to each other… I think it would be wrong to see the whole of the 80s and 90s in one big black cloak of doom and gloom. It wasn’t that.” (Paul, 64, white)

I've just been given the go-ahead to share the new comic I made with @jgarciaiglesias.bsky.social about his research!

"What Does HIV Mean?" 1/2

Big moment for UK transport as the average price for an electric vehicle drops below that of a fossil fueled car for the first time plc.autotrader.co.uk/news-views/p...

this is cool because it's a very obvious concept but it's neat to see it laid out in data!

Bluesky servers be like

The new book by @brianbilston.bsky.social would honestly make you want to write poetry

It's not as high profile as all the other failings of the last government, but the total collapse of the court system thanks to Chris Grayling is one of the most damning.

Doing a Big Auld Stramash bundle with a free sketch over at my store if you like weird Scottish gangsters and liberal use of mythology and messy inking
jamescorcoran.bigcartel.com

The Strategic Defence Review, which Robertson spearheaded, came out in September 2025, as I was writing the last chapter of my book, which is focused on foreign policy and strategy. I read that entire document and interviewed a number of experts about it. A few thoughts. 🧵

The New Twin Fossil Shock | Ember How the energy crises of the 2020s speed up the electric age

"In power, solar plus storage now costs below $60 per megawatt hour (MWh) at a global level. The variable cost of LNG-fired power in Asia, at $20 per million British thermal units (MMBtu), exceeds $160 per MWh – nearly three times the cost of never needing fuel again."

Any questions?

What happens to Britain's radical right if Orbán loses? Inside the money, power and patronage connecting Hungary and the British right

It's a good night to read this excellent piece, on the Orban regime's network of financial support for the nationalist right in Britain.

For many on the radical right, the tills are about to stop ringing.
democracyforsale.substack.com/p/orbans-brits

One of my cartoons in Monday's Metro