Have written a few things about this, but Britain's cultural bias against investing in stocks (and obvious property obsession) is culturally fascinating but also really bad for national well-being.
If you want to really depress yourself, check out the quote-tweets on this YouGov poll or indeed some of the ones to my skeet!
MLK had a 63% *unfavorable* rating with Americans in a 1966 Gallup poll.
Nelson Mandela was legally considered a terrorist by the U.S. government until 2008 (!!).
People saying this shit almost certainly would have hated both and found a way to delegitimize their causes at the time!
The rightwing dream that their oligarch heroes will abandon the American city that best caters to their tastes because they were charged a tiny bit more will never die.
Sorry, Oklahoma City!
Starmer is going to throw the entire Civil Service under the bus to try to protect himself. He is no better than Johnson, and will will similarly fail. But he will set a lot of things on fire before he finally goes. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Mariah Carey’s sitting room. There are many gold sofas with fringy bits. The curtains are transparent scarves. The plants are sad.
The AI pics look worse than the flouncy ones in my opinion. Cold and sterile. Admittedly, in the real ones, these pinned-up scarf “curtains” and possibly half dead plants look a bit like my student room in 1999. But there’s a popcorn cart in the corner!
👇🍟
When Jean-Paul's oldest friend dies, he has to return to Paris - with dangerous consequences.
That's GET SARTRE, ITV 2 at 7.30pm.
London is a remarkably safe city with low rates of murder etc - that does make it acceptable to stick your fingers in your ears and insist that shoplifting and phone snatching doesn't happen (or, if it is, it doesn't matter).
As Chesterton said, do not be so open-minded that your brains fall out.
So the only thing holding his premiership up is a fear that nobody can beat Angela Rayner in a leadership election and Rayner cannot win a general election.
The cover of 69 by AR Kane, faint white drawings on a slate grey background of undersea creatures coiled up to make the number 69 (nice)
Today’s 1988 @bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social prep takes us into the realm of shoegaze with AR KANE’s excellent 69, I love that this band (allegedly) was signed while nonexistent, based on a description of their intended sound at a party, and then actually realised that sound
reviewed London Falling, a moving and well-told story that does not really match the marketing.
foreignpolicy.com/2026/04/17/p...
NYT if Mamdani had money: What KIND of GRAFT is this SEWER SOCIALIST hiding
NYT when Mamdani doesn't have money: This pathetic FAILSON shows that the apple DOES fall far from the tree
> Run a chaotic and unpopular Number 10
> Have a limited and confused plan for government
> Be beset by scandal about personal judgment and conduct
> Be Boris Johnson (pic unrelated)
Every time an exit door presents itself, he refuses. Knowing a bigger, dumber exit will soon appear.
Fascinating paragraph from Scott Alexander, where he admits he’s the dog that caught the car
an underrated, unforgivable belief that remains prevalent among pols and normies is that a rising tide lifts all boats when it’s been clear forever that a rising tide simply drowns the people on low lying land
A headline like this is incitement to racial hatred.
NYT cooking page has basically no meat on it
"Dumplings With Peas"
"Broccoli Cheddar Beans"
useful reminder from Private Eye
It isn't too late. Or at least there is less to fear, and not much left to lose, for an unpopular prime minister by talking about Brexit for what it is - not a deal to be revised or a condition to be managed but a tragic mistake to be corrected. Events have refuted every Eurosceptic myth. Britain has trudged long enough through the bog of Johnson's lies, against the headwinds of false Faragist promises. The strategic, economic and political facts are now dynamically aligned for a change of course. • Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist
“Starmer doesn’t have much left to lose so he might as well reverse Brexit.” Cool plan chief, what’s not to like about shackling a multi-step, decades long goal to a guy everyone hates
one of the biggest technological revolutions in history and it has nothing to do with crypto, AI, metaverse or any of the things the media relentlessly hypes
Would be great if the “we” that are rediscovering this had the power to do anything about it ☹️
Looks like we're rediscovering why we need to get the public sector back into the housing market and more competition in the private sector.
See:
Maguire: "Overall benefit spending as a share of the national economy is about where it was 10yrs ago. The fact [Robertson] has gone for benefits shows it as a highly political attack"
And not only is it about the same as 10yrs ago, we spend less than most European countries
It’s so obviously a crude political point, implying that “welfare” is somehow bad rather than a way of binding society together. There are trade offs in increasing defence spending which need to be explained, not hidden in this way.
Grifty @TheGriftReport Follow G... Keir Starmer jetted off for a four-day luxury family Easter break at a £200-a-night four-star boutique hotel in Valencia, complete with rooftop bar and pool. While lounging in the sun and sipping café con leche in a public square, Trump was issuing ultimatums to "obliterate" Iran's power plants and warning Tehran they'd be "living in Hell." Starmer stayed put despite the escalating crisis, five years after he slammed Boris Johnson for holidaying as Kabul fell, declaring: "You cannot coordinate an international response from the beach." Macron spent the weekend on emergency calls with Trump and Iran's president. Starmer? Not so much. Priorities 7:30 AM • Apr 12, 2026 • 3.5M Views
Fascinated by the implication that £200/night for a family holiday is outrageous luxury living
There hasn’t been a period since the war when living standards rose so slowly as the last 15 years, and there is no precedent of democracies being happy just because the economy is bigger than ever. A GDP that isn’t shrinking is the bare minimum for a capitalist democracy, historically
I think that as economists we should be a lot more concerned that everyone feels like they've got poorer when the data show they haven't. We certainly shouldn't just be assuming that the customers are wrong, rather than that we're no longer measuring things that are most relevant to wellbeing
