What a hero.

UBI makes a lot of sense as a way of defragging an overly complex welfare state; it makes no sense as a response to AI.

Amazing what difference a good first impression makes. Miliband quick out of the blocks on Clean Power 2030, that solar farm. Clear strategy and plan won plaudits. But he does seem to stumble towards the expensive and statist option whenever given the chance.

I suspect biogas will play a bigger role than people expect in the energy transition. An underpriced circular economy/rural jobs/atmospheric-methane-avoiding superstar. Vince is right to champion it. But energy from biogas best used as electricity for a heat pump than go directly into a gas boiler.

Interested in more detail on these ‘Wholesale’ CfDs. Guessing it’s intended for the ROs starting to expire. Would we see locational pricing linked to grid congestion? And/or WCfDs ‘firmed’ with grid scale battery included?

At a conference with the SFO:

Pattiserie Valerie collapsed in 2018, they charged them in 2023, the first court date was 2026, this was then delayed by the defence requesting more time, so they now won't see court until 2028.

10 years.

For context, SBF was prosecuted for FTX within 12 months.

Macclesfield and Bury went bust. Owners and creditors zeroed. But the town, the fans, ground and spirit didn’t go anywhere. Macclesfield nearly back to where they were. Bury on the way too. Teams in lowest tiers enjoy a big side coming through. Getting promoted is great fun.

Attempts to protect the essence of football, stop it becoming a commodity, have turned everything into a number. Stockpiling dozens of academy or young players to trade at a profit with no plan to ever play. Selling off hometown kids for pure profit. Crackdown on sharing tickets to hit PSR/SCR

And financial regulator:regulation a dream - get Bain in to set it up, endless jobs for Deloitte, PwC doing the numbers, armies of highly paid lawyers at every stage. Bonkers.

And injecting complex financial regulation into football a great way to get private equity boys interested in buying.

Why is this even happening?

Reams of regulation clubs and PL must spend (hundreds of £millions?) obeying, dodging, monitoring, enforcing, defending. Weird new parallel sport.

Now a regulator on top.

It’s football. Rich guy ploughs a load of money in to win. Teams go up and down the leagues.

And then the reason landlords might want to get rid of antennae or say no to new ones is that MNOs got their way in 2017 with new rules that slashed rents they could demand for hosting them. Just became a pain with little reward so went on strike effectively.

I think @maxwellmarlow.bsky.social (understandably) didn’t mention that people say they hate crap reception/speeds but can’t/won’t pay a premium for best local/national network. Revealed preference for cheapest deal - whether £10/mth or best bundle for latest iPhone/Samsung.

The Mandelson affair is about the government’s judgment, not process Discussion of vetting and procedure is part of the excuse but not the core of the difficulty

Ultimately none of the process chatter about the Mandelson appointment really matters, it is all just fluff around 'the PM made a bad decision that became politically untenable':

sometimes feel like the original sin of this whole shebang was looking at the crime currency and going "yeah seems fine"

Hard to argue that Starmer and Reeves have helped this in their style and tone.

Yeah, it’s a classic Tyler Cowen ‘marginal revolution’ provocation he’s said regularly for donkeys’ years without claiming it as some sort of new insight. I reckon in the US where planes are like trains (and pre 9/11 security moreso) it makes a lot more sense.

Yep

Extremely unpleasant knowing exactly how people will be asking should something awful happen ‘it’s so obvious, how could we have been so stupid?’. Answer: Because Westminster Labour and Tory groups desperately trying to win over a few dozen idiots living in the Soho ward who think it’s Surbiton.

It’s such a needless threat and risk to leave open. Amazed police anti-terrorism teams aren’t demanding this of Westminster council.

Did not realise scenario where Villa win Europa League but finish in fifth means they get into Champions League via that and the ‘fifth’ Champions League place aka ‘European Performance Spot’ transfers to sixth.

Lot of Liverpool supporters among Chelsea fans all of a sudden.

Why cheap power could matter more than clean power in the push for net zero The question of how important making our electricity clean is to going green is coming under increasing scrutiny

Interesting straw in the wind earlier this week when Justin Rowlatt for the BBC jumped off the Clean Power 2030 train, focused on gas power plants and higher bills, and made the case for Cheap Power 2030 focused on cost of living policy that helps people ditch gas boilers and petrol cars.

Just very misguided Net Zero policy to expensively rush to making the small red bar go down faster by 2030, and so slow down reducing the much bigger brown and tan bars. Marginal £/MtCO2 in EVs + HPs.

Like a poverty reduction policy focused only on increasing benefits at the cost of employment.

Would act as a more contained version of Brexit as lesson to Eurosceptics in the rest of Europe on benefits of EU. Govt can say ‘we strongly advise against, big single markets are good for cost of living and, btw, this is a Brexit dividend that’s probably incompatible with EU membership’.

Letting this happen would be the demonstration of the reality behind the principle rather than Westminster ‘patronising’ on the theory. Sometimes populism needs to eat itself - Lidl and Aldi leaving, the big stores closing, and Scotland getting higher regional prices for everything else does that.

Just very misguided Net Zero policy to expensively rush to making the small red bar go down faster by 2030, and so slow down reducing the much bigger brown and tan bars. Marginal £/MtCO2 in EVs + HPs.

Like a poverty reduction policy focused only on increasing benefits at the cost of employment.

All just a huge downgrade for want of catching and punishing a tiny minority effectively

If nothing continues to be done:

- Worst affected outlets close.
- Store formats return to Open All Hours style behind the counter service.
- Bigger stores roll out the Amazon Fresh register on way in ‘just walk out’ or more basic but dystopian Airlock pod entry with ID+face scan+credit card

Why did I check the quote tweets on this? I knew they were going to depress me, just wall to wall people who are going to be poorer than they should be in old age who think that “invest more in stocks and shares ISAs” is some kind of spiv’s charter and not, you know, important advice.

Best thing Starmer personally short term, UK Labour medium term and UK govt long term can do now is clearly commit to respect Scottish and Welsh voters on non-constitutional policy choices. Full fiscal autonomy, full Scottish ‘Kilts’ borrowing powers with no bailout. Price controls, why not?

Women’s rugby great to watch. Almost all the stuff people moan about most about in men’s game is absent.