Anyway, so Tom “Boris Watch” Barry was having at the Grauniad’s Nicholas “He Said” Watt over thinking that Boris Johnson really is a frightfully nice chap. I responded, recapping a point I’ve made earlier, which is that Johnson skates because the national press doesn’t report London politics and the locals focus on their borough councils:…
Read More it’s personal, but not in a good wayHere’s a story that throws light on a lot of things that are wrong with thinktanks, even the ones that have content beyond just wanktanking. Neil O’Brien has advice for the Tories. O’Brien observes that only rich people, and specifically rich people from southern England, want to vote Conservative, and that this is not enough…
Read More In which I write the piece on thinktanks Dsquared promisedEconomics is an agenda-setting system. Here’s a working example – Noah Smith engaging Robert Gordon (who is in his turn drinking from the poisoned well of Tyler Cowan). Gordon’s big idea is that y’know how things aren’t so great? Well, they’re always going to be awful, so there’s nothing can be done about it! And…
Read More Economic reality is yesterday’s political choiceFrank Field, still an idiot, but not a very useful one. The Labour MP, who was appointed poverty advisor shortly after the coalition took power in 2010, delivered his Review on Poverty and Life Chances in November that year. He now says he doesn’t believe the prime minister has read the paper, and despite some…
Read More what is your major malfunction, Pyle?Over the next 12 months, no fewer than four railway operating franchises are coming up for renewal (the list is here) and three more are subject to a review. The closest deadline is December, by which time the West Coast Main Line franchise must be either transferred to the new boss (First Group) or it…
Read More Procrastination means transportation for the nationAfter the westalgie post, here’s a classic quote: The stores were always full and we had spares for everything He’s talking about working in a British power station during the nationalised era. He also says it was wasteful and bureaucratic, but then, I only came for the ironic resonance.
Read More a case in pointReally superb study of the Iraqi post-Ba’athist insurgent movement led by Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri. Yes, that’s the guy who was a deputy of Saddam’s and about number three in the pack of cards, still out there to this day. Similarly, how the Americans were still trying to make Iyad Allawi boss of Iraq, even backing…
Read More LinksThis piece on Android Police is painfully true, even though to be honest the screenshots show a huge improvement over the versions I’ve used. But the UX is really the last thing to hate about Android. Well, it was on the first one I had, which was a poorly integrated hacky mess. No, the worst…
Read More Whining about AndroidInteresting PPRuNe thread on airports. Unsurprisingly for an aviation forum, if there is anything like consensus, it’s for Heathrow. Unsurprisingly, there’s one single, hyper-boosterish Borisland proponent, possibly even a sockpuppet. Surprisingly, the experts have some really wonderfully crazy ideas. Why not build two more runways at LHR, not just one – putting the fourth between…
Read More ask the expertsSo, if this new localism stuff is meant to be so fucking local, why is the NHS foundation trust I joined, which covers this area, holding its AGM in Rainham, Essex*, and its board meeting the next day in Ilford (at 10am, so nobody who has a job can possibly attend)? Come to think of…
Read More Beware of the leopard