Uncategorized

A lot of people are really impressed by the insight that survey research among the British reliably suggests that both strongly left-wing and strongly right-wing positions are popular. A more nuanced version refines this to economically left-wing and socially right-wing positions. Nick Barlow’s post here is an example, but I don’t want to single him…

So apparently this is a thing: Latest rumour is a May statement at 1.45pm. Full lectern job. Let's see. — Francis Elliott (@elliotttimes) September 21, 2018 There are prime ministerial statements, and then there are ones that get the official lectern. Those are special. And depressingly, it works, for a time at least: Totally normal,…

So there’s this: How to make the UK the laughing stock of the world. https://t.co/BKRzC7QZco — (((Frances Coppola))) (@Frances_Coppola) September 15, 2018 Specifically, Liam Fox’s ministry is sponsoring the restoration of a Spitfire as part of its export promotion campaign. FOXFIRE!!! This reminded me of something. If you’re pitching to the Big Lottery Fund or…

Here is the first ad in the government campaign for the deployment of so-called smart energy meters, a giant Internet of Things project that’s not going so well. So here we have the charming little tykes Gaz and Leccy, a pair of mischievous pseudo-adolescents bouncing around causing trouble for the tired-olds (check out that astonishingly…

This War on the Rocks post is excellent, making the case that Hamas has succeeded in denying the Israelis escalation-dominance and this is why a cold peace is holding-ish. These TYR Flashbacks! refer (one, two, three, four.)

We’ve not done one of these for a while so here goes. Dan Davies’ Lying for Money is an economic history of fraud which emphasises its relationship with the social trust necessary for civilisation. Practices like accounting, auditing, and record-keeping are in some sense technologies that permit us to manufacture artificial trust, and of course…

This Left Outside post is getting attention, and it’s good: That brings us to the least obvious, but most damaging effect of rating your waitress. Good management is good. Better management can drive big improvements in productivity. And everyone knows how bad it is to have a bad manager, it can be utterly hellish. In…

I am beginning to worry that the government, and specifically the Home Office, thinks 80% accuracy is nearly 99%. At the same time as the FT was arguing for a national biometric identity database, it also dropped this scoop. The Home Office seems to have used some sort of voice identification test in an effort…

Somebody knows what they’re doing. The fossil contribution to the UK national grid – the red line – has gone from just shy of 30GW in 2013 to 14.6GW now. Imports are up a bit, but the heavy lift is from renewables, which have doubled, and efficiency, which kicked in about 5GW. Created with Highcharts…

So I saw a biography of Bob Crow in a bookshop in Windsor of all places and did some #crowtweets. As readers will know, he was a long-standing interest of this blog (see how to get the look) and in any case he was surely the only modern British trade unionist to have a revolutionary…