Journalist at the Economist, writing about life in Britain. Author of "Underdogs".
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The lovely people @britishelectionstudy.com released the random probaility data which means we can begin to unravel some unanswered questions about turnout in 2024. A substack to follow but a starter of social class and vote/non-vote. Which party represents the working class? None of the above.
Globally, by the way, the idea was never remotely plausible. Me and some colleagues poured very cold water on it in 2019: www.economist.com/internationa...
I'm so glad someone wrote this. @henrymance.ft.com on the stalled vegan revolution: www.ft.com/content/866a...
Nigel Farage's successful summer suggests he's learned from American cable TV. Whereas the established broadcasters (and the established political parties) take the summer off, the upstarts make as much noise as they can, knowing that they have the airwaves to themselves. The "Mad Men" strategy.
Entirely true, this. Also: witches were a medieval thing. No witch trials in the early modern period.
Excellent satirical piece, well worth a read www.thetimes.com/travel/inspi...
It is often said that farming is a tiny part of the British economy. It’s also a tiny part of the rural economy. www.economist.com/britain/2025...
Interesting, thanks. The answer seems to be: no, inflation perceptions are consistently linked to food prices and alcohol prices.
Economists: is this true of inflation? At moments of high food-price inflation but falling petrol prices, do people’s inflation perceptions anchor to food, and vice versa? Or do inflation perceptions reflect general inflation quite well?
I’m still liking my hunch that the public defines “immigration” as it pleases. If a particular kind of immigration is increasing / visibly uncontrolled, people are quite capable of defining immigration to mean that particular phenomenon. So a general fall in immigration makes no difference.
🚨 New from @ipsosintheuk.bsky.social Our issues index shows immigration the number one issue for the public - with importance growing 🚨 48% say immigration number one issue - up 8 pts from last month There’s more (short 🧵)
A secondary answer is that hard to explain trends trump easy to explain trends. The recent fall in UK immigration is quite easy to explain. The 2000s fall in crime wasn’t, so a fair bit was written about that, once it became so obvious that it couldn’t be ignored any longer.
Whether this is journalistic bias or journalists correctly intuiting public bias, I don’t know. Someone must have tried to work that out.
I’m not a broadcast journalist, but I think the main answer is “distressing news trumps cheering news”. You can see the same pattern in many areas, e.g. crime, exam results. A personal favourite is patterns of study. Much wailing over decline in languages study, v little on rise in maths study.
Superb column. What it means when Britain talks about “Bosh” economist.com/britain/2025... from The Economist
Fine piece. I predicted a minor baby boom in Britain a few months ago. We will see if I was right. www.economist.com/britain/2024...
Indeed. The fundamental rightness of property taxation and the fundamental impossibility of introducing a proper broad-based system of property taxation result in strange fudges like this one, or at least kite-flying over same.
I feel two questions are being conflated. 1: Could Britain have a broad-based system of residential property taxation (yes, of course, lots of countries do) 2: Could a government introduce such a system and survive the following election (absolutely not).
And I wonder whether the more plausible argument is right. Big cities might still be places where musicians get together. The members disperse soon afterwards but the group keeps functioning, e.g. Big Thief.
I can believe they might not be producing as many bands as they did in the past, though. Come on, data people, let's have an answer to this.
BIG NEWS: My book, The Land Trap, is coming out on Nov 4! I've been fascinated by this topic for years. The book tells the story of why land still occupies such a huge role in finance, economics and politics globally, and why that's a source of huge risk. You can preorder NOW!
World Cup of Jane Austen quips, round one, Lady Susan: "Consideration and esteem as surely follow command of language, as admiration waits on beauty." versus (said of a gouty husband): "Too old to be agreeable, and too young to die." Austen was roughly 19.
Spurs remain the best football team to watch, especially if you support another team.
Wait, what?
*best. Although “beat” is also possible. Let’s see.
As of now, Spurs are the world’s beat football team. Sorry if anybody finds this difficult.
Striking age pattern, though hard to read from the chart.
I like this. One difference, which isn’t mentioned in the piece, is that the French village will have a (surprisingly powerful) mayor and council. Whereas we think it is a good idea to have feeble local government and a mayor representing all of central southern England. www.ft.com/content/e5d0...
Sunday music puzzler: what is the best pop song title? I do not mean what is the cleverest song title. Rather, if you add together unrelated songs with the same title, what gives you the best music? "Sway" for example is a Rolling Stones song, a Spiritualized song and a Michael Bublé song.
Their excuses are feeble and dishonest, but also cheering, because they show that people who know they are going to be named in an article will try to distance themselves from the “far right” (by which they mean racist, or extreme right).
Broken London latest. As has been true for several years, the share of London teenagers eligible for free school meals (because of family poverty) who go to university is higher than the share of all English teenagers who go to university. explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statist...
Energy in Britain has gotten scarce—and thus expensive. Prices are high in absolute terms, and further above the European average than any point in at least 40 years (barring the 22/23 shock). What's behind this, and is it crimping growth? I took a look for @economist.com. (🧵)
They’re good at opera too
Excellent use of a newspaper archive here. And particularly enjoyable because of all the crotchety comments from Times readers, who do not like graphics in their news stories. www.thetimes.com/uk/london/ar...
A lot of historical resentment about how Conservative politicians talked about Labour's pre-financial-crisis economic policies echoes in that phrase.
Great post. Another possible reason why people (especially journalists) often forecast an awful upheaval is that doing so and being proved wrong is much less embarrassing than predicting peace and being wrong. I predicted civil unrest in Britain in 2023, i.e. I was one year out. Nobody teased me.
One possible reason Milton Keynes has managed to expand is that it does things the other way round. Schools and clinics first, then houses. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
The fact that a discussion about Hertfordshire has somehow turned into a discussion of Herefordshire is a superb indicator of Hertfordshire’s problem.
Prediction: one of you is from Hartlepool. Or at least you feel so superior to the rest of Teesside that you have cut it in half. Interesting that Hertfordshire is a problem in your map, as it also is in the actual ONS regions. Hertfordshire is just a problem, in my experience.
A nice little project for a politics undergraduate is to quantify in what circumstances “taxpayers’ money” is being spent on something. I don’t think Britain often spends taxpayers’ money on the NHS or defence. We do seem to be spending it on Afghan refugees. www.thetimes.com/uk/law/artic...
The pic is a revelation. He's more serious, more commanding, sexier.
It’s not the Glasgow School of Art (which we are renovating, right?) but this is a shame. As well as having one of America’s best views, the dining room was one of America’s nuttiest architectural spectacles. Sort of a western Gothic. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/12/u...
“Sinner winner” has specific connotations for middle-aged and old Londoners news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england...
elsewhere in Europe, moving in that direction is the best hope for making Britain less appealing. Almost certainly better than all the “tough” laws and measures that home secretaries love to boast about.
Not sure about the “oh that won’t work” response to the UK / France plan on asylum-seeker returns. Many details to be worked out, many legal and other obstacles to be overcome, etc. But it moves Britain closer to a Dublin-type arrangement. Since many UK asylum seekers seem to have already applied…
I would happily pay double the licence fee if the BBC promised to stop reporting on itself
I briefly wondered whether some super complex political strategy was afoot here.
On the success of bats in Britain www.economist.com/britain/2025...
My absolute favourite US sports metaphor is appropriate here. "You think you're invincible, but in reality you were just three for three. Now you're three for four."
Also this would make us feel appealingly Scandinavian
Britain is hot. Accept it. Buy the aircon. Build the hotels. Take August off. Plant some trees. Put up the awning. www.economist.com/britain/2025...
He is a legend for some folk
Against extremely strong competition, this is the most annoying kind of social-media post.
This is good. It is often said that politicians and civil servants do not understand or know how to deal with migrants who are seen as undesirable, e.g. asylum-seekers. That is true. But they also don't understand or know how to deal with potential migrants who are seen as highly desirable.
Not the FT's fault (it is IWSR's fault) but it would be more helpful to know how alcohol consumption has changed among, say, 18-24 year olds than among "Gen Z". www.ft.com/content/1ae5...
Enjoyed More or Less this a.m. scrutinising church attendance trends in the light of the recent Bible Society report @stephenkb.bsky.social was sceptical at the time! Especially David Voas' expert input. I had early sight of his recent Conversation piece: theconversation.com/is-there-rea...
My clean, elegant, not at all crazy solution to the problem presented by portable air conditioners and British hinged PVC windows. Off to the patent office now.
Really interesting blog post that looks at individual-level responses to changes in the local population. Also helps to explain why parts of suburban east London are so odd.
Paid internship at The Economist. Put a lot of effort into the piece. Be original and write it well. www.economist.com/britain/2025...
You are about to be ridiculed by everyone who has had to read World Bank reports
I those those guys were keen on migrants from America, and not so keen on seeing Britain as part of a European-Asian territory, i.e., the range of the red squirrel.
📢 Some news from me: I've written a book with the erudite and eloquent Fintan O'Toole in which we each argue for - and then against - Irish unity, setting out objectively what seem to us each side's best arguments, and the issues people across the island of Ireland should consider.
I think it would help to turn the bars into lines, even if you feel that you have to space them according to time, i.e. putting a longer gap between 2019 and 2024. And I don't think you need to do that. Though I am a chart criminal.
It's easily to laugh at how obviously wrong Dan Hannan was... fun, too.
Today’s newsletter: on the Tory party’s lurching language:
Is it "good" or "bad" when skilled people leave low-income countries? We summarized the evidence in favor of "brain gain" vs. "brain drain": www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.... Ungated PDF: johanneshaushofer.com/research
Excellent example of what my colleague @matthewholehouse.bsky.social calls the immigration theory of everything www.economist.com/britain/2025...
And awards to everyone involved with the costumes and hair styles on seasons 1 and 2. Just astounding work.
I’m no social media expert, but I wonder whether there’s a simpler explanation for the lack of dumb memes and such, which they (and I) miss. Perhaps just aren’t as many dumb memes being created on any platform. I check my X feed occasionally, and it’s just Tom Forth and train delays.
If I were a musician who had been wildly sonically adventurous in the late 1960s, I'd be feeling rather worried after the past few days. Just saying, etc.
In response to the test on page 185: I know more about barbecue than about the American Civil War or the Second World War--and I don't know much about barbecue.
I've been enjoying this very much, by @duncanweldon.bsky.social It has told me lots of things I didn't know, e.g., why are northern English villages often laid out more logically than southern English villages.
That's what I had on. Am feeling considerably closer to the divine now.
Trying to understand Britain's spending review while listening to Alice Coltrane turns out to not work all that well.
Indeed, though our international competitors in the Anglophone university market are not exactly going out of their way to steal Britain's lunch. Will be interesting to see what happens to the global number of foreign students.
I see the political trouble. But peak baby was 2012. Lots of not-very-profitable domestic students to teach for the next decade!
Getting very tired of articles saying: “I have taught the same course in the same way for 20 years and now all of my students are cheating with AI.”
Here I make a bold and controversial claim: beautiful things are good. www.economist.com/britain/2025...
It’s publication day. Available from wherever you prefer to buy your books/ebooks/audiobooks.
Possibly via a kind of feedback effect? Since many UK asylum seekers appear to be coming from Europe, i.e. they’ve been “Dublined”, maybe reports of short stays in Calais and calm crossings could encourage others to try? Though this assumes people have money to hand, which seems unlikely.
The essay discussed here is truly nutty. My rather juvenile reaction when reading such confident predictions is always: “Care to make it interesting?” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/03/o...
British political scientists please note: the historians aren’t sure about that Danelaw thing.
Strongly recommended piece. Too many great bits to mention, though the part where she insists that asylum seekers and illegal migrants are two completely distinct groups is a highlight. www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...
If AI is so great, how come it makes the president look like Derek from the boat club, who shouts at you when you don’t put the oars away properly?
Good piece but I’m sceptical. Partly because polls show continuing decline in religiosity, with Gen Z the least religious group. Partly because I think the God-is-back crowd understate the overall level of faith, so they tend to see any sign of it as evidence of revival. www.ft.com/content/9446...
Why yes, Austria's victory in the Eurovision song competition did indeed make me curious about the details of its higher education system.
Really interesting, but I can’t see this growing. It depends on people who are affluent enough to own yachts, yet desperate enough to risk a long sentence for a few thousand pounds per trip. As the man says, he was self destructive. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Also some articulate reminders from young people of how place attachment complicates the simple assumption, at the heart of the #socialmobility discourse, that all young people have equal capacity to be 'footloose' in the pursuit of opportunity sambaars.com/white-workin...
Note to people who write letters to newspapers and magazines. A note saying "you are an idiot" will be ignored. The letter that terrifies me is the one that begins: "I enjoyed the article but I have a very small quibble."
NEW: Sure Start generated widespread, long-lasting benefits for children in education, health, absences, and SEND. Every £1 of up-front spending on Sure Start could generate around £2 in total benefits over the long run. THREAD on our new @nuffieldfoundation.org-funded report: [1/11]
Enjoyable attack on American right-wing thought, by a right-wing American. Much, but not all, is distinctly American.
Yes! And herring, which seems to have fewer advocates than mackerel.
Top marks for vox popping some Catholic priests! We do not hear their views nearly enough. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Such a good piece. The detail about driving licences being less of a problem for Zimbabweans is so peculiar. It’s really not hard to drive on the other side of the road…
Sweden deserves to spend a few more years in the wilderness after its dreadful 2023 entry, anyway.
Tragically I cannot watch Eurovision this evening—I have something less important to do. My take is that the Estonian silly song is better than the Swedish silly song.
Politically, this is a great reason to do an ambitious deal with the EU. Voting for Reform UK needs to mean something—it needs to have clear costs. Build those pylons in Lincolnshire, too.
Great column, great cartoon!
French taxi drivers have always behaved so well in the past, I cannot believe one would try to double a fare for a “VIP” metro.co.uk/2015/06/26/t...
Yes--but I might well be mistaken in doing so. The slowness of books feels like a drawback to this weekly magazine journalist. But it forces you to focus on long term trends such as the collapse in voting among young working-class people, about which much too little is written, I think.