Ryan Heath

Late to my own news here: I'm re-joining @politico, to launch the company into Australia. We're heading heading Down Under🇦🇺 first with a Canberra Playbook. More here politico.com/blogs/politico…

I also catch up with the original EU Confidential host, @politicoryan, to look back at how the show has evolved over the years (remember EU WTF?) — especially as we start with a new name next week: Brussels Playbook Week Ender.

Unia Europejska jest niedoskonała, irytująca, nudna, ale niczego lepszego w naszej historii nie wymyśliliśmy. Czas pokoju, dobrobytu, wolności, demokracji i solidarności między narodami przez wieki walczącymi ze sobą to cud. Niech trwa jak najdłużej.

Take a peek at Ukraine's weirdest front line - thanks to @emilyrs politico.com/news/magazine/…

Hungary’s new Prime Minister Péter Magyar has today been sworn in, ending Viktor Orbán’s 16-year hold on power and raising hopes for a rapprochement with the EU. politi.co/4dgYqoa

I joined the final episode of EU Confidential -- for a trip down memory lane, before it rebrands

The U.S. ambassador to Greece confirmed this week that Donald Trump would visit the country. For the Greek PM, the American president’s arrival is about much more than optics. It’s about security. 🔗 politico.eu/article/greece…

Harvey is valued at $11B. Legora just raised at $5.5B. I built their entire web application in two weeks and I'm making it open-source and free for everyone to use. Say hi to Mike: mikeoss.com. When I got the chance to try Harvey and Legora, I was surprised by how simple they were. A thought came to mind: I could probably build something similar in no time at all with Claude. And so I did. Assistant, project, tabular review and workflows. You get it all without vendor lock-in. Mike offers law firms an alternative, where they own the application layer and aren't stuck with a vendor they're renewing forever. You can try Mike in the demo on the website, or go to the GitHub link on the site to download the code and run a local version yourself.

This is what brilliant diplomacy looks and sounds like

This is a must read on AI by @JimVandeHei: “Think of this as the dawn of a new Atomic Age.”

IN HONOR OF CALIFORNIA’S 175TH ANNIVERSARY, WE WILL BE ROLLING OUT A VERY SPECIAL DRIVER’S LICENSE FOR EVERY CALIFORNIAN THIS SUMMER! IT WILL FEATURE A HANDSOME, HIGH-QUALITY PHOTO OF ME, GAVIN C. NEWSOM. MANY PEOPLE ARE SAYING IT’S THE BEST LICENSE EVER MADE IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. THIS IS ABOUT CELEBRATING OUR BEAUTIFUL STATE (IT IS NOT ABOUT ME, DESPITE THE VERY HANDSOME PHOTO!). ENJOY! — GOVERNOR GCN

@mfullilove And as Albo himself has noted previously -- Australia has a poor gift game. This is the kick DFAT and PM&C need for force improvement. And they have leadership support for it. All very doable.

A brilliant piece of public diplomacy. Australia missed a trick here.

For the first time in recorded history, more Americans are moving to 🇪🇺🇨🇭🇬🇧 EU+EFTA+UK countries each year than Europeans from those places are moving to the 🇺🇸 US. The ratio was 4:1 in favour of the US in the early 2000s. It crossed parity around 2022. This is new.

Our Embassy in Canberra is expanding. We’ve welcomed a new batch of cockatoos to the team — highly vocal, well connected, and never shy to make a statement. Natural diplomats 🇺🇦🇦🇺

This chart from the The Sydney Morning Herald tells us a lot about Australian property. I am not interested in what the scenarios forecast but how the three scenarios are labelled. They could've been labelled "high, medium, low" but were labelled in a way suggesting that high house prices are the "ideal" outcome. I notice this type of language all the time: rising house prices after a period of stagnation are referred to as "recovering". This is why I keep claiming that Australian housing is expensive (ie unaffordable) by choice. More stakeholders benefit from high prices than people who suffer from high prices. The efforts to make housing cheaper are pathetic by choice. Here is an older column of mine on why expensive housing is a choice: thenewdaily.com.au/opinion/2025/1… Here is the link to the article I snatched the chart from: smh.com.au/property/news/…

Cc @build_aus

The three interesting things to note about President Trump's nomination of David Brat as Ambassador to Australia: 1. No visible connection to 🇦🇺 🦘 2. He's the guy who took down Eric Cantor 3. Senior VP at the evangelical and private Liberty University #auspol

Breaking: President Trump nominates former congressman David Brat from Virginia to be next U.S. ambassador to Australia whitehouse.gov/presidential-a…

@MichaelRStrain It's an achievement for Poland, but it's not amazing -- for Britain it's the entirely probably outcome of Brexit, and a system that tolerates that 25% of people turning 18 since 1990 did not graduate high school

Amazing: Income in Poland is on track to overtake income in the U.K.

Amen

The EU faces a narrow window to strike a deal on its next long-term budget. With new taxes, debt repayments and looming elections on the table, compromise looks distant. 🎙️ @IanWishart and @politicoryan break down what’s at stake on #BrusselsPlaybookPod: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the…