Martin

Although there’s no shortage of spite and anger on Twitter, there’s also plenty of kindness. Thanks so much to all the lovely people who took the trouble to write to me about my wedding anniversary. Bless you all.

King Charles: "In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when NATO invoked article five for the first time, we answered the call together, as our people have done so for more than a century, shoulder to shoulder through two world wars, the cold war, Afghanistan, and moments that have defined our shared security. Today, Mr. Speaker, that same unyielding resolve is needed for the defense of Ukraine and her most courageous people."

We've reached the age of consequence. I've spent weeks pulling apart the data on Britain's major institutions. The NHS. Schools. Defence. Roads. Councils. Housing. Water. Pensions. Demographics. Each one looked like a separate crisis. Each one had its own numbers, its own failures, its own outrage cycle. But the deeper I went, the clearer it became. They're not separate crises. They're consequences. Decades of deferred maintenance. Deferred decisions. Deferred honesty. All arriving at once. All compounding. And all connected. There are many reasons Britain is where it is. Monetary policy. Demographics. Political choices. Fraud. Failures of regulation. I'll get to those. But running through almost everything I've examined is one pattern so consistent it deserves a name. Organisational inertia. Every organisation that exists long enough eventually stops serving the purpose it was created for and starts serving itself. Processes are created to manage risk. Roles are introduced to manage process. Policies emerge to manage roles. Gradually, the organisation's attention turns inward. What began as a vehicle for purpose becomes a system primarily concerned with its own continuity. The structure that was supposed to support the work becomes the work. This doesn't just apply to companies. It applies to countries. Start with the NHS. It was created to provide healthcare. Today it spends £3.6 billion a year settling clinical negligence claims arising from its own failures. Billions more servicing PFI contracts signed decades ago. It manages a waiting list of over 7 million people. Its staff are burning out. And a provision of around £60 billion sits on the government's books for the expected future cost of clinical negligence claims. The NHS still provides extraordinary care, delivered by extraordinary people. But a growing share of its energy and budget is consumed not by healing, but by managing the consequences of its own structural failures. Look at education. The system was built to prepare children for the future. Today it manages a £13.8 billion maintenance backlog. The DfE has said over 80% of schools contain asbestos. RAAC concrete, described by the government's own advisors as "life expired and liable to collapse," has required urgent mitigation in hundreds of schools. A SEND system that has doubled in cost and is driving councils toward insolvency. Teacher recruitment and retention remain a serious challenge, with the profession struggling to attract and keep the people it needs. School spending per pupil fell sharply through the 2010s and has only recently begun to recover, according to the IFS. The system still educates. But more and more of its resources go to keeping the structure standing rather than improving what happens inside it. Look at defence. The armed forces exist to protect the country. Today they manage an equipment plan with a £16.9 billion affordability gap. The Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff told the Defence Committee that the UK could not sustain an enduring war "for more than a couple of months" due to insufficient ammunition, reserves, and equipment. The First Sea Lord has reportedly said the Royal Navy will not be ready for an armed conflict until 2030. The structure is maintained. The capability is hollowed out. Look at local government. Councils exist to serve communities. Today, 35 councils have been granted exceptional financial support for 2026-27. Surveys show a significant share of councils see effective bankruptcy as a realistic risk over the next five years. Social care consumes an ever larger share of budgets, crowding out everything else. Services have been cut to the bone while the cost of running the institution keeps rising. The institution persists. The service it was created to deliver is disappearing. Now look at the budget. Because the budget is where the inversion becomes most visible. The government spends £1,370 billion a year. Almost all of it is consumed before a single discretionary decision is made. £333 billion on welfare. £202 billion on health. £114 billion on debt interest. £95 billion on education. £39 billion on defence. Then layer on the hidden costs that most people never see. PFI repayments. Clinical negligence settlements. Nuclear decommissioning provisions. Billions in public sector consultancy spending. The Government Major Projects Portfolio contains 227 projects with a combined whole life cost of £834 billion, of which only around 11% are green-rated by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority. Unfunded public sector pension liabilities of around £1.3 trillion. By the time the system has paid for itself, there is almost nothing left to invest in making anything better. The country is spending record amounts and going backwards. Not because the money is being wasted on frivolous things. But because the cost of maintaining a deteriorating system consumes everything before improvement becomes possible. EY has estimated that the gap between public sector productivity and private sector productivity alone is costing the UK economy £80 billion a year. If left unaddressed, that figure could rise to £170 billion by 2030. But even that number understates the true cost. Because it only measures the productivity shortfall. It doesn't count the £3.6 billion in annual clinical negligence settlements. The billions in PFI overpayments above capital value. The project overruns across government. The £645 million a year in pothole damage to drivers. The economic output lost because 7 million people are on waiting lists and can't work or can't work fully. The investment deterred by a system too expensive and too complex to operate in. The labour mobility destroyed by unaffordable housing. The skills potential lost by a deteriorating education system. The 2.8 million people economically inactive due to long-term sickness, partly because the health system meant to support them is itself under strain. The measurable productivity gap is £80 billion. The true cost of a state that has turned inward is almost certainly far higher. And the system doesn't just consume resources. It generates its own demand. The Institute for Government has described much of the demand on public services as "failure demand." Demand created not by citizens needing help, but by the system's own earlier failures to intervene effectively. Patients who end up in A&E because they couldn't see a GP. Children in crisis because early intervention was cut. Homeless families in expensive temporary accommodation because social housing was never built. Potholes that cost more to repeatedly patch than they would have cost to resurface properly in the first place. Each failure generates more cost. Each cost absorbs more budget. Each squeezed budget reduces the capacity to prevent the next failure. The system feeds on its own dysfunction. Organisational inertia is not the only reason Britain is struggling. Demographics, monetary policy, globalisation, political failures, and a dozen other forces play their part. I've written about some of them already and I'll write about more. But this pattern, the quiet inversion of purpose, the system turning inward, runs through almost every institution I've examined. It is not the whole explanation. But it's a thread you can trace through all of them. The UK state has become a system that spends much of its energy managing itself. Servicing its debts. Honouring its legacy contracts. Settling its legal liabilities. Maintaining its crumbling infrastructure. Administering its own complexity. The original purpose, delivering better lives for the people who fund it, has not disappeared. But it has been steadily crowded out by the cost of keeping the structure alive. The institutions still speak the language of mission and purpose. Every government department has a strategy. Every public body has a set of values. Every spending review promises reform and efficiency. But in practice, much of the energy goes inward. Managing risk. Maintaining process. Sustaining the structure. The language points outward. The money flows inward. Every thread I've written has documented a different piece of a larger picture. This one is about the pattern that connects many of them. Not the only pattern. But one of the deepest. Britain's crises are not unrelated. They reinforce each other. And at the heart of many of them is a system that has gradually shifted from serving the public to sustaining itself. The question is not whether the country can afford to reform its institutions. The question is whether it can afford not to. Because the measurable cost is already £80 billion a year. The real cost is a country that forgot what it was for.

@elonmusk Hi @elonmusk , i agree. This 2ill be necessary. But there are a few questions to ask : 1. How the economy will generate incentives for the ai companies? 2. To what extent AI conpanies will maximize population welfare over their profits 3. A post scarcity economy needs free energy

Universal HIGH INCOME via checks issued by the Federal government is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI. AI/robotics will produce goods & services far in excess of the increase in the money supply, so there will not be inflation.

@elonmusk And Grok provides very good summaries , answers and background to complex threads, with a neutral style. I like an AI that really makes easy augmenting our abilities and challenge our biases, and reports transparently. Well done @grok and team.

Try it!

@javiernegre10 @JMilei Pero las demandas iranies en lo 10 puntos piden cobrar peaje, fin guerras regionales , reparaciones economicas a iran, reformulación de la defensa regional (usa out?) . Parece mas una derrota que una victoria... Lea NYT,BBC,etc

Trump logra torcer el brazo al régimen iraní para reabrir el estrecho de Ormuz y garantiza un alto el fuego a Irán de dos semanas para continuar con las negociaciones de paz. De nuevo la formula del “Art of the Deal” + “Peace through strength” parece haberle funcionado.

@Mcuquerella @diazvillanueva

Este vídeo me parece brutal. Todas las métricas importantes indican que vivimos en el mejor momento de la historia, a pesar de los profetas de la desgracia.

Godspeed @NASAArtemis ! Safe travels!

@bedergera @GordoDan_

Hola Gordo Dan, ayer vi toda la misa. En ningún momento hablaron del tipo más pelotudo que habita el país en estos momentos y es Jefe de Gabinete, se la pasaron hablando de pelotudeces de los K. Al final sos un godo obsecuente amigo de la casta. Sos más de lo mismo. Y muy tarado.

@BarDePueblo1 @Turmabon Si señor, usted esta haciendo salud pública. Bien ahi.

@Turmabon Si le digo que no le pongo mas,se irá a otro sitio. Le retengo aquí y le cuido. Espabilao.

Ok pero sigue siendo estafa. Se le dice que no se le sirve más y punto. Que le haces pagar por algo que no es

@bellumartis Don Paco, hay algina evidencia de que Iran acepto el trato? Todo esto parece una gran operacion de engaño de una o ambas partes. Y negociar bajo fuego es bastante inusual. Hay algun antecdente historico?

Donald J. Trump amplía a 10 días la pausa en los ataques a infraestructuras energéticas iraníes tras una petición directa de Teherán. Pero esto no es un gesto unilateral o un “taco”. Es un intercambio claro: ▪️ Irán permite el paso de petroleros por Ormuz ▪️ EE. UU. suspende temporalmente los ataques ▪️ Se gana tiempo para negociar No estamos ante una paz… sino ante una paréntesis ante la amenaza de Trump condicionada por el flujo de petróleo Trump lo deja entrever: “me dieron barcos” → yo doy tiempo ▪️ Ormuz empieza a abrirse parcialmente con 10 barcos de países no amigos de Irán ▪️ El mercado energético respira ▪️ Pero todo sigue dependiendo de la voluntad iraní Esto es diplomacia en estado puro: petróleo a cambio de bombas que no destruyen la infraestructura energética… de momento. Mientras tanto el reloj sigue corriendo hasta el 6 de abril.

@fargosi @madorni @JMilei No lo atacan por sus futuro politico. Lo atacan porque o cometio un acto illegal (incumpliendo su propio decreto), o un acto antietico poque se espera otro comportamiento de los funcionarios y seguro un acto de mala politica, porque reduce la credibilidad del "no somos casta"

Los opositores y algunos que no lo parecen y son peores, saben que @madorni es una figura política con gran futuro. Lo atacan para dañar a @JMilei y a su equipo y volver al poder Conozco a Manuel y confío en él porque sé de sus convicciones y principios No van a doblegarlo

@AdrianRavier Y el.problema es que un fucnionario usa recursos publicos de manera incorrecta. No hubiera sido mas facil recomocer el error moral? Compararlo con peores crimenes es un calsico ejemplo de Falacia del mal menor (privacion relativa)

@AdrianRavier Entonces, Señor Ravier, si habria una plaza en un vuelo presidencial argentino, cualquier argentino tendria derecho a usarla no? Porque tengo entendio que la señora del Sr Adorni no es funcionaria ni tenia ningun rol en la delegacion. Es un problema moral mas que economico.

Aclaración sobre este asunto. El argumento expuesto más abajo es estrictamente económico. No corresponde hablar de “con la tuya” cuando no hubo un gasto público adicional, porque el costo marginal de ese pasajero en un vuelo que ya se realizaba es esencialmente cero. Además, Manuel Adorni aclaró que todos los otros gastos fueron cubiertos de manera privada. Dicho esto, es sano que exista condena social cuando un funcionario utiliza fondos públicos en beneficio propio o de su familia. Que la sociedad esté atenta a eso significa que hemos elevado la vara de exigencia sobre el uso de los recursos del Estado. El objetivo justamente debe ser ese: no repetir prácticas que durante años naturalizaron el uso del Estado para privilegios personales. Para entender a qué me refiero, alcanza con recordar algunos de los peores ejemplos de esa etapa: - José López arrojando bolsos con millones de dólares en un convento, una imagen que quedó como símbolo de la corrupción estructural de la obra pública. - La llamada “Ruta del dinero K”, con Lázaro Báez lavando millones provenientes de contratos estatales. - Los casos Hotesur y Los Sauces, donde hoteles y propiedades de la familia presidencial recibían dinero de empresarios beneficiados por el Estado. Eso sí fue obsceno. Y justamente porque aprendimos de esos excesos, hoy corresponde distinguir entre un escándalo real y uno construido. Cuidar los recursos públicos es una obligación. Pero también lo es discutir con rigor y no con slogans.

@GordoDan_ Che, me puedo subir al avion que va a madrid? No soy funcionario ni casta pero me gustaria viajar, ya que el costo marginal para el estado es 0. Ganamos todos!

YO NO ME OLVIDO YO NO ME OLVIDO DE COMO BAILASTE A LOS KUKAS DURANTE TANTOS AÑOS NO VAN A PODER KUKITAS

@DarioEpstein Pero Dario, entonces yo me podria subir al proximo vuelo presidencial si hay lugar vacio? Se van a Madrid hoy, no? Si hay un lugar ito y como el.costo.marginal es 0, me vendria bien. Digo, no?

Si un avión con capacidad para 10 pasajeros lleva solo 9 personas cuesta exactamente lo mismo que si llevara 10. El costo marginal de agregar el 10mo pasajero es virtualmente 0. Buen jueves!

@AlejRozitchner Pero Adorni estuvo mal,no?

Una buena conclusión sería: los diarios principales y la mayor parte del periodismo está actuando como si fueran enemigos del país. Están muy a disgusto frente a un gobierno que hace bien las cosas, mejor que todos los anteriores que hemos conocido por décadas.

@DonDrPr_4ever En el.proximo vuelo del avion presidencial,si hay un lugar vacio,me puedo subir yo?

Para los españoles que me preguntan por qué @madorni es TT: Su mujer viajó con él a Nueva York en vuelo oficial… cubrió un asiento vacío de un vuelo que se haría igual y compartieron habitación. Costo marginal para el Estado: ¡CERO! La izquierda argentina está desesperada. Fin.

@TuiteroSismico @BetoMendeleiev_ @grok confirm and geolocate the video shown

ÚLTIMA HORA | La Guardia Revolucionaria iraní ataca un edificio en Dubai que alberga 120 soldados estadounidenses. El dron impacto en el edificio.

El sistema es una máquina de destrozar vocaciones. Guardias inhumanas y salarios de mierda. El sistema entiende que por haber elegido una profesión vocacional el médico debe tragar con todo. Entiendo que muchos estén hasta la mismísima polla del fonendo. Este tuit va por ellos.