The search for better politics

@PippaCrerar It's happening again: no robust pro-EU arguments put forward. Pro-EU journalists have no interest in talking about countries that make up EU: Spanish HS trains, French nuclear expertise, Danish tunnel engineering They need to talk less about American personalities in politics

@L__Macfarlane @jryancollins If Iran could set the direction of UK interest rates, what do you think they'd choose? Up, like the BoE, or down, like some economists (@RichardJMurphy ) argue for?

“The Bank of England should have the courage to admit that its main policy tool is largely irrelevant in dealing with geopolitical supply shocks and their impact.” Great piece @jryancollins: theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

An animation on the basics of MMT @ProfSteveKeen

@JohnLeePettim13 @charlesarthur The zombie fuel of the C21st? 🙄

Hydrogen is the stupidest, most ridiculous, and most impossible energy alternative. It takes 5 to 10 times more energy than it returns. This has been known since 2004, yet hydrogen refuses to die. It is far from renewable because it contains no energy at all—energy must be forced into it like a battery—and you lose even more when converting it back to electricity. It has the worst energy return of any alternative: far more energy goes in than you ever get back. Consider the process: you first split hydrogen from natural gas or use far more energy to electrolyze it from water, then compress or liquefy it, build extremely expensive and short-lived steel containers and pipelines (since hydrogen embrittles them), and finally deliver it to virtually non-existent hydrogen vehicles. Fuel cell technology remains far from commercial. It is also highly explosive. Hydrogen requires 12 times less energy to ignite than gasoline vapor, so the smallest spark or heat source can turn it into a bomb.

@_matt1981_ @ThatTimWalker @ZackPolanski A big problem is much of the media doesn't take politics seriously enough

@ThatTimWalker @ZackPolanski Main reasons Greens are getting more coverage seem to be because: ▪︎ Attacking government/Keir ▪︎ Ridiculed over party/Zacks policies, comments, actions • Yes membership/polling growth and by-election win... But still not being taken that seriously.

The Lib Dems’ media strategy was based on the assumption they could only get coverage for Davey with outlandish stunts. @ZackPolanski and the Greens are eclipsing them as they chose instead to have a respectful conversation with the electorate about the issues that matter.

@matthewsyed Deficit example: The 1920s & 30s: Contrary to the "war-only" rule, the UK struggled with deficits during the Great Depression. The government was even forced to default on its WWI debt to the USA in 1934 because it couldn't balance the books.

Wear an extra jumper — just don’t ask for an energy bailout thetimes.com/article/d164a6…

@matthewsyed Deficit example - The Irish Famine (1840s): Significant funds were borrowed to address the crisis in Ireland, leading to deficits.

@matthewsyed Deficit example - The Slavery Abolition Act (1833): The government borrowed £20 million (about 40% of the national budget at the time) to compensate slave owners. This was a massive peacetime deficit financed by a loan that wasn't fully paid off until 2015.

@paullewismoney @Moneybox Lesser Whitethroat

The most popular question on today's @Moneybox was what animal in the UK should go on the new banknote series the Bank of England is planning. Tell me your choices...

Court ruling about article about BBC's coverage of Palestine

China pulling ahead in a fast-changing world "Seen by Margaret Thatcher as a relic, the CEGB was broken up and privatised in 1989. Labour warned that prices would rise. They did. The “privatisation premium”, according to an analysis by the Common Wealth thinktank, sees almost a quarter of the average household energy bill – roughly £450 – flow today into corporate profits. Other essential services are similarly hit. Nearly 30% of a water bill in the English privatised system goes to shareholder returns and paying debt. By contrast, publicly owned Scottish Water spends 10% of revenue on borrowing costs." theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

@DanNeidle @rcolvile @dontdelay I'd thought of this approach too back in my 20s. The flaw, if any? That a tax system needs to "appear to be" easy to check by the payer

@rcolvile @dontdelay Is it cynical of me to think that any party proposing this would be slammed for the complexity of the formula? (When of course the actual effect is less complexity. Calculation difficulty is irrelevant in the modern world)

A thousand times this for the UK. Esp incorporating benefit withdrawal.

@EVCurveFuturist @mike_bidde60926 Bruce Henderson: For every cumulative doubling of production volume, the "value-added" cost of a product typically declines by 20% to 30%

@mike_bidde60926 Remember ICE cars are mechanically complex — thousands of moving parts. EVs are fundamentally simpler machines. As scale increases, that cost advantage starts to dominate

EVs are only ~5% of the global car fleet. Yet already displacing ~1.5 million barrels of oil per day — the early stage of structural demand erosion. Disruption doesn’t start when something is big, but when the curve begins to bend. The #Bettrification S-curve crossed that point.

@paulmasonnews Who owns that wind power generation? Is it following a similar pattern to that of North Sea oil/gas fields?

Britain is the Saudi Arabia of wind power and with a solid commitment to nuclear energy we can achieve Net Zero: while the Green Party descends into crankery, Labour is delivering clean, green and secure energy - and taxing the oil companies! 🚩🇬🇧✊ politico.eu/article/keir-s…

@simongerman600 If we look at the Net Worth of the UK public sector, it remained positive for most of this period but began a long-term decline relative to GDP starting in the 1980s

This is one of the best charts I’ve seen on intergenerational worldviews. What was the average annual GDP growth that you experienced based on your year of birth? Baby Boomers born just after WWII saw growth near the 2.5% mark while Gen Z (who are entering the workforce now) saw a full percentage point less growth. That difference compounds like crazy.

@Bristol_Matt05 @MerrynSW While there are occasional years where health costs dip or level out, the long-term trend in the United States is that private healthcare costs have consistently outpaced general inflation for decades.

@MerrynSW Scrap 90% of the NhS, leave it for the absolute needy. Privatise the rest. Problem solved

The Scottish NHS. Despite rise in staff/money etc. How?

@PeterStefanovi2 Do all car companies require benefit payments? 1984: £112 million 1984: £12 million 1986: £25 million 2008: £6.2 million 2010: £6.2 million 2011: £20.7 million 2011: £184 million 2016/17: £7.1 million 2019: £2.6 million 2021: £100 million 2023: £15 million 2025: £12 million

The Japanese carmaker Nissan has reportedly said it could be forced to close its plant in Sunderland if the UK is not fully included in new “Made in Europe” manufacturing rules proposed by the EU theguardian.com/business/2026/…

The Royal Mail letter service of now rather poor

@RichardJMurphy oil was last around the $60 per barrel mark in January 2026 March 2026: disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz have pushed prices over 25% this week alone, with Brent currently trading above $90 and WTI near $87

How long can Trump keep this going? taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2026/03/0…

Irish Courts: Unlike the US or UK, Ireland actually jailed several top bankers (such as Willie McAteer and John Bowe of Anglo Irish Bank) specifically for "deceitful and corrupt" actions and "sham transactions" that led to the 2008 crash in Ireland.

DOJ, while few individual bankers were jailed, the US government reached multi-billion dollar settlements with banks like Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, & Bank of America. The "Statement of Facts" in many settlements admits that the banks knowingly misrepresented loans they sold