Stephen Webb

Have loved working at @Policy_Exchange with fantastic colleagues. Excited to announce a book deal with @politybooks 'Make Bureaucracy Great Again' on the collapse and rebuild of UK state capacity (due mid 26), and thanks to @tylercowen for EV support. Other projects to follow!

If I was writing a comic novel about British media, and I had to invent a ludicrously perfect name for a woke upper middle class woman, editing The Economist, it would be something like “Zanny Minton Beddoes” but probably not as good

Shocking. This is the world we live in now: 1. When antisemitism hits the mainstream, mob rule can turn every accusation against Jews into an established "fact". 2. Tell the truth about one of those "facts", and you can be rebuked, censored and silenced.

A very nice piece here by @stephenfhwebb sfhwebb.substack.com/p/the-collapse… I find myself compelled to read the original!

@John_Stepek @baylissbaghdad if it weren't for HMG low skilled criminals would be out of a job by now @stephenfhwebb/note/p-206368319?r=1cycu5" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">substack.com/@stephenfhwebb…

Seriously, it is gross negligence and an entirely immoral act to have handed a revenue opportunity on this scale over to criminal gangs. And the official denial will continue long after everyone wakes up to the consequences

@JAHeale ITS BEHIND YOU!!

Exc: the Lib Dems are set to launch their own party-aligned think tank As one MP puts it: ‘The Tories and Labour have their think tanks, even Reform have one now. Why can’t we?’ spectator.com/article/lib-de…

Went to the opticians in Clapham. Since last year it's now a lock in service thanks to rampant thieving

@ValDobson @JeanNmart3 she's a bot

@JeanNmart3 Nope. Her legal fund is for women who are fightng to keep their rights. You appear to think that women's sex-based rights are inherently anti- trans; if so, please explain your logic.

JK Rowling and Ricky Gervaise. Both are mega-millionaire celebrities, both give most of their money away, both refuse to believe that people can change sex and are very vocal about it. Only one of them gets inundated with thousands of death/rape threats and has had to employ tight security as a result. Gosh, I wonder what the difference is? It's a mystery...

@rcolvile @stripe interesting. anyone with a few paid subscribers on substack gets paid by stripe - would that be included here too?

@stripe Second, even as Companies House numbers have remained flat, there has been an absolutely huge surge in... sign-ups to Stripe's payment systems. And looking at the numbers, they think these are mostly new traders, not them suddenly expanding their market share.

Have written today on a fascinating - and v v important - economic puzzle. Either: 1) AI is driving a boom in entrepreneurship everywhere but Britain or 2) AI is driving a boom in British entrepreneurship, but our economic data is too broken to notice. Which is it?

"only the Jewish Autonomous Region unaffected"... usual suspects incoming @wartranslated

Ridiculous performative stuff. Ruth Ellis remains guilty of murder. but her death sentence is commuted despite her being dead. BBC News - Conditional pardon granted for Ruth Ellis, last woman executed in UK bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

@thomasknox the fascist stuff in Rome at EUR and the Olympic stadium is well worth seeing as well as the Roman, medieval and Baroque stuff.

London wins this, easily. It is inexhaustible. Rome is marvellous but all the interesting stuff is old; London is new AND old An example: London was founded by Romans, and next to its globally iconic 19thC railway station - King’s X/St Pancras, is the new HQ of Google DeepMind

Review of Douglas Allen's "The Institutional Revolution" open.substack.com/pub/sfhwebb/p/…

If interests aren't aligned, patronage at least allows the ruler to hold people accountable for the behaviour of their clients 2/

Does selling public offices make sense? If you can't easily measure performance, and the office holder's interests are aligned with the ruler, Douglas Allen argues selling offices ensures the most efficient will bid more, recouping their payments from fees 1/ 🧵

@richardmarcj @CapelLofft I hadn't realised Angela Lansbury was his granddaughter

Ernest Bevin's showdown against Labour's pacificist leader George Lansbury at the 1935 Labour conference was seen as the decisive, fatal blow to Lansbury's leadership. Bevin later said, 'Lansbury has been going about dressed in saint's clothes for years, waiting for martyrdom. I set fire to the faggots'.

@ouamoussi Is this the new BBC Match Of The Day host?

@AlistairCarns it's not just procurement where the money is wasted. we have far too many generals and officers and spend crazy amounts on pensions. the services' senior command have a lot to answer for open.substack.com/pub/sfhwebb/p/…

Worth reading Dominic Lawson's piece in the Sunday Times... He's circling something I've been saying for months.… the MoD's problem is not just that it has too little money. It's that it cannot reliably turn the money it has into capability on the front line. Ajax. Nimrod. Carrier strike. The pattern is always the same. Bespoke kit, built late, over budget, often for a conflict that has already changed by the time it arrives. Meanwhile in Ukraine, a £400 drone destroys a £4 million tank. If we are genuinely serious about defending this country and building our national resilience, the first job is not the spending figure. It’s fixing the procurement system that decides what the money buys. thetimes.com/article/0d0bfe…

@FUDdaily @AlistairCarns late 30s was good

@AlistairCarns Can you point to a single point in history when defence procurement has been fit for purpose? I mean, even a fortnight?

@justrightFrank tbf as an ex civil servant Id have thought it unlikely a PPS would have seen a letter like this unless the Home Sec had brought it to his attention, which he clearly didn't do.

My friend Sharon, who is smarter than Google, has just provided me with the proof that Andy Burnham became The Parliamentary Private Secretary to Home Secretary David Blunkett in 2003. Blunkett and Burnham must have seen Ann Cryer's letter in 2003. #BurnhamKnewAboutRapeGangsIn2003

@cloudwanderer3 only among fa***ists apparently

@stephenfhwebb I thought that was a fairly popular opinion??

I got a warning from r/janeausten after posting that I thought Edmund Bertram in Mansfield Park was a boring character. The warning was for ‘identity-based hate or attacks’. I had no idea fictional second sons of baronets were so vulnerable.