'I want my children to grow up in a country where the streets are safe, the public space isn't filthy, where it isn't a hassle to get around, you can own your own home and where climate change and the environment aren't an afterthought.'
—Cameron leadership victory speech, 2005

A lot of what Macron is saying - supend some competition rules, much more industrial policy & nuclear, Buy European rules for defence - will be very hard to sell to many EU countries.
This is a very French wishlist speech, not a 'this is where the consensus might lie in Europe'.

This is, in essence, the same message every French president has ever delivered. Doesn't mean they're wrong, of course.

With regret, I have decided to leave London and never return.

Working-Class Sociology Quotes Tom McTague Where my parents lived in Spain, there were quite a lot of working-class German and Dutch people, who behaved in exactly the same way. Their own beers served in their bars, supermarkets selling Dutch cheese or German sausages, etc.

You’d never see a post like this aimed at some middle-class Brits drinking in a ski resort. The so-called ‘white working-class’ (which is a problematic term to begin with) have now become a symbol of racism to many in the middle-class left, to be sneered at and disgusted by.

‘I think, frankly, if we want better politics and we want our country better led… it would be better to transfer the responsibility of selecting our leaders and prime ministers back to MPs.’

- Peter Mandleson speaking on the latest ‘How to win an election’ with Matt Chorley.

Meta revenues in the U.K. increased 750x between 2004 & 2022 (from £4 million to £3 billion). Google’s increased 22x.

That destroyed ad model for British companies like ITV, hindering their ability to produce excellent TV and public service journalism.

Time to talk about that.

A still from the upcoming ‘Around the World in 80 Daves’ where Lord Cameron goes round the world and meets 80 people also called Dave in unusual places (BBC2, Spring 2025)

Reasonable to assume from the US campus protests that the next generation of bureaucrats, staffers etc are going to be more sceptical, as a cohort, about American empire as a force for good in the world. European Atlanticists obsessing over Trump should take note.

Toxic could not have found a better home for adaptation than with Paris. It's beyond weird to know that one of the book's subjects has read it - and beyond gratifying to know that she got it like this. I am absolutely thrilled.

This is another great episode on a geopolitical flashpoint I knew nothing about. This is the best political economy/ intellectual history/ climate geopolitics podcast out there.

I could give you 1,000 tries to guess how Kirstie Alley’s parents were dressed when they died in a car accident and you wouldn’t get it right

Cummings lives on!

Every single one of the remaining departments would have to be cut by as much as Osborne-era austerity again to make the numbers work.

Justice, Home, Local Government, Housing, Transport.

Never has a government gone into an election with such an implausible fiscal plan.

Meanwhile back in the real world...

Take a moment to read Jacob Furedi's eye-opening dispatch from Bloomfield in Blackpool for @UnHerd

unherd.com/2024/04/how-vi…

Happy St. George's Day! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

St. George was born in Lincolnshire. He loved a pie and a pint after a long day of dragon-slaying, and always got his round in. He voted Leave at the referendum, and his favourite composer was Elgar.

A great English hero 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

We actually do not all have the same fiscal constraints