A nice demonstration of two things:

1) De-funding the police is bad, actually, and results in more crime, disproportionately harming the poor.

2) Short-term cost-saving exercises often end up resulting in negative impacts that cost far more to fix than they initially saved.

Astonishing chart from John Burn-Murdoch- on.ft.com/49OMvdz The UK is brilliant at handling immigration, relatively.

Could be a huge strength in the decades ahead

An in-depth attempt to explain nearly five years of levelling up funds: what they are, why they are, and why people have been so unhappy with them

With ⁦Amy Borrett⁩ and ⁦Anna Gross⁩

(The first in a 4-part series about levelling up)
on.ft.com/3Ux0AYE

Railway passenger numbers in the UK, 1829–2016.

Interesting. Turns out the income gap between the US and Europe disappears once you adjust for spending on the secondary market for restaurant reservations

You may expect a Monaco financier who dabbles in crypto to move in different circles to local councillors in the north of England

Yet a hard-charging trader based 1,000 miles away has become enmeshed in Warrington council’s finances

✍🏻 w/ Jennifer Williams
ft.com/content/acf745…

Some interesting Ipsos data shows how some of Labour's underlying polling is actually worse than Miliband's heading into the 2015 general election. But that might not matter, considering how far the Conservatives have tanked theguardian.com/politics/2024/…

I think one of the problems with the current debate is that it suggests we need reasons and evidence to ban phones in schools when actually we need reasons and evidence to let them in.

The burden of proof is all the wrong way round.

substack.nomoremarking.com/p/is-there-eno…

I think Sondre has probably been doing more groundbreaking data journalism than anyone else (in the world?) for a few years now, starting with the Economist’s excess deaths model during Covid. This award is both thoroughly deserved and long overdue!

This is incredible. World Bank comparison of how much a worker making $1,000 in Soweto keeps after taxes and transport costs vs a similar worker in Vietnam.

A damning indictment of both apartheid's spatial legacy and subsequent failures to expand public transport.

Pretty persuasive John Burn-Murdoch evidence that growing vehicle size is not the cause of America’s uniquely bad pedestrian safety situation.

ft.com/content/9c936d…

This Financial Times piece is the best examination of US crash deaths that I've seen in ages.

The US is so bad at this: 'Even after adjusting for distance driven, US fatality rates remain 2x the rich-world average.'

Here's a quick 🧵 to share insights (paywall).

ft.com/content/9c936d…

One of the things that frustrates me about the current debate around social media/smartphones/mental health is that it's very often framed as 'alarmist who wants action NOW' vs 'out-of-touch critic who only cares about 'data' & wants to wait for the evidence'. This is incorrect.

The brilliant Jennifer Williams wins broadsheet feature writer of the year at the #ThePressAwards

🚨🚨 UK planning system now officially so bad it is being satirised by American bloggers. 🚨🚨

Scott Alexander on the money again.