Been awhile since I posted, mostly due to contracting a near fatal case of the plague. Luckily, I survived and managed to have some Christmas chocolate, recommended by most doctors.
Anyway, without further ado, here are some things I found interesting over the break:
- How the UK became ungovernable:https://overcast.fm/+ABOJ-83RV-I
- I absolutely loved Talking Politics with Helen Thompson and David Runciman, for my money it was the best current affairs / political podcast around. So having these two back with Galen Druke was an absolute treat, even if the content was unsurprisingly depressing. A couple of things to note:
- It was notable how scathing both HT and DR were of Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves as politicians, not just as individuals but as their complete inability to communicate what they believe in, and their refusal to tell the truth. Remarkable considering we lived through Boris Johnson, but in my mind everyone knew he was a clown – we got Labour in as they were the “grownups”, and instead we got the sanctimonious liars.
- Energy was the key highlight, unsurprising given HT book_Disorder_. Until the British political class reckon with the energy straightjacket we have self-imposed through net zero I expect further turbulence.
- The absolute hope of Labour on areas like AI, of which we have no real control over, and actively take measures to reduce control, through AI safety regulation and critically through energy prices
- A lot more, including on Europe, the USA, and China – definitely worth a listen
- A fantastic deep dive into the 1947 TCPA: https://open.substack.com/pub/danlewis8/p/dissecting-the-1947-town-and-country?r=22u0c&utm_medium=ios
- For the love of god, abolishing this and moving to a zoning system like Japan, or even devolving it to the regions, has to be the key priority, along with reforming the net zero act for any party serious about economic policy
- It’s quite staggering how immensely damaging this policy has been. I would argue it was less of an issue with councils able to build social housing, and low levels of immigration or even emigration in the UK. Still doesn’t make this policy any better.
- Rethinking Britain for the 98%: https://substack.com/@edrith/note/p-181658437?r=22u0c&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
- This is a great look into a part of that fairness disease I talked about in my UK overview post – the fact that we can’t ever negatively punish disruptive groups as the final result isn’t fair. This naturally leads to greater costs being incurred by the majority of society
- I have some vague ideas for a post about this but again, for politicians at the back, if you make life clearly harder for the majority of people, with a minority of absolute winners (who clearly do not share the same norms and views as the majority), do not be surprised when politics appears more febrile than ever
- The first party (perhaps already Reform, maybe some signs of the conservatives finally getting this) to decisively back the majority and is prepared to weather the pushback from removing advantages to these minority groups will become the dominant party of the UK. The pushback will be extremely loud, but ultimately it will come from a narrow electoral base
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