gilesyb.bsky.social
Former politico, comment writer, spread betting dealer, editor, now think tanker, consultant, baker of overly dense loaves.
I run five times a week so does that make me a Running Punk?
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I wish I had a good answer to it - was going to mine your book a bit, but I know you haven't been so glib as to suggest that is easy. But I guess there is some value in pointing at the problem correctly?
Glad you liked it
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Thankfully, I do think this government also has a philosophy of getting on with things. I was encouraged by today's Sizewell C announcement, for example. But they need to keep the pressure on.
Anyway, here it is. www.productivity.ac.uk/news/low-acc... 6/6
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Most of my time in government I thought things were hard for a reason. You don't want Spads with free rein to translate whatever they just heard straight into policy. The need to assess, allow challenge and so on are good.
But some things take way too long to decide, for self-imposed reasons 5/
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In particular, I think it daft to blame HMT for decisions, when it is a very politically-led department. See @instituteforgovernment.org.uk on The Treasury Orthodoxy. www.productivity.ac.uk/news/low-acc...
But ultimately, the frustration you feel AFTER government is of things being hard to do 4/
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My concern here: these are very familiar complaints, and I do hope that what Labour brings to the table is more than just a promise of a return to stolid, rule-bound, institution-led decisionmaking. That stuff is important, but it is difficult to pin a giant productivity problem on that 3/
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The standard take from such people - particularly when asking what went wrong this last 15 years - is to suggest the problem has been the opposite of these virtues. Political decision-making that ignores evidence. Institutions TRAMPLED on. And also (in slight contradiction) Treasury Control! Boo! 2/
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Btw I don't know enough to fully agree on SMRs, because I don't think any of us know what price they'll settle at. Are you confident?
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In other words, what's the opportunity cost of us having to wait so many more years for this or that asset? Because the net result of an economy-wide tendency to worry more about returns is visible in that dismal business investment chart
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My puzzled take: I understand the need for HMT to consider vfm, and opportunity cost: when I was in there, decisions simply to press ahead with nuclear or HS2 were balanced against what else COULDN'T be funded as a result. But I never detected where the element of *time* sat in the HMT calculus...
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Frustrating it's taken six years?
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very much not the point my appalling pun was trying to make, but a sincere thanks for dragging this thread back towards the politics....
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... in that it's not possible for kids today to buy property at the bottom of the Lawson bust and enjoy two decades of falling mortgage rates. One generation can't take apart in another generation's bull market)
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To be honest, Trump is so rarely in the media that I easily lose track of his various behaviours and proclivities
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It's because they're creating reality on the fly. As far as the model is concerned, what it told you is the most probable truth, and it's quite hard to force a reset mid conversation. It has no concept of reality other than the one it has hallucinated.
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A little more coverage of the party with 72 seats might be nice
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I think that they vulgarity may help make him relatable?
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Stubbornness and, paradoxically, self doubt
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I wrote editorials for the FT for a year and I'll admit that I didn't like being on the other side of the argument from him
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I think if he's still writing in thirty years his columns will still be original - though perhaps not the lifestyle angle, where his take feels fairly consistently the same : "you Philistines have mediocre taste and tiny horizons"