obikirk.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Amen

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

I don‘t mean to be harsh, but I really think that a fundamental problem of UK Governance is that the entire debate surrounding it is focused on what is politically feasible in the short term and not on which issues/ threats need to be addressed, and fast. Your logic relies on a vanishing world.

submitted 8 days ago • 52 comments

🧵1/3 The team has been hard at work over the past month to transform the way #ONS presents the latest CPI (inflation) data. Please do share your feedback on this new preview website, especially on the new charts and "facts and figures" sections. nwp-prototype.ons.gov.uk/economy/infl...

submitted 13 days ago • 3 comments

- on.ft.com/41oPtDt via @stephenkb.bsky.social "The UK can’t defend Ukraine, its European allies or itself by telling Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Labour’s focus groups show that the most important pledges to 2024 Labour voters are fixing the NHS and keeping its promises on income tax"

submitted 15 days ago • 10 comments

Here's why Trump's "VAT is a tariff" claim is beyond stupid. But also why America's lack of VAT puts it at an unfair disadvantage.

submitted 19 days ago • 13 comments

The most important thread you'll read today. In brief: Europe has the power to save Ukraine and slip into the leadership position America has vacated. It must grasp it. And Europeans must pressure their governments to do so.

submitted 19 days ago • 45 comments

Ok folks, deep breaths. There is very real reason to worry about the dynamic emerging between Washington and Moscow when it comes to Ukraine. But there is also very real reason to believe that Ukraine and Europe can create a better outcome. (A rather long 🧵, obviously) /1

submitted 20 days ago • 72 comments

There's no magic answer to the funding gaps facing public services But there is something Labour can do that both fits within its fiscal rules and manifesto and could address the visible local decay: give more tax-setting powers to councils By me, for Bloomberg www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

submitted 21 days ago • 13 comments

It's amazing how many people, including MPs, don't realise just what Minimum Income Requirements mean, and the impact they have on families. More than half the UK population is basically ineligible to be with a foreign born partner, leaving families ripped apart. search.app/knp1jekwwRJP...

submitted 32 days ago • 10 comments

MiG-23/F-4 air intake design🧵 Whenever somebody brings up the MiG-23's intakes, there is always that one person who just has to say: "yeah, it's just a copy of the F-4's intakes, they even copied the number of boundary-layer bleed holes".

submitted 34 days ago • 1 comment

Probably my worst habit is to turn on social media when I first get up and feel least effective, so I get confronted with stories like "Chinese may sell TikTok to Musk" and I'm sitting there thinking "wtf, how do I fix that, how long do I have?" like some idiot.

submitted 50 days ago • 1 comment

Excellent reporting by @jenwilliamsft.bsky.social:

submitted 54 days ago • 5 comments

A very classy comment from long-term FT contributor Jurek Martin on the Peter Thiel piece: www.ft.com/content/a46c...

submitted 54 days ago • 1 comment

Not good for UK gov debt costs. Suspect the Spring budget is going to be brutal. US economy smashes expectations with 256,000 jobs created in December - on.ft.com/4gNnwLW via @FT

submitted 54 days ago • 0 comments

"To call the J-36 an airborne cruiser may not be far off the mark—and may call into question the West’s decision to prioritise development and production of fighters that are, by comparison, mere torpedo boats." www.aspistrategist.org.au/chinas-big-n...

submitted 57 days ago • 4 comments

The Maritime Approximation "Euler's identity describes an intimate and mathematical relationship between different fundamental constants. And now, thanks to the maritime approximation, we also have a loose and coincidental one." kevlinhenney.medium.com/the-maritime...

submitted 58 days ago • 1 comment

A) is dramatically underrated. People have forgotten that a fresh government with a big majority can simply do things! That’s how the system is meant to work

submitted 61 days ago • 9 comments

Elon Musk and Tommy Robinson some useful context in the FT

submitted 62 days ago • 20 comments

seriously: there is a GIF.

submitted 64 days ago • 0 comments

I note the estimated cost of this climate-friendly, regional economic inequality-busting transport infrastructure project is the same as latest cost estimates for the climate-trashing reopening of Hammersmith Bridge to cars so people can drive their SUVs between two of the richest boroughs in UK

submitted 67 days ago • 2 comments

On this special day, may all your wishes seem momentarily achievable x

submitted 70 days ago • 34 comments

submitted 70 days ago • 0 comments

Yup

submitted 82 days ago • 26 comments

"The use of either a large IRBM or an ICBM would not necessarily be of huge military significance given that – while they are much faster ... they tend to lack the accuracy to be employed with conventional payloads" www.rusi.org/explore-our-...

submitted 83 days ago • 5 comments

My column today is about the apparent contradiction between economists saying for years that immigration doesn't hold down wages, and now saying that deporting them will push up wages and inflation www.ft.com/content/2bb6...

submitted 85 days ago • 15 comments