“Blair may be creating new realities, but few would want to inhabit them.” - excellent piece from Oliver Eagleton on Tony Blair’s imperial fantasies www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I’ll be interviewing Cahal Moran (that’s @unlearnecon.bsky.social to people on here) at the Conduit Club next Thursday about his new book, Why We’re Getting Poorer - you can sign up here: www.theconduit.com/upcoming-eve...

(research by @cmmonwealth.bsky.social)

We hear a lot about privatisation, but rarely are the numbers laid out so starkly: £193bn paid to shareholders and private equity firms, a £250 premium for every citizen. Only Russia, Hungary and the Czech Republic have shed public wealth faster than Britain www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

This is a great story.

New piece: been working on this for the best part of a year. But really it's trying to draw on everything I've seen and thought about since I first started reporting on far right politics in the late 2000s. Online now and in tomorrow's LRB.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

thanks Alice!

“I felt there was a need to bring to third world countries God’s principles of running an economy” is just one of many jaw-dropping lines and plot twists in this gripping @hettieobrien.bsky.social long read www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

if i were very very rich i would be so terrified by this piece i'd hire a private investigator. happily i am not so i can enjoy it for the brilliant piece of writing it is @hettieobrien.bsky.social
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

I’ve been piecing together this Guardian long read for over a year - about a thoroughly plausible, utterly crooked lawyer who pretended to be the perfect gentleman while he spun a web of deceit. Thanks to @davidedgarwolf.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Today’s Guardian long read is an absolutely stunning piece of reporting and storytelling by @hettieobrien.bsky.social about a gentleman lawyer who was not what he seemed…

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Brilliant piece. Some fine lunchtime reading

Thanks Henry!

Take some time today and read this incredible story, by @hettieobrien.bsky.social and then tell me you don’t want to read a whole book about it.
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

You should read this fantastic article by @hettieobrien.bsky.social. It's got it all: crooked lawyer, inept British police, sordid offshore behaviour.

theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

I’ve been piecing together this Guardian long read for over a year - about a thoroughly plausible, utterly crooked lawyer who pretended to be the perfect gentleman while he spun a web of deceit. Thanks to @davidedgarwolf.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

if i hear the word “playbook” once more, i’m gonna explode

“I have lost count of the number of times a self-identified climate progressive has explained to me that our individual consumption and emissions are irrelevant” - this excellent piece from @brettchristophers.bsky.social is worth your time:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

"Industry executives told the Financial Times the deregulatory push was akin to “doubling demand” for the private capital industry..."

Currently state plans (pink) are the main conduit for retirement capital to get into PE hands. Now they're eying green and orange. Prize is huge, and they'll win.

Many months spent reading + meeting + emailing + party planning @whitingfoundation.bsky.social have led to the best part of the job - announcing a terrific cohort of nonfiction writers at work on books that will change lives. Read all about it! whiting.org/nonfiction

it really delivers!

two pints for £5.80? Even if the beer sucks, I’ll drink to that!

"It is a strange kind of businessman who avidly accrues property, only to let much of it moulder – but Smith has a strong claim to being Britain’s strangest businessman" - this long read on the Sam Smith pub empire is an absolute delight: www.theguardian.com/news/2024/de...