Rich Greenhill

1/ Tomorrow (4 March), MPs will vote on in-year spending changes the House of Commons Library calls “significant by historical standards”.

Through the Supplementary Estimates, the Government is seeking an extra £36.9bn in day-to-day spending – a 6.8% increase on last Summer’s plans.

It's probably this and everyone should read it.

jwmason.org/slackwire/po...

“The beloved fictional serial killer” 🫣

Amazing vox pop on the 6 o’clock news. Woman buying fish in Waitrose: ‘I won’t buy mackerel if it’s being overfished’. Reporter: ‘But you’re buying it now’. Woman: ‘Well, it’s already dead’

A very quick bit of research, using this table
statutes.org.uk/site/collect...
to see how much material from the Interregnum (1649-1660) is in the English Reports.

Answer: not a lot, seemingly just vol. 82, King's Bench 11, has reports from that time.

Christchurch 1993: By-election Campaigning in the Glare of the Media - The History of Parliament On Thursday the voters of Gorton and Denton will elect their new MP after weeks of media speculation. This by-election had huge attention before it was even

Posting again my article on the 1993 Christchurch by-election as voters go to the polls in Gorton & Denton today. Fascinating reflections from the two main candidates Diana Maddock & Lord Hayward in our interviews. Seems like today's vote will be much closer!
historyofparliament.com/2026/02/24/c...

The Representation of the People Bill: contours of the debates to come The government’s long-awaited proposals for electoral reforms, published last month, will receive their first scrutiny in the House of Commons next Monday. Ahead of that debate, Alan Renwick analyses which of the bill’s proposals – and omissions – are likely to spark most contention. He suggests that pressure to strengthen the bill will be intense on multiple fronts.

NEW BLOG: The Representation of the People Bill: contours of the debates to come

Ahead of the bill's second reading on Monday, @alanrenwick.bsky.social covers 'astonishing weaknesses', an idea that is 'indefensible in a democracy' and another 'breach of such a basic democratic principle'.

Why is the design of social media so corrosive of the relationship between citizen and state? And what can we do, before it's too late?

Great to be back in the @newstatesman1913.bsky.social developing the argument in my new paper for @demos-uk.bsky.social

An important reminder (that there are insights to be gleaned from the UK's different jurisdictions as the UKSC is due to hear the Campbell appeal later this year) from one of the leading authorities on UK Law Officers 👇

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Diary of a Madman by Nikolai Gogol An insight into the mind of a man sliding into madness. Read by Kenneth Williams.

Good morning. Radio 4 Extra are celebrating the centenary of Kenneth William's birth.

At 10.42am you can hear his version of Nikolai Gogol's, incredible "Diary of a Madman", a story which directly influenced Chris Morris & Robert Katz's Rothko monologue/My Wrongs film

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

How far back in time can you understand English? An experiment in language change

If you liked this experiment, I published a full piece today in the same vein: a text that gets 100 years older with every section, from a modern blog post to a medieval chronicle.

It's a single story spanning 1000 years of English. See how far you get.

www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-far-ba...

Think of how bad things must be for a Supreme Court Justice to feel he has to explain why it's a good idea to have laws enacted by legislators instead of decreed by wannabe dictators

Help us improve Open Government Licensing guidance The National Archives oversees the UK Government Licensing Framework, helping both public sector information providers and people who re-use this data to understand their rights and responsibilities. ...

If you’re interested in open government data, please read (and repost) www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blogs/digita...

NEW: Margaret Bondfield was the first woman to serve in the UK Cabinet. So why is she almost forgotten?

On the latest episode of Parliament Matters, we are joined by @nansloane.bsky.social to discuss her new biography of this pioneering political figure.

🎧 Listen now: buff.ly/RYXZLuB

The paradox of work In the late 1930s, the Roosevelt administration embarked on a curious project. Officials hired thousands of unemployed writers to produce guidebooks, children’s books, local histories, collections …

The paradox of work
timharford.com/2026/02/the-...

This one is quite a journey...

Global Rat Distribution Map showing no rats in some of the Arctic, Antartica, and also Alberta

41. There are no rats in Alberta.

“This sentence may seem like a metaphor or ideological symbolism, but there is really no fancy wordplay intended”

wildlife.org/why-are-ther...

Also this one soon after

OpenAI admits AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable, not just engineering flaws In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limi...

OpenAI ”acknowledged in its own research that LLMs will always produce hallucinations due to fundamental mathematical constraints that cannot be solved through better engineering, marking a significant admission from one of the AI industry’s leading companies.”

You can’t trust chatbots.

YouTube video by a bagel ''There Is Somebody Underneath Me!'' (1980 World Puppetry Festival)

reminds me of this one from a Puppeteers convention where Fozzie finds out he is a puppet www.youtube.com/watch?v=Blzm...

NEW EPISODE: What happens when you defy the party whip?

Labour MP Neil Duncan-Jordan joins us to reflect on rebelling over Winter Fuel Allowance cuts, being suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party, and calling on Keir Starmer to resign.

🎙️Listen now - links in post below 👇

Once again, there is still no alternative: the costed proposals for Restoration and Renewal of the Palace of Westminster The Restoration and Renewal Client Board’s latest report once again confirms what Parliament has known for nearly a decade: the cheapest, quickest and safest way to restore the Palace of Westminster i...

Thanks to @hansardsociety.bsky.social for inviting me to write about the costed proposals for the Restoration & Renewal of the Palace of Westminster www.hansardsociety.org.uk/blog/restora... 2026 marks 10 years since I started researching R&R, so good to know it'll keep me busy for many, many more

6 Prime Ministers since 2010
Now Keir Starmer is under pressure — again.
Why does the UK burn through leaders so fast, and can anything fix it?

🎧 buff.ly/RPrVzpd

The House will be structuring the SAVE Act as an amendment to a Senate bill, so that the Senate doesn’t have to deal with a debatable motion to proceed.

But you can filibuster a motion to proceed even if it’s nondebatable, such that it becomes necessary to use cloture:

Beware invisible law An interesting aspect of domestic law-making is what I think of as the “invisible provisions”. Here is an example which finally made it off the statute books recently. If, prior to the last week, y…

In case @johnlsheridan.bsky.social is bored one rainy afternoon

The generalised case of the oddity I mentioned a while ago

Say what you want about the current Olympic logos et al, few things will beat this banger of a design found in Canada's STILL ON THE BOOKS Olympic (1976) Act (S.C. 1973-74, c. 31)
laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/O-9...

Federal judge: "The presumption of regularity that has previously extended to [the United States Government] that it could be taken at its word—with little doubt about its intentions and stated purposes—no longer holds."

This is in a case where the Trump admin sued Oregon.

Sir Guenter Treitel came to the UK on the Kindertransport. He became the foremost authority on English contract law.
Famously, he held the Rolling Stones to their contract to play the Magdalen Ball in 1964 for £100 - they had suddenly become superstars after being booked as unknowns in 1963.

WESTERN PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT …of the human Person, while the divine Person, who was God, had no mother. On this question the Church was divided: roughly speaking, bishops east of Suez favoured Nestorius, while those west of Suez favoured St. Cyril. A council was summoned to meet at Ephesus in 431 to decide the question. The Western bishops arrived first, and proceeded to lock the doors against late-comers and decide in hot haste for St. Cyril, who presided. “This episcopal tumult, at the distance of thirteen centuries, assumes the venerable aspect of the third oecumenical Council.” As a result of this council, Nestorius was condemned as a heretic.

an oecumenical matter archive.org/details/dli....

Recommended Options Discounted Options Full decant EMI + Continued Presence EMI Total Programme duration 19–24 years 38–61 years 33–45 years 52–84 years Total Programme cost (including optimism bias and risk but excluding inflation and opportunities) £8.4–11.5bn £11.8–18.7bn £9.7–13.7bn £12.0–19.4bn Average annual cost (excluding opportunities) £440–490m £310–310m £290–300m £230–230m Highest annual cost (including opportunities) £600–760m £430–530m £460–620m £360–410m Total Programme cost (including optimism bias and risk and inflation but excluding opportunities) £11.1–15.6bn £19.5–39.2bn £14.4–22bn £23.3–56.3bn Net present cost £4.2–5.7bn £5.1–6.6bn £4.6–6.4bn £4.5–5.5bn House of Commons Chamber decant period 8–10 years For up to two years to the House of Lords Chamber 11–15 years to the House of Lords Chamber The Chambers are not expected to be decanted. House of Lords Chamber decant period 12–15 years 8–13 years 24–33 years Parliamentary business Delivered with changes in the location and proximity of spaces and services which will require consideration of new ways of working. Delivered with changes in the location and proximity of spaces and services which will require consideration of new ways of working. For areas of continued occupancy there is a risk of later need for an unplanned decant, including for core parliamentary business functions (such as the Chambers or services directly supporting them) if disruption becomes intolerable.

And here's the costed proposals for Restoration and Renewal. Two options recommended: full decant and EMI+. Full decant will be cheaper and quicker - staying in the Palace during the works will means it takes up to 61 years and costs up to £18.7bn. Full link committees.parliament.uk/publications...