Stephen Fidler

4.6 Billion Years On, the Sun Is Having a Moment In the past two years, without much notice, solar power has begun to truly transform the world’s energy system.

“It took from the invention of the photovoltaic solar cell, in 1954, until 2022 for the world to install a terawatt of solar power; the second terawatt came just two years later, and the third will arrive either later this year or early next.” www.newyorker.com/news/annals-...

The old and exaggerated adage about Belgium’s military: a pension fund with an air force.

Stargazing .

I found this very moving. Thank you, @neildotobrien.bsky.social

h/t @semafor.com

open.substack.com/pub/almondtr...

Trump has done it

“How’s it going, Holy Father?”

www.thebaron.info/people/howar...

The Musk family. Such excellent judges of character.

Is that ‘rowing’ as in arguing?

With every year that passes, the Tory plan to deal with Farage once and for all by holding a referendum on EU membership looks more and more like a stroke of genius.

Opinion | Why Richard Armitage was the essential American The longtime national security official stood for U.S. alliances and allies. We could use him now.

So widely liked and respected, someone who belied the usual first impression. A senior Pentagon official described him to me as “Like Wagner, better than he sounds.” An appreciation by James Mann.

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Agree with this. Governments often prefer to feed stuff to lobby in the UK or White House hacks in US because they can’t be experts in every field, and hence less informed pushback. Brexit debate was almost completely intermediated in the UK press through the lobby and so wasn’t properly examined

You what?

I think he’s made a living turning socks into coat hangers

You might say Rest in Peace but I don’t think she’d like resting in peace.

Gwen Robinson, FT foreign correspondent and editor, 1960-2025 The Asia expert was known for her network of contacts, intrepid reporting and ability to handle big egos

Superb obit here of my friend and former colleague Gwen Robinson by @edwardluce.bsky.social - she was one of a kind. Probably had the widest network of contacts of any journo I have known. Lost far too soon. www.ft.com/content/ec0b...

A great shame. A fine journalist and nobody’s fool.

Having your econ team promote “lower aggregate demand” is definitely a choice.

@cnbc.com

He won’t live for ever but it’ll seem like it

My first guess for a future Trump pardon: Elon

Turning on the cricket for some light relief. Oh.

Agreed on the increase in exports from Asia, some replacing China, as I mentioned in my thread. These are US stats. Unsure of volumes of US-UK gold trade or of any reason they would have shrunk permanently post-2017.

Clearly part of the picture is some shifting from China to other countries, particularly in Asia.

Update from Karl Russell

Original here. In Trump world, imports are bad. Maybe UK isn’t important enough to bother about.

www.nytimes.com/live/2025/02...

This from the NY Times shows, among other things, how the UK’s share of US imports collapsed around 2018, and the UK fell from sixth to 12th place. Is there a good explanation for why? General post-referendum shrinkage of the export sector? Anyway, UK hasn’t needed tariffs to cut exports to US.

What a dirge is Flower of Scotland.

The only serious argument was political. My question always was, for the economic costs we would inevitably pay (with a smaller than otherwise economy and therefore lower public spending), what was the probability that UK decision-making would improve from its low base post-Brexit? 20% max?

Turns out it’s easier to win a cricket match with 12 players.

Solved

Peek

Nice tribute to a lovely man and fine colleague.

Xi Digs In With Top-Down Economic Plan Even as China Drowns in Debt As Beijing braces for a new showdown over trade, Xi Jinping is sticking with economic policies aimed at making China the world’s most powerful country.

And this.

“What’s so bad about deflation?”

www.wsj.com/world/china/...