Damien Smith

My handwriting is terrible and I don't really try to reread my own notes but I still find the practice of note taking valuable. (I still over-rely on my own memory though.)

the replies here are so confusing. all I've learned is "class" in the UK is neither the liberal understanding (income), nor the Marxist understanding (relationship to the means of production), nor the American political journalist understanding (lack of a college degree), but a secret fourth thing

Abundance as a form of High Modernism is something I've been wondering about for a while.

I sadly fear it's the latter. From Centre for Cities work on internal migration half of graduates end up in London, and there are far more graduate opportunities there. This could be because there are more HQs there but there does appear to be a difference in gradual labour demand and compensation.

It tastes like adulterated bread, though...

Mostly because of the different work they don't get paid the same. If you are doing client work your compensation would reflect the size of your deal-flow. (Not defending this; just saying it's an explanation.)

Your point b) could apply to a lot of tradeable service sectors. The people working for Deloitte (say) in London may be doing different, cross-border work to staff based in Bristol.

Charlie Kolar, Tyler Higbee and Foster Moreau.

Ice is also the next frontier - the UIAA is making a strong push for ice climbing to be in the 2030 Olympic programme.

Ranked-choice voting can enable multi-party parliaments (see Australia for the leading example). On the second point, most people don't care about*intra*-party politics, which is what a two party system means in practice - still factions, but the divisions are internal.

The challenge here is that people see the state do big things in some places (build HS2, to name a salient example) and want the state to do the same in their area. This may be a category error but it's what "levelling up" was interpreted as...

All he had to do was *not* stand for reelection too...

Build the Rail! Save the Snails! How to speed up the planning system without trashing the environment

New post out:

We have a guest post today from the excellent @dsquareddigest.bsky.social.

"Build the Rail! Save the snails!"

Or how we don't need to sacrifice the environment to speed up our mad planning processes.

(Free to read)

open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/b...

Mendoza, Willis, then who...?

I was wondering whether becoming President of the European Council (after Costa) was Macron's next job...

Except Canada in 1976 and 1988. Not a single gold either time...

"As a 20-year-old student in Brussels, Louvrier had taken to hosting salons, inviting prominent European politicians to attend small gatherings, a surprising number of whom accepted." What? How?

I think his first campaign ("Hope") made many think Obama was more radical than the moderate Midwestern politician he actually was.

Florio has been pushing this for years, sadly.

Not TEN Saleh?

8 days before the election? Odd timing...

No worries! (Also seeing other responses to your thread which are clarifying things.)

Ah. I get you (and the group you were referring to). I thought you were talking about centrists who may not agree with RN or FdI politics but who business can be done with.

Is it not so much that people haven't noticed than think it will be more like Italy under Meloni?

I notice something similar in Bishops Stortford (where some friends of mine live). It's enough for everything someone working from home would want, especially if you have young children. You get a bit more when you have to go into London, but only a bit.

I suspect that this is also partly driven by commuting patterns. High streets that are close to major commuting rail stations are convenient for getting things but are easily passed by those who drive.

Levis or Rattler.

Including Mesidor?

Would you ever consider running for office?