Joel Budd

As James has observed before, EU migrants to Britain are also ethnically diverse—especially in the younger age groups.

Grisly recording reveals bat catching, killing and eating robin mid-flight Before the Spanish study, some scientists had been sceptical about the mammals attacking migratory birds

This is nuts. Do read while eating.
www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

It’s fine. Most of them are deactivated. I nearly always have more than 30 tabs open.

My main memory is that the climbing ropes in my primary school were (I am sure I am right about this) 100ft high.

which measures the extent to which the state tries to change society and culture (Denmark is very interventionist, so extreme by that measure; Britain leans the other way, as--I think--does France). But Britain is really unusual in the third sense, i.e. integration is rapid.

I like this. Sometimes I think about multiculturalism in 3 dimensions: ideology, policy and outcomes. Britain isn't all that ideologically extreme--it's not as multiculturalist in principle as Canada, nor as anti-multiculturalist in principle as France. It's more unusual in the second dimension...

Are You a True New Yorker? Take Our Quiz Think you know the landmarks, legends and lore of the city that never stops reinventing itself? See how well you measure up.

This Briton scores 16/25. Any New Yorker who scores lower needs to leave immediately.
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Chart showing political characteristics of current Don't Know groups.

What’s notable about Tory don’t knows is how they’re just Tories. They look like loyal Tories, think like them, and don’t like any other party. The only point of distinction is liking Badenoch a lot less, but otherwise basically 1m easily win-backable votes for the party.

Robyn, Honey

Art Tatum and Ben Webster

Ryan Davis, New Threats From the Soul

Joanne Robertson, Blurrr

Testing the pop-culture fragmentation theory

The 10 year wait for Indefinite Leave to Remain will make the UK very unattractive for high skilled workers who often have alternatives. 2019 data (excluding the NHS and universities) shows that high skilled workers on visas are heavily concentrated in multinationals who can move jobs abroad (5/x)

Crazy numbers for Reform supporters from the managerial group, both on the "white Britons are discriminated against" proposition and the "men are discriminated against" proposition.

Labour has decided to stop punching its own voters Sir Keir Starmer has embraced peace and love of the party’s hippy base

No more hippy punching. Starmer decides to stop punching its own voters in the face www.economist.com/britain/2025...

@ananyo.bsky.social will not mind confirming (if he remembers) that I once asked him how to pronounce his name, and he said: Do not try. It is impossible.

Feeling very badly for the authors of that report. Pushed out on a Sunday, it got little attention. Even I haven’t written about it yet, and a report on new towns to me is like catnip to a cat.

Sir Keir Starmer declares a battle for the soul of Britain The Labour Party takes aim at Nigel Farage and Reform UK

Aux armes, citoyens!

On Starmer's headspinning change of strategy, and a rather Macron-like attempt to force a showdown between liberal Britain and Farageism.

www.economist.com/britain/2025...

Ooh, yes please! Not sure why the publisher decided not to indent the paragraphs, but it has created a book about Leicester council housing, so all is forgiven.

Calais police up their game but migrants board bigger boats This migrant camp in northern France has ‘never been so busy’, despite efforts from both sides of the Channel to get a grip on small boat crossings

Good piece. The UK line that smugglers are using bigger boats because it has become harder to get boats and engines to France seems a little unlikely. The bigger the boat, the bigger the profit margin.

www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Yes, it’s a daft idea. But it did give us a spectacular city centre, recently restored to its modernist glory and now one of Britain’s finest.

Get rid of the e-bikes though.

So much of the discourse is just people expressing views that are entirely typical for their age group, and insisting they are being terribly original.

I’m trying to remember when I last saw a policy announcement on a non-urgent matter being made on a Sunday.

British men are driving less, and a culture is vanishing Farewell to the road warriors

Farewell to the road warriors

Donald Trump is trying to silence his critics. He will fail econ.st/3Kl4pNZ

Absolutely not. Britain came up with the migrants-eating-beloved-animals meme ("Swan bake", The Sun, 2003). And which country pioneered irresponsible speculation about medicines and autism? America is a re-exporter.

Blighty newsletter: Nigel Farage makes a foolish mistake Joel Budd, our social-affairs editor, on Reform UK’s latest intervention on immigration

Wrote this yesterday. To be clear: the "foolish mistake" referred to here is an immigration policy (I argue that Nigel Farage doesn't understand how Britons think about migrants). Not today's stuff about painkillers, which is also a foolish mistake.
www.economist.com/britain/2025...

Labour says chill out, probs can’t happen

MHCLG estimating that "196,500 net additional homes have been delivered in England between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025".
The numbers are heading in the wrong direction for the government to get anywhere near their 1.5m target and they'll be lucky to hit 1m at this rate.

Unhappy findings here. 28% of ethnic minority Britons feel less safe than they did a year ago (14% feel more safe). Many, especially Bangladeshis and Pakistanis, see the lamppost flags and graffiti as a sign of rising far-right nationalism. OK, small sample.

Britain’s attempts to stop asylum-seekers have failed so far A new scheme might change that

Why tough measures intended to deter asylum-seekers from reaching Britain have failed, and why the new scheme might have a greater effect
www.economist.com/britain/2025...

Outrageous lies of a certain type were easier before people had phones and the internet.

…on the tarmac for hours. Increasingly alarming announcements are made, culminating in “the roof of air traffic control in Houston has fallen in, asbestos discovered, all US flights grounded.” After much time a new crew member joins the plane, says “sorry, dunno what that was all about, let’s go.”