Andrew Lodge

Yes, you’re right - that’s the issue. It’s funny, but irritating too.

Excellent article. My first thought was also of Alistair Darling, who seemed only to want to do what the right thing in the public interest was.

I thought that too. It’s not really a Ponzi scheme. But one defence of the term: I suppose Ponzi schemes suck you into bad behaviour: your incentive (if you know what’s going on) is to sell to an unwitting buyer. Here people were tainted by involvement, wanted others to join. But it’s not a Ponzi

If true, that’s a real bind: rising house prices needed to improve sentiment of older generations (who vote more); younger generations angrier. I tended to think this will all unwind with a “great decumulation” of assets in 2040s or so (Charles Goodhart wrote along these lines). But inheritance…

Good point. I tend to assume the UK is in more of a bind (you can’t reverse the broken scrambled egg of Brexit). But others are still facing the post-2008/EU debt crisis/pandemic challenges of high debt, wrong capital allocation, rich older population/ unhappy younger, high house prices?

Interesting point. Maybe because it’s the FT and Guardian in the lead (and they - grateful thanks - are mostly on BlueSky)?

Oh, don’t you start… My kids do that enough home.

Fantastic.

Interesting. I would have thought the “national security” angle would mean little release of much of the info once Mandelson was Ambassador. Is that the case?

Wasn’t he an economics Nobel Prize winner? Lovely fairytale. Nonsense.

The Glorious Coup doesn’t have quite the same ring.

Excellent article. Appalling situation the Labour leadership (Blair, Brown too) has got itself into with this.

I can see that. GB didn’t like being/feeling betrayed (e.g., his decades-long ignoring of Jonathan Powell)

Astonishingly brazen by Mandelson. Good that Alistair Darling stood up to it. He was a great person to be Chancellor. RIP.

It’s a rubbish version of Quantum Leap… you’re Sam Beckett and you need to help Britain to get a better version of Brexit.

Great work. Love the FT journalism.

Excellent podcast, thanks.

Great podcast, thanks. The point about Xi mentioning he liked “Palace” is amazing. Apparently (my Palace-mad friend tells me), they had the Chinese football captain playing for them in the 1990s.

Not a kind comment. Why would you do that? It’s a good podcast, btw.

I reckon Wes Streeting could do popular culture well. His Traitors response to negative briefing was super.

To be fair, TACO was coined (by @robarmstrong.bsky.social) at FT to describe a markets trading strategy, i.e., Trump chickens out when the markets tank. It still (mostly) holds true for markets, but it’s an unstable strategy (markets react - TACO - markets become complacent - Trump doesn’t TACO).

This seems right. But it was a wider shift in UK (English) culture, so maybe little the Tories could do. Tony Blair’s Labour in the late 1990s, pro-European, struggled to change the mood. I put it down to the post-war generation not knowing the wars and seeing relative decline, rightwing papers.

Yes, completely right. So back to @josephpolitano.bsky.social’s point on Canada: there has been an upstart populist party; and it ended up taking over the mainstream party (and becoming a broader right-wing party, ie centre-right plus populists).

Indeed, Canada has had more than one already. The People’s party, and in the 1990s, the Reform Party. Maybe because it was pre-social media, it never had quite the impact of today’s populist parties.

1. Carney really is a generational talent. Unusually talented as a policymaker (“leading central banker of his generation” - George Osborne)

2. Starmer is not. No criticism, few people are.

2/

Strongly agree here. Giving credible consistent guidance to markets helps lower funding costs. But surprising Reeves said this, it seems an unnecessary hostage to fortune.

Excellent interview with Mark Carney by @gideonrachman.bsky.social

Sorry, Mario Draghi (later Italian PM) was the first Chair for 18 months, then Carney.

Very interesting. I remember 2009-10 was the high point of global collaboration. There was a very successful G20 meeting which addressed the challenges of the crisis, the Financial Stability Board was set up by that G20 (first Chair - Mark Carney…).

Europe must not appease Trump on Greenland By capitulating again, the EU and UK would signal that we are now irrevocably in a might-makes-right world

@gideonrachman.bsky.social Excellent article mapping out why Europe needs a strong response. (It’s game theory - make a credible threat to a bullying threat). www.ft.com/content/2642... Europe must not appease Trump on Greenland