Jack Rowlett 🌐

Is it?

What?? She was a great writer and there are loads more women publishing science fiction than back then?

I deeply sad to see millennials getting into nostalgia slop.

The War on Hybrid Working is Boomerslop And this tells us a lot about Reform UK's priorities

Farage’s baffling war on hybrid working makes a lot more sense when you consider his audience. Those hoping Reform UK are going to shrink the state are going to be sorely disappointed.

open.substack.com/pub/ottersan...

Hearing it might be Ben Swain.

Farage Has Overplayed His Hand Or why I'm still bearish on Reform UK.

Reform UK’s success has been driven by appearing more moderate than they actually are.

This week’s immigration policy is out of step with public opinion. The fundamentals are soft and the party is celebrating victory too soon. My latest post 👇

buildvector.uk/p/farage-has...

Why Is UK Electricity So Expensive? And what can we do about it?

Britain’s electricity prices are among the highest in the developed world. This is a blight on living standards and the wider economy.

But how can we banish our scarcity mindset and embrace abundant, cheap energy? Today’s post is about exactly that 👇

buildvector.uk/p/why-is-uk-...

The West’s Age of Adjustment The longer we wait, the harder ageing will hit

The West is ageing fast.

Chequebook Pro-Natalism has failed to reverse falling birth rates and migration isn't a silver bullet.

This week's post is about what we should do instead:

buildvector.uk/p/the-wests-...

A Government For Blockers? Labour isn't building

I voted for Starmer's Labour believing they would finally tackle Britain's housing crisis.

But their decision to water down planning reform betrays their electoral coalition of renters and the young.

A grim omen for progress.

buildvector.uk/p/a-governme...

One-third of Lower Thames Crossing budget spent on planning documents More than £450mn used for obtaining permission for road tunnel scheme

The Lower Thames Crossing is a case study in Britain’s broken planning system.

£450mn - a third of the total budget - has been spent on paperwork before digging a single metre of tunnel.

on.ft.com/4jeSUUK

Tarriffs could very well be Trump’s undoing. Economically illiterate, and will push prices up for domestic consumers.

Let’s not forget he won the election because voters trusted him to lower prices more than Harris.

Where is Starmer's statement of support for Zelenskyy. No excuses. No equivocation.

British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has refused to comment on the Trump attack on Zelenskyy, the FT reports.

The only major European leader to do so.

America is no longer our strategic ally.

There is no salvaging this. We need to treat this like the national and continental emergency that it is.

Our top policy priority has to be strategic independence from the US.

“Have you ever been to Ukraine? Come once”

Huge balls. Huge respect. The right side of history

I’ve never seen anything as bad as that Trump-Zelensky meeting. JD Vance really is an odious third wheel.

Starmer been doing a good job so far; nauseating tho’ it is to see him larding on the praise on such a repulsive figure as Trump. But, his answer on Canada was shameful, implying he had no issue with Trump’s absurd, offensive claims on Canada. Starmer risks sounding overly sycophantic.

I said he implied it.

If there isn’t a divide between the two countries then by definition there isn’t a division over their approach to Canada.

I don’t think Starmer actually thinks that ofc. My point is that there *is* a division and Starmer was weak not to admit it.

All very pragmatic and blunted Reform/Tory attack lines. But medium term I don’t think being seen to be associated with Trump is going to be good for any British politician.

I’ve directly quoted what he said. He had the opportunity to speak out and chose instead to say there wasn’t a “divide” between UK and US.

Starmer just implied Britain has no qualms with the US annexing Canada. The media are “trying to find a divide that doesn’t exist”

Cowardice from the PM.

The old order is collapsing. Friedrich Merz— previously a staunch Atlanticist— is now calling for European strategic independence from the US.

Keir Starmer’s attempt to build a “bridge” with the US on Thursday may be redundant if nobody wants to cross it.

The UK Government's War on Privacy Everybody who uses the internet should be worried

The government has left Apple with no choice but to remove Advanced Data Protection from the UK.

I wrote recently about why the government is wrong. This move erodes our privacy without making us any safer.

If you use the internet you should worry.

open.substack.com/pub/ottersan...

It’s time for Western leaders to pick a side; they’re either with Ukraine and democracy or Trump and the demagogues.

Chaberlain was a colossus of deterrence compared to this

It’s impossible to fit all of Trump’s failings into 1000 words, alas. There are simply too many.

The Right’s Moral Reckoning Reflections After Democracy’s Darkest Week

The free world is on the brink.

This week, Trump began trading away Ukraine’s sovereignty, abandoning NATO, and inviting Putin back onto the world stage.

For the democratic right, this is a moral reckoning.

ottersandinsights.substack.com/p/the-rights-moral-reckoning

The UK Government's War on Privacy Everybody who uses the internet should be worried

My latest on the UK’s government’s fight with Apple over end-to-end encryption. We should all be worried about this anti-democratic erosion of our privacy.

open.substack.com/pub/ottersan...

U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts Secret order requires blanket access to protected cloud backups around the world, which if implemented would undermine Apple’s privacy pledge to its users.

Exclusive: Security officials in the United Kingdom have demanded that Apple create a back door allowing them to retrieve all the content any Apple user worldwide has uploaded to the cloud.

Netflix Isn’t Killing The BBC - The License Fee Is The BBC is in a financial mess, and ministers are scrambling to find ways of plugging the broadcaster's nearly £500 million annual deficit.

Wrote about the BBC's funding mess. Ministers want Netflix users to pay the license fee, but that won't fix a model stuck in 1946. Time to separate public service from entertainment.

commentcentral.co.uk/netflix-isnt...