FYI, this isn't a drill. British citizens are seriously stockpiling this time, convinced it's no joke. Announced on October 23, 2026 UK Prime Minister: "Stock up on water and canned goods right now".

#URGNTE El ministro de Defensa del Reino Unido: "Asegúrense de tener efectivo, agua y alimentos enlatados en casa" "Las familias con bebés deben preparar comida para bebés y pañales. Si tienen mascotas, ¡también comida para mascotas y agua!" (22 de octubre de 2026) El jefe del ejército advierte oficialmente a la ciudadanía que se prepare "para sobrevivir" "Vamos a dejar de endulzar la píldora. El mundo se está volviendo peligrosamente inestable a gran velocidad" El 22 de octubre de 2026, el ministro de Defensa del Reino Unido, Wes Streeting, apareció en un programa de noticias de la BBC (una cadena de televisión pública similar a la NHK en Japón) y dio una instrucción inusual dirigida a toda la población: "Preparen agua, alimentos y dinero en efectivo en casa de inmediato para varios días". ¿Por qué el máximo responsable militar ordena a los hogares civiles que hagan acopio de provisiones? Aquí está la verdad 👇 ・"Asegúrense de tener agua, latas de comida que no requieran calentamiento y efectivo en casa de inmediato" Se indicó que cada persona debe almacenar 3 litros de agua por día y latas de comida que se puedan comer sin usar microondas ni fogón, suficientes para varios días. Además, para el caso de que se corte internet y las tarjetas de crédito o pagos móviles queden completamente inutilizables, se exige tener "efectivo" en casa, así como baterías portátiles y linternas a pilas. ・El ministro de Defensa del Reino Unido declara oficialmente la amenaza de "grupos de hackers respaldados por estados o terroristas". El Reino Unido ya no oculta su política de enfrentar una "situación extremadamente peligrosa". ・"No lo esquive. Mire de frente la realidad de que el mundo se ha vuelto peligroso" Aunque tranquilizó diciendo que "no hay bombardeos inminentes para mañana", afirmó con rotundidad que "no hay forma de maquillar el hecho de que el mundo es más peligroso e inestable que antes". Apela a que no se debe depender solo del Estado o el ejército, sino que cada ciudadano debe prepararse para protegerse a sí mismo. En resumen, "el ministro de Defensa del Reino Unido advirtió en serio a la ciudadanía que, debido a posibles ataques terroristas de países enemigos o ciberataques, la electricidad, internet o los pagos bancarios podrían fallar en cualquier momento. No cierren los ojos a la realidad de un mundo más peligroso: preparen efectivo, agua y latas de comida ahora mismo para sobrevivir incluso si los pagos con móvil dejan de funcionar". #RTMasivo #UrgenteCOMPARTAN 👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼

BRITAIN AND FRANCE — some thoughts. British and French politics are now moving in different directions. Macron destroyed the French centre-left/right parties in the 2017 presidential election. They have never recovered. But Macron’s centrist movement hasn’t filled the vacuum. Nor, even as his failures multiplied over almost a decade, was there a renaissance of the centre left/left but the rise of more extremes — Mélenchon’s LFI on the Left, Le Pen’s RN on the Right. Latest polls indicate they will juke it out in the presidential 2nd round next May — with Le Pen the easy winner. In Britain the rise of Reform on the Right and the Greens on the Left since the 2024 election + the collapse of Labour/Tories in the polls suggested, if not a Left/Right polarisation like France, then a new politics of multi-party democracy. But 2026 brought a major correction — it’s been a dire year for Reform and the Greens, whereas Labour/Tories (but especially Labour under Burnham) have enjoyed something of a renaissance from their polling nadirs. So, as French politics increasingly becomes a choice between populist Left and Right, the mainstream centre left/right has become once again the story in British politics. With the most recent polls showing Labour in the lead, the Tories second, Reform third (and still slipping), Greens nowhere (along with LDs). At the moment Labour must be favourite to win an election (at least end up the largest party). Of course Labour/Tories are still a long way off their former dominance in share of the vote. But they are, at least for now, on the way back, which is more than can be said for their French counterparts.

This is it. Everyone is excited about AI. I'm not. AI is the biggest commoditizer of human capability we have ever built. Doctors earn more than cleaners because expertise takes a decade to acquire and judgment to apply. AI is going to make most of that expertise available to anyone, at marginal cost. The gap doesn't go to zero. But it shrinks. And the same thing happens in almost every knowledge profession. Programmers. Lawyers. Analysts. Traders. Designers. The taxi driver replaced by a robotaxi is the easy case. The harder ones are people who spent twenty years training to do something a model can now do in a second. The one corner of human life I don't see this hitting is sport. Nobody pays to watch a robot beat a human. The whole appeal is humans competing against each other. That's why nobody watches Deep Blue play chess anymore. From an investing perspective, the next decade plays out in three phases. Phase 1 is the buildout. Hundreds of billions in capex on chips, data centers, and energy. This is what's driving today's market. Phase 2 is the deployment. Productivity rises sharply, then deflation sets in as the cost of knowledge work collapses. Jobs disappear faster than the economy can replace them. Phase 3 is the social adjustment. Capital becomes more powerful than labor. The biggest winners are likely to sit where AI cannot reach. Real assets. Energy. Commodities. Precious metals. Scarce land. And there's something deeper than the economics. The Japanese have a word for it: ikigai. The reason you get up in the morning. Your vocation. Your purpose. The work that makes you feel needed. AI is coming for that too. Nobody has yet figured out what a healthy society does when most of its members no longer feel needed by anything. I might be wrong. I hope I am. If I'm not, the world is about to change faster than most people are ready for.

As an aside, IQ strongly correlates with walking speed. The correlation is, like, extremely significant. There are essentially zero outliers. Top quintile walkers are a full standard deviation smarter than bottom quintile walkers.

If a couple earns £300,000 between them ... … in the UK, they get to keep £182,000 … in Texas, they get to keep £224,400 That's why talent leaves the UK, and why talent goes to Texas

If a couple earns £300,000 between them ... … in the UK, they get to keep £182,000 … in Texas, they get to keep £224,400 That's why talent leaves the UK, and why talent goes to Texas

I can never understand how someone lucky enough to escape a poor and dangerous country, be welcomed with open arms into a beautiful country like France, and still have the balls to riot and loot. Fucking disgusting

I can never understand how someone lucky enough to escape a poor and dangerous country, be welcomed with open arms into a beautiful country like France, and still have the balls to riot and loot. Fucking disgusting

This sentence gives the entire article away: “In the west the technology comes with at least some effort to provide security and a benign intent – not so from China.” “Benign intent” is not a technical metric. It is an ideological confession. The author begins with the conclusion: West = benign. China = malign. Then he spends the rest of the article arranging facts around that prejudice. Chinese AI is cheaper? Threat. Open-weight? Threat. Competitive? Threat. Widely adopted? Threat. Chinese? Therefore sinister. This is not technology analysis. It is anti-China paranoia wearing a business-column costume. The funniest part is that the article accidentally admits the real problem: Chinese models are arriving at a fraction of the cost of US equivalents and giving users alternatives to expensive proprietary Western systems. And that is what terrifies them. Not “malign intent.” Competition. When Western technology dominates, it is called innovation. When Chinese technology competes, suddenly civilization itself is in danger. They are not afraid Chinese AI is evil. They are afraid it is good enough to make Western monopoly optional.

That’s a nonsense argument too. Yes, Brexit has probably reduced UK GDP growth, certainly in the early years. But by how much? That’s the key question. Most studies ascribe all UK growth shortfall to Brexit. Nothing to the highest industrial energy costs in the world or the reckless obsession with net zero, which has hollowed out industry. Nothing to the cackhanded economic policies of successive governments. Nothing to heading for European levels of tax and spend, a proven growth killer (as France illustrates all too clearly). Not that really is a nonsense.

Stockton-on-Tees, 1910. A bustling Edwardian town of around 50,000 people, where old and new rubbed shoulders. Electric trams rattled along the streets beside horse-drawn carts, while market traders, shoppers and even livestock filled the busy High Street. A fascinating insight of everyday life in an industrial northern town before the First World War. #EdwardianBritain #1900s #SocialHistory

The conclusion to my column in today’s Mail. Not designed to make friends!!

A day in 1960s London. A helpful policeman, hats, ties and tailored suits, classic red buses, waiter service, a drink in the pub, and glowing neon lights with delightful music especially composed by the wonderful @KateGarnerMusic.

The global debt crisis is set to get even worse: The US fiscal deficit is projected to widen to -6.1% of GDP in 2027, its largest since 2012, excluding the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021. This will be the biggest deficit as a % of GDP among the 5 major developed economies, including the UK, Germany, France, and Japan. Furthermore, Germany's deficit is expected to widen from -2.7% of GDP in 2025 to -4.1% in 2027, its largest since 2010, excluding the 2020 pandemic. Japan's fiscal deficit is estimated to more than triple, from -0.7% to -2.5% of GDP, its largest since 2022. The UK is the only economy expected to improve its fiscal position, with its deficit narrowing from -4.3% in 2025, to -3.1% of GDP next year, while France's budget gap is projected to widen to -5.2%. Deficit spending is only accelerating.

Everyone on a 30 year mortgage is going to quote this post angry

The growth is in the pounds. Not in your life. UK GDP in 1975. £115 billion. UK GDP now. £3.04 trillion. That is up 2,555 percent. In pounds. In gold. Down 55 percent. From 28 ounces a head in 1975. Peak 101 ounces in 1999. Now 13 ounces. They printed the money. They borrowed the money. They issued the credit. The number went up. The output did not. You work harder for less. Your wages buy less. Your house costs more. Your children will work harder for less than you. That is not growth. That is theft. The chart shows it.

Trump’s diesel deal with Putin makes no sense (it’s also immoral since it will fund the ailing Kremlin war machine). The US has no need of Russian diesel. It already refines more than enough for domestic demand — with 1.5m b/d for export. Russia has no diesel to export. Ukrainian drones have taken out a third of Russian refining capacity, turning Russia into a net importer of diesel (from India). The volumes involved are derisory. The initial Russian offer = 2.2m barrels. The US consumes 3.5m b/d. The price of diesel at the US pump is between $6/6.50. That won’t change before the midterms. The deal does nothing to help Trump in these elections. But it bolsters Putin and undermines Ukraine.