Best Of

What's the most alarming thing to me is that 2025 looks like it will have higher borrowing than 2021 which was a full pandemic year where tax receipts were down and we had huge subsidy schemes running. Labour have, in just one year, complete blown the budget to the extent that we're going to borrow more than when the government was paying millions furlough money.

It's a complete shit show, Liz Truss in slow motion.

Where is all the extra borrowing going? NHS, debt interest, ?

Some of it is debt interest, but mostly it's just payroll, welfare and pensions.

We're in a proper bloody mess. I'm sticking with the fundamentals being broken:
Cost of living crisis means less cash circulating which kills growth
Public services are simultaneously vastly expensive and delivering crap service
Society is fraying at the edges

Lets start with the cost of living - two massive drivers are energy and housing. We can't immediately fix housing - we lack both the workforce and the bricks to build sufficient housing even if people could afford to buy them. But we could declare war on the problem to at least get started.
We can do something about energy. Our leccy bills are absurdly high because we almost entirely set the price on gas, and as we have minimal storage its the spot price. Despite only using gas a quarter of the time for actual generation, it sets the price all the time. So do as Spain did and decouple. Easier to do outside the EU. Set the price based on what we are actually using for power generation and bills drop instantly. Which makes *everything* cheaper.

Starmer and the team are rabbits in the headlights.

In other news, my son starting secondary school has been a little bit of an eye-opener on the way education has changed in the near-35 years since I left school.

The school gives every child an iPad (*). But as parents, we get web access to his due homework, and the grades for completed homework. His attendance, twice a day. His full timetable and teachers for each class, his behaviour, and any detentions. Even what he chose for dinner.

This seems massively more information, and much more immediate, than my parents got from my schools.

Whether it improves grades or not is a different matter...

(*) Which we pay for, obvs.

I appreciate that this is how the world is now, and Medical Students wander round with iPads much the same.

Surely an essential part of parenting is letting go, and letting kids have some private life, make their own mistakes, learn the consequences of not doing homework on time etc. It all looks open to way too much over parenting to me.

I think it might enable more over-parenting, if parents are so inclined. I doubt I'll be going onto the portals every morning and afternoon to see if he's in school, for instance, but some may. And for the first few weeks I may check each weekend to see what homework needs doing. But if he manages to do it without me, I'll probably stop doing that. He needs to learn more independence and self-dependence as he grows older.

Yes, there may be negatives. But only if you use it in such a way. Otherwise, it may be useful information.

There is a growing body of evidence that "over-parenting" is part of the youth mental health crisis.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9811893/#:~:text=For example, an overparenting parent,on behalf of their child.

I am sure that parental neglect is an even bigger problem too. Getting the balance right of letting go, but being a safe loving haven is quite a challenge.

Yes, it reminds a bit of the somewhat romanticised view of past childhood where kids might be out for hours at 8 years old with parents no idea where they were, vs parents terrified of a teenager going alone to the local shop or something and helicopter parenting. Has to be a balance surely.

Independence was not much of a choice for many parents previously, of course. My poor mum certainly couldn't keep an eye on 4 kids by herself whilst working full time. Had some upsides and some downsides.

IMV it depends on the kid. Some kids are very self-reliant early, and other kids need more help. And it can vary not just from kid to kid, but also within a kid: one kid may be very able to sort out homework and schoolwork, but also be able to utterly lose track of time when out alone. Support them where (and when) they need support. It's a fine line.

Yes, probably too much rigidity on what the 'right' approach is, and of course parents are bombarded with thoughts on what is right or not, which is a recipe for second guessing trouble.

I was a firm believer in nurture over nature until I had kids.

Trigger warning for @TSE

Again, they're just copying MAGA.

This is good

No it is not.

FFS.

I thought you got all misty eyed about the honest toil of writing, in freedom, some scratchings for the Knapper, or liked to wander around London and enjoy the young as they cavort and mingle in simple pleasures free from the watchful eye of some guy with a mask and a gun.

Reform will bring this to England. They are not your friend.

Perhaps he'll be employed by the regime, writing Farage eulogies for the masked men to recite at sunrise.

As the sun set I stood briefly to salute the end of another day in england's great river journey, the ice cubes in my glass of victory gin jostling for a last look at the fading light before the Sardinian lemons floated to the surface.

It was then, as the first tears rolled down my face yet again over the astonishing victory of our Nigel against all the odds that I realised I was an hour late for a flight to Obscuria Land and HR terminal 5 might not have kept a further gin on ice for me. Hurriedly I returned to my flat where it was difficult to find the required luggage and passport due to everything being painted black or midnight blue.

And yet, despite these travails, I think Nigel's first months in office have been truly outstanding.

It has been such a triumph that sometimes I can even forget I voted for Labour in 2024.

@rivertam.bsky.social‬

Heard from a friend at Disney+ that there are multiple levels of freakout internally, both from internal dissatisfaction, concerns about subscription cancelations, and of course the big one: concern about a boycott spilling over into parks and cruises.

https://bsky.app/profile/rivertam.bsky.social/post/3lz4jniof7s26

The Twitter left are now talking about boycotting Disney over Fallon’s canceling. All rather funny.

It's not funny; it's an appalling fracturing of society which means that people will be ever more esconsced in their bubbles.

Don’t disagree, but the left have bought this on themselves with their reaction to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and their decade of supporting cancel culture they now think is abhorrent when it gets one of their own.

The moment you choose a side to blame, then you become part of the problem.

Well one side has spent the last week holding silent vigils and prayers, and the other side has spent the last week encouraging more violence. Those trying to “Both Sides” this are the problem.

When one side is calling for freedom of speech, and the other side is shooting dead the guy wanting to have a debate…

"The other side" ?
That's pernicious bullshit.

From his last few days in office on, Mike Pence has continued to gain stature.

Mike Pence: "We gotta be careful about putting America on trial whenever we see evil overtake the heart of any individual. In this case, absent additional facts, there's one person responsible for Charlie Kirk's assassination."
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1968668790738030830

There's much to dislike about him still, I have no doubt, but at least at the end, when tested, he held firm to some of his principles. Very few others have.

Interesting.

As a neurosurgeon I care a lot about road safety.

By now you’ve probably seen @Waymo ’s stunning safety results (like 91% fewer serious crashes). But they didn’t just publish data headlines. They released the raw CSV files and data dictionaries.
I did a much deeper analysis. A fascinating story emerges when you analyze how they’re achieving this.

This isn’t incremental improvement - it’s categorical. We’re looking at the potential elimination of traffic deaths as a leading cause of mortality.

The intersection breakthrough: Waymo has essentially solved intersection crashes, with 95% fewer injury incidents than human drivers in the same locations. That’s transforming the deadliest driving scenario.

The national math: If every US vehicle performed like Waymo, we’d prevent 33,000-39,000 deaths annually and save $0.9-1.25 trillion in societal costs. Even partial adoption at 27% would save ~10,000 lives per year. In terms of magnitude, this would be the equivalent of eliminating every pedestrian death nationally in a year.

The physics signature: Here’s what fascinates me: 47% of Waymo’s contacts involve less than 1 mph delta-V. They’re not just avoiding crashes; they’re converting unavoidable incidents into gentle bumps. It’s like having physics itself on your side.

We’re not talking about marginal safety gains. The data represents a fundamental shift from harm reduction to harm prevention.
https://x.com/slotkinjr/status/1968381717934391309