Best Of

The government is asking Apple and Google to prevent people from looking at nude pictures on their phones unless they submit to an age verification check:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/12/uk-to-encourage-apple-and-google-to-put-nudity-blocking-systems-on-phones/

It would seem Labour will not rest in their quest to age-gate the entire internet.

I propose the following. All communications between public servants shall be conducted on a government run platform.

I could get a fork of Signal ready for this, for a few million, in 3 months.

All communications will be archived and recorded.

*Attempting* to use other communication channels is Misconduct In A Public Office

People using Telegraph are using a government run platform.

Specifically, a Russian government run platform.

Afternoon all

In rural Derbyshire this week where today at least has been pretty bleak with rain on and off.

East Midlands Railway (EMR) got us here and to be honest not bad at all. A very busy five coach train which was taken out of service at Derby and everyone heading on to Chesterfield and Sheffield had to switch to another train on an adjacent platform at Derby but all well organised.

We’ve discovered we can now travel direct to Lincoln and Cleethorpes from our local stop - Mrs Stodge did wonder about the attraction of a December afternoon in the latter to which I could provide no real answer.

EMR is run by Transport UK who took over the Abellio franchises in the UK a couple of years ago.

More importantly, is there a train back from Cleethorpes?

Worth a read, the Economist leader, for those of you able to access Economist articles (limited monthly access or £):

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/12/11/can-anyone-stop-europes-populist-right

The doctrines of the populist right do indeed contain much to condemn. Yet talking about them in apocalyptic terms is doomed to fail. For their own sake, and for the good of their countries, mainstream politicians and their supporters urgently need a different approach.

If demonisation is failing, what is the alternative? The answer starts with that impatience for change which the populist right harnesses so successfully—and which this newspaper shares.

For Britain, France and Germany, European economic integration is the most obvious source of growth. Yet the populists are set on a collision course with the European Union, which would lead to growth-destroying degradation of the single market. On other issues, populists latch onto discontent, but propose solutions that are foolish.

If mainstream politicians spend it shrilly demonising populists, they will doubtless make themselves feel better, but they will not help their countries. They would be wiser to subject governments-in-waiting to the democratic scrutiny they deserve.

The Economist is completely wrong - European economic integration might do a tiny bit to boost economic growth, but it be lost in the noise, especially for this country. It would inevitably focus on manufactured goods, which are not where we have a comparative advantage, because liberalising services is much more difficult, both practically and politically, and services are less likely to be traded. Trade with the EU is a relatively small part of our economy - exports to the EU are only about 13% of GDP. And liberalising trade with the EU comes with all sorts of constraints on sovereignty, which are exactly what made Brexit more than a fringe movement in the first place, and was perhaps the second biggest factor, after immigration, in the rise of UKIP/Reform.

The most obvious way to boost growth is to focus on competitiveness throughout the economy - deregulating product and labour markets, getting malingerers off welfare and reducing the size of the public sector. Just cutting size of the state by 3% of GDP, reversing the planned increases since Labour took power, should increase GDP by 2-3% over the long run, more if it's done in a pro-growth way, and much more than any realistic boost from closer ties with the EU, whatever the more absurd studies say.

By "completely wrong" I think you mean "doesn't agree with my priors".

Mind you, we are all guilty of that.

If trade within the EU is so awesome, how come their growth is not rocketing?

It might help, but it’s not a panacea for the U.K.

Fishing reckons a possible 3% improvement in GDP through efficiency savings. This compares with the consensus by economists that leaving the EU has had a 6% to 8% hit to GDP so far due to loss of trade, investment and productivity. They aren't either/or. You can reduce welfare and stay in your most important market.

There is no such consensus in terms of the economic cost of leaving the EU - I have seen numbers from a 2% improvement to a 10-12% drop,, and even if there were it wouldn't make any sense (not for the first time in a consensus of economists).

Any economic cost to us from leaving the EU must be primarily because of reduced exports to the EU, or secondarily because of reduced investment associated with such exports. Any other effects are almost certain to be trivial Exports to the EU accounted for 12% or so of our GDP when we left the EU. To reduce our GDP by 6-8% directly would have meant that we had lost one half to two thirds of those exports. In fact, our exports to the EU have grown slightly since we left. Even allowing for multiplier effects, the idea that our GDP has been reduced sufficiently by leaving the EU is ridiculous.

One could, of course, argue that our exports to the EU and therefore our GDP would have shot up had we remained in the EU, and that is sort of the implication of the NBER and LSE research, though they are wise enough not to state that explicitly. But that doesn't really make sense either, because exports to a block are largely determined by its GDP growth, and the EU's GDP growth over the past decade has been dismal. So it is inconceivable that our exports would have increased by enough to account for anything like a 6-8% drop in GDP.

So the more extreme estimates for the economic cost of leaving the EU have no basis in reality.

My own estimate, derived with colleagues, is about 0.5-1.5% of GDP, mostly from delayed investment due to the delay in leaving the EU. But then you need to offset other factors such as the end of our huge net contributions to the EU and our ability to determine our own regulations and trade agreements. So overall it probably hasn't made much difference, certainly compared to the astonishing incoherence and incompetence of the current government's economic policies.