Retired Professor of Political Economy
(Lancaster University, UK - retired 2021)
(also #ProfDJ across the Lune Valley)
Contributor: North West Bylines #NoBridge
Agreement on a new cross-channel energy connector has stalled as France & the UK cannot agree on costs; the UK wants equal budget sharing for the construction; France thinks the UK should take on the bulk of the cost.
The French position is as for most (but not all) the time the UK is importing electricity generated in France, the benefits are gained by the UK & so the UK should cover the majority of the costs.
I'll leave it for you to decide if that's unreasonable!
@ChrisMayLA6 Oooh, but they really want that energy back when their nukes are having a bad time. Historically GB coal has propped up the FR grid significantly at least twice while I've been watching flows!
(Which proposed interconnector is this, please, I'm clearly missing a trick?)
I seem to recall Macron making some very public statements about how the UK imports a lot of energy and should be nicer to France a while ago. At the time, the existing connector was 100% saturated sending electricity to France. After a heatwave, they had to shut down a load of nuclear plants due to a lack of cooling. Others were shut down for maintenance.
Which is to say that the benefits go both ways, irrespective of who normally imports the power.
That said, a large area near the Dordogne has been without power for two days due to flooding, so I don’t think this week is a good time for the French to lecture anyone about electing infrastructure.
So while the proscription remains in place to allow some further legal argument & a possible appeal by the Govt. for now the High Court has concluded (on two out of the four counts raised) that Palestine Action's proscription was unlawful.
The proscription did not fully follow the Govt.'s own rules on proscription & the proscription also failed by contravening, Articles 10 & 11 of the ECHR.
Meanwhile the National Gallery seems to have caught the UK universities' disease; plenty of money for capital projects but a projected deficit on running costs, leading to a voluntary severance programme (followed by forced redundancies if not enough staff depart).
Despite gaining £150m for a new extension, the NG will be shedding staff & day-to-day activities.... just like many universities.
As so often its easier to raise money for capex, than for payroll!
@ChrisMayLA6 My experience working for a local authority teaching service tells me that someone important's pet project- usually that means CapEx but could be a new team- will get funding. Continuity of existing services, especially the boring, routine day to day stuff of getting people protected, fed,educated etc. is much lower priority unless someone is shouting for it (read; politically popular). And no budgeting for a new CapEx project ever includes thinking about the future running costs.
@ChrisMayLA6
@BashStKid When I was doing PGCE it was hard not to miss that our highly regarded post-grad education dept was a leaky old house, off campus, full of hand me down equipment, too small for more than 50% of the students, so we rotated. The Law and new Medical depts were not highly regarded for a Russel Gp uni But no expense was spared. My favourite bits were Law's oak panelling, obviously sourced from various sales & the little bits of ivy being trained up the stone effect walls.
So far Brexit looks to have cost the UK between 4-6% GDP per capita, with the negative impact continuing to compound as GDP growth remains weak compared to similar countries.
This chart should be shown each time Nigel Farage tries to make out its been a success (or if not, its not his fault). Brexit was clearly his project, its clearly cost the UK dear (in economic terms) & he should be reminded of this fact continually & publicly
Chart: UK GDP compared to similar countries before & after Brexit Referendum.
Shows UK GDP broadly in the middle of similar countries' trend then sinking to below the aggregated range fo comports counties
Full chart & details:
https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/googles-investing-the-economic-cost?utm_campaign=email-half-post&r=4zlk2w&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Jonathan Coe's self-consciously 'state of the nation' novel The Proof of my Innocence (2024) tracks the period of Liz Truss' PMship to frame a murder story told in three styles intended to be an exercise in multi-voice fiction (but is also all a bit 'meta' as young people say). Its reasonably enjoyable, but is very much an established writer doing what he's known for without any real compelling idea at its heart. Good but not great!
The Far Right's attack on democracy & free speech (under the banner of protecting it) were all on show at the seventh annual Transatlantic Summit of the Political Network for Values in Brussels this week.
This is where far right alliances are cemented, policy approaches shared & politicians emboldened in their political stance.
Sian Norris' report for Open Democracy makes the links between the PNV & practice found in the Epstein Files clear!
Its perhaps unsurprising that the Tangerine Tyrant has reversed a ruling on the link between greenhouse gases & pubic health; the Obama administration's 'endangerment finding' underpins much of recent US environmental regulation (especially in the automotive sector).
The impact will be varied (from health to economic) but reflects Trump's scepticism about climate change.
Like tariffs however, it seems likely that MAGA voters will be paying the price?
@ChrisMayLA6#MAGA has to be one of the biggest #con jobs ever! You have to give it to the wealthy for managing to convince the poor to keep themselves poor while voting to ensure the rich get even richer!
As the BBC prepares to appoint a new Director General, Anne McElvoy hopes (demands?) this will be the time that a DG takes the problem of women's roles in the state broadcaster seriously.
Women, as has been established, suffer from both ageism & sexism in the allocation of public-facing roles at the BBC. Can a new DG reverse this prejudice or will it look like a secondary task compared to 'saving' the BBC (when, of course it its actually part of it).
As an FT OpEd concludes: 'America is embracing an Orwellian definition of freedom. The rest of the west will survive only if it can muster the courage to defend freedom’s true form'!
In other words, as is already starting to happen, countries need to push back on the Tangerine Tyrant's lies & disinformation, while focussing on the damage his administration is doing to the internal politics of the USA.
@ChrisMayLA6 I had a great discussion a long time ago about Jefferson with a customer. I didn't know he was a university dean, and he insisted they hire me.
I think they have been recruiting very different people since then, and they work overtime.
We joked about the replacement of education with training, but it's not so funny.
We have good soldiers now.
Latest UGov polling suggests that ReformUK Ltd's national support has plateaued, but remains higher than any other party (at just on 30%)... although Nigel Farage's personal ratings have dipped in recent weeks.
How this will impact on the Gorton & Denton by-election where currently opinion favours the Green Party remains to be seen.
However, it continues to be clear that Reform's support is substantial & has not been dented by Labour's adoption of some Reform-like policies.
@ChrisMayLA6 I do wonder what the legacy of New Labour's education, education, education policy was/is. Are the teenagers of the 2000s the supporters of Corbyn and Polanski now? Or of Brexit and Reform? (my money is on the former).
Interestingly this week there have been a flurry of stories about sectoral shares being hit by (a range of) concerns regarding the impact of AI on various economic sectors (primarily but not exclusively in the US).
This has (again) stoked the volatility in US share prices, hinting/implying that the AI-related crash waiting in the wings may be about to step into the daylight.
The next few weeks may confirm what many critics have expected - a rush for the exit.
The Govt. has awarded nurses & other NHS staff a 3.3% pay-rise (well imposed without concluding negotiations with the unions) but Wes Streeting has indicated that the rise will need to be funded (again) within already agreed budgets - so that's more cuts then.
It may also mean less money for a Resident Doctor's award, while other NHS staff are not happy the RD's settlement might actually be negotiated (separately); not imposed.
@ChrisMayLA6 How about redeveloping that big old Houses of Parliament complex? (Which is going to cost a bomb to do up) Not selling it off but renting it out? Might make a few regular quid for the country. Government could then be moved to a cheaper location elsewhere in the UK. 🙂
Here in Stroud (Gloucestershire, UK) people have been looking at community ownership, community energy (funded through the co-operative movement) etc.
Pubs have been bought, and some community buildings are covered in solar panels.
Changing directors' fiduciary duties would not in itself be enough. Shareholders own most companies and appoint directors - and they have enforceable legal rights, including against having their financial returns compromised, quite apart from the directors' fiduciary duty to them.
My view is that corporate governance needs reform in 3 areas...:
Governance: widening the legal duty of directors of limited liability companies to act not just in the interests of shareholders, but also of employees, the wider community, and the natural environment.
Representation: for larger businesses, elected employee and community representation on the board, and tax incentives for the extension of ownership to employees and other stakeholders.
Reporting: social alongside financial auditing; the bigger the business, the more detailed the reporting and audit requirements, including - for the very largest - supply-chains.
Note there have been (fiercely resisted) moves in this direction, such as the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. China has a very differently structured corporate sector from 'the west' - two-thirds of all Chinese businesses are state-owned; there's a lot of employee-ownership in the other third, and almost every business of any size has a political committee directly linked into the state - so I think the EU could introduce such reforms together with China, and I think many other countries would follow.
Given the current urge to disengage from the particularly exploitative US-Russian oligarchic form of capitalism, it's a door that might be ajar - if the EU and China can grasp that in terms of economic organisation they are natural allies, against the US model.
Two charts that map the shift in UK exports - with the UK's economy the second largest exporter of services in the world (behind the US), we might say that politicians obsessed with manufacturing are mistaken.
or conversely we might wonder what happens when you are dependent for foreigners for so much of your material goods (including food)?
Given shifts in the global political economy's character in the new millennium, over-dependence on trade may now look more risky?
Chart 2: the share of good in UK exports is falling; rolling 12-month sum in current value, % of total UK exports - shows slo convergence from 2000 when services were only just over 30% of exports, to 2022 when they were equal, and into 2025 when services reached nearly 60% of exports
@ChrisMayLA6 Purely anecdotally, I recently had to buy some slippers, an automated water pump, and some off-brand car parts.
Fifteen years ago they would all have been British (or EU). Now all of them were Chinese, apparently good quality, reasonably priced.
Companies should remember that a lot of the services exports are linked to maintenance and repair of previously sold hardware. No hardware, no support contracts down the road.
The Green's candidate in the Gorton & Denton by-election was absent this week from canvassing; she was finishing a course of plastering (she is a working plumber);
now some are going to spin this as a problem for the Greens, but actually if I was them I would be pointing out that this is why Hannah Spencer is more like the locals than the flown-in other candidates.
Like many working people she has to prioritise keeping her skills up to date!
@ChrisMayLA6 I love this and almost think it's intentional as a story. The more other parties bring it up the more people hear about it which I think the greens actually want. Could it all be a smart PR play?
