Simon Millson

OBE. Chair - @OmnibusTheatre. Chair - @britymt

[Fraser Nelson @FraserNelson]

It's not just the exploitation of a tragedy.

JD Vance's picture of Britain - where migrants have led to a crime surge - is the opposite of the truth.

https://t.co/y5El5FUj7v

[Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan @MayorofLondon]

London has reclaimed its position as Europe's top tech hub, driven by investment in AI, fintech and innovation.

This is a vote of confidence in our city and our talent. We’ll keep backing growth and building a more prosperous London for everyone.

https://t.co/2tjH8fFxaf

[Simon Millson @SimonMillson]

Could you be the next Chair to lead Kaleidoscope Trust to greater success? https://t.co/i1MLDuEHC7 via @kaleidoscope_t

[Fraser Nelson @FraserNelson]

The story of DeepMind is a reminder of why, far from being “broken,” Britain is still capable of nurturing (and keeping) world class genius.

My column on what this AI startup tells us about what’s going right in the country:-

https://t.co/mdcMRimGtc

[Seb Johnson @SebJohnsonUK]

This is genuinely wild.

Nearly 50% of all European Venture in 2026 has flown into the UK.

Last year was all about Stockholm, and there were high hopes for AI in Paris.

The overall view was that the rest of Europe was catching up with the UK.

But actually it seems to be pulling away.

It’s obviously too early on in the year to call it but there have been multiple large rounds that have helped the UK dominate:

> @IsomorphicLabs and its $2.1bn Series B

> @nscale and its $2bn Series C

> @wayve_ai and its 1.2bn Series D

> @IneffableLabs and its $1.1bn Seed

> @Recursive_SI and its $650m Seed

> @ElevenLabs and its $500m Series D

There’s also a chance this will help spin the UK flywheel so that the gap grows even more.

The UK is having a phenomenal year in tech.

Data from @yoramdw and the @dealroomco team

[BBC London @BBCLondonNews]

The capital is ranked above Paris and New York for its large, quality, accessible cultural scene ➡️ https://t.co/AeF1JElr1J

[YouGov @YouGov]

David Attenborough - who turns 100 today - dominates our poll of who Britons consider to be a UK national treasure

Top 3
1. David Attenborough - 36% wrote his name when asked an open question
2. Judi Dench: 17%
3. Stephen Fry: 7%

Results link in replies

[United Nations @UN]

Happy 100th birthday, Sir David Attenborough!

And thank you for your lifelong, unwavering commitment to #ClimateAction.

Here's how you can #ActNow and join him in protecting our planet: https://t.co/dDZ0DfgYw4

[Very Brexit Problems @VeryBrexitProbs]

Trump, MAGA, Farage, Reform and GB News hate the UK and want us to believe the UK is a failing state compared to the USA.

The facts disagree.

On practically every measure of quality of life, health, safety, education, environment, the UK would rank as the best state in America.

The land of the "free " (where people get yanked off the street by masked men) is also the land of half a million medical bankruptcies a year and the world’s largest prison population.

This is the reality.

[Seb Johnson @SebJohnsonUK]

The UK has absolutely dominated Fintech across Europe.

8 of the top 10 fintechs in Europe come from the UK

With all the noise and hype round AI it's easy to forget how powerful UK, and London, Fintech is.

London is literally the Fintech capital of the world (by VC funding)

Adyen from The Netherlands and Trade Republic from Germany, are the top two non-UK European companies.

Why has the UK so disproportionately dominated Fintech?

[Great British Energy - Nuclear @GBNgovuk]

We’re proud to announce that Great British Energy – Nuclear has signed a contract with Rolls-Royce SMR to deliver the UK’s first Small Modular Reactors. A major step forward for clean energy, jobs and long-term energy security. #EnergySecurity

https://t.co/NXCZTAZrx2

[NATO @NATO]

Working for peace, security and freedom for 7️⃣7️⃣ years

[Jefferson @Jefferson_MFG]

🇬🇧 New factories, new jobs, major investments and huge contract wins - March's UK manufacturing highlights:

🔹 Leonardo was awarded a £1 billion contract to build 23 new medium helicopters (NMH) for the MoD at its Yeovil factory, securing the site's future and more than 3,000 jobs.

🔹 Rolls-Royce announced plans to invest £21.3m to double the capacity of its Advanced Blade Casting Facility in Rotherham where some of the world’s most advanced turbine blades are manufactured.

🔹 Expected to create 500 jobs, Denmark's Vestas announced plans to build a new £216m nacelle and hub manufacturing plant in Scotland.

🔹 Lockheed Martin is set to build a new £85m satellite manufacturing plant in the UK. The US aerospace giant is in contention for a major UK contract that is due to be awarded later this year, and if successful, plans to build the assembly plant at County Durham's NETPark site, creating at least 500 jobs.

🔹 HMS Active, the second of class, entered the water at Rosyth - the first time in the Type 31 programme that the entire float-off operation was completed at Babcock International Group's own facility. The £1.25 billion contract to build five Type 31 frigates for the Royal Navy supports more than 2,500 jobs across the UK.

🔹 Rotherham-based Castings Technology, the UK’s only structural titanium foundry (and Europe’s largest), secured defence contracts worth more than £9 million from a leading UK manufacturer.

🔹 GE Aerospace announced plans to invest more than €110m, and create over 1,000 new jobs, across its UK and mainland European manufacturing sites this year.

🔹 Airbus and Rolls-Royce secured a multi-billion pound order from US carrier Atlas Air for 20 A350F freighter aircraft, powered by 40 Derby-built Trent XWB-97 engines.

🔹 British Steel is ramping up production at its Scunthorpe plant after securing one of its largest ever export orders – a £70m contract for port redevelopments in Nigeria.

🔹 Stellantis announced plans to invest an additional £50m at its Ellesmere Port plant in Cheshire. The extra investment will fund a new assembly line to build battery-electric variants of the Opel/Vauxhall Vivaro and related models from next year.

[Proudofus.uk @ProudofusUK]

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧 Chapter One. The Beginning of the End.

This is the story of how ordinary British people ended slavery.

It starts here. In 1086.

William the Conqueror had just seized England by force. His first act was to count everyone in it. What the 'Domesday Book' revealed was extraordinary.

More than seventy percent of the people on this island belonged to someone else.

Not slaves. But not free. Serfs. Bound to the land from birth. Unable to leave. Unable to own property. Their children inherited their chains automatically.

Then in 1348, the Black Death arrived.

Within two years it had killed nearly half the population of England. Villages emptied overnight. And the survivors realised something the lords had hoped they never would.

They had power.

They demanded wages. They walked off the land. They refused to return on the old terms. Parliament passed a law in 1351 to force them back.

The people ignored it.

In 1381, sixty thousand ordinary people marched on London. They burned the records that proved their bondage. They demanded to be treated as human beings. The king rode out, made promises, then broke every one of them. The leaders were hunted down and executed.

But serfdom never recovered.

Without a single law. Without a king declaring it so. Over the next hundred years it quietly collapsed. The English simply stopped accepting it.

By 1500 it was dead.

Three hundred years before France.

Nearly four hundred before Russia.

This was the character being forged. On this soil. By ordinary people who refused to stay down.

And they were just getting started. 🇬🇧

Their individual stories are on our page. Our book is coming soon.

Help us make this possible. https://t.co/rih7iKwnvf

Be Part Of Us.

Be Proud Of Us. 🇬🇧

[Will Norman @willnorman]

We're transforming London. Our network of Cycleways has grown from 90km to over 430km today.

And with a network of safe cycleways, cycling is booming - with an average of 1.5m trips a day.

And there's much more to come 🚲🚲🚲

#LondonLovesCycling

[Our World in Data @OurWorldInData]

Coal power has effectively died in the United Kingdom—

(This Data Insight was written by @_HannahRitchie, with data work by @parriagadap.)

The United Kingdom was the birthplace of coal. It has now, effectively, died there.

As shown in the chart, in the late 1980s, around two-thirds of the UK’s electricity came from coal. By the time I was born in the 1990s, this had dropped to just over half.

The use of coal has plummeted in my lifetime. It now makes up around 0.1% of the UK’s electricity.

Coal was first replaced by gas, but is now being pushed out by wind, solar, and biomass.

[Seb Johnson @SebJohnsonUK]

The UK is officially the biggest Deep Tech hub of Europe.

It attracted $5.2bn in funding in 2025 - more than any other country in Europe.

Last year a BUNCH of great UK Deep Tech companies raised cash:

> Nscale
> Synthesia
> ElevenLabs
> Isomorphic Labs
> CuspAI
> Nothing

Interestingly Paris is the biggest Deep Tech city in Europe, but the UK has Oxford, Cambridge and London which all contribute.

2026 is only going to be even bigger for Deep Tech with rounds like Ineffable, Olix, ElevenLabs and Synthesia already accounting for nearly $2bn of investment.

LETS GO

Great stuff from @yoramdw, @sabben and the @dealroomco team.

Check out the full report here: https://t.co/t9LRnT6TAC

[Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan @MayorofLondon]

Loving all the great London stories from the last few weeks 👇🏽

London’s been ranked a top place in the world to raise children.

Tech and AI companies are thriving in the capital.

Oxford Street will be pedestrianised.

A new open water swimming spot has been planned for the Thames. The list goes on.

London is the greatest city in the world.

[Faisal Islam @faisalislam]

Went to first West End musical in years with my two youngest today…

The centre of London was heaving with visitors, in a way unrecognisable from the image percolated on this site…

The stats underline this… West End has fully recovered and more from pandemic and now has overtaken Broadway on tickets sold - millions more, and more tickets sold than the Premier League…

This isn’t mirrored in all visitor attractions but seems an interesting and resounding success. Industry reports interesting new trends such as very last minute ticket purchases. Ticket prices do seem extortionate/ dynamically priced… but the stats suggest they are down a bit in real terms.

British Museum visitors at a 10 year high of 6.5 million…

Visitors generally fully recovered from pandemic, interestingly driven by domestic tourists and North Americans… seemed pretty clear that summer 2025 for example, London was world capital of live music.

Comes day after the Mayor of London wrote to Anthropic to come to London after their troubles with the Trump Administration and a marked change in the vibe around the investment in AI and tech…

While there’s obvious some challenges in any modern day mega city, and in Britain right now, strikes me that the stats show taking your cues from the mildly bizarre cultivated campaign against Britain and our capital on this site is likely to lead to erroneous perceptions.

Interested in any insights as to how the west end has overtaken the premier league and Broadway… and how other parts of UK have fared - as I’ve written before visitor numbers to places like Manchester are also booming re football, unis and now the music at the once laughed at Coop Live…

PS yes it was Wicked. And it was good.👍🏽 🧙

[Sadiq Khan @SadiqKhan]

Officially Europe’s No.1 city 🏆👏🏾

London is thriving: dynamic, diverse and safer than many of its US rivals, while continuing to top global rankings.

Our capital remains a global business hub and cultural powerhouse ⬇️

https://t.co/hnDEvgjpLL