Max

[James Gradel @James_Gradel]

Stockport has been transformed (see below 📸) by its Mayoral Development Corporation. The high streets are buzzing, helped by new homes and improved public transport.

New @yimbyalliance piece by @AnyaM8_ and me on a NEW tool to devolve power + replicate this effect in more towns

[Cllr Elliot Keck @ElliotKeck]

The top marginal tax rate for people with degrees is 56%. There is a short window between £100,000-£125,000 where it is 71% due to the withdrawal of the personal allowance, which is obviously nuts

But this is where the sleight of hand comes in. Is Gary really saying that he would support a tax cut for those on six figures? That he would support - a la Truss - the abolition of the 45p tax rate? I'm going to guess that when he talks about tax cuts for working people he basically just means the personal allowance and the 20p rate - which is actually historically on the low side

[George Eaton @georgeeaton]

20 ideas for Andy Burnham’s 100 days – a special @ArguablyMag edition on how the next PM can turn the UK around.

Featuring @dc_lawrence on GB Crossrails, @b_judah on a National Economic and Security Council, @Victoria_Spratt on devolving technical education and skills, @paulmasonnews on an infrastructure super-ministry, @pollycurtis on compulsory voting, @meadwaj on a 'Doge of the left', @harry_qp on an online sales tax and @MariaFFinnerty on a Debt Justice Law. https://t.co/6W6T90aRBL

[Dan Neidle @DanNeidle]

Andy Burnham is probably going to raise tax by at least £4.7bn, and maybe much more.

Here's my list of 37 ways he might do it: every potential tax rise, how much it would raise, and what the downside would be. There's always a downside.

Thread:

[Despotic Inroad @DespoticInroad]

It's one thing to suggest Putin will invade the Balts & A5 will be triggered (like Tony Blair, I think it's highly unlikely given Russia's struggles in E. Ukraine, & given the fact that Ukraine/Georgia, not the 2004 NATO states, have been identified as the "red lines" of Russian revisionism since ~2007).

But then it's quite another thing to suggest that we should suppress domestic investment/British living standards in order to protect the UK FROM DIRECT ATTACK from a country 1500 miles away, across land and sea, that's losing 1,000 men a day & barely holding territory in poor, corrupt, dysfunctional provinces of a non-NATO country, in which swathes of the Russian Orthodox, Russian-speaking population used to vote for pro-Kremlin oligarchs. This stuff is absolutely batshit mad and shouldn't be entertained.

✅Cyber resilience
✅Energy independence
✅Food security
✅Increased industrial/manufacturing capabilities & capacities
✅Investment in dual-use civilian-military technologies + R&D: sovereign AI/space & satellite/drones etc.
❌INSANE scaremongering about "Chechen stormtroopers raping women" on the streets of Britain as an excuse to hand over money-pit contracts to big MoD primes for shitty equipment that doesn't work/is designed for imperial clout

RELATEDLY: These are the same people who look at the absolute shitshow of Britain in 2026 and think it's a priority for us to be able to send £multi-billion Royal Navy destroyers to protect military bases IN FUCKING BAHRAIN. They should be ignored.

[Despotic Inroad @DespoticInroad]

Leah Downey’s main academic/policy interest is the restoration of democratic (HM Treasury) control over monetary policy, i.e. ending/undermining BoE independence. She’s very close to Mark Blyth (Lefty economist). It’s all adjacent to/could involve:
👉Reviewing BoE mandate, adjusting from a narrow inflation target to include a growth/productivity target
👉Bringing interest % veto/power back to Chancellor
👉Ending QT
👉A move to PSNW measures of UK finances (less a BoE reform, more HMT/OBR) to allow for more revenue-generating assets on public balance sheet

It’s fairly radical stuff, and unlikely to happen, given the balance of forces within the PLP/media/financial establishment/country. And in pursuing this kind of agenda you’d probably have to prove your ability to get current spending balanced in short order, inc. welfare reform etc., as well as implementing supply-side/pro-growth policies (zonal planning, O&G licensing, tax simplification, welfare-to-work etc.), lest US hedge funds just starting dumping Gilts. But that’s what it means to “not be in hock” to bond markets, ultimately: a slow recuperation of various policy levers/controls from independent central banks + not borrowing/constantly relying on international finance capital for day-to-day £££.

The close Simons association with this stuff is noteworthy. Forget the spying stuff/factionalism for a minute. He’s an interesting guy. Former Corbynite ofc, but also Labour Together’s policy output was less “Blairite” than it is sometimes made out to be. More into “securonomics” and quite heavy on globalisation-skepticism. Probably more “Old Right” revivalist than Blairite.👀

[David Lawrence @dc_lawrence]

New today from the Climate Change Committee. Interesting to see an emerging consensus that the Government's no.1 priority should be getting electricity prices, rather than heaping costs on bills to support renewable build-out.

The most important number in UK energy is the electricity/gas price ratio. This is currently 3.6x – unless we can get it down, we will fail in our climate ambitions.

The good news: what's good for climate is also good for households! Removing levies will reduce bills and encourage electrification.

The bad news: we are on the wrong track. We have been offering extremely generous contracts to renewable generators, and made expensive bets on speculative technologies (like hydrogen & CCS), and loaded these onto consumer bills. This needs to end.

See @watt_direction's paper for @BritishProgress which sets out more or less the same recommendations as the recent CCC report: https://t.co/momDCYUYaN

[Barney Hussey-Yeo @Barney_H_Y]

From a very credible Labour source:

- Wes Streeting promised the Chancellorship for not running.

- Capital gains raised to match income tax. Possible exit tax.

- Economic focus: devolution, plus state ownership of cost-of-living essentials (energy, water, transport).

- Nothing on AI or tech, bar higher capital gains and an EIS/SEIS-style relief for backing British businesses. (Spoiler: startups now incorporate in Delaware and raise on SAFEs. I’ve done 60+ angel investments; only two were eligible.)

Andy and Wes don’t seem to grasp that tech has been the core engine of growth for 20 years, and AI will only accelerate that.

So why would any founder build here? How does the UK compete with the US and China on AI? Where does growth actually come from?

The world economy is changing fast, and we need to be ready to thrive in it, not just survive.

I really hope this admin appoints some figures who actually get what’s happening. Losing business support early, from a disastrous first budget, was the beginning of the end for Starmer.

[Ruxandra Teslo 🧬 @RuxandraTeslo]

The FDA has announced a pilot aimed at faster Phase I trials in the United States. I have written at length about the major positive implications such a policy would have and I am glad to see this happen.

Speeding up Phase I trials NOW is important for several reasons:
1) The importance of Phase I trials in the drug development pipeline (they bottleneck everything else) and for learning: given that this is the first time drugs are entering humans, this is a stage that provides critical information and enables iterative learning.
2) China's looming threat to US biotech, largely driven by their ability to generate first-in-human (FIH) evidence faster.
3) Small biotech companies, which generate most medical innovation now, pass through a "Valley of Death" before Phase I trial results. This is a period of time when running out of funding is especially likely and when the uncertainty associated with in vitro data means that investors have limited high-quality information regarding which companies they should invest in. Once a company has positive first-in-human data, a positive flywheel effect is generated, whereby attracting investor interest becomes easier.

Overall, faster and more efficient Phase I clinical trials means that we can iterate on human data better and investors can make better decisions and pick the *right* winners. It is also a critical biosecurity measure, as a strong biotech sector will be critical to avoiding pandemic and bioweapon threats.

https://t.co/SkjdPuZjJA

[Anglo Futurism Capital LP 🇬🇧🐿️ @RollingHedge]

I have already done it, it’s about £1.2 trillion on the conservative (pun intended) end:

https://t.co/HiMRPiUo1J

[Rowland Manthorpe @rowlsmanthorpe]

Well I found out and the answer is: not very. AI is not a priority for the Burnham team

They do appear to take it seriously but as part of their existing agenda

Main Burnham AI advisors are:

1. Josh Simons. Before becoming an MP he worked for Meta AI. He’s expected to take on a fairly wide role in any new administration and has previously called for tech platforms to be regulated as “utilities for democracy “

2. Antonio Weiss, a Cambridge academic who is currently on the UK Digital Service Responsible AI Panel and has written a book called “AI Demystified”

The agenda is still v much in flux but according to multiple sources the main elements are:

1. A sense that government is getting a lot right on AI

2. A hope that AI can be used to reinvent public services - tech as “digital public infrastructure”. The aim is to get real practical benefits from AI

3. “Pro-decentralisation”: spreading AI’s economic benefits to the rest of the country. One question being asked is: which places outside London could have world-leading ecosystems

4. Reducing US dependence in some way (yet to be defined but I’m told they’re “asking the right questions”)

Lots of questions.

Can you really decentralise without killing growth in London?

Will the “not a priority” policy endure the next AI shock?

And of course: who will be the next Chancellor?

More as I get it

[Despotic Inroad @DespoticInroad]

IMO, this paper👇, coupled with some of @MarkMcvitie's Abundance bro supply-side formula/Whitehall rewiring project should be Burnham's centre of gravity on governance/political economy. Roughly speaking –
"Leftwing" stuff:
👉A 10-year project to rebuild state capacity + in-source services + bring utilities/natural monopolies into national/municipal public ownership (on the model set out brilliantly in The Productive State, & starting immediately with Thames Water)
AND "Rightwing" stuff:
👉Reform JRs to streamline development + close Natural England
👉Pragmatic realism on North Sea, with 100% of extra HMT revenues invested in public nuclear/renewables/grid upgrades via GB Energy/NWF
👉Compulsory welfare-to-work schemes
👉English devo-max, inc. fiscal devo with land value uplift/capture/LVT etc. to fund regional infrastructure projects

From Burnham's/the Left's + an anti-Reform/Tory perspective, I think he should also probably lock in a 5-year mandate with an early election (also with PR in the manifesto). Do a nice, broad 2012-Olympics-vibes progressively patriotic campaign with nice Northern normie characteristics + lots of footie & pints & "hello lad" + a "common sense" middle position on migration (neither Faragist nor Green open borders insanity, but: "obviously it's just not working for people, is it? We need fairness. We need to take back control") + a broad pro-worker/pro-regions "investment" economic message. If he wins, PR makes the political norm in British politics Labour-Liberal-Green-Nationalist coalitions for a generation. Labour probs splits into more coherent social-democratic/socialist wings.

Let's see. Labour's problems are deep-rooted and structural/sociological (& have been long in the making, long pre-dating Starmer). But along with the tectonic/macro trends, political leadership is VERY important. Starmer was unable to provide political direction OR connect with his own MPs (let alone the public). He had no hinterland or political instincts. Burnham has a far better chance of succeeding where the most despised PM in history failed.

[David Lawrence @dc_lawrence]

This kind of analysis is much needed in the UK context. Because most of the cost of new renewables is transmission and other infrastructure, more demand can *reduce* the cost of energy for households.

As @freddie_poser & I have written for @BritishProgress, more data centres could pay for grid decarbonisation, and potentially reduce bills for ordinary households: https://t.co/60KOgRPAsG

[Collingwood 🇬🇧 @admcollingwood]

Super interesting essay from @tphuang. He looks at the trans-Pacific AI race, starting with an overview of the hi-tech situation in China. I found this extremely informative, given my general ignorance about what's *really* going in in Chinese industry. Must read. Link next post.

[Dominic Cummings @Dominic2306]

My pinned tweet explains the background to Healey resignation.
We got real numbers in 2020 for first time in ~20 years.
Since then everything reverted to fake.
Thanks to Trolley & Wally, they let HMT and MoD shovel cash into things they KNEW were broken, like AJAX, and scuppered funding the future (e.g drones, robotics, AI, cloud).
The nuclear weapons supply chain is a multi-billion multi-decade fiasco and reinforces fake budgets.
MoD & CO used UKR war to prop up the lies and disasters, not to fix them. Trolley, Sunak and Starmer all went along with: classify, punt, spin fake budgets.
All these chickens are coming home to roost.
The DIP is a disaster because it combines: a/ continuing to fund old things which shd be scrapped but senior people's careers rest on lying about, b/ failure to fund the future, c/ more dodgy accounts, d/ classified nuke shitshow, which forces lies/cannibalisation of conventional, and e/ continued failure to change procurement and long term budgets despite covid and UKR.
Ive said this 100 times for years.
Also relevant to resignation --
In 2020, I got the PM & CHX to agree to take the next gen fighter AWAY from HMT and MoD. (FOI the doc screenshotted below!)
They were using a bogus 'above STRAP 3 study' to claim that AI would be irrelevant to future fighters in 2045. This 'top secret' study was written *before* DeepMind was created!!
We agreed to take away the next gen fighter/drones from MoD/HMT and put them into a new civilian project with huge commercial development of drones/robotics/AI, with procurement and budgets done totally outside normal system (like vaccines, ARPA etc).
After I left this was u-turned along with shredding all the true budget numbers.
The MoD and HMT proceeded with the usual procurement with BaE.
This has now blown up *as it was obvious it would SIX YEARS ago'.
HMT is refusing to fund it because the MoD is a corrupt shambles.
And MoD is knackered by the HMT's insane budget processes and insane procurement.
HMT and MoD have reasonable complaints about each other. 'Everyone's right and everyone's unhappy'.
The only way out is the Vote Leave plan and No10 smashing heads together with the full authority of the PM, as in the secret process of 2020. It cannot be left to 'normal processes'. Senior people must be forced to tell the truth 'or you're fired'. We did this. It works!
The MPs refuse to engage. The MPs on defence committee say they cannot ask officials re the 2020 process because 'they'll just refuse to answer'.
But our enemies know everything everything I say is true!
It is impossible for dud Starmer to solve these problems.
It is good timing that Burnham will soon take over and could draw a line under decades of Tory failure and set out a new path...
But there will be HUGE pressure from the old system, in HMT and MoD, to patch everythign up with more lies, spin, fake accounts, and massive classification...
Maybe some MPs could finally pay attention to these issues and resolve to stop constant lies, please!
Our security, prosperity and critical technologies are at stake and the old parties and old Whitehall are pathological!
NB. In 2020 we also bought LEO satellites. SW1 laughed. Starlink has been critical in UKR. Whitehall sold off the satellites!
NB. In March 2022 when the UKR disaster started I wrote: 'Prediction: 1) lessons from UKR will overwhelmingly support the arguments of those who in 2020 argued for radical MoD changes (including taking money from old tank projects that everybody privately admitted were a multi-billion pound disaster) and 2) the correct criticism of the review and connected documents will be seen as a) they did not go nearly far enough, b) the collapse of No10 follow through on defence reform in 2021 was — like the collapse of 2020 plans for planning reform, tax cuts, deregulation, Project Speed, intense focus on R&D and skills etc — a disaster for the country (and a political disaster for the Tory Party).'
NB. Special Forces who have observed the drone wars in UKR have told the senior MoD repeatedly that the mega expensive things they want to plough cash into in the DIP will get VAPOURISED in a real war by cheap drones! The SF are told to shut up and not give HMT a chance to cut the budgets!
I know it's psychologically extremely hard for SW1 but Vote Leave worked with the deep state on this in 2020 and we were right on all the big things.
The disastrous old processes have now blown up with unprecedented resignation over these exact issues.
6 years have been wasted. Tens of billions have been wasted. Lives lost. Talent resigned.. Opportunities to lead squandered...
All over Whitehall are officials involved in 2020 who know what I say is true, the MPs and hacks should finally get the details into the public...

Maybe SW1 could update its mental models?!

Ps. if you're a hack still getting Ciaran 'AI is fake, PRC infiltration is overrated' Martin to comment on tech, you're as dud as Starmer

[Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire @MayorOfWY]

Marching On Together towards a brighter future for Leeds United. ⚽

Brilliant to see building work has now started on the expansion of Elland Road. 💪👷

#MOT #ALAW

[Cleo Abram @cleoabram]

The Demis Hassabis HUGE* Conversation (in full)

00:00 What is the hardest problem AI has already solved?
12:30 What is the cutting edge of drug discovery with AI?
21:53 Why did Demis say he “would have left AI in the lab longer”?
43:09 How should militaries use AI?
50:13 What can humans do that AI won't?
58:17 What does Demis Hassabis want his legacy to be?

(And 1:04:40 Can I beat Demis at Jenga?)

Recorded March 5, 2026 in London.

[James Breckwoldt @jamesbreckwoldt]

🚨NEW POST BY ME🚨

Greater Manchester’s growth success is real, but didn't happened by accident. The country should be studying it closely.

Long-term strategy that is aggressively pro-growth, pro-development & pro-FDI works if given time and consistency

https://t.co/aVG1iwe8lQ

[Restoration @leftrestoration]

Britain needs a more sophisticated conversation about migration than this. Smug upper middle class London media sector workers will pat themselves on the back for publicity stunts like this, but they bring us no closer to national unity. They do nothing to change the minds or hearts of the wider British public, and they never will. Led By Donkeys was established in 2018 and has spent thousands upon thousands of gullible liberal pounds to achieve nothing.