Look upon my works, ye mighty

The concept of a regulator being required to “promote growth” is entirely stupid. The whole point of regulation is to constrain growth if it represents something bad, such as, oh I don’t know, otherwise profitable financial malpractice.

Probably my most unpopular but correct opinion is that the monarch inviting someone who can command a majority in the House to form a government is much better than six weeks of political X-factor psychodrama that invariably selects for crackpots.

New study from Norway: Banning smartphones in schools significantly decreases the proportion of girls presenting with mental health issues and bullying drops dramatically. Benefits most strongly felt by disadvantaged girls.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

On the plus side, we have the rare sight of a lawyer instructed by the Post Office behaving appropriately:

A faction of the ’Ndrangheta mafia based in Toronto allegedly worked with insiders at two major Canadian banks to launder money, court records show.

Angelo Figliomeni’s group allegedly cultivated ties with staff at RBC and TD Bank. Here's how it worked: occrp.org/en/28-ccwatch/…

Have we ever had a “tsar” for anything with the authority to sort out a problem, as well as responsibility for it?

🙏Fantastic to have the support of legendary anticorruption campaigner Peter Hain for our joint request with Transparency International UK for the National Audit Office to investigate Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧’s accounts in the wake of the recent UK-Saudi #bribery trial.
theguardian.com/world/2024/apr…

NEW: Peter Hain calls for inquiry into MoD’s alleged role in Saudi bribes scandal.

Government auditors must look into claims of complicity in corruption on arms deals with UK, says Labour peer.

Will the National Audit Office now ask the MoD to open the books?
theguardian.com/world/2024/apr…

Solving the famine without food

Sometimes, in idle moments, I wonder to myself, ‘How would Hobsbawm conceptualise the Truss ministry?’

Then I read this and think, ‘screw that, how would FT Alphaville describe the French Revolution?’

Very welcome for journalists to see free speech - which must be free on all sides - defended. Brussels has got a lot of bad publicity from today.

An excellent article on the progress in Progress Studies: reason.com/2024/04/06/pro…

Journalism schools ought to do modules deconstructing the glory of Sam Jones intros.

theguardian.com/world/2024/apr…

Last night's events in the Middle East show the value of allies and of long term investment in defence. Iran's capabilities - to attack with a wide variety of precision long range weapons - are considerable. European countries could not have mounted a similar defence