Britain's shoplifting problem is so bad you need a log scale

New: The Office for Nuclear Regulation believe "the reactor approval process has no bearing on the overall speed of delivery."

Britain's nuclear regulator, the ONR, today claims nothing it does delays nuclear projects — even *theoretically*. Moreover, it says the nuclear taskforce should not even consider its role in rising nuclear costs. Is this the most self-serving claim by a UK regulator ever?

I explain today why the Single market is broken: mutual recognition is not what we think it is; harmonisation actually fragments, and the Commission is not doing its core job. If you only ever read one post, let it be this one siliconcontinent.com/p/the-myth-of-…

The Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce is looking for SHORT (1–2 pages) evidence submissions. Deadline is Monday at midnight. If you have anything useful to add, please do so. While these things should not be treated as ballots, in practice they often are. gov.uk/government/cal…

One principle makes nuclear power unaffordable. That’s Linear No Threshold: the theory that there is no safe level of radiation. It's wrong. But on Friday, the US President signed an executive order to reconsider it. 🧵 worksinprogress.co/issue/the-bad-…

This made me wonder how the planning system in the UK classifies zones.

I wrote a new piece on how much progress has been made in treating childhood leukemia. The answer is: quite a lot! Before the 1970s, fewer than 10% of children diagnosed survived 5 years after diagnosis. Now most are cured and around 85% survive that long.

What’s Ireland’s biggest development problem? We can build houses – at a small scale. But what we really struggle with is new neighbourhoods – with transport, parks, jobs, and homes. Our new Progress Ireland paper, on land readjustment, shows how we can do this:

BoE examines the impact of carbon pricing on inflation in the UK. They focus on the jump in carbon prices around 2021 and how it contributed to increased long term energy inflation. bankunderground.co.uk/2025/07/08/wha… via @boe_research

📊#IFSSatStat: Emissions from electricity are taxed much more heavily than emissions from gas in the UK. A tonne of carbon dioxide from (non-energy-intensive) business activities is taxed £249 if it comes from electricity, but just £52 if it comes from gas.

On Thursday night, we heard that government was making big concessions on its planning bill, putting lots more controls on its nature recovery plans. I find this disappointing. And to explain why, I have to tell a story I’ve been holding off from sharing.

1. Wind and solar both keep me up at night, but for opposite reasons. Solar works and is winning the global race, Britain simply sits too far north to benefit. Britain is betting on wind instead, yet wind lacks the very traits that makes solar work.

The details have been released for this year’s auction in which wind farms can bid for electricity price guarantees: 1. The contracts are longer; 2. The prices ceilings are higher; 3. The capacity factors are lower; 4. The amount of guarantees that can be issued is larger.

1/ Do nuclear energy plants cause cancer? We get asked this at public meetings for our Llynfi project. Locals often cite old reports of cancer clusters near Sellafield and Dounreay in the 1980s. These are understandable questions, they deserve clear answers.

On the rugged face of Trirashmi Hill in #Nashik, #Maharashtra, lie the Pandav Lena Caves – a remarkable example ancient craftsmanship. This group of 24 caves date back to 1st century BCE to the 6th–7th century CE. Situated along an ancient trade route connecting coastal ports

London is currently paralysed by transport strikes, at enormous cost to the British economy, as yet more rents are extracted from the people of London. Since 2023, TfL has actually had the power to require continued minumum service (40% of normal sevices) during strikes. Similar

NEW: Today we release the results of the @britishprogress Growth Survey. We asked over 100 economists and experts what the Government needs to do to fix productivity and drive growth. Here’s what they said: 🧵

The Guardian is warning that the Chancellor is about to unleash a tide of destruction against protected snails. You might have more sympathy for Rachel Reeves than you expect. Along the way, let me teach you how to seize control of half a county with a sheet of A4.

What if there was a consensus on the tax reforms the UK needs? What if it was backed by policy experts from think tanks across the political spectrum, from the Adam Smith Institute to the Resolution Foundation? The consensus is real. The question is: will anyone act on it?