Founder & editor, https://xitter.cf/t.co/AdNuyGzjaT @stripe. Fellow, @createstreets. Board, @sci_works. Advisory board, @FixBritain_.
Blackheath
Joined June 2012
- Tweets29.5K
- Following742
- Followers23.7K
- Likes101K
Pinned Tweet
I am the king of supplementation – or used to be. I've given it up, every last supplement. Here is my story why.
worksinprogress.co/issue/aga…
I wager that few people have supplemented more enthusiastically than me, or have subscribed to so many fad or esoteric diets.
I have munched thumb-sized multivitamins. I have eaten ice cream and orange juice before bed to boost my overnight metabolism. I have chowed down on offal of all kinds – nature's multivitamin – for my skin, hair, and even my sleep. I have even consumed individual amino acids, for example glycine, a slightly sweet protein component prominent in skin and bone but not muscle meat, which people online claim improves their sleep.
I have done it all. But I am here to tell you: you need not. In fact, my long-time rival @StuartJRitchie, who has always told me that supplementation is foolish, pointless, madeup, and fake, was more right than wrong when he claimed, again and again, that 'you just piss it oot'.
I have put away my heavily researched list of the ideal supplements, I have given up looking. Why? Because 90% of 'studies' are BS, and you should simply ignore them. They are so often wrong that entire bodies of research often find the opposite of truth – as proven by later evidence.
Read my first column in @WorksInProgMag: worksinprogress.co/issue/aga…
Good review of @DowningAm's book here by @Rian_Whitton. One quibble. He says:
'Downing notes the nominally privately financed Hinkley Point C only got approval when the government accepted a strike price of £92.50/MWh (2012 prices)...the book is a good corrective to much of the pro-nuclear talk that endlessly focuses on regulatory barriers and red tape but never addresses the critical barrier to nuclear power: financing the project at acceptable rates.'
It's certainly true that *at current prices*, the main question is whether the state will finance nuclear power plants. But the current price of nuclear power is outrageous, and only debatably worth financing.
No country has held the line and continued funding it to a significant scale at this price. Every time it was previously done at scale, it was less than a quarter of the price per gigawatt of HPC and SZC.
Unnoted in this passage is the fact that EDF is believed to be losing money on the £92.50/MWh strike price (2012£, more like £135 today). It demanded that the government come in for far more than just a strike price on the second project: it has secured a cost-plus contract AND govt investment of the bulk of the project cost.
When nuclear power was successful, whether in the US, UK, Germany, France, Japan, or Sweden, it was many times cheaper than it is today. The cheapest US nukes in the late 1960s cost about £500 per kilowatt in modern money, compared to £12,000+ for Hinkley Point C.
It seems to me completely scale insensitive to say that financing is the main thing that matters. At £500 per kilowatt built in 3-4 years, the plants would be trivially privately financed. And our current money on the line would finance 10 or 20 times as much capacity.
Yes, the UK's plants were state built, and they did a good job, and many different states have done a great job. But the US and Japanese plants were built by regulated private utilities, also quickly and cheaply. It's simply historically inaccurate to suggest that the key dimension is finance. Nuclear collapsed while the financing situation was unchanged. In the UK, it was all being financed by the CEGB/government long through the decline.
The problem is that nuclear power is EXPENSIVE. No one is going to build it if it is this expensive. State/private is not the important divide here: both have built nuclear power highly successfully.
riancwhitton.substack.com/p/…
Now there is a completely separate question about how you get costs down. You don’t have to blame ‘red tape’, you can blame ‘a lack of state capacity’ if you like — those are actually two sides of the same coin and the wording difference is mostly vibes.
Agree with this by @dsquareddigest. Trying to reduce the "supply" of barriers to growth without addressing the "demand" for them will not work. People want these regulations because they have reasonable fears about what will happen without them!
backofmind.substack.com/p/th…
Ben Southwood retweeted
I read God of the Gaps from @WorksInProgMag just before visiting Rome and Venice. The entire trip I was spotting turbine squares and thinking: "Sitte would've *loved* this" or "tsk tsk tsk Sitte would've hated this"
We stayed at an apartment that bordered a turbine square in Rome. Every morning locals would fill the square with farmers market booths, then tear it all down. From evening to past 2am the square would transform into a hangout spot for teenagers (there was even a fight one night!). Both locals and tourists seemed to eat dinner there. The square went through a full metamorphosis everyday, the most alive little city nook I've ever experienced.
Ben Southwood retweeted
People noticed this change in mores during WWII and coined new terms to describe sexually active young women: khaki-wackies, victory girls, and good-time Charlottes.
People usually say that the pill caused the sexual revolution but a) people started having premarital sex in the 1950s, a decade before the pill and b) contraception is widely used by people who don't live very post-sexual-revolution lives (like in Asia). I think the sexual revolution, i.e. more permissive attitudes about sex, caused the pill to be invented and not the other way round.
But then, why did the sexual revolution happen? I have cooked up a theory. Just as how women have more casual sex on college campuses with fewer men, I think women, as a collective, responded to the male shortage caused by the Second World War by shortening their hemlines and having premarital sex.
Read my column here: worksinprogress.co/issue/you…
Ben Southwood retweeted
People usually say that the pill caused the sexual revolution but a) people started having premarital sex in the 1950s, a decade before the pill and b) contraception is widely used by people who don't live very post-sexual-revolution lives (like in Asia). I think the sexual revolution, i.e. more permissive attitudes about sex, caused the pill to be invented and not the other way round.
But then, why did the sexual revolution happen? I have cooked up a theory. Just as how women have more casual sex on college campuses with fewer men, I think women, as a collective, responded to the male shortage caused by the Second World War by shortening their hemlines and having premarital sex.
Read my column here: worksinprogress.co/issue/you…
This seems like bad news to me. 🫣
Polish Population In UK
🇬🇧 2000 ⟶ 🇵🇱 58,000
🇬🇧 2001 ⟶ 🇵🇱 60,711
🇬🇧 2002 ⟶ 🇵🇱 63,000
🇬🇧 2003 ⟶ 🇵🇱 66,000
🇬🇧 2004 ⟶ 🇵🇱 95,000
🇬🇧 2005 ⟶ 🇵🇱 170,000
🇬🇧 2006 ⟶ 🇵🇱 274,000
🇬🇧 2007 ⟶ 🇵🇱 411,000
🇬🇧 2008 ⟶ 🇵🇱 512,000
🇬🇧 2009 ⟶ 🇵🇱 540,000
🇬🇧 2010 ⟶ 🇵🇱 579,000
🇬🇧 2011 ⟶ 🇵🇱 681,000
🇬🇧 2012 ⟶ 🇵🇱 713,000
🇬🇧 2013 ⟶ 🇵🇱 726,000
🇬🇧 2014 ⟶ 🇵🇱 813,000
🇬🇧 2015 ⟶ 🇵🇱 916,000
🇬🇧 2016 ⟶ 🇵🇱 1,002,000
🇬🇧 2017 ⟶ 🇵🇱 922,000
🇬🇧 2018 ⟶ 🇵🇱 905,000
🇬🇧 2019 ⟶ 🇵🇱 842,000
🇬🇧 2020 ⟶ 🇵🇱 738,000
🇬🇧 2021 ⟶ 🇵🇱 682,000
🇬🇧 2022 ⟶ 🇵🇱 669,000
🇬🇧 2023 ⟶ 🇵🇱 651,000
🇬🇧 2024 ⟶ 🇵🇱 633,000
🇬🇧 2025 ⟶ 🇵🇱 615,000
🇬🇧 2026 ⟶ 🇵🇱 598,000 (est.)
Source: Office for National Statistics (ONS) Census & Annual Population Survey.
This is a surprisingly excellent list. I endorse well over half of this and none of the others are dealbreakers (though some of them involve working through some details).
Britain is broke. And to fix it, we need to start growing again.
That’s why Reform’s Economic Rescue Plan includes these 64 pro-growth measures I’d take if I were Chancellor:
𝗨𝗻𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗡𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗵 𝗦𝗲𝗮
1. Approve Rosebank
2. Restart oil and gas licensing
3. Legalise onshore exploration
4. Abolish the Energy Profits Levy
5. Restore maximum economic extraction as the North Sea regulator's objective
𝗥𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗕𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻
6. Abolish the Emissions Trading Scheme
7. Halt the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism
8. Repudiate AR7 contracts for difference and scrap AR8
9. Implement the Fingleton Review on nuclear in full
10. Automatically approve French and South Korean nuclear designs
𝗚𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗛𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗖𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀
11. Cut affordable housing requirements on brownfield sites
12. Permitted Development Right for brownfield housing
13. Repeal Biodiversity Net Gain
14. Exit the Aarhus Convention
15. Repeal and reform the Habitats Regulations, including Nutrient Neutrality
16. End the boiler ban
17. Legalise air conditioning to meet overheating rules
18. Remove mandatory EPC improvements
19. Revoke the Future Homes Standard
20. Repeal the Renters' Rights Act
𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗡𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗜𝗻𝗳𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲
21. Legislate approval for new runways at Heathrow and Gatwick
22. Auction airport landing slots
23. End 'target-consistent' carbon pricing in project evaluation
24. Ban carbon emissions considerations in planning applications
25. Fast-track all water reservoirs as nationally significant projects
26. Make Development Consent Orders a true one-stop shop
27. Restrict judicial review of ministerial planning decisions
28. Scrap Net Zero construction rules
29. Scrap the social value test in procurement
30. Lift launch limits at SaxaVord Spaceport
31. Open completed sections of East-West Rail
𝗝𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗜 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
32. Review regulatory barriers to AI adoption
33. Permit on-site gas generation for data centres and industry
𝗥𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗛𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗕𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘀𝗵 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗲𝗿𝘀
34. Cut Employer NI back to 13.8%
35. Introduce a migrant worker levy
36. Repeal the Employment Rights Act
37. Clarify that workplace rights don't require mandatory training courses
38. Let experienced tradesmen work on government contracts without CSCS qualifications
𝗨𝗻𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗘𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝘆
39. Review bank capital requirements to boost lending
40. Rule out Net Zero in financial regulators' remits
41. Repeal climate-related financial disclosure rules
𝗚𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗠𝗼𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀 𝗠𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴
42. Scrap airport 'surface access strategies'
43. Abolish the electric vehicle mandates
44. Apply domestic GB hours to all UK HGV trips
45. Ban Low-Traffic Neighbourhoods
46. Back the M4 Relief Road
47. Move a new car's first MOT to four years
48. Abolish the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation
𝗨𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗕𝗿𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘁 𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗼𝗺𝘀
49. Replace GDPR with a New Zealand-style Privacy Act
50. Fully re-legalise Imperial units
51. Review all unchanged EU law
52. Automatically repeal remaining EU law in 5 years unless retained
𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗗𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗴𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗠𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲𝘀
53. Make quarterly Making Tax Digital reporting voluntary
54. Reduce legal obligations on SME Non-Executive Directors
55. Double permission-free event days from 28 to 56
56. Make pavement dining licences automatic and permanent
57. Let shops open until 10pm, except Sundays
58. Repeal board diversity and inclusion rules
59. Remove the Sustainable Aviation Fuel mandate
60. Abolish the packaging tax
61. Scrap BBC and Channel 4 priority on streaming platforms
62. Remove the Public Sector Equality Duty
63. Five-year sunset on all QUANGOs
64. Five-year sunset clause on all new regulations
And there are more to come!
Britain’s full potential is waiting to be unleashed 🚀
Ben Southwood retweeted
Havana, 1900: 310 dead of yellow fever. 1901: just 18.
By 1962 more than twenty countries had wiped out the mosquito that carries it. Then they stopped.
I built an interactive atlas of the whole story, a companion to the new @WorksInProgMag: mosquitoes.tommylong.com
The main way to build up trust in institutions is to get institutions to work better.
The first and biggest step is to change the ethics of elites and public servants toward something more democratic (‘I oughtn’t to do stuff that the public would object to in reflective equilibrium, or that the public has expressly objected to’) and more tolerant/decoupling (‘All of the views of the bulk of my countrymen are worthy of respect and acceptable to hold, even if I personally disagree with them.’)
But there is a secondary factor. Trust is a two-way street. Just as you probably shouldn’t become a crack dealer on the basis of the justification that someone else will do it if you don’t, nor should you contribute to declining state capacity by undermining it.
I received an email this morning from a major newspaper: ‘How Labour is spending your tax money’. In the grand scheme of things it’s pretty trivial, but it’s an exemplar of slightly degrading low-trust developing world behaviour. Every little instance like this is like a tiny wave against rock.
Low standards, which are nearly universal across the rest of the world, beget bad outcomes. Demand results and you are more likely to get them.
Ben Southwood retweeted
@WorksInProgMag is such a gift that keeps on giving
Congrats on the new format and the paper upgrade, loved the editor notes on how you changed your mind on it too - I certainly agree with it!
“Our initial assumption was that people would want something akin to The Economist that they could throw in their bag and read on the way to work or out and about. As such, we chose floppy, glossy paper and fairly narrow dimensions that would sit well in a backpack or briefcase. But it turns out people tend to read Works in Progress more like a book, at home in an armchair or in the garden, so we've moved to thicker, more premium matte paper and wider dimensions.”
Ben Southwood retweeted
Taking a break at my fav coffee shop and enjoying another great @WorksInProgMag issue
Ben Southwood retweeted
Reading the new @WorksInProgMag in public so people can see that I am on the side of sweetness and light
More and more buildings are going to require recladding, one way or another, over the coming decade or two. Let's get Ollier Smurthwaite to do them!
We got planning permission this week for an office to resi Permitted Development scheme in Knutsford. The approval included a new hand made clay brick facade to compliment the historic town. The PD route is a great way to speed up housing delivery and get on site quickly. @mtpennycook @StrongTowns @Aesthetic_City
Underinvestment is a problem of trust combined with institutions that maximise theoretical flexibility for government institutions. There's no point having theoretical flexibility (e.g., no hypothecation) if the public won't give you the money in the first place. It leads to kludges (e.g., PFI) that worsen the trust that created the problem in the first place.
The first step is to recognise the hole we're in and stop digging.
Ben Southwood retweeted
Now that I’ve let you into my life, here’s what you’ll find on my coffee table.
Obsessed would be an understatement. @WorksInProgMag
Ben Southwood retweeted
This year I stopped my @TheEconomist subscription after 20 years
@WorksInProgMag is replacing it for my in terms of reading time
The format of a weekly newspaper is tough to pull off in a world where news moves so quickly — a world of Substack, notifications pinging and daily updates
It wouldn’t surprise me if The Economist eventually moves to more long form reports and content and less news over time
Mike joining Works in Progress is a huge moment for us and marks the start of the next phase in our project.
He is one of the most insightful, interesting and enjoyable to read writers anywhere, and his book, The Land Trap, is fantastic and one of the most "Works in Progress" non-fiction books written in years. He is the perfect person to help us produce model-based analysis of business, economics and finance, and great original reporting on everything from robotics and drones to the state of America's cities.
Most of all I am excited about working with (another!) one of my best friends. I first met Mike when he was a student and declared afterwards that he was so impressive that I would buy stock in him if I could. It's taken 14 years, but this is one step better. Works in Progress has become harder work as it has grown, but it's amazingly fun and rewarding as well, not least because I get to do it with some of my favourite people in the world.
As Mike says, we've seen incredible growth in our first year in print and we have extremely high hopes for 2027. Above all we have to make everything we do as excellent as it possibly can be. We're looking for journalists and other writers who are doing truly excellent work to join our team, so if that's you, watch this space.