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Blog Post
August 20, 2021
Normally when a policy goes awry, you have to really search for the evidence to prove it. It’s pretty rare that things go wrong quite as quickly, viscerally and heartbreakingly as they are in Afghanistan right now. This is the place where I usually insert a pithy joke, but my well of amusement has r...
Blog Post
July 30, 2021
That was a well-timed week off: we arrived in Cornwall in glorious sunshine and left just as the rain clouds (and summer holiday visitors) began to gather. In between, there was an inhuman quantity of fish and chips and pasties, scallops barbecued on the shell, “swimming” expeditions that involved s...
Blog Post
July 16, 2021
Sorry for the unannounced radio silence last week – I went on leave and forgot to announce my absence; no doubt the absence of the links was marked by wailing, a virtual vigil and panicked phone calls. Next week will be the same, and I’ll be taking time off through the summer, so I may disappear wit...
Blog Post
July 02, 2021
Can I start by being a grinch? Every few years, England win a football match and the whole country loses its marbles: mass outbreaks of hugging– in England, no less, a country where the aversion to voluntary physical contact with strangers is so great that only something as virulent as Coronavi...
Blog Post
June 25, 2021
One of the best things I read all week was Justin Sandefur laying the absolute smack down on the World Bank in Nature. I know what you’re thinking – he’s already killed the Doing Business survey, has he no mercy? But it’s for a good cause. He argues that the Bank’s failure t...
Blog Post
June 18, 2021
Some weeks, it’s a huge struggle to think of a good intro to the links. Other weeks, the sheer absurdity of the world around us gifts me more material than I can possibly use. I don’t watch football anymore, so I’m not referring to the Euros (I can’t even seem to work out what country they’re being ...
Blog Post
June 11, 2021
Well, if England win this test, I will eat my hat. Day 2 and New Zealand are half-way to England’s first innings total for the loss of two wickets; of course, the last time I made such a proclamation, I was trying to digest felt and wool for days after Ben Stokes sold his soul to the devil for ...