My political views haven’t changed dramatically over the years. While I was much less politically engaged as a student, I would still have put myself on the right. But occasionally it’s worth looking back at some of the big things I’ve changed my mind on in politics - and what prompted me to do so.

Now, too many ‘changed my mind’ lists end up being, ‘once I believed in social democracy, but after much reflection I’ve realised I’m actually a democratic socialist’ or, ‘I used to support clause 32(a)(iii) of the Tax and Accountancy Act 1994, but now I don’t.’ And I could give you dozens of small shifts of that nature.

So the five items below are all ones where (a) they’re genuinely big issues; and (b) I’ve properly changed my mind; a 180 degree turn1 taking me from one side of the argument to another.

They are, in no particular order:2

1. The Iraq War

2. Raising income tax thresholds

3. French/Welsh style cultural protection

4. Lifting student number caps

5. Public Sector Pensions

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1. The Iraq War

A classic one first: like around half of the population, I supported the war at the time, whereas now I think it was a mistake.3

Why did I support it? I believed the Government that Saddam Hussein either had, or was close to, obtaining weapons of mass destruction4 - and Saddam was clearly a bad guy, meaning I thought Iraq would be better off with him gone. The interventions in Kosovo and (as it seemed at the time) Afghanistan made foreign interventions look easy. I underestimated the challenges of nation building. And I didn’t (and still don’t) think that the consent of Russia and China makes a difference to whether or not a war is moral.

On an emotional level, I was probably irritated by the casual anti-Americanism and general lefty-ness of many of my fellow students,5 meaning a level of contrariness may have shaped my position.

My views have changed for much the same reason as everyone else’s. There were no WMDs, nation-building was hard, the cost was huge and the number of allied and Iraqi deaths, over the years, was immense. It squandered the good will of 9/11 and fractured the Western coalition that had gone into Afghanistan - and undoubtedly created the power vacuum which first enabled ISIS to flourish and strengthened Iran, both of which have caused as many problems down the line as Saddam did.6

2. Raising income tax thresholds

When the Coalition Government set out to raise the income tax threshold from c. £6,500 to £10,000 I was a big supporter. Although it was originally a Lib Dem policy, it was one I thought fitted fully with Conservative values.

It helped to make work pay - serving justice and strengthening the incentive to come off benefits. It was a tax cut, focused on the working poor who needed it most - and yet was universal, in that everyone benefited. I also felt the idea that we should tax low paid people, only to give a bunch of that money back via benefits, seemed pointless and inefficient: why should the government take with one hand and give back with the other?

Yet with hindsight, this was a mistake: a clear move away from the Lawsonian principle that taxation should be broad-based with low rates; i.e. that most people should contribute to some extent.7 Even if some of the money is ultimately given back, it would be better to have more people feeling they are contributing through tax, in order to maintain a stronger constituency for lower taxes.8

Following the reforms, more than 40% of adults were not paying any income tax at all. This is now down to just over a third - a much healthier state of affairs, and it is no coincidence that the pendulum on tax cuts vs tax rises has swung back as more people are dragged into the tax system. As someone who believes high taxes are economically damaging9, a broader base so that more people can directly feel the impact of higher public spending would be both beneficial and fairer.

To that extent, the recent freezes to the income tax threshold are a good thing. Of course, I’d have preferred them to be accompanied by a cut in the base rate of income tax (or, better yet, National Insurance10) alongside corresponding cuts to public spending. But raising the thresholds above inflation was a mistake - and restoring high-thresholds should not be a priority of a future tax-cutting government.

3. French/Welsh style cultural protection

I used to scoff at the way the French had language quotas for cultural preservation on the radio, or the Welsh government’s policy of relentlessly promoting Welshness via language, culture and history. Haha, how weak the French must think their culture is, to need such protections, I thought. Us in Britain have no need of such foolish things, as our culture is so great.11

But the reality is that any nation that wishes to survive as a nation needs to shore up its identity - which means an active, deliberate and ongoing programme of nation-building and cultural support. It is one of the most basic tests of whether you are a serious nation12 - and we can see that every nation (or similar) that is serious about its identity does this, whether it is small (Wales, Scotland) or large and powerful (the EU13, the US, China). Some in Britain mutter about North Korea every time this is suggested, but the truth is we have multiple democratic examples right on our doorstep.14

Even in Britain we used to do this - look at the Victorians! The idea we ‘don't do flags’ is a modern myth, dating to around the 60s and 70s, and perhaps one that was convenient for both those who regretted the loss of Empire, and those who were ashamed of its existence, to rally round.

In today's Britain - or rather England - we've moved from complacency to sabotage, with most of the institutions that should be at the forefront of maintaining our sense of self as a nation more interested in undermining it. Schools are more focused on highlighting areas of national shame rather than pride, while universities and museums openly adopt the anti-British, anti-Western ideology of ‘decolonisation’ to reorder their curricula and collections. Rather than the series it used to, such as Simon Schama's ‘A History of Britain’, the BBC chooses to commission David Olusoga's relentlessly anti-British ‘Empire’.15

This is not something that has public support. When polled, people - across every ethnic group - repeatedly show strong net agreement with statements such as ‘Britain, throughout its history, has been a force for good in the world’ or that ‘young people who grow up in Britain should be taught to be proud of Britain and its history.’ The approach taken by our schools, universities and museums has been a top-down cultural revolution, imposed by a small minority of the educated elites.16

And yet we can see the results of this relentless campaign of negativity in the attitude of young people, with only 41% of 18-27 year olds expressing pride in their country today, compared to 80% twenty years ago.17

Unlike the French and Welsh, our national language doesn't need protecting. But every publicly funded school and university, every publicly funded museum, and the BBC, should have as an underlying duty to promote pride in Britain's history, heritage and culture.18 This doesn’t mean fabricating events, or banning the teaching of slavery. But it means an overall lens that is steadfastly dedicated towards pride, not shame. Again we don't have to look far to find an example of where this is done well. Visit Edinburgh Castle. They don't conceal that the English took Edinburgh at one point. But pride in Scotland oozes from every stone, along with a clear sense of satisfaction for every time they sent the English packing. And that - in Edinburgh - is exactly how it should be.

The biggest threat to Britain's continued survival, qua Britain, is not Russia, or China, or the EU, or Trump, or any external threat. It is simply that the British people give up any sense that Britain is something that is worth preserving, as an independent and united nation.

O

4. Lifting student number caps

You’ve seen me write about university over-expansion before, such as here, here and here. But believe it or not, when Willetts first said he was going to lift the caps on how many students each university could recruit, I thought it was a good idea.

Essentially I bought the argument that, ‘If Manchester wants to recruit more students, and more students want to go to Manchester, why should the state stop them?’ I believed that choice could be a powerful driver of quality - as it has been in schools, and in the private sector. And although I thought too many people were going, the numbers had been steadily increasing even with the caps, so I didn’t see this as a huge deal breaker.

In reality, what seemed like nice logic at the top of the sector had disastrous consequences. At the bottom end, thanks to no effective quality and standards oversight,19 we saw a huge proliferation of low quality courses, including in business studies and franchised providers, amongst other things. Higher tariff universities expanded rapidly, lowering their entry standards and degree standards to do so - all the while inflating grades, reducing staff/student ratios and over-crowding accommodation and lecture theatres. This in turn put yet more pressure on mid- and low- tariff providers, who faced further pressure to drop standards to recruit students, or else lay off staff.

Student choice also proved a poor driver of quality. In schools, strong external oversight and externally set exams provide robust information that parents can use to judge which schools are best. At university level, institutional autonomy meant it was all too easy for institutions to inflate grades or to dumb down content to inflate their National Student Survey results to climb the league tables. Removing the caps - alongside moving to an almost entirely fee-funded model - meant Government lost almost all influence on issues such as which courses should grow, regional provision or maintaining financial stability.

For some, that would have been a feature, not a bug. But we didn’t see the competition on price or quality that was promised. Instead, rather than competing on quality - as they used to - many universities chose to compete on size instead, with low interest rates fuelling an unsustainable splurge into facilities and infrastructure to attract new students, leaving debts that have come back to bite as interest rates rose.

Although student numbers rose when the caps had been in place, I also underestimated how much harder removing the caps would make it for government to put the genie back in the bottle. Rather than simply dialing the existing control mechanism into reverse, a whole new control mechanism would need to be added - a much harder political ask.

However, regardless of the issue of how many people should go to university, removing the caps was a disaster - as, increasingly, people who disagree with me about the ‘how many?’ question are also saying. The ‘market’ does not function in HE, it is a quasi market, backed by taxpayer funding, that has unleashed all the worst elements of competition - instability, reduction in standards and investment in wasteful conspicuous signalling - with none of the benefits, such as improved quality or lower costs. Regardless of whether you think more or fewer people should be going to university, institutional level caps need to be restored.

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5. Public Sector Pensions

When I was in the civil service it seemed both right and proper that I should have an excellent defined benefit pension. After all, this was an appropriate reward for our lower salaries - and likely outweighed by the large bonuses and stock options enjoyed by our counterparts in the private sector. I felt this strongly: the one time I went on strike was due to pension changes.20

The arguments that final salary schemes were unaffordable I discounted, or rather felt it was artificially created, blaming it on Brown’s tax raid on pension fund dividends. The other thing that struck me as unfair about the defined contribution model was the degree of luck that surrounded a person’s final pension. Particularly when the requirement to buy an annuity was in place, two people retiring just a year apart with the same pension pot might have annual pensions 20% different in size.21 Surely pooling this sort of risk was exactly what Government should do - in fact, could it not encourage this sort of risk-sharing in the private sector, perhaps backed by large insurance firms?

I might have accepted my initial pension - a ridiculously generous final salary scheme accruing at 1/60 per year and takeable in full from 6022 - was a little lavish, but remained strongly in favour of a defined benefit scheme.

A lot of these things are partly true. Brown’s tax raid did have an impact, there was an unfairness regarding the timing of annuities23, and many private sector workers do get benefits - whether shares, bonuses, private health care or staff discounts - outside of their headline salary that the ‘what about the pension?’ crowd ignore.

But it’s pretty clear that overall I was being biased by my own employment.24 Public sector pensions are, and remain, unreasonably high. Including bonuses, public sector pay is only 5% lower than the private sector - which cannot justify the disparity of 27% public vs 6% private average employer contribution into the pension.

Plus, of course, the public sector is more advantageous to employees in other ways, including greater job security, better terms and conditions (such as sick pay or maternity pay) and - at least for office based jobs - more working from home.25

Even if one did think the public sector (or parts of the public sector) should be paid more - perhaps to recruit and retain better staff - then having such a high proportion of total reward devoted to pension contributions would not be the way to do it.26 Employees notoriously undervalue their pension, and for retention and recruitment purposes it would actually be better to give a less generous pension and put more of that funding into increasing headline salaries. This is true whether we’re discussing getting more physics teachers to work in London, or compensating the very highest echelons (the only area where pay really does significantly lag the private sector equivalents) better.

A defined contribution funded pension scheme, with a standardised employer contribution of 10% and an employee contribution of 5%, would be much fairer. This aligns more closely with the best private sector schemes rather than the average, compensates for the 5% lower salary, and the total proportion of salary being invested into an employee’s pension, at 15%, is above the 12% recommended by Pensions UK for a suitable retirement.27 It would still be a good pension - just not an excessive one.

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Lessons learned

So is there a common theme?

There isn’t an obvious directionality: in some I’ve shifted to the right, in others to the left.28 And they are on both economic and cultural matters.

There’s definitely a case that in some cases I was biased - either because the system personally benefitted me (public sector pensions) or played into my prejudices (the English being better than the French) - or to be more credible of ideas if they were coming from people I agreed with on other things.

There’s perhaps another commonality on putting too much confidence in theoretical models of how something should work - the power of choice, nation building - and not enough into how things could go wrong, or how the incentives might play out differently in the real world to in theory. These often look obvious in hindsight, but are hard to spot in advance.

Overall, beware of bias, beware of sympathy/antipathy, and pay more attention to second-order effects as well as theory aren’t bad lessons to take away - even if they can be easier said than done!

26

Other peculiarities of public sector pension schemes include the fact that they vary so much between different parts of the public sector, for historical rather than economic or market conditions, or the fact that employee contribution rates can be relatively high (which is causing an increasing minority to opt-out altogether) and, in a weird ‘progressive’ way, get significantly higher as you get paid more - which can cause someone to see their take-home pay actually decrease when they get a pay-rise.

As someone who has worked through multiple changes of minister and Secretary of State, I’ve seen first hand how, after a transition - even within the same government - policies the civil service doesn’t like are quietly deprioritised or recommended for termination, while those it favours are presented again and again, until a minister can be found who will agree to take them forward.

So it was no surprise to see, despite having played a part in blocking them in 2021,2 the new School Food Standards emerge this week, like a dead rat the cat refuses to stop bringing in, just as I had seen them in draft, five years before.

As if designed by a committee of health food aficionados, to suck all the pleasure of eating from the next generation3, the proposed new rules are full of killjoy sentences such as ‘Fried breads, pastries and croissants are not permitted’, ‘Restricting the use of cheese as a main ingredient,’ ‘Once a week fruit to be the only available dessert option in primary schools’ and ‘Allowing only plain water, semi-skimmed or skimmed milk, lactose free milk and some plant-based drinks in primary and secondary schools.’

The more one reads it, the more depressed one gets:

For drinks:

For whole-grain starch:

Cheese is in the firing line:

As are meatballs, sausages and bacon:4

Traditional puddings such as crumbles, jam roly-poly and syrup sponge are almost completely eliminated - reduced to just once a week:

The Government’s announcement is supported - but of course it is! - by a host of charities, celebrities and assorted do-gooders. And quite possibly it polls well, if asked in the right way, to a population with dim memories of the Jamie Oliver ‘turkey twizzlers’ campaign from 2005. But in the real world, was this at the top of anyone’s priority list? In a world where the cost of living and the state of public services regularly top every poll and focus group,5 across voters from all parties, ages and locations, why do this?6

This is death by 1000 cuts, a never-ending stream of regulations that impoverish business, households and the public sector alike. It is not just the hundred million pounds bat tunnels and fish discos; not just the HS2 bridges to nowhere. It is the £1.8 billion cost of Martyn’s Law, requiring all premises such as church halls and larger pubs with over 100 capacity to take steps to mitigate the impact of terrorism; the £2.7 billion cost of requiring new higher buildings to have second staircases - both policies the Government’s own impact assessments assess to have minimal benefits.

It is the plethora of regulations which mean childcare costs have increased by 80% in real terms since 2000, why ever-longer regulatory codes choke our financial services, and why 20mph zones proliferate across our towns and villages. It is why Eldest’s year 8 school trip to France costs 33% more for 20% less time than mine did 30 years ago7 and behind the increasing requirements heaped upon pubs, restaurants, small businesses and charities. Nor is the public sector immune. It is why schools which used to have a couple of admin staff now have admin blocks, why the NHS needs more midwives to deliver fewer babies and why everything, from reservoirs to prisons, takes longer and costs more.

I am not saying any of these are unpopular in themselves - on the contrary, most are brought in to cheers and any attempts at abolition are met with howls of outcry.8 The British public loves banning things. Very few of these rules are entirely stupid, or have no benefit at all. But in aggregate they are immiserating, making life more expensive, less convenient and less colourful. The British people are facing the revealed consequence of their own actions.

What is more, those who push these regulations will never be satisfied. The school food standards were updated shortly after, and as a direct result of, Jamie Oliver’s campaign, updated again in 2014, with various smaller amendments since then. But still they cry for more. Whether it is alcohol, road safety, childcare, hygiene, health and safety or food, the ratchet only goes in one direction.9

As C. S. Lewis wrote:

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth.”

C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock

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This stuff makes me despair far more than major laws I disagree with, such as the Employment Rights Act. While the latter is individually more damaging, it is at least the result of a distinct political process: championed by a senior Cabinet Minister, included in a manifesto and passed with deliberate intent by a government strongly aligned with its measures. It can as easily be repealed - indeed, both the Conservatives and Reform have pledged to do so.

But how to deal with the torrent of regulation pouring, incessantly, from every department and quango? How to put the risk-aversion ratchet into reverse? St George marches out with shield and spear10 to face the dragon - but instead meets a plague of locusts which, sweeping past his clumsy efforts, strip the countryside bare.11

I have on occasion suggested that we should simply repeal every law and regulation passed since the mid-90s, with only a small grace period allowed to identify those we wished to keep.12 In reality this probably would not work - even if we could find a politician bold enough to do it.13 Other whimsical ideas, such as every law ceasing within 10 years unless an MP can be found to read it out, in full, in the Chamber, similarly belong more within the pages of a Heinlein novel than in real life.14

Nevertheless, there are measures that can be taken. The One In:Two Out mechanism imposed by the Coalition had some success, though too many measures were excluded from its scope to be effective. Sunset clauses could be applied routinely to new quangos and regulation (and even to older ones) and parliamentary approval required for regulators to impose new regulations which would have more than a minimal cost. An interesting idea I recently came across was for a standing committee tasked to systematically review regulation - primary, secondary and requirements from regulators - that could only recommend repealing (in whole or in part), not additions. Each quarter a package for repeal would be presented to a senior minister, who would then have the final decisions on whether or not to repeal, confirmed by a Parliamentary vote.

But all these mechanisms can only go so far. After years of stagnating living standards, to restore our prosperity, our freedom and our public services, we will need a Prime Minister and Cabinet who will tackle regulation with the same single-minded focus that Thatcher applied to privatisation, or Cameron and Osborne applied to deficit reduction.

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I’ve spent much of the last week playing Theme Manor, a fun new game created by members of the development teams behind the old classics Theme Park and Theme Hospital - and very much in the same vein - in which you have to design and manage your own Stately Home.

Initially developed in partnership with the National Trust, the Trust pulled the plug on the design team halfway through development, citing those old chestnuts ‘irreconcilable differences in values’ and ‘gratuitous levels of violence and gore.’ Fortunately the developers were able to raise the highly impressive $5,318,008 on Kickstarter - one of the largest sums ever raised for a computer game crowd-funder1 - and were able to complete the project despite the National Trust’s attempted cancellation.

Those of us who backed the Kickstarter got it a week in advance, and it has now just gone on general release.

Gameplay

The premise is that you’ve just inherited a dilapidated stately home with a rapidly declining bank balance, and that you have to renovate it and turn it into a top tourist destination before you go bankrupt.2 Gameplay and graphics are very much in the style of its classic 90s predecessors, with the same trademark detail-orientation and sense of humour.3

A quick-start game plunges you straight into the action after choosing a number of parameters: difficulty level, the circumstances under which you inherited the hall (including gambling debts, experimental architect and excessive travel - each of which can lead to certain events triggering) and location, for which choices include the Home Counties (expensive land and staff, but good proximity to foreign tourists), Wales (cheap land but it rains almost every day4) and Yorkshire (where the staff are hard-working but bloody-minded). Advanced start provides you with a much wider range of options, including the ability to customise every member of your family tree, who will then appear in portraits and statues.

You begin with a couple of rooms open, a basic car park and a cheap tearoom that looks like Ivy’s cafe from Last of the Summer Wine. You expand by ‘renovating’ rooms, both ‘upstairs’ such as the master bedroom or dining room, and ‘downstairs’ such as the kitchens and servant’s quarters, as well as building outdoor facilities such as a maze, falconry exhibit and adventure playground. In addition to this you’re responsible for hiring staff and volunteers5, maintenance and hygiene6, and much more.

Almost everything can be upgraded and customised, from the ornaments in the grand hall to the depth of the ha-ha. You can lay out guided tours, produce museum brochures and place your own period-style furniture.7 Refreshment stands are obviously needed - and former Theme Park players will be pleased to know that the classic trick of dialling up the salt still works. As you attract more international tourists, you’ll need to diversify your fare: Japanese like sushi bars, the Italians want pizza and the Americans demand burger bars.8 Everyone likes scones with clotted cream and jam in the tearoom, which periodically upgrades as you hit certain milestones, in the manner of9 the original Civilization’s palace.

In addition to money, the two main resources you’re managing are customer satisfaction and fame. The former must be kept high to ensure repeat visitors; it is improved by more and better rooms, facilities and amenities, and damaged by shoddy services, unkempt grounds and various money-gouging tactics you may choose to resort to. Fame is harder to get, but is essential for expanding your visitor base beyond the local area - and particularly to attract high spending international tourists.

In some cases, customer satisfaction and fame are aligned - but not always. For example, the more you expand your falconry display the better the customer satisfaction, and once you get enough rare birds it will start improving fame also.10 With the maze, however, beyond a certain size customer satisfaction drops off, as it turns out visitors don’t like spending their entire visit lost inside a giant maze - but making it bigger will still boost your fame.11

Getting fame to certain thresholds unlocks special rooms and buildings, including various follies, a hermit hut (complete with hermit), an artist in residence, secret passageways and the mad scientist. The last is particularly important because it enables new gameplay elements, including time travel missions to retrieve historic artefacts, as well as dinosaur cloning, which allows you to add a dino park to your manor grounds.

This in turn unlocks the second, and altogether stranger, part of the game.

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Dinosaur Mayhem

Whenever a storm occurs after the dino park is built, there is a small chance of an escape occurring - with the chance increasing with the size and number of dinosaurs in the dino park. At this point the game transitions to a first person shooter - like Doom or Half-Life - using the Unreal engine, in which you have to kill all of the dinosaurs before they eat the staff and visitors.12

In contrast to the more relaxed earlier part of the game, this section of the game is incredibly intense, fast-paced and violent, where your reactions will be tested to the limit to keep ahead of the dinos. Bodies pile high - both humans and dinosaurs - with masses of blood and entrails spraying in every direction. A hyper-realistic anatomy model ensures that disembowelments, trampling and limbs being torn off are rendered in graphic detail - with even the herbivores a potentially lethal threat. Meanwhile, the effects of the different weapons you can find to fight back with, from Kalashnikovs to chainsaws, are depicted with no less attention, brutality and gore.13

It was at this point that the National Trust, already frustrated by the supposed ‘cultural insensitivity’ of the design team, finally pulled the plug. Stereotyped food carts they could (just about) tolerate; graphic dinosaur violence, less so. But the developers refused to have their creative vision censored - and the rest is history.

Personally, I think the National Trust was a bit oversensitive. Sure, maybe some people would be distressed at the sight of an allosaurus swallowing a young family whole, or a pack of velociraptors ripping into the bodies of fleeing teenagers - but doesn’t that make it even more enjoyable when you blow them to pieces with a rocket-propelled grenade? As Iona Money-Pott, columnist for the Daily Telegraph, wrote:

‘This is cancel culture gone mad. Just because some woke palaeontologists in their ivory towers claim that humans and dinosaurs never co-existed, why should the National Trust try to spoil our fun? In my day, we spent our time playing good wholesome games like Grand Theft Auto and it never did us any harm.

The National Trust claim they want to diversify their audience, but they don’t seem to care about young men in their teens and twenties - most of whom wouldn’t be seen dead in a National Trust property. Theme Manor might have tempted some of them to take a visit - but the Trust would rather they were murdering each other like in the documentary Adolescence, rather than taking part in healthy dinosaur mayhem in the grounds of our glorious stately homes.

Iona Money-Pott, Daily Telegraph

Assuming you survive the onslaught, once the last dinosaur is killed you are shown a victory screen, in which you can be seen standing upon a mound of slaughtered dinosaurs. At this point, you are offered the opportunity to quit, start a new game, or return to your original manor (with dino damage miraculously repaired) to continue building and expanding in sandbox mode.

The last laugh

Despite having been left high and dry when the National Trust pulled out, the developers had the last laugh - as one of the Kickstarter ‘stretch goals’ they hit was for a ‘decolonisation’ mod.

If you install this mod (which comes included with the base game), a menu button is added with the option ‘decolonise your manor’. If you click it, you receive a prompt saying, ‘Warning: selecting this option may permanently damage your heritage. Are you sure you wish to continue?’ If you do continue then apologies for slavery are added to all of your family portraits, the scones in the tearoom are replaced with vegan alternatives and all of your statues are replaced by statues of black Welsh disabled women trade unionists.14

Overall Rating: 9/10. Theme Manor flawlessly blends the best of the classic simulation and first person shooter genres, combining surprising depth, modern graphics and the charming humour of its classic predecessors.

Theme Manor is available to purchase for £69.69 from Steam.

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Thank you to the 289 people who completed the Question of Law Survey. Thanks to you we now know important facts such that gay marriage is more popular than gravity, and that my left wing readers would rather see the return of slavery than smoking in pubs.1

As several people commented, there was a level of vibes about this, because in reality ‘repealing’ an Act - particularly an older one - might not be so simple, as it will have become intertwined with many other laws. But vibes still tell us something interesting, particularly when comparing different groups.

The survey respondents were:

• 84% male and 14% female (the remainder preferring not to say);

• 26% considered themselves to be on the political right, with 65% on the political left and 9% unsure or preferring not to say.

Given they were filling in an internet survey about Acts of Parliament, it would also be safe to assume that respondents were more politically engaged than the typical population.

To start with the more serious part of the survey, Acts of Parliament.

After the abolition of slavery, by far the most popular Acts to retain were same sex marriage and banning smoking in pubs - which is frankly quite astonishing given both were passed relatively recently to great controversy (including within the party that passed them). Both enjoyed very strong support from both right and left - a clear sign of rapid societal change.

Moving down, I was surprised to see such strong cross-spectrum support for banning the closed shop (Employment Act 1982). Reflecting the left-wing skew of respondents (see below) there was strong support for the Equality Act and Human Rights Act, though with a core of dissenters in each case. Digital-related bills such as the Data Protection Act and the Online Safety Act saw a strong desire for reform - while it was no surprise that the Groceries Code Adjudicator Act2 evoked the most indifference.

The Act of Settlement was the only Act which had an absolute majority for repeal - though almost as many, unsurprisingly, wanted to reverse Brexit. Worth mentioning also are a few Acts at the bottom which very few people who know about them think are working well, governing the planning system, the SEND regime, universities and the courts - each representing one of the more dysfunctional elements of the British state.

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But how does the picture change when we only consider right-wingers?

Abolition of slavery stays top of the ‘Retain’ list, but is followed by keeping the closed shop abolished and, to my delight, another of the Acts on which I worked,3 the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech Act). Gay marriage and the smoking ban slip down a little, but both still enjoy over 60% support with no more than 1 in 5 wanting them repealed. Brexit is unsurprisingly more popular than with the wider survey respondents, though there are unsurprisingly some right-wing remainers.

I was a little surprised to see so many right-wingers wanting to keep the Act of Settlement. My assumption is that this stems from support for the Church of England to remain established - and thus the monarch, as head, needing to be an Anglican - rather than any particular animus to Catholics.4

Most notable is a strong opposition to the core pillar of the New Labour constitutional settlement: The Equality Act, the Human Rights Act, the Climate Change Act and the Constitutional Reform Act. We see support for outright retention between 8% and 24% - and an absolute majority in favour of outright repeal for three out of four (the remaining one being 47% repeal). This is significant: these are hugely influential laws which were retained without significant amendment throughout the following fourteen years of Conservative-led government. Despite the small size and self-selection of this survey, I think this does reflect a broader mood shift on the political right - as indicated by both Reform and the Tories now being committed to leaving the ECHR - that is behind both the rise of Reform and a broader recognition that the right cannot substantively achieve any of its broader aims without substantive reform of the New Labour settlement.

Scottish devolution had some support, with Welsh less so. The Freedom of Information Act escaped the broader purge of New Labour legislation, while the Online Safety Act - despite being passed by a recent Tory Government - is deeply unpopular. A worryingly high proportion of right-wingers want to get rid of the OBR, while views on the SEND and planning regime track the broader sample’s very similarly.

And what about the left?

In contrast, the New Labour constitutional settlement enjoys huge support with left-wing respondents, with over 70% outright support for the Equality Act, Human Rights Act and Constitutional Reform Act, and only just under (67%) for the Climate Change Act. Dissenters in each case are almost all those favouring reform, not repeal. Devolution also enjoys very strong support.

Left-wing respondents also really really care that fox hunting remains banned5 while, unsurprisingly, over half wanted to reverse Brexit. Conservative legislation that did have more wanting to retain it than reform included the Academies Act and the Online Safety Act (though both with a big chunk for reform). There is no wish, however, to return to the days of the closed shop - it seems today’s employment rights battles are fought on different grounds.

Fully a third of left-wing respondents want to repeal the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act - no doubt believing that because their views aren’t censored, there isn’t a problem.6 Though disappointingly for me on tribal grounds, my left-wing respondents are far more fiscally responsible than my right-wing ones, showing much stronger support for the OBR, so I have to give them points here.

One interesting point is that if you average across all Acts, the total for each category is notably different for right-wing and left-wing respondents:

This suggests a country where the right - at least those who did this survey - is fundamentally less happy with the legal and constitutional settlement than the left. This makes a bunch of sense to me for two reasons:

• Logically, in that New Labour made some very significant, broad and deep changes to our law, which impact almost every area of domestic policy and life, which have not been altered, while the Conservative Governments that followed did not (with the exception of Brexit).7

• Observationally, on the right Reform is comfortably leading the Conservatives in the polls, whereas on the left, Labour and the Lib Dems are, together, still well ahead of the Greens,8 which suggests deeper dissatisfaction with the state of the country on the right.

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Now time for some fun

But what about the other laws - of physics and of society?

I’m honestly a bit disappointed by my respondents here. Sure, one wouldn’t want to actually repeal the law of gravity, but not to reform it? Even to make it easier to generate antigravity or artificial gravity? That would be great!9

I was a little surprised to see such strong opposition to Hubble’s Law,10 but glad to see the Second Law of Thermodynamics get some of the dislike it deserves (though still, an absolute majority for keeping it - astonishing!).

People were more willing to tamper with the sociological laws - with five seeing more votes for Reform than Retain. Gresham’s Law, Sturgeon’s Law and the Pournelle’s Iron Law all justly disliked. I was surprised to see how many people, even on the left, wanted to repeal Conquest’s Second Law11 (though more wished to retain, 32:24) and by the comparative lack of hate for Murphy’s Law (why do a third of you want to keep it?).12

Unsurprisingly, particularly with the rise of AI, The First Law of Robotics was top of the list to retain - though given how often it goes wrong in the books, perhaps we should not be complacent, and it should be reformed.13

And finally, the grand law megamix - thank you to everyone who took part!

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Following a consultation, the Bank of England announced that the practice of featuring renowned individuals was to cease, to be replaced with animals and nature scenes. Amongst the reasons for the decision they gave were that it ‘is not divisive: The theme should not involve imagery that would reasonably be offensive to, or exclude, any groups.’

This was met with an outpouring of criticism over Churchill being replaced by a badger,1 erasing Britain's history, and so forth, and a counterwave of others criticising those in the first camp for click bait and working themselves up over nothing. Kemi Badenoch, Nigel Farage and Ed Davey have all weighed in to criticise the Bank's decisions and even a few Labour MPs have, when asked, admitted that it might be nice to remember Churchill's role in defeating fascism.2

A few preliminaries. Firstly, yes, the sky will not fall in from this decision. Yes, bank notes only began featuring figures (other than the Queen) in 1970. Yes, the banknotes are updated every 10-20 years for anti-counterfeiting reasons so any current figure should be thought of as temporary, including Churchill.

Secondly, the Bank’s decision is not woke - a bit naff, perhaps, but not woke. They are not replacing the figures with lesbian trade unionists, or with Tipu Sultan and others who fought against the Empire. Badgers are not woke. The British countryside is not woke.3 Some of us are old enough to remember the Conservative Party Conference in which Boris Johnson bellowed ‘Build Back Beaver’ to the resounding cheers of the faithful.

But nevertheless it matters, both in itself, and as a symptom of a wider malaise.

As Ed West has written, “Banknotes are a little window into a country’s soul, and instructive…and that is precisely why states with weak or fractured identities tend to feature animals and natural objects.” He goes on to say, “It’s not the most important thing in the world, but bank notes do signify a great deal about a country’s prospects. Nature-currency is a bear signal, because if the ethnic groups comprising a state cannot unify around shared historical figures it’s an indicator that they won’t easily co-operate in the country’s political system.”

Indeed, the Bank itself has spoken repeatedly of the importance of the figures on its banknotes, as when its Chief Cashier said, “Banknotes are more than just an important means of payment — they serve as a symbolic representation of our collective national identity and an opportunity to celebrate the UK.” And those who campaigned in 2013 for a woman to be represented on a bank note, or in 2018 for an ethnic minority figure to be represented, certainly thought it mattered.

The Bank’s decision may not have been woke, but it was timorous at a time when we require leadership. By using the public consultation as an excuse to retreat to nature designs, it sought to avoid a public row over any particular choice - a decision which, on that criteria alone, has clearly backfired.4

Cohesive, confident societies do not simply arise - they must be built. And in a nation such as Britain’s today - multi-ethnic, multi-faith, with high levels of inward migration, growing ethnic tensions and low economic growth - an active approach to integration and cohesion is more important than ever. Contrary to the beliefs of some liberals, a set of deracinated values that could belong to anywhere is not enough to anchor that integration: it must be rooted in specific history, specific people, specific landmarks, heritage, places, sports teams and culture, an attachment to which binds and unites.5

I myself would not have signed the petition to put an ethnic minority person on a banknote. This is because while Britain has many ethnic minority people in its history who did inspiring things6, who deserve to be honoured with statues and blue plaques, it has - due to the relative recency of mass demographic change - none who stand in the first rank of national significance that marks others on our bank notes - though I have no doubt it will do in time. They are, to use my terminology, ‘Heroes’ rather than ‘Giants’ - and thus placing them on a bank note would be, and would be clearly seen to be, tokenistic.7

(I would note that this is not the case for women (Austen, Nightingale, Franklin, Pankhurst…), gay people (Turing, Wilde…) or disabled people (Nelson, Hawking…) where multiple individuals who are very clearly of that first rank of significance exist).

But while it would not be my first choice, nor would it distress me to see Khan, Equiano or Seacole appear on a banknote - and if that were part of securing broad-based support, alongside other, clearly deserving figures, then so be it. Sunder Katwala, who writes from the left on patriotism and cohesion, has suggested adding one ethnic minority figure, keeping Churchill, and then having two others. He understands that symbols matter - and while I may not agree with him fully on this, if push came to shove, I would stand shoulder to shoulder with him against a legion of badger apologists.

Rather than timidly retreating from the fray, the Bank should have found the courage to identify four figures which, together, could symbolise and celebrate our nation. Perhaps that would have meant facing down those campaigning for an ethnic minority figure, by finding an alternative impeccable candidate, as they did in 2019 with Turing - or perhaps it would have meant facing down sceptical voices on the right, and including one. Either way, Britain’s history is rich enought hat it would not have been beyond the wit of man to find a combination that could command broad-based public support - and to make that case to the nation.8

As our society fractures, public authorities must find the courage to lead. Bank notes may not be the be-all and end-all of national identity, but they play their part - and they are the only part for which the Bank of England is responsible. Only a nation that is confident in celebrating itself, its history and its heritage, that is patriotic, proud and inclusive, can hope to maintain its cohesion in these times. And if our public bodies and civic institutions will not take the field, they simply leave it open to the far-right ethno-nationalists, sectarian Islamists, and others who would rip our society to shreds.

To end on a lighter note, there is, of course, a solution.9 Just as the polar vessel RRS David Attenborough used the publicly voted name ‘Boaty McBoatface’ for its autonomous underwater vessel, so the Bank could acknowledge the public’s love of nature by combining both nature AND famous people, by filling the borders with woodland animals peeking through foliage, like the marginalia in Mediaeval manuscripts.

Or, for those who prefer the work of the great Quentin Blake, perhaps this, too, might find a spot on a banknote, at some point in the future:

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A few weeks ago I had a debate with a friend on whether a scheme in which the rich pay more was the same as one where the poor pay less. While a lot of this turned on semantics,1 it had at its root a more meaningful point: there are very different philosophies on how one should define public sector spending schemes, all of which can be described as ‘progressive’, and yet which have very different outcomes and impacts on those involved.

This isn’t just an academic question: we use all of these in the UK in numerous places. And while I spoke of ‘philosophies’, in practice they are often the way they are because of vibes, political calculation or historical accident. Nevertheless, thinking explicitly about the different design options for schemes, and their pros and cons, is useful for anyone wanting to reform them - or to design future schemes.2

We’ll look here a three of the principal options for designing a scheme, and then look at five other variants which are also used, some more than others.

1. Universalism

2. The poor get more

3. The rich get less

4. Sinners pay more

5. Saints get more

6. Contributors get more

7. The favoured get more

8. Those in a hurry pay more

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Universalism

A universal service or benefit is provided to everyone, regardless of their income.3 Some of the UK’s largest and most strongly supported spending programmes are provided on a universal basis, including schools, the NHS and the state pension, as are many public amenities, such as libraries and free museums.

There are strong arguments that appeal to all parts of the political spectrum for universalism4 - including the not-to-be-overlooked benefits of simplicity and cost of administration. For the right, universalism avoids the trap wherein those with savings, or who have worked hard, are penalised for their prudence or success; for the left, there is strong evidence that programmes which are used by all remain higher quality and enjoy stronger support than those which become ‘ghettoes’ for the poor.5 Given that all programmes or benefits are ultimately funded out of general taxation, to the extent that taxation is progressive - which it is in most countries, including the UK - a universal scheme is progressive.

One objection to universalism is that it may lead to services used by the middle classes or the wealthy more than the poor, who could be considered to need them most - middle class people use public libraries more, for example.6 As someone who believes in individual agency, I don’t see this as a problem7, however, this is a problem for Social Calvinists8, as well as for those who believe the principal purpose of government is to ‘close gaps’ rather than to provide opportunity for all.

However, the biggest disadvantage of universalism is that it is incredibly expensive - and that is disadvantage enough to place severe limits on its use. It is no coincidence that the the programmes mentioned above cost, between them, over £400 billion a year, or around a third of state spending. To make every social programme in the UK universal would have a prohibitive cost9 - so with resources scarce, it is understandstandable that people seek approaches that target scarce resources more narrowly.

In the next sections, we’ll be talking about ‘the poor’ and ‘the rich’. It’s well-established that no-one agrees who is poor and who is rich, but fortunately we will not need exact definitions here. Almost all of us would agree that the dividing line for ‘the rich’ is in the top half of the population by affluence, and similarly that for ‘the poor’ is in the bottom half, and that is the only intuition we need here.10

The Poor Get More

In Poor Get More (or pay less) schemes, some benefit or service is given only to a subgroup of people at the bottom of the income distribution11, with others either not receiving it or having to pay. This is frequently based on the concept of a ‘safety net’, where the state steps in for those who have fallen on hard times.

Free School Meals, free prescriptions and most benefits, including child tax credits, and housing benefit, are based on this principle. Universal Credit is means-tested, such that those with £16,000 or more in savings cannot claim it. Plan 1 and Plan 5 student loans are also a Poor Get More scheme, in that most people will repay their loans in full, but the bottom third by income will not, and see all or part of their debt written off.

The principle benefit of Poor Get More schemes is that the benefit is only given to those most in need, making it significantly more affordable to the taxpayer than if delivered on a universal basis. It keeps the size of the state to a minimum, keeping it out of most people’s lives, and in most cases has a clear philosophical underpinning, in that we are saying that no-one in society should go without certain necessities.

Disadvantages include that such means-testing inevitably creates circumstances where people on the edge of eligibility for such benefits can face very high effective marginal tax rates - or even lose income - as they lose eligibility, reducing incentives to work. The administration of eligibity can be costly, with some deserving people falling through the cracks. And with the middle classes and those with influence in society having no stake in them, programmes for the poor can often become poor quality programmes - repeatedly cut and then eliminated.

The Rich Get Less

In Rich Get Less (or pay more) schemes, the majority of the population receives a benefit or free access to a service, but a subset of people at the top of the income spectrum do not.

Child benefit is an example of such a scheme, as is free childcare and the final version of means-tested Winter Fuel Allowance.12 Plan 2 student loans are an example too, with the wealthiest graduates paying back far more than they borrowed in real terms, as well as being simultaneously a Poor Get More scheme, with the lowest earners not repaying.13 The withdrawal of various tax allowances for high earners could also be characterised as Rich Get Less schemes. Schemes such as Finland’s approach to driving penalties, where the level of your fine is based on your income, could also be considered to fall into this category.

The advantage of Rich Get Less schemes is that they are popular - it is easy to whip up dislike for anything that can be charaterised as giving benefits to millionaires. As the majority of the population continue to benefit from the programme it is easier to maintain public support. They are a little cheaper than Universal programmes and those who don’t get it are usually those who don’t actually need it.

The disadvantage is that compared to Poor Get More schemes, they save comparatively little - but bring with them all of the same disadvantages of additional cost and complexity in administering and high marginal rates of taxation.14 Whatever you think the top rate of tax should be, it is surely ridiculous that someone with two children under five is better off earning £99,999 than they would be earning £149,999 - an effect that you can literally see showing up in the stats.

We should not be sorry for those on the verge of earning six figure salaries - but that spike represents NHS consultants cutting back to 4 day weeks; programmers, lawyers and other professionals working and earning less - and millions of pounds in foregone tax due to the inefficiency.15

As you may be able to tell, I tend to think that where means-testing is necessary (and it often is), it makes more sense from a fiscal, moral and economic perspective to focus those scarse resources on those who genuinely need it, using the Poor Get More schemes. Sadly, due to politics, we all too often end up with Rich Get Less schemes instead (as the Winter Fuel Allowance row so aptly demonstrated).

The above three schemes represent the most common ways of determining who gets what based upon income or wealth. But there are other approaches, which use entirely separate criteria to determine who gains and who pays.

Sinners Pay More

Such schemes make the price of something we think is bad more expensive - either because we think it is bad for the individual or to price in negative externalities that the activity has on others.

It’s not hard to think of examples: taxes on alcohol, tobacco or sugar, carbon taxes, or fuel duty. A dynamic road tax would be a way of pricing in the externalities caused by congestion, by altering the price depending on what road, and at what time, someone was driving. Schemes which raise money from wrongdoers - such as speeding violations or library fines - are also applying this principle.

The advantages to such schemes is that deterring the activity is part of the point - if the tax causes fewer people to do the activity, that’s a benefit. This does cause a trade-off between money raised and amount of activity deterred.16 The main disadvantage is that such schemes tend to be regressive, with the heaviest burden falling upon the poor.17

Saints Get More1819

The reverse of the above, where government seeks to encourage a behaviour they value by rewarding or subsidising those who take part in it. Subsidies for solar panels or electric cars, the (miniscule, limited) transferrable tax allowance for married couples and Hungary’s lifetime income tax exemption for women who have four or more children are all good examples.20

The advantage to such schemes is that they are a straightforward way of government incentivising something it thinks there should be more of while still permitting free choice. The disadvantages are that such schemes typically carry a large amount of deadweight loss - paying people who would have done it anyway - and as such can be very expensive, particularly if one wants to pay enough to significantly shift behaviour. There is also a question over how effective such schemes are compared to overall cultural effects - or whether they need to combined with a much broader societal movement to have much impact.21

Contributors Get More

In Contributors Get More schemes, a person’s eligibility - and often how much they get - is determined by the extent of their contribution, or a proxy that is considered to measure it. The UK is an outlier in how little we make use of such schemes, with the principal one being the state pension - and that being quite loosely based.22 New Style Job Seeker’s Allowance is also a contributory benefit, paid to unemployed people who’ve paid Class 1 NI contributions in recent years.

The advantage of such schemes is that they tap into many people’s sense of fairness: that it is right that those who have made more of a contribution to society receive more back when they need it. Most people would be happy for a person who had worked in a factory for twenty years and lost their job when the factory closed to receive more unemployment benefit than someone who has never worked a day in their life. By linking benefits to contributions, it can also provide additional incentives to work, and reduce the circumstances where those who have done the right thing by society get the same as those who have shirked.

One disadvantage is that they can reinforce existing wealth differentials - though this can be mitigated if benefits are based upon years of contribution, rather than the actual amount paid. They can be more costly to administer than a simpler scheme - and more subject to fraud. A further disadvantage is that either the level is set such that some people (the contributors) end up getting more than they really need, increasing the cost, or some people (the non-contributors) get less, or nothing, which may be something that society is not willing to stomach.

The favoured get more

In such a scheme, only those who are in a certain identity category are able to access the scheme. Examples include those over a certain age receiving free TV licenses, ethnic-minority only internship schemes, or Reform’s proposals that only British citizens should be able to claim benefits.

Importantly, and distinguishing this approach from other entries, these categories are not directly connected with either affluence or need.23 They may be correlated - for example, someone might argue that British citizens are more likely to contributed, or that pensioners are more likely to be poor24 - but in such schemes someone is explicitly prioritising the identity category, otherwise it would be possible simply to make eligibility dependent on income, or on contribution, or whatever the supposedly relevant category is.

A scheme of this sort can be combined with other categories: for example, the modified Winter Fuel Allowance is both a Rich Get Less scheme (higher income pensioners do not get it) and a The Favoured Get More scheme (poor people who are not pensioners do not get it).

The advantages or disadvantages of such schemes depends entirely on how legitimate one thinks the favoured group deserves to receive differential treatment. Woke people who think we need to compensate for historic disadvantage may believe it is acceptable to establish schemes that differentially benefit ethnic minorities. Those who wish to strengthen the nation state and reduce immigration may support schemes based on citizens’ preference. Boomers may believe we should inexorably move to a situation in which every penny of GDP is given to pensioners,25 after which we should move on to converting first the solar system and then the Milky Way into more pensioner benefits. In each case, other people’s mileage may vary

Those in a Hurry Pay More

In rare cases, typically where a service is provided on a cost or near-cost basis, we allow those who wish to to pay more to get a better - typically a faster - service. An example is getting a new passport: there is a standard price to get it in the standard time, a higher price to get it within a week and a truly exorbitant price to get it within days.

The advantage of this is that it allows price differentiation: those willing to pay more can do so and the money is kept within the service, meaning that either prices can be lowered for everyone else, or the service can be improved by hiring more staff. We are used to this in the private sector, in everything from Amazon deliveries to business class travel.

The disadvantage is that it allows the wealthier to directly purchase a better service - something most people are typically not comfortable with on essential services, such as health care.26 In practice, what tends to happen is that this sort of scheme operates in effect outside of the core service, via the existence of a privately purchasable alternative for those who can afford it and wish to.

So, lots of possibilities, which should we prefer?

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3

Note that it may still be provided only to people in certain circumstances. When child benefit was provided to everyone who had children, that would class as a universal benefit, even though not everyone has children. Similarly, the NHS is allowed to give insulin only to those with diabetes, not to everyone, unless you are this guy:

The Greens have arrived. They’ve never won a by-election before, never got over 10% in a by-election - and this time it wasn’t even close. With 41%, they’ve shown they can contest and win - and are a genuine alternative in Labour’s heartlands. This will surely boost them in the coming local elections.

Growing your bloc matters more than ever. As I wrote before, if bloc politics is real - and it is - then growing your bloc matters more than ever. Both left and right have been stuck around 44% - 47% for the last few months - if either could break through to the 50%-55% territory, that would make a big difference party. Note that the right has an advantage here as the right vote is splitting two ways and the left three.6

Candidates matter. Both Labour and Reform could have picked better candidates for the seat. Labour blocked the popular Andy Burnham for reasons of internal party politics10; for Reform, a genuine local who coached the local football team (for example) would have been better in a by-election than a southern academic, even if the latter has a bigger national profile.11 Meanwhile the Greens chose a local plumber who was clearly rooted in the constituency.

Reminder, my reader survey, ‘A Question of Law: Retain, Reform or Repeal?’ is still open - a chance to say what you think of 25 of Britain’s most iconic laws - and a few others.

Take the survey here.

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Whether or not one agrees with him, there is no doubt that it has entered the pantheon of Britain’s most iconic laws - loved by some, hated by others, debated by many.

This survey is a chance to say what you think about Britain’s most famous laws - from the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 to the Equality Act 2010 and more.

Like an ultra-nerdy2 version of ‘Kiss, Marry or Kill’3, for each law you simply have to say whether you would retain it, repeal it or significantly reform it. There are also options to say you don't know or don't care, and any question can be skipped.4

There are 25 iconic5 laws from 1701 to 2023 for you to give your verdict on, plus a few questions at the end on the law of gravity and Murphy's Law, just for fun.

Take the survey here.

The survey will be open until Sunday 8 March and results will be published shortly after that.

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This year it received a massive 1108 entries1 - almost three times as many as last year and significantly above my best hopes. To give context, it’s more than a third as many people as entered Scott Alexander's ACX/Metaculus forecasting contest, which given Scott is far more famous than I am, with about a million times as many subscribers, makes me very pleased.2

I’m also grateful to the i Paper for writing it up again this year.

In this post I’ll be presenting the full Wisdom of Crowds, my own forecasts and a couple of other things of interest.

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The Wisdom of Crowds

The 1108 entries included 378 people who work in journalism, politics, public policy or similar - but the strength of the wisdom of crowds is that it doesn’t rely on the expertise of any single individual, but on aggregating the answers from all.

Last year, the wisdom of crowds would have come 28th, beating 93% of contestants, including the vast majority of those who work in related fields. This year, with three times as many people, it should be even more accurate!

So what did it say?

And here are my own forecasts (presented alongside the wisdom of crowds for comparison).

Regarding the leadership of Labour and the Conservatives, at the beginning of the year, I thought that one would last out the year but wasn’t sure which - hence putting 60 for each. Six weeks on, the forecast of last year’s winner, at 35% for Starmer and 65% for Kemi, is looking a lot more prescient!

In terms of other significant divergences from the wisdom of crowds, I am more confident Reform will get the most seats in the locals (70%), more confident inflation will fall (35% it will be over 2.5%), more confident that the cordon sanitaire will hold in Germany (25% the AfD enters a state government) and more optimistic about a cease-fire in Ukraine (60% - would be nice if that one came true). Time will tell!

To look at two other forecasts of possible interest, reader again used an AI - this time Opus 4.5 - to generate predictions.3 Last year the AI got a Brier score of 0.222 which would have put it 136th (35th percentile) - so better than the median human but well below the top performers. I must admit I think its forecasts this year look highly dubious, but its reasoning can be found here.

In addition, I’m interested to see what the best forecasters think will happen this year. Of the 27 people who beat the wisdom of crowds last year, I was able to identify ten who entered this year’s contest and had used the same name/pseudonym. It is a pretty eclectic mix,4 including, in no particular order:

• Last year’s winner, a TfL station area manager

• Me, a think-tanker and former civil servant and special adviser.

• An economics professor who was formerly a Chief Economist in the civil service.

• A public health economist.

• A KC who specialises in shipping law.

• A supply chain modeller at a major supermarket.

• Four other people who I don’t know.5

The average of these ‘experts’ is not that far off the wisdom of crowds in most areas - but it is different, and it will be very interesting to see whether taking only a small number of those who did well at forecasting in a previous year can outweigh the benefits of the much greater numbers in the full wisdom of crowds

Thank you to everyone who took part - and remember to check back in next January to see the results! (This is the bit where I remind you to subscribe, if you’ve not already).

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However, it is now out, a great piece by Will Hazell, which you can read here, including some forecasts from (and a lovely profile of) last year’s winner. I’ll put up the full Wisdom of Crowd forecasts (and my own) some time in the next few days.

Human Labour as a Premium Service

I regularly come across the sentiment from professionals in a field that AI won’t be useful because it can’t do the job as well as they can. You hear this a lot now from translators and interpreters - one of the fields which AI is disrupting fastest - but it will no doubt come for other professions faster than we realise.

I’m sure they were right about all the ways that AI still made mistakes and was less good at translating than they were.2 But in the assertions that no-one could rely on it, they were losing sight of the fact that hundreds of millions of people are already using AI in this way - whether that’s to read a foreign newspaper article, or to translate when conversing in a shop abroad, or with a tourist asking directions.

The history of human progress has largely involved developing products that were a little bit worse, but a lot cheaper.3 Factory-produced clothing is less good than a tailored suit - but the Industrial Revolution brought cheap clothes to the masses. Flying EasyJet is a less pleasant experience than air travel in the 1960s - but a whole lot cheaper. Attending a live concert is better than a recording - but recorded music is ubiquitous in our lives.

AI will be no different.4

Rather than arguing that AI can’t provide what they’re doing, service providers would be better arguing that they still provide a premium service. AI translation may be good enough for that newspaper article - but not for the soul-searing novel. A human artist may be able to draw out someone’s real desires, producing a picture the AI would never have thought of. In some areas, such as teaching, the need for humans is more obvious: no AI, however capable, can ever replicate the physical presence of a human teacher in the classroom.5

That doesn’t mean there won’t be disruption. The Industrial Revolution resulted in a lot fewer people employed as tailors - but tailors do still exist, even today, and the total amount of clothing we use has dramatically increased. The advent of music streaming saw bands and musicians shift to making more of their money from concerts and touring, but professional bands and musicians still exist.

AI will make translation, art, and many other things available in places where it was never previously commercially viable. Though it may be a bumpy ride, that abundance is intrinsically a good thing: how many of us would wish to reverse the Industrial Revolution?6

But for those in the services disrupted - and let us be honest, that will be many of us, one way or another - rather than denying that the tide is coming in, it is likely to be more productive to think about how we, as humans, can still provide a premium service.

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The New Victorians

We have a shared mental model of the Mediaeval period. It involves castles, knights, peasants, longbows, monks, witches, the Crusades and the Black Death, amongst other things. It draws on legends of King Arthur and Robin Hood, and countless book, television and film depictions, as well as real life.

It may not be perfectly historically accurate, but we all know where we are when we see it depicted - or if we see a fantasy setting that is clearly drawn from it, such as Game of Thrones, or Miles Cameron’s The Red Knight series.

The Wild West is perhaps another period which has a distinctive ‘shared cultural image’, heavily based on but not always entirely faithful to the historical reality.

As the Victorian period fades fully beyond living memory,7 it feels that in recent years we have been creating our own, new, shared cultural image of the period, reimagined for modern sensitivities. It can be found in media products such as the Enola Holmes films and Hogwarts Legacy, in books such as Pullman’s The Ruby in the Smoke, or in slightly more fantastical depictions, such as the recent Wonka film, Marie Brennan’s A Natural History of Dragons, or more dark and sinister variants, such as in the computer game Sunless Sea.8

Just as our Mediaeval image has knights, peasants and castles, so our ‘New Victorian’ is populated by orphans, workhouses and factories, by industrialists in top hats, feisty young women and factories. Explorers, scientists and high society join the working classes and underworld as they creep through London’s smog. It is a time of wonder and exploration, of great wealth and of poverty, of social conflict and technological change.

So far, so true. Just as our shared Mediaeval image is largely accurate, so too are the new Victorians firmly rooted in reality, even if the elements that come to the fore owe as much to Dickens as to a history textbook. But there are also some differences.

For one, it is surprisingly multicultural - though in quite a subtle way. Thanks to the Empire, it was absolutely possible to encounter a Sikh traveller, a Chinese businessman or a freed African slave in Victorian London. Wealthy Indian children attended England’s top private schools and the first Indian MP, Dadabhai Naoroji, was elected to Parliament in 1892, for Finsbury. It is rare that any individual character in a new Victorian setting is implausible - yet the proportion is typically closer to that of 21st century Britain, rather than the very small minority that existed in practice.9

Perhaps more significantly, social attitudes are surprisingly modern. Racism and sexism exist, but it is often depicted more along the lines of the 1980s - attitudes held by a few unpleasant people, rather than the deeply embedded social norms that defined society, and would have been believed at a core level by most people. Notably, when a protagonist defies these social norms, any character who is not a villain rapidly comes round to the idea, with their previous attitudes being discarded as a bit of fuddy-duddy stuffiness, rather than anything they really believed.10 Needless to say, this is not how deeply embedded societal mores actually work: most people really do believe in what their society tells them is true.11

Science and technology can be subtly different, too. The Victorian period covered almost seventy years, and sometimes elements from later years are found surprisingly early (or have diffused rather more quickly than they did). As wizards are to the Middle Ages, so steampunk is to the Victorian era, with sometimes even primarily conventional settings having the occasional steam-punk element in the laboratory of a wild-eyed tinkerer.

Overall, this seems like a positive development for fiction. The Victorian period was a pretty incredible time, of great changes and tremendous energy, for both good and ill, so I’m glad that modern story tellers want to set stories there, and have found a way to do so that appeals to a 21st century audience. Just so long as, as with the ‘Mediaeval’ settings, we remember that it’s not always identical to reality.

Limited Trust Fetters Discretion

A couple of months ago I came across a remarkably terrible idea, which was that all (US) academics should be forced to disclose their SAT scores - with, presumably, those falling below a certain line being dismissed or demoted.

It is not hard to find problems with this idea.12 Outside pure maths and perhaps a couple of other subjects, raw intelligence is hardly the only important measure of whether someone is a good academic.13 For people who could be in their 30s, 40s and 50s, isn’t there a more recent measure of achievement that could be used? The list goes on.

But it’s worth understanding where even dumb ideas come from. This arose in a context in which a large proportion of the US public have lost faith in universities and, particularly on the right, there is real scepticism as to whether academics are even interested in valuing academic prowess or meritocracy - and whether the peer review process for grants and papers is measuring anything other than political conformity.

I say this not to defend this particular idea. But to make the point that, in other areas where we don’t trust decision-makers, we regularly fetter decision-makers’ discretion in a way that predictably leads to sub-optimal decisions - because we believe the alternative is worse.

One area of this is public procurement. We worry that if we allow ministers to award contracts to whoever they consider best, they will give them to cronies or political donors. So instead we create rigid procurement frameworks, where bids are ‘scored’ against certain criteria and the highest scorer is awarded the contract.14

Unsurprisingly, this often produces bad results. One example that happened while I was in Government involved the National Tutoring Programme, designed to help children catch-up after the school closures during COVID. The highest scoring company was Randstad, a company with minimal prior experience in this area - and, although the minister responsible badly wanted to award it to another bidder, he was told that, if he did, the Government would be successfully sued. Cancelling the whole tender and restarting would have taken months - with no guarantee of a different result. So Randstad was awarded the contract and, predictably enough, they fell massively behind target and were ultimately axed.

Large employers are often worried that managers will be nepotistic, or discriminate.15 So instead of just saying ‘hire the best person’, they develop rigid hiring and promotion frameworks, where the same questions have to be asked to every candidate, and candidates scored against certain ‘competencies’, with the highest scoring candidate appointed.16 All of which increases fairness (or at least the odds of proving fairness in court), while reducing the ability to actually hire the best person.

Now, we should be clear that ‘politicians might award contracts to cronies’ or ‘managers might discriminate’ are not strawmen: they are things that actually happen and we are right to guard against! But we should equally be clear that, in a world where we had perfect trust in politicians to award the contract to the best bidder, and managers to always hire the best person, we wouldn’t have any of these systems. Fettering discretion may be a necessary evil, but it is only a good thing in as far as it prevents even worse outcomes.17

One of the things which I go back and forth on is whether we should introduce background-blind admissions to universities - in which applicants are judged solely on their A-Level grades/internal tests/portfolios. To the extent that universities are genuinely trying to find the best candidates - which I’m sure some still are, particularly at some Oxbridge colleges where the tutors making the admissions decisions are then directly teaching those students - it would make the results worse.18 But to the extent that universities are pursuing social engineering goals and ‘equity’,19 aiming to meet pre-prescribed ‘targets’ on background or ethnicity, and massively dropping entry and final degree standards, it would make things better.20

The most discretion, and the best outcomes, occur when there is a common understanding of what the goals should be, and all parties can have confidence the decision-makers will genuinely pursue those goals. In such scenarios, more information and maximum discretion is always desirable.

But as goals become misaligned, and distrust grows, the clamour to fetter discretion intensifies - not because it is seen as ideal, but because it is recognised the only way to avoid even worse outcomes. And such a low trust world ends up with worse outcomes for everyone.

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9% of everything they earn over £28,470 a year is deducted from their income to pay down that debt3 - and any that remains thirty years after the April in which they were first due to repay is written off.

It is the interest rates, however, which are the most invidious element of the Plan 2 loan. During study, the loans accrued interest not at inflation, but at RPI + 3% - and, after study, the interest rate is pegged to the graduate’s earning, on a sliding scale from RPI (if earning £28,470 or below) to RPI + 3% (for those earning £51,245 or more).4 Between August 2023 and August 2024, all Plan 2 graduates were accruing interest at at least 7%, regardless of income.

As a result, the total volume of money owed by Plan 2 students is increasing year-on-year - even though no new loans are being taken out.

At an individual level, the interest rate is brutal - with the IfS calculating the typical Plan 2 Graduate needs to earn £66,000 a year just to keep pace with the interest.5 The Times recently reported on a graduate who borrowed £49,000 but now owes £67,000 and rising - a debt that is likely to hang over her for the next 20 years.

The variable interest gives the scheme a Sisyphean character. For a graduate with a typical Plan 2 loan, between the lower and upper interest rate threshold, for every additional £100 a graduate earns they repay an extra £9 - but their debt also accrues an additional £7.20 in interest, thanks to the rising interest rate.

Astonishingly, a Plan 2 graduate with £69,000 or more of debt actually sees their debt increase faster as earnings and repayments increase, because the interest effect outweighs the repayment effect.

Now, it was always understood that some people would not pay off their loan - but it was originally optimistically calculated that more than 80% would, whereas the current predictions are that it will be more like 1 in 4. The write-off provisions were understood and sold as a safety net, for those who fell on hard times, or chose low paid provisions in charities, the church or social work.

Borrowers were not led to expect that those on good salaries, earning £50,000 or £60,000 a year would still be stuck in the debt trap, their repayments failing to even keep pace with inflation. Many will end up paying far more, after accounting for inflation, than they borrowed. A recent calculation suggested that a Plan 2 graduate who moved into a good graduate job paying £36,000, moved up to £50,000 within five years and whose earnings then followed a typical trajectory, would end up paying £87,000 in real terms.

The swingeing interest rates are sometimes justified as ‘progressive’. But as progressiveness goes, it’s weak sauce. Those with parents rich enough to pay the fees up front don’t pay. High earners who didn’t go to university don’t pay. And even for those with debt, those who rapidly move on to high salaries - such as investment bankers - pay far less (in both absolute terms and as a proportion of income) than middle earners who spend the first half of their career trying to keep up with the interest, and only pay down the debt in their 30s and 40s.

The 11 years’ worth of unfortunate individuals who took out Plan 2 loans are the only cohorts who face this punishment beating. Those who went before 2012, and after 2023, have their interest pegged to inflation, so that no-one ever pays back, in real terms, more than they borrow.6 If there must be fees and loans, this is the only fair way to do it.

There’s a case that given that most graduates benefit financially from their degrees that they should make a contribution towards them.7 There’s much less of a case that they should be charged the full cost, as has been the case for most students since 2012. And there’s no case at all that they should be trapped into a stealth redistributive pseudo-tax, with punitive interest rates that see them paying back far, far more than they ever borrowed.

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The great mis-selling scandal of our age

The increase of fees to £9,000 in 2012 was explicitly justified - as were previous fee increases - as necessary to fund university expansion and to shift the cost of university from general taxation to those who stood to directly benefit from it. The removal of number caps two years later was only possible because the Government would no longer be footing the bill.

By shifting to a high-fee, debt-fuelled model, with the costs kept off-balance sheet, the architects of the system - and the universities that supported it - avoided a discussion over how many people should be going to university. They knew the taxpayer would never stand for the tax rises required to send the numbers they wanted to send, if it was debated openly and honestly.

By outsourcing the decision to 18 year olds paying on the never-never, pushed by heavy pressure from schools and Government, bombarded by university advertising and pulled by their own understandable aspiration, they achieved the end they desired. And over a decade later, with those 18 year olds now in a debt trap that looks very much like a tax, paying 9% higher effective marginal tax rates. We’ve moved to a high-tax, mass HE society by stealth.

Telling an 18 year old who has failed their A-Levels, who has shown no sign of academic temperament or achievement, that yes, they to can go to university, and don’t worry about the 50 grand of debt, is not ‘kind’ or ‘progressive’ - any more than it is to give them a platinum credit card and telling them to go wild in Westgate.

Because the ugly truth is that most of the university expansion over the last two decades has been entirely worthless - even economically harmful.8

As I’ve written before, estimates by varying methodologies find that a third of graduates are not in graduate jobs - and this is despite the ‘upgrading’ of many jobs that never used to require a degree.

The IfS has estimated that at least 20% of those who go to university are no better off, or even worse off, over their lifetime than if they had never gone - and if we consider the amount spend by the state as well, those for whom it was not worth it rises to 30%. This figure will be propped up by ‘signalling’ effects, the phenomemon whereby some employers will prefer to employ graduates, even if the degree did not give them any useful skills, simply because the degree is a signal of something they find useful.9

But the reality is that this is almost certainly a massive underestimate. The study was carried out on the cohort that began university in the mid 2000s - but the graduate wage premium has plummeted since then. Only 59% of graduates are in full time employment 15 months after graduation and the latest DfE figures show that five years after graduation, the median real time earnings for a graduate from a first degree has dropped to just £25,400 - effectively identical to minimum wage.

And as higher education has inexorably expanded, the pressure on the limited government funding we still put into the system has led to the repeated cutting of other good things - from the adult further education budget to bursaries for students from poorer backgrounds.

You are not angry enough.10

Since 2012, the combination of high fees and university expansion has led to a million or more young people being lured into degrees they did not need and were not equipped to benefit from - and charged them tens of thousands of pounds for the privilege. For millions more on Plan 2, the hidden cost of the system has plunged them into a lifetime of debt that - other than for the highest earners - they can never hope to repay.

We have created a tax on aspiration, hitting young people with effective marginal tax rates we used to only levy on millionaires: 37% for those on £30k, 51% for higher rate taxpayers, and rates in the 70-80% for graduate parents caught by withdrawal of child benefit. The impact is felt precisely at the time these people, who have done exactly what society and the state told them was the right, responsible thing to, would be hoping to buy a home, settle down or start a family.

It is the great mis-selling scandal of our time.

The best that can be said in its defence is that those who implemented it genuinely believed they were doing the right thing - but then, the same can be said about those who took us into Iraq.

The Politics of Abolishing Real Interest Rates

Some say altering Plan 2 would be tinkering, and that our higher education system needs broader reform. I agree: I would have much lower fees, fewer people going and a restoration of high academic standards. You may have your own, different, views on how things should change. But we should not allow our grand plans for tomorrow forestall us from righting the injustices of today.

There’s a total of £200 billion of unpaid Plan 2 Student Loans. Full debt forgiveness would be unaffordable - not to mention unfair to those who have already repaid (or overpaid) in good faith. But what can and should be done is to stop it getting worse - by abolishing real interest rates and making future interest the same as inflation.11

This would mean no-one on a Plan 2 loan would see their debt get any bigger in real terms. It would place them on a similar footing to those who went to university before or afterwards, and would dramatically decrease the number of graduates who see their debt pile get bigger each year, despite repaying thousands of pounds.

As to the politics, one might think that raising the repayment threshold would have more impact, as that affects how much money people take home each month. But Theresa May tried that in 2017, raising the threshold by a whopping £4,000 - and almost no-one noticed or cared. But in reality, high interest rates repeatedly come up in polling, focus groups and the national conversation as the most hated part of the system. People have a strong sense of unfairness - there is something visceral about seeing your debt go up when you are repaying thousands that people understandably detest.

Both the Conservatives and Reform are now rightly sceptical of university expansion. The Conservatives have pledged to cut university places by 100,000 a year and fund apprenticeships for young people instead, while Reform’s manifesto said they would, ‘Restrict undergraduate numbers well below current levels.’12

These are the right policies - but, taken in isolation, can give the appearance that they dislike aspiration, and young people in general. They need a positive offer as well, which this would provide.

For the Conservatives, it would be a tangible break with the past, demonstrating they recognise mistakes were made - and that they now are determined to put them right.13 For Reform, it would be another signal of how they are not the Tories.

For the Lib Dems, abolishing real interest rates would be a partial atonement for the original sin of breaking their tuition fees pledge, and collaborating in bringing in the vile system in the first place.

The Greens regularly inveigh against debt-funded education, so this should be easy for them, though they might well want to go further.

As for Labour, while their manifesto was silent in the matter, in Opposition they said a lot on tuition fees, from Starmer’s original pledge to abolish fees, to current Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson writing in the Times, ‘Graduates, you will pay less under a Labour Government’. With them now leaching votes to the Lib Dems, Greens and Reform, this would be an opportunity to make good on at least part of that promise.

Is it enough? Any policy is only part of a broader platform.

But for any party, there is value to saying, ‘You were wronged, we hear you, what was done to you was a gross injustice - and we are going to put it right.’

There are five million graduates out there - and their parents, and grandparents - waiting to hear that message.

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For nearly half a century – from 1973 to 2020 – perhaps the single most important fact about British history was its membership of the European Union (or ‘Community’, until 1993). Membership touched almost every area of national life. It transformed how Britain was governed, who it traded with and who had the right to live and work here. It rewired Britain’s manufacturing base, rewrote its constitution and transformed its judicial system. Its effects have been felt across the spectrum of public policy, from gay rights and environmental protection to regional policy, agriculture and the peace process in Northern Ireland.

Dr Robert Saunders, Brexit in Historical Perspective, 31 January 2020

Thus reads the opening paragraph of Dr Robert Saunders’s essay, posted the day, more than four and a half years after the fateful referendum, that we finally left the European Union - and reposted by him yesterday, to (almost) mark its sixth anniversary.1

It’s an outstanding essay, and I recommend you read the whole piece. I hadn’t intended to write something for today - I wrote a piece in 2023 setting out my views, seven years on from the referendum, what had gone well and what less well - but reading Robert’s article, which so well set out the challenges and questions posed by Brexit, inspired me to write a more forward-looking piece.

Robert reminds us that joining the EU was a response to the perceived failure of Britain’s post-war strategy, in the wake of superior economic performance by France and Germany, tensions with the Commonwealth and the humiliation of Suez. It was seen as a way of maintaining Britain’s global influence in the post-Imperial world, ensuring that we could still be a country that could project power and sway world affairs.

From 1961 to 2016, every government (whether Conservative or Labour) started from three basic assumptions: that the best way to rebuild Britain’s economic strength was as the entry-point to an integrated, European market; that the surest route to influence in Washington or the Commonwealth was through a leadership role in Europe; and that the best way to maximise British sovereignty was to have a seat at the table where its destiny would be decided.

…

For a whole generation of politicians after 1945, the big challenge was to adapt to the contraction of British power: the fact that Britain was losing its global empire, its colonial markets and its control of the sea lanes. Joining the EEC was a way of responding to that challenge:

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It is understandable that politicians in the ‘50s and ‘60s sought to preserve the influence of Empire, nostalgic for the days when a quarter of the world was coloured pink. It is perhaps no coincidence that some of the most ardent Europhiles of the modern era, such as Blair and Cameron, visibly yearned for Britain to ‘punch above its weight’ in the world and to exert influence on the global stage.

Understandable, I say, but fundamentally mistaken. We are a mid-sized power2 and should tailor our aims and aspirations accordingly. As a mid-sized power adjacent to a culturally similar super-economy, it is not dreams of Empire but Canada that should be in our model. This is true most importantly, in the sometimes up, sometimes down, but always present relationship, deals and compromises that must be made with its neighbour - but one might also look to Mark Carney’s recent speech on mid-sized powers in a rapidly changing world as a guide to post-Brexit realism.

There will always have to be some form of relationship with EU: the neighbouring trading bloc cannot simply be ignored. This, just as Canada’s relationship with the US, will inevitably wax and wane over the decades - and reasonable people will disagree about what it should be, just as they do on tax policy, or the school curriculum.

Those who condemn every new deal as a ‘betrayal of Brexit’ are as foolish as those who mindlessly applaud such deals, whatever the terms.3 A sign of maturity in the post-Brexit debate will be when such deals are primarily assessed on their merits, rather than purely tribally, on whether they bring us closer or further away from the EU. As a thinking adult, I am free to welcome an agri-food deal that supports our farmers and food and drink exports, while simultaneously criticising spending £570m on free European jollies for university students as a profligate waste of taxpayers’ money.

As I demonstrated last year, there is no inevitability about whether a country will be better off inside or outside of a larger economic bloc. There are, indisputably, economic advantages from being part of large single market. There are also economic advantages from being a small nation able to flexibly determine regulation, tax policy and other decisions in a way that best suits its own economy. If we look at the global evidence, we can find examples of cases where each advantage predominates. Of course, if one leaves a large trading bloc while utterly failing to take advantage of those flexibilities - indeed, actually increasing the burden of corporate regulations, taxation and employment law - then one would predict that the country will suffer an economic penalty, which is indeed what has happened. But there was, and is, no inevitability about these decisions - or future ones.

So whether we end up richer or poorer, in the long-term, is not set in stone. But even in the latter case, Canada again is a good example. It would almost certainly be richer if it joined the US: it would not only gain access to a much larger market, but US laws, unlike the EU’s, are particularly benign for businesses and economic growth. And yet Canadians, overwhelmingly, do not want to do this - as can be seen by the outcry over Trump’s suggestion that they should become the 51st state.4,5.

Sovereignty and nationhood is, for most people, about more than money. It is always odd to see some progressives who have no trouble empathising with the Canadians as they reject Trump - or indeed with the Scots or the Welsh nationalists - appearing unable to see Brexit in anything other than purely economic terms.6

To return to Carney’s speech, no longer seeking to be a world power does not mean pure isolationism. It does suggest a more pragmatic outlook, one that is sceptical of ‘nationbuilding’ adventures in Iraq, or of lecturing other powers, over which we have no influence, on their human rights record. But defending Ukraine can be fully justified on ‘realist’ grounds: it is demonstrably in our national interest that Russia be stopped, rather than be victorious, and go on to menace other friendly democratic powers and trading powers on our doorstep. We can be proud to have worked effectively with European counterparts and others in this endeavour,7 and should continue to work to preserve the interests of friendly, liberal8 and democratic countries against those states that would do us harm.

Saunders goes on to say, rightly, that Brexit requires us to make new choices. As hesays, we should not pretent, “That a nation stripped of its colonies, its industrial power and its control over global finance has the same options today as in the age of its pre-eminence.”

We must instead be serious about the choices in front of us.

What is Britain’s economic future, as a medium-sized economy in a world dominated by China and the United States? What is Britain’s diplomatic role, in a world without an empire?… Brexit means we are going to have to find new answers, under perhaps less favourable conditions. If we pretend those dilemmas do not exist, or if we simply go back to old answers because we have forgotten why they were rejected in the first place, disaster lies ahead. Brexit requires a fundamental recasting of Britain’s national strategy.

They are the correct questions - and ones that are not answered by the old soldiers on either side, still devoted to fighting the Brexit wars. For my part, I stand with Benn and Powell9, those two iconoclastic giants of left and right, in rejecting the idea that we should seek to be a leading power in the world, and instead pursue the national interest as a mid-size power, in concert with our allies.

But even for those who aspire to maximise global influence and power, it had become apparent certainly by Lisbon10 - and arguably by Maastricht - that this was not something that could be achieved by Britain, qua Britain, within the EU.

‘Ever Closer Union’ is a reality, bedded deep into the very institutions, laws and courts of the EU, and it marches inexorably on, regardless of the views of transient national leaders.11 One of the most consistent guides to EU history is that at every stage of integration, things have taken place - a flag, an anthem, an EU defence force, more spending, abolition of national vetos, influence over voting rights and elections, the list goes on - that sceptics were mocked for saying would ever happen. In what the EU will become, the best that could be hoped for is that England, Scotland and Wales might survive as some form of distinctive regional identity, similar to Texas or Yorkshire today. Perhaps not in 20 years, but in 50 years, or in 100 years - but it will happen.12

Britain has endured for 300 years, arguably 400;13 England has stood unconquered for almost a millennium. Is now the point at which it should end? That is the fundamental point about which Brexit turns.

Legend and literature contain countless examples of a person14 who seeks power, often for noble ends, and yet the price of that power is such that it transforms them into something that is no longer recognisable to the original person, with fundamentally different values and objectives.15 In seeking to preserve themselves, they instead lose all.

Pursuing British membership of the EU to pursue or maximise British power is a temptation of just this sort. And, as to all other such temptations of this sort, the correct response is thus:

“I pass the test. I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.”

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This time we have questions on immigration, Chagos, life in the Philippines, demographic challenges, board games, left-wing writers I’d recommend and identity politics.

Rachael: What do you think the UK will look like in a couple of decades given various possible approaches to immigration?

After the 2021-2024 period, when 3.9 million people immigrated in just three years, we’re currently entering a period of much lower immigration, with net migration just over 200,000 last year, and falling. Asylum claims, however, remain high, at over 100,000, about half of which are coming from the small boats.

My central estimate for the next two years is that net migration will average 250k - 300k, in line with the 2000 - 2020 record, both because of the revealed preference of the governing ‘Anywhere’ classes, and due to economic pressures, enhanced by demographic challenges.

That would give us an additional 5 million to 6 million people in two decades, probably from a wide diversity of countries.1 That in turn means the ‘white British’ ethnic group falls from 74.4% at the 2021 census, to about 65%. At the same time, the number of ‘non-white British’ - in particular second or third generation British cizens - will have increased significantly: a third of under 18s are already ethnic minorities, and many of these will have been born here.

Sociologically, I actually think that’s a much less dramatic change than the previous twenty years, when the white British population went from nearly 90% to 75%. When I was at school in the ‘90s, it was still a good bet that an ethnically Chinese or Pakistani would have had parents who had moved here from that country, might still be nationals, and would have strong ties there. That’s now a much less strong assumption; it could equally well be that those parents will speak with a Geordie accent and support Newcastle United.

In terms of the impact on the UK, a huge amount depends on how far above or below that central estimate we go, who we take and how we handle it.

If we’re smart about it, hold net immigration to 150,000 - 200,000, prioritising high-skilled immigrants as per ’s ‘grammar school of the western world’ model, prioritise those with fluent English, focus on integration, stop the small boats and reliably deport violent foreign criminals, then it could be positive. Demographic challenges mean that we need some immigration just to keep the population steady, and that level of immigration would enable house-building and allow time for people to integrate.

On the other hand, if net immigration goes up to 350,000-400,000 a year or higher, if we return to permitting mass low-skilled immigration with many dependents, continue to allow third rate universities sell immigration rather than education, and continue to abhor the legal changes necessary to carry out deportations, things could be a lot worse. It should be a matter of greater concern that in 2024, for the first time in decades outside of Northern Ireland, four MPs were elected on a sectarian basis. The grooming gangs scandal,the recent West Midlands Police affair,2 and cases such as the Batley Grammar School teacher show what is happening as our public institutions move from upholding the law without fear or favour to ‘managing community relations’ with a fear of violence, unrest, or being called racist. The 2022 communal riots in Leicester, between Hindus and Muslims, could be a harbinger of much worse to come - with the violence and demonstrations in the case of a major clash in Kashmir outweighing anything we saw over Gaza.3

One of the most fundamental truths about integration is that it takes time: just as we should reject the ethno-nationalist contention that you have to be white to be British,4 so too should we reject the open borders mantra that there is no difference between someone who arrived here three years ago, unable to speak fluent English, and someone born and bred in this country (regardless of the colour of their skin). As Sajid Javid’s excellent recent interview about his upbringing makes clear, integration is, frequently, a generational process - and none the worse for that, but it does mean there is a limit to how many people we can comfortably integrate at once.

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Bryan Fries: If you had to live and work in any non-Western country for the rest of your life (with no opportunity to travel to or visit any western country), which would it be and why?

The correct answer here has to be India.

A country the size of Europe, with a similarly rich and diverse history and culture, and a wide diversity of climates and geography, from mountains to beaches.

English is widely spoken, it’s a democracy and more or less liberal, and sufficiently wealthy to have some developed areas, plenty of job opportunities, with good healthcare and education available, if one can afford it - with an economy growing at 7% a year, meaning that all this will only get better.

Plus the food is excellent!5

Sam: To what extent will the UK be able to remain as a highly-developed state, given the coming demographic crisis?

I am worried about global falling birthrates, not least because it’s happening everywhere, in all types of societies, and no-one seems to know how to reverse it; however, I’m not sure it will stop us being a highly-developed state.

The UK’s TFR only really plummeted in the last decade, and at 1.41, while far from good, is a long way above that of many European or East Asian countries - plus we have a strong ability to counter-act it with immigration, which while it brings its own problems (and is not a long-term solution, with falling birthrates everywhere), would stem off collapse. If we look at countries much further along this journey than us, or which lose a lot of their younger population to emigration, we can see a country can withstand a fair bit of shrinkage while remaining developed.

So while I think falling birthrates are likely to make us poorer, less innovative and less socially cohesive, I think we’ll remain a highly-developed state for the foreseeable future.6

Chris: Apart from the birth of your son, what was your most memorable experience when you were based in Manila?7

Living in the Philippines generated one unforgettable experience after another - it was simply such a different way of living, in a very new area of the world. Setting aside the ‘new child’ related ones, highlights include:

• Sitting on the balcony of our 15th story apartment during and watching a thunderstorm amongst the skyscrapers.

• Flying in a helicopter over tropical islands, before landing on an offshore gas platform.8

• My first sight flying into Singapore, seeing the ships in the strait and the high tech city, and thinking I’d never seen something look more like Stargate: Atlantis.

• A candle-lit dinner on the beach at Boracay for my wife’s 29th birthday.

• Attending a billionaire’s gala birthday celebration and listening to Lea Salonga (Jasmine in the original Aladdin).

• Figuring out how to live with three members of household staff - a maid, a nanny and a driver.

• Representing the UK at the ceremony for the anniversary of the Leyte landings.9

• Riding on an elephant and seeing the actual bridge over the River Kwai in Thailand.

• Walking through an ash-blasted landscape in the early dawn light to reach Mount Pinatubo.

But if I had to choose one, it would be the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan, where I had the opportunity to see the Foreign Office at its best. The disaster touched the heart of the British public who gave £85m; the Government added more and sent an aircraft carrier. The embassy went on to full-on crisis mode, with everyone who’d normally have nothing to do with this side of things, such as me, pulled in to work as cogs in a smoothly operating machine - responding to the crisis, reaching out to British nationals caught up in it, liaising with the military, helping to get aid out and more. It was an amazing example of what ‘the system’ can be capable of in times of crisis and it was inspiring to be a small part of it.

Alex Rich: In an era of rising populism and seemingly irrevocable division in politics nowadays, do you think there is much of a future for the pragmatic, thoughtful, compromise-based politics and policy that you generally advocate for?

The biggest issue we have driving distrust is the say-do gap: where politicians pledge they will deliver something but are unwilling to take action to achieve them. Both Sunak and Starmer campaigned on more economic growth and stopping the boats, but neither were willing to take the steps necessary to achieve this.

There are some genuinely hard problems in Britain (eg how do we improve NHS productivity), but equally, a lot of things aren’t - they’re just things our politicians shy away from:

• If we want economic growth we need to strip back regulation, and particularly regulation that stops us building things - from houses to energy generation. But that means building things near people, reducing environmental protections and curbing our judicial review system.

• If we want to stop the Channel boats, control our borders and reliably deport violent foreign offenders we need to leave the ECHR and then legislate explicitly to do this.

• If you want to stop ‘woke’ in the public sector you need to repeal the Public Sector Equality Duty, social value requirements in procurement and other such regulations, and then tell quango chiefs that if they do this sort of stuff in future they will be fired - and be willing to follow through.

• If we want to cut taxes we need to find significant savings in one or more of pensions, welfare or healthcare spending. You can probably get away with doing 2 out of 3; I doubt you can find enough in just 1 of these, given the current deficit.

• And, for the left, if you want to spend significantly more on public services or welfare, then taxes are going to have to rise.

Although I hope I'm thoughtful, I'm perhaps not as moderate as you think I am: all of the above changes involve slaying sacred cows and facing down powerful lobby groups - they can't be achieved just through compromise. But unless we get leaders willing to lead rather than follow, and with the will to do what is needed to deliver the changes they claim to want, voters will increasingly look to more radical parties who are willing to do this, on both left and right.

Sumi: How does the country move away from lopsided policies that are borne out of class wars? Thinking primarily around social engineering, what are the long term effects of it? Is it not discrimination when for example, Universities ignore grades of their exams, national exams, etc and use imperfect metrics to give out contextual offers prone to gaming the system?

The only way is to relentlessly stand for meritocracy, invidual liberty and treating each person as an individual, based on their own abilities and achievements, rather than as a member of a group or class.

Like many good things, it’s endlessly under threat and needs to be constantly defended. There was obviously widespread discrimination against women and ethnic minorities until relatively recently10 - but then EDI metastasised into a monster in which people would discriminate in the other direction, change entry criteria and speak openly about wanting anyone but a white man in the role.

There’s a genuine issue in that it’s true that if two people get the same score on a test, the one who self-taught in a library is likely to be more able than the one which was extensively coached. There are perhaps some Oxbridge colleges which are genuinely accounting for this and trying to find the strongest candidates. But if you actually read what most people working in this area say, they are fully fixated on equality of outcome between different groups, on ‘equity’, and often appear to deny the very ability to accurately measure (or the existence of!) merit or differing ability - which is why you get mad ideas like abolishing or ignoring standardised tests,11 or saying hiring managers can’t see the performance reviews of internal candidates. Given the repeated, open statements of many senior people in academia, the public sector and corporations about how they want to discriminate and pursue equality of outcome, the more we can use background-blind, name-blind, anonymously marked assessments the better - and alongside that, we need to tighten up the legal loopholes in the Equality Act which permit the use of race and sex based ‘targets’, as well as so-called ‘positive action’, such as internships that are only open to ethnic minorities.12

But the right also has to be careful here. The experience in the US shows that some of those who rightly condemned the ‘affirmative action’ happening at universities and elite firms are actually just old-fashioned racists. More seductively, there can be a temptation to embrace the politics of victimhood, and start asking for special treatment, perhaps because white boys are currently doing worse in education. But you don’t fight identity politics with identity politics - that just creates an endless cycle of grievance.

Kishan: Are there any commentators (be it X-posters, Substackers, or old school journalists) whom you respect enough to follow, and even recommend, from the other side of the political spectrum to you?

I read and follow quite a few people from the left, both to learn things and to make sure I understand what ‘the other side’ believes. In terms of recommendations, on Substack, I’d recommend (Comment is Freed) who writes broadly about public policy and politics, as well as (Political Calculus)13 who focuses more on electoral and political issues.

In the US, I read (Slow Boring) - who although I sometimes think I agree with him too much on markets and energy for this to count, is clearly coming at things from an explicitly centre-left perspective.

In terms of mainstream journalists, I often read individual articles, but regularly enjoy Stephen Bush from the FT and Rachel Cunliffe from the New Statesman.

What all of these have in common (other than writing well) is that their writing is typically either data rich and/or brings new insights, meaning that even when I don’t agree with them, I usually learn something. They’re all good decouplers, able to separate what they want to happen from what they think will happen, and also have a clear understanding that different things affect each other, in first, second and third order ways, rather than just asserting ‘this will happen because I think it should.’

Neil: What's the best new board game/board game mechanic you've played recently?

I love the iron and coal selling mechanism in Brass Birmingham.14 It operates so elegantly,15 with players rewarded for producing more resources precisely when they are in short supply, because they are what the game is currently using. A mark of its success is the way other players are genuinely happy when you do this massively advantageous to you thing, because it enables them to now do the things they want to do.

As a close runner-up I’d go for the scoring mechanism in Colour Brain - which could easily be transferred to any other ‘question answering game’. In the game, each round all players have to answer the same question and every player who gets it right gets a number of points equal to the number of players who got that question wrong. It’s an incredibly simple yet effective way of reflecting ‘how hard was this question?’ and scales to any number of players.

Heinrich Hyser: What do you think of the Chagos deal? Is there some secretive reasons we don't know of? Or is it simply "international law told us so".

If there’s a secretive reason then it’s not one I know about! I think it’s a terrible deal, driven by some combination of misguided legal maximalism and/or post-colonial guilt, or both. The deal fails on every front: historically, legally, morally and strategically:

• Historically, because the Chagos Islands were never ruled, colonised or otherwise occupied by Mauritius, from which they are separated by a vast distance, but simply joined together as an administrative convenience by Britain when it ruled both.

• Legally, because the International Court of Justice explicitly has no jurisdiction over this case, because the 2019 ruling was advisory only, and there is no international court that could make such a binding ruling. One does not show one’s commitment to the ‘rule of law’ by observing rulings that one is not legally obliged to do.

• Morally, because while Britain did wrong the Chagossians grievously when it forced them to leave the islands, and would ideally commit to a programme of resettlement,16 Mauritius was not wronged, a tiny fraction of the payments are earmarked to the Chagossians. Most Chagossians now are British citizens, not Mauritians, and appear to oppose the deal.

• Strategically, because the Diego Garcia base is vital to US and UK interests, and handing sovereignty to a country that may cosy up to China is the height of folly, and only increases the vulnerability of the base. Nor does it enhance our ‘soft power’ or increase our support in Africa, as can be seen by the fact that shortly after signing the deal, Mauritius joined other Commonwealth countries in calling for ‘slavery reparations’ from Britain.17

To quote someone who knows far more about this than I do:

No international tribunal can rule that Mauritius is sovereign over the Chagos or require the UK to cede the islands to Mauritius. There is no real risk to the operation of the electromagnetic spectrum, overflight access or civilian contractors.

If Mauritius were to attempt to frustrate US-UK defence interests, or were to take payments from our adversaries to enable their incursion into the archipelago, it would be a hostile state and should be treated as such. The answer to Mauritian lawfare is not to negotiate surrender.

The new treaty does not provide the UK with a veto over Mauritian actions that might endanger Diego Garcia. If it is ratified, Mauritius will be an attractive target for Chinese subversion. The government has unjustified confidence in the goodwill of future Mauritian governments.

US-UK defence interests would be much more secure if the UK retained sovereignty. For this reason and for many others — financial prudence, fairness to the Chagossians, environmental protection — the government should seize this opportunity to walk away before the treaty is ratified.

Professor Richard Ekins KC (Hon), writing in The Times, January 202618

David Edgington: In the engineering community around HS2, it is widely though that some of the greatest problems with the project have been, at least in part, caused by excessive meddling by the government, and the lack of enough ambition to invest in the long term capacity to deliver such projects more cheaply in the future. One of the most radical solutions to this, and other infrastructure problems, which I have seen is to abolish the Treasury (assumedly meant more as a way to stimulate conversation than a firm proposal). As someone involved in the civil service, what are your thoughts on this?

The key thing about HS2 is that it’s a cost-benefit question, not an ideological one. If it cost £1 million, almost everyone would support it; if it cost £1 trillion, it would clearly be a bad idea. With the cost at £100 billion before it was cancelled, and the official cost:benefit ratio fallen to less than one, for my part I agreed with the decision to pull the plug.

While the Treasury has its problems, I don’t actually think it was primarily to blame for this one. From my understanding, the main drivers of cost were:

• The decision to put so much of it through tunnels, motivated by a desire to appease MPs whose constituencies lay en route.

• The standard bureaucratic, judicial and other problems that dog every major infrastructure in this country, that led, for example to us building a state of the art road-bridge that led nowhere,

As you say, there have been numerous calls to abolish the Treasury over time. I personally think the Treasury gets a worse rap than it deserves: while it can be short-sighted and overcontrolling19, it’s the one part of Government that ever tries to save money which, with debt at 95% of GDP, we could do with more of.

Still, I can see the logic behind the idea that the department in charge of spending should not also be in charge of economic growth, the financial services sector and so forth - and thus we should split it into a spending department and a department of economic affairs. I’ve never been fully convinced, but it’s not a silly idea - and one of best places I’ve seen it expounded, is in The End of the Treasury, by Stian Westlake and Giles Wilkes (respectively, a former Tory and former Lib Dem SpAd).

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Social media is an infohazard.

I’ve seen too many people I once respected move seamlessly from questioning whether the costs of lockdown were worth the benefits through vaccine denial to praising the virtues of Putin. Or from a normal concern about climate change to believing Britain will be uninhabitable in 25 years, and that children born now will be condemned to a life of climate-related misery. From QAnon to whatever that 5G thing was, people are believing the craziest things.

Even if you don’t go full-on loopy, you are what you eat - and it does no-one good to consume an endless stream of catastrophising, whether about immigration or climate, trans or Trump. For those with large followings, the danger can be even worse, with the dopamine buzz of likes and reposts luring them into ever darker places in search of that next hit. Toxic food…that eats you back.2

Social media can give us a warped view of the world, stoking FOMO, unrealistic expectations and feelings of worthlessness. There are countless strangers on social media who are only too happy to reinforce that, with cutting remarks, sweary insults and abuse based on your name, your profile picture or anything else they can latch on to. If you’re not white, you’ll get racial abuse and slurs; if you’re a woman, sexualised comments and worse. However thick-skinned you think you are, sooner or later one of them will get under your skin - or else sheer repetition will take its mental toll.

Does that mean you should never use social media. No3 - it has its uses and can be a powerful tool. Sometimes it can even be fun.

I’d draw an analogy with the stock market - or, more mundanely, with alcohol. They can be navigated, but never forget the riptides waiting to pull you under and ruin your life - and that of those around you - if you don’t take suitable care.

The following rules are tailored towards X and BlueSky, the two main social media sites I use in a public, open, way.4 They are based on my experience as a mid-tier account (5k -7k followers on each):5 those with much larger accounts may find different approaches are needed. And it assumes that you are on these sites, at least to some extent, to either keep abreast of the latest conversation in some area or another, and/or to share your thoughts with others.

1. You don’t need to justify your decision to block someone. Sometimes I read a comment that stings and find myself thinking, ‘Was this sufficiently out of order to deserve a block?’ No! Stamp down that impulse. If anyone is making you feel bad, for any reason, block them straight away and move on.

2. Block anyone who is abusive, mean, insulting, belittling, threatening or otherwise unpleasant. Don’t even think about it - just do it. Your life is too short and your wellbeing too important to take abuse from strangers. If you’re subject to a massive pile-on, just ignore it, mute the conversation and then (optionally) come back 24 hours later and block everyone who deserves it.

3. If it’s someone you value following or interacting with them, then - maybe - if they’re unpleasant you might choose not to follow rules 1 and 2. Most of us can get overly heated sometimes on social media, or react badly. But if it keeps happening, you’ve no obligation to tolerate it just because they’re well known.

4. Block, don’t mute. Muting someone unpleasant doesn’t stop them posting nasty things for everyone else to see, or filling your replies with bile. Blocking gets them out of your feed and replies for good.6

5. Mute people who are just posting things you don’t want to see. Maybe what they’re posting is perfectly reasonable - but you just like don’t like seeing it. Maybe it gets in your head and messes with what you are thinking. Regardless of why, you don’t have to see it - so don’t.

6. Someone you don’t know using your name in a reply is a red flag, and should be probably be blocked on principle. OK, this one is more of a guideline than a rule, as such: occasionally such people are perfectly civil. But there’s a high correlation between name-using and knobbery.

7. ‘Detach quote’ and ‘don’t allow quote posts’ are powerful tools - use them.7 I don’t use them all the time, because they do limit reach and functionality - but they have their place. The latter is particularly useful when I want to post something to my followers but am not in the mood for a pile-on. Some bigger accounts also find only receiving notifications from people they follow useful.

8. Never, ever, ever use the algorithmic feed. It makes you more vulnerable to being swept down your own special rabbit hole that can take you to a very strange and unpleasant place. Using the ‘following’ feed will ensure you only see things that people you follow have posted or reposted.8

9. Follow a broad range of people, including those you disagree with. Obviously be selective about this - don’t just follow people who post rage-bait. But following a range of people doesn’t just help you have awareness of what those outside your immediate clique think - it tells you what issues they’re currently caring and worrying about. There is value to being on both X and BlueSky - there are important stories on each that you simply won’t see on the other, and people worth reaching who are only on one. Switching from one to the other can helpfully remind you that the issue de jour is not, actually, de jour, but only de BlueSky.9

10. Prioritise following people who shed light on subjects. This could be important data, the latest news on a topic, charts, valuable insights, useful explainers or interesting articles.

11. Follow some people who post about things other than politics. It doesn’t matter what it is - football, science, literature, history, you name it. Follow some authors you like who post about their books. You’ll feel better if you’re regularly seeing posts that have nothing to do with political debates or current affairs.

12. Don’t follow people who consistently post things that make you angry. This could be people you agree with, posting rage-bait, or those you disagree with, who really get under your skin. It’s not good for your state of mind, your wellbeing, or your relationships. The same applies to things that make you sad, or depressed, or helpless.

13. Don’t follow people who post/repost so often it clogs up your entire timeline. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with someone doing this if they want to, but it makes your experience worse if you follow them.

14. Don’t follow too many single-issue posters on any one issue. Dedicated single-issue posters can be great - they often share the most depth information about a subject. And if you agree with them on an issue you care about, it can be very easy to click ‘follow’. But if you follow too many, it will give you a warped sense of the importance of that issue, as your timeline fills up with it, and nothing but it.

15. Take a break: social media is not your life. Don’t let social media spoil your day out/family time/work concentration flow. Not every event has to be live-tweeted. In the same way your liver deals with alcohol better if it has some days off, so your mind will deal with the social media stream if it has regular breaks.

16. You don’t need to respond to the latest world event / mark World Donut Day. Unless you’re an elected politician, you just don’t need to do this. No, not even if it’s really tragic, or important, or commemorating something that really matters. If you want to post about it, that’s fine, too. But you don’t have to.

17. You don’t owe anyone a reply. No, not even if it’s a good comment. Sometimes a piece blows up and there are far too many comments to reply to. Other times you’re busy: you have a work deadline, or you’re spending time with family, or life gets in the way. On most topics there are also ‘stock’ replies, ‘Ah, but have you considered…’ which are standard go-tos for the other side of the debate. If I'm not busy, I try to give at least one reply to people I know, or who are asking a genuine question, but X and BlueSky are fundamentally a broadcast medium, not somewhere where you have a duty to reply to all.

18. Don’t feel you have to have the last word. It can be so easy to get drawn into an arguing exchange with someone with whom you’re unlikely to ever agree. Sometimes that’s fun - but 320 character exchanges are ill-suited to finding common ground, so don’t be afraid to just leave it.

19. Count to ten. Sometimes a reply or a comment just enrages you, and you feel you immediately have to snap back with the obvious rebuttal - or snarky reply.10 Stop, count to ten. Is replying necessary - or useful - or kind? You’ll have a better perspective if you wait 10 seconds, or better yet 10 minutes.

20. Don’t say anything online you wouldn’t say in person. The obvious one, but anything you write could be seen by thousands - or millions. The conversation you’re having in the comments is more like shouting in the townsquare. Don’t let social media ruin your life, your reputation or your career.

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A reminder, if you want to ‘Ask me Anything’, this is still running - please leave your question in the comments on this page. Answers will appear this weekend.11

I’ve been holding an Ask Me Anything at major subscriber milestones - and hitting 2000 means another one is definitely due.

So ask me anything. It can be on any subject you like - current affairs, books, politics, education, films, favourite pizza1 - and I will do my best to answer insightfully, concisely or, failing that, entertainingly.

To ask a question, just leave a comment and I’ll do another post answering as many questions as I can next week.

Ask away! No question too out there! And remember, please do share this blog with those you think would like it - I rely on word of mouth for my audience and personal recommendations are a core part of that.

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FAQ

What’s off limits?2

Not much. I won’t answer a question if:

• It would breach a confidence that’s not mine to share;

• It’s so taboo that just writing about it can get you in trouble;

• It’s anything directly to do with my current job.

I’m happy to answer most personal questions within reason, but there may be the odd one which I’ll skirt around.

Can I ask you about something you know nothing about?

Yes, but don’t be surprised if the answer is very short!

How long will each answer be?

I’m anticipating one to three paragraphs, but I reserve the right to vary this.

How many questions will you answer?

Probably around 8-10. If I get more than that, I’ll answer those I think people will find most interesting, or that I most want to answer.

Can I ask more than one question?

Yes, but I won’t answer more than one question from any given person.

How do I ask my question?

Please write it as a comment below this post.

Some philosophers have sought to resolve the problem of perception by positing a tiny observer in the brain, which in some way observes the thoughts, vision and other actions upon the brain, and acts as a bridge between matter and an immaterial consciousness.1 Other philosophers have pointed out that this would require the homunculus to have another homunculus in its brain, and so on, homunculi all the way down.2

Fortunately, in these enlightened days we know better. As a recent award-winning docu-drama that any parent of children of a certain age will be familiar with demonstrated, there is not one but rather a total of five homunculi that sit in our brain and control our actions:

Even if you don’t accept the Inside Out hypothesis as literally true,3 it’s a useful metaphor. And when one considers the tussles over the future of the political right in the UK and in much of the Western world, homunculi can be equally helpful.

The Conservative Party, we are frequently told, is a broad tent. The right as a whole - constituting as it does not just the Conservatives, but Reform,4 as well as many commentators, thinkers and others not associate to any political party - is even broader. Indeed, rather like the Church of England, it can sometimes appear to be such a broad tent it have a difficult time fitting through a barn door. After the political whiplash of five very different Prime Ministers in 14 years, it is unsurprising that some people may say, ‘what do they even stand for’?

Some respond to this by asserting that certain views are ‘not actually conservative’. We get the ‘Conservative In Name Only’ label thrown at socially liberal, ‘One Nation’ Tories, or arguments that populists such as Reform, or MAGA Republicans are not actually on the right, due to their adoption of protectionist economic policies.

For a leader of a political party, of course, it is advisable - indeed, essential - to draw a ring around what a party will accept, and make clear what is beyond the pale. But in seeking to understand the political right, this has its perils: it leads one into ‘no true Scotsman’ arguments, or to the sort of contorted logic involved when one tries to claim that Islamist terrorism has ‘nothing to do with Islam’. Better, by far, to recognise that any broad movement or ideology, including the political right, has many currents within it, both savoury and unsavoury, and seek to understand how to maximise the good, and minimise the bad.

In the modern right, we can recognise at least five5 significant philosophies, that both have significant influence today, and that have a historical pedigree that gives them a legitimate claim to be part of the right. These pull and tug at the right’s currents, influencing its direction and shaping its policies. Sometimes, such as in a political party, we can see this very visibly, with specific MPs identifying themselves as clearly aligned with one or the other tradition. But in truth, these homunculi should be thought of as fighting for control not just in any single party, but in the broader right as a whole - and in the mind of every individual within it.6

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The Five Homunculi7

In no particular order:

• The Free Marketeer

• The Libertarian

• The Social Conservative

• The Traditionalist

• The Nativist

The First Homunculus: The Free Marketeer

The Free Marketeer is a champion of markets and free trade, a devotee of politicians such as Thatcher or Reagan and the writings of Adam Smith, Milton Friedman or Friedrich Hayek. She is typically one of the most powerful of the homunculi; some even seek to define her, not without reason, as the quintessential feature of the right.

She prioritises lower taxes, a favourable business environment and economic growth. She trusts the market to deliver the most beneficial outcome, with the role of the state being primarily to correct market failures, provide public goods8 and ensure the conditions for a competitive market. She worries about marginal tax rates and the national debt, believes industry should be privatised and distrusts industrial strategy or central planning.

In public services the Free Marketeer believes in freedom, choice and competition to drive the best results - even if they are publicly funded. She is in favour of school freedoms, vouchers and consumer agency in education, healthcare and childcare.

In the workings of the economy, her teachings provide the best, most fruitful and most reliable way to economic prosperity: even the Scandinavian social democracies, or authoritarian states such as China, have had to embrace the free market to grow rich. In the natural monopolies or in the public sector, her record is more contested, yet she continues to provide a powerful set of tools to improve services.

Yet the Free Marketeer can be heedless of the impact of the unfettered market upon communities, heritage or other things of non-monetary value, and has little to say about fairness, justice or belonging. The dark mirror of the Free Marketeer is corporatism and crony capitalism, where the wealth-creating power of the market becomes warped into support for rent-seekers with monopoly power or political connections.

The Second Homunculus: The Libertarian

Unlike the Free Marketeer who supports low taxes for economic reasons, the Libertarian believes a small state is desirable in and of itself. He may cite Lewis’s proverb, that the most oppressive government is one conducted for people’s own benefit,9 have a row of Ayn Rand’s books on his book shelf or approvingly refer to politicians such as Ron Paul.

He will argue for less regulation, for businesses and individuals to be allowed to do what they wish, subject to the law of contract, and believes things are a matter of individual choice rather than the business of government. He will rail against health and safety, oppose the nanny state and argue the state has no business telling parents how to bring up their own children.

The Libertarian believes drugs should be legalised, porn available and that it is none of the state’s business whether two men wish to get married, or a person end their own life. He opposes censorship and is a staunch defender of our traditional liberties, including freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of association.

The Libertarian’s actions defend individual choice, provide a check against overbearing governments and reduce the cost of bureaucracy and compliance. With the natural instinct of many people to ban things they disagree with, or shut down views or group’s they oppose, the Libertarian plays a vital role in keeping these illiberal urges in check.

Yet the Libertarian may also be blind to other sources of power that restrict individual power, such as that of large corporations and struggles to cope with actions that impose large negative externalities on others, or on society more broadly.The dark mirror of the Libertarian is anarchism, where all rules collapse, the strong do what they wish and life for the common man becomes ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.’

The Third Homunculus: The Social Conservative

Often, though not always, motivated by religion, the Social Conservative is a champion of the family, of traditional moral norms and conservative social structures. She looks to Mary Whitehouse in Britain, or Phyllis Schlafly in the USA, as role models.

The Social Conservative believes that marriage should be between a man and a woman, disapproves of divorce and opposes abortion and euthanasia. She is concerned with protecting the morals of children from pornography, obscenity and violent video games, opposes gambling and believes that government should censor films and broadcast for common decency. She is a strong supporter of the war on drugs.

She is a champion of the rights of parents over the state, a defender of home schooling and a sceptic of ‘children’s rights’. She believes that faith plays a valuable role in society10 and believes in the role of charities and community. She believes public figures should be morally upstanding and deplores incivility, misconduct and misconduct.

Many of the harms that the Social Conservative takes aim at are genuine ones, that wreak great harm in society, particularly amongst the most vulnerable. In other areas, the evidence suggests that living one’s life according to her principles is more likely to lead to positive outcomes.11 And she is a powerful defender of the family in an age where officialdom frequently sees no intermediate tier between the state and the individual.

Yet without the underpinnings of a shared faith, some of the Social Conservative’s principles appear arbitrary and unnecessary, and, even where her maxims lead to positive personal outcomes, the policies necessary to achieve them on a societal level can be coercive and cruel. The dark mirror of the Social Conservative is bigotry, where the choices of those beyond a narrow approved lifestyle are met with intolerance and persecution.

The Fourth Homunculus: The Traditionalist

The Traditionalist puts the ‘conservative’ into conservativism. A devotee of order, institutions, tradition and hierarchy, he looks to Burke and Scruton for inspiration, and sits back each evening to watch Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation. With the Free Marketeer, he is one of those by which some seek to define the right.12

He believes in the importance of authority, in the streets, the classroom and in the home and considers the rule of law to be sacrosanct. He despises radicals and revolutionaries, and is a defender of the country’s institutions and structures. Where things must change, he believes it should be through incremental change rather than some great upheaval.

The Traditionalist has a deep sense of place, a love of nation, countryside and community. He is passionate about his country’s history and heritage and wishes it preserved, and sees tradition not as a stale relic, but a living, vibrant thing, Chesterton’s ‘democracy ofthe dead. He believes that while the new may have things to offer, it should sit alongside, not displace, the old.

The Traditionalist’s values are a great source of stability and a bulwark against disruptive change or the foolish fads of the moment. He understands the high costs ofdestructive change and the underappreciated benefits of stability and strong institutions. He is a steward of the soul, not just the wallet, and his patriotism and love of community may inspire him to great endeavours in their service.

Yet the Traditionalist’s deference to institutions may become a slavish obedience to the status quo, stifling needed change, and his respect for authority may make him blind to its abuse. He struggles to cope with a situation where institutions are controlled by those he disagrees with, or where laws require change. The dark mirror of the Traditionalist is unthinking reaction and authoritarianism, where blind obedience to tradition replaces thought and power is allowed to substitute for what is right.

The Fifth Homunculus: The Nativist

The Nativist believes that charity begins at home and that the principal duty of any government is to look after the welfare of its own citizens. From the Know Nothing Party13 of 19th century America through Enoch Powell to the many populist parties of today, his idols are shadowed by conflict and controversy.

He is a staunch opponent of immigration and, if it must occur, believes that citizens should systematically take priority over immigrants in public services and elsewhere. Illegal immigration is not to be tolerated, and most asylum seekers and refugees are viewed with suspicion.

He opposes both foreign military intervention and international aid, having no time for ‘do-gooders’ of either stripe. He is sceptical of international laws and multilateral organisations, believing that the country should govern itself, for the benefit of its own citizens. He believes government should avoid buying goods from abroad and should protect domestic industry with tariffs and subsidies.

The Nativist’s priorities can strike a chord on issues such as fairness, contribution and the social contract, and provides important push-back against the well-meant idealism of those who are frequently shielded from the consequences of their actions. His scepticism of foreign adventuring is a valuable check on those who like nothing better than to aggrandise themselves upon the world stage.

Yet the Nativist’s economic policies do real harm to those he claims to be helping, through more expensive goods and a less favourable business climate. Hostility to immigration may stoke the very societal tensions he sought to avoid, while isolationism also has its costs, for no country is an island, not even the most powerful. The dark mirror of the Nativist is xenophobia and ethnonationalism, when love of one’s countryman turns to hatred of the outsider, and those who look different are subject to persecution and violence.

Synergies and Tensions

No real individual will perfectly match any homunculus - though some may be dominated by one. The depth of traditions to draw on can make the right flexible and able to reinvent itself to the challenges of the moment;14 however, it can also make it divided and fractious.

Some of the homunculi are natural allies. The Free Marketeer rubs shoulders easily with the Libertarian, to produce an economically liberal, socially liberal agenda. The Traditionalist can sit easily with the Social Conservative - amd both can find some areas of agreement with either the Free Marketeer or the Nativist.

Other synergies are more situational. The Libertarian and the Social Conservative may fight shoulder to shoulder against progressive censorship, but let social conservatism gain ascendancy in society and their alliance will splinter.

Perhaps the greatest area of tension is between the Free Marketeer and the Nativist. The Nativist's tariffs, 'buy British' or national preference in procurement are anathema to the Free Marketeer, while opposing the free movement of people, so beloved by business, is central to the agenda of the Nativist. It is no wonder that many right populist parties end up adopting economic policies more traditionally associated with the left.

But perhaps the most important conflict at the moment is not between homunculi, but the civil war within the Traditionalist.

In today's world, where much of the legal structure was laid down under the left, and the institutions and professional classes are dominated by progressives.15 Does he defer to the legitimate authority in schools - or champion parents to challenge it? Should he respect New Labour's constitutional settlement - or repeal it to return to an earlier order? This conflict within the Traditionalist has greatly weakened the influence of this homunculus, with some arguing that radicalism must be harnessed, or embraced in the service of tradition.

It is this tension, alongside the conflict between the Nativist and Free Marketeer, that explains much of the turmoil within the modern right - in Britain, America and much of Europe. 

What about me?

The obvious question to finish with: where do I stand?

If I’m honest I feel that most of the homunculi have some sway within me, with me neither full drawn to, nor fully repelled from, any. But if I had to put numbers on it - and with the caveat that this could change if you asked me in 12 months - I would go for, on a scale of 1-10:

Free Marketeer: 7

Libertarian: 6

Social Conservative: 5

Traditionalist: 8

Nativist: 3

Remember that the 2026 Forecasting Contest is currently open, and can be entered here.

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Christmas Quiz XX answers and results are now out!

And let me say, this year was a stinker,1 with only three teams scoring in the 90s, and only eleven teams scoring above 70 (this year’s threshold for the Honour Roll). So congratulations to everyone who made it on to that esteemed list - and to all the rest of you quizzers who puzzled away on it: a score in the 50s or 60s, is more like getting in the 70s or 80s in a normal year.2

Given this, I’m delighted that the Honour Roll includes not only familiar entrants returning (including our victors reuniting after a year entering separately), long distant friends and former colleagues3 - but also a goodly number of newcomers, entering for the first time - and doing very well indeed.

Before we move on to the answers, a reminder to subscribe so as not to miss next year’s Christmas Quiz

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The Answers and Question Analysis

What you’re all waiting for!

Christmas Quiz XX Answers

232KB ∙ PDF file

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I allowed all variant spellings and a few other alternative answers I accepted are shown on the answer sheet. Half marks were awarded when someone had most, but not all, of an answer.

As said, it was a hard year this year. One question was got by no-one:4 Q45, which was admittedly fiendish. Jane Winter played Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden - in Noel Streatfield’s The Painted Garden.5

In terms of other tricky questions:

• Only one team got Q50, Charlotte Rice-Foley, who played Jacqueline Webb (daughter of the woman played by Keira Knightley) in the first season of Black Doves.

• Two teams got Q99, Lahela ‘Doogie’ Kamealoha.

• Three teams got each of Q7 (Durin the Deathless), Q10 (Angela Orosz) and Q48 (Jodie Foster).

• Four teams got each of Q16 (Admiral George James Perceval), Q19 (Kimball O’Hara) and Q30 (King Kelson).

• Five teams got each of Q40 (the children from Cressida Cowell’s Which Way to Anywhere series) and Q97 (Lester Keith Piggott).

I was delighted to see how many people managed to identify 8-year old boy genius and defender of Earth, Commander Keen6 - as well as the fact that most people managed to correctly define Thetis as a minor sea nymph.7

And that's it for another year! Once again, thank you to everyone who takes part, whether they're aiming for the Honour Roll or just to have fun - it's always a pleasure to see so many happy Quizzers.

Now you’re done with the Christmas Quiz, don’t forget to enter the Forecasting Contest. I can’t promise it’s easier - but it’s certainly a lot quicker to complete! Enter it here.

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This is the Edrith annual Forecasting Contest, featuring UK politics and economy, global politics and world events; and technology, the arts and miscellany.

Last year’s contest had 374 entrants - the largest UK-focused forecasting competition of its type I’m aware of. It was featured in the i newspaper, attracted some highly respected names from politics, journalism, think-tankery and academia - and was won by an operations manager at TfL, showing that you don’t need to work in politics to do well! Let’s make this year’s even bigger and better.

Read on to find out more and enter.

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The contest encourages and rewards people for not just getting things right, but for quantifying how likely something is to happen, so that you can see how well-calibrated you are - and ideally get better at making predictions.

Enter the 2026 Forecasting Contest here.

The contest consists of 50 questions, with 25 on UK politics and economy1; 15 on world politics and global events; and 10 on technology, entertainment and miscellany.

For each event, you have to say the probability (represented as a percentage between 0 and 100) of it happening. The aim is to predict how likely each event is to happen. The goal is not to predict everything perfectly, but to be well calibrated; in other words, if you predict 10 events have an 80% chance of happening, and 8 do, that is a good result.

For each question, you simply have to enter a number between 0 and 100 - you can take as much or as little time as you want.

You do not have to answer every question.

To enter the contest, click on the link here.

I have also recorded my own answers and registered them with a friend to ensure I don't change them. I'll publish these on this site, as well as the average result for each score, once the contest has closed.

Scoring will be by Brier Scoring. You don’t need to understand this to take part - the key thing to know is that it is a scoring system that rewards you for guessing what you genuinely think: In other words, if you think something is 70% likely to happen, write 70 - it’s as simple as that.

A few tips:

• Don’t be overconfident. Brier scoring can punish you brutally for unwarranted overconfidence.

• Don’t be afraid to miss out questions. In one year the person who came third missed out ten questions, showing a high score is possible even if you don’t answer every question.

• Don’t guess what you want to happen, guess what you think will happen.

To get a sense of what happened last year, have a look at the results of the last forecasting contest.

This year’s results will be published on 1 January 2027. The prize is honour and glory.

The contest is open until 11:59pm UK time on Sunday 18th January. Please do share this link with others and encourage them to enter, even though strictly speaking this is not in your interests and will decrease your chance of winning.

Enter the contest here.

This year there were a record 374 valid entries. Of these:

• 238 (64%) did better than would be expected by random chance.

• 27 (7%) did better than the wisdom of crowds.1

We’ll look below at the overall results, at some of the detailed breakdowns by sex and profession, and at how my own forecasting went this year. The full results for everyone who did better than random chance are also included at the end of the post.

But first, a massive congratulations to this year’s winner, ‘Firestone’, real name Christopher Flint, a former missionary and first class physics graduate from Oxford, who currently works as an Operations Manager at Transport for London.

Chris not only decisively beat the wisdom of crowds, he outdid more than 100 entrants who work in public policy / politics / journalism / similar fields for a living. Given he also beat the wisdom of crowds in 2024 and 2023, coming 6th in both previous years,2 that would suggest his forecasting success is no fluke!

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Next year’s contest will open this Sunday 4th January and be open for two weeks.

To be notified when it opens, subscribe here (free).

I’d encourage everyone who took part this year to have another go, regardless of how well you did, suggest that everyone else to give it a shot - and would ask all to share widely once out, to get the pool of entries as big as possible!

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How did each question resolve?

*The Politico Poll of Polls has done some odd things a couple of times this year and is only up to date as of 17 December. It’s the one I said we’d go by, so we’re going by it; however, for what it’s worth, I think the averages on electionmaps.uk are closer to what the polls actually say - fortunately, it doesn’t make any difference to how these three questions resolve.

Overall, the results this year were considerably better than last year: the wisdom of crowds was better by 0.27 and the winning score beat last year’s by 0.32. A smaller percentage of entries (7% vs 13%) beat the wisdom of crowds: the higher number of entrants should make it more accurate, and it appears it has.3

The question that, on average, people did worst on (as measured by total average contribution to final Brier score) was Q33, on the Canadian election, followed by Q12 on immigration numbers and Q16 on the Assisted Dying Bill. The question that, on average, people did best on was Q5, Ed Davey remaining as Lib Dem leader, followed by Q1, Keir Starmer remaining as Prime Minister and Q23, Trump not being assassinated.

The overall mean Brier score was 0.242; the median was 0.235.

29% of people said they worked in ‘politics, public policy, media or current affairs (broadly defined)’. These people had a slightly better mean Brier score (0.237, vs 0.244 for those who didn’t) but interestingly were under-represented in the top 27 who beat the wisdom of crowds, making up only 6, or 22%, of that number. First, second and third place were taken by people who didn’t work in these fields.

82% of entries were male and 16% female, with 2% preferring not to say. Men had only a slightly higher mean Brier score (0.240 vs 0.252 for women) but dominated those who beat the wisdom of crowds, making up 26 out of the top 27. The highest scoring woman came 17th and the second highest 33rd.4 The lowest 13 scores, however, were also all men.

Reader last year asked Deepseek’s AI model Perplexity to answer the questions, first explaining to it in some detail how to make good predictions and how Brier scoring was (you can read his prompts, and the AI’s predictions and reasoning, here). It got a score of 0.222, which would have put it 136th: better than the median human, but still a long way off the top performers!

How about my own forecasting?

I felt my own forecasting was worse than usual this year, and was relieved I managed to scrape in above the wisdom of crowds in 21st place, with a score of 0.180.5 I’m pleased to have beaten the wisdom of crowds three years in a row, but definitely feel I could have done better.

In particular, I did poorly on the local elections, underestimating the level of swing.6 I also underestimated just how inexplicably long it would take this Government - despite its massive majority - to get legislation through Parliament, which lost me points on three questions. I also made a silly error on interest rates, where I’m really not sure what I was thinking at the time.

More positively, I got the set of domestic policy focused questions (on immigration, NHS waiting lists and house building right) and was suitably cautious about predicting who would be where in the polls, in a year of massive fluctuation. I did well on the international section, including correctly calling that there would be a cease-fire in Gaza but not in Ukraine, although, like many people, I called the Canadian election incorrectly.7

Overall, not bad, could have been better, and in particular I’m going to work harder on the local elections section next year.

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The Full Results

I’m publishing here the full rankings of everyone who did better than chance, using the names or pseudonyms they indicated they would be happy to see appear on the internet. If you don’t see your alias here, then sadly, this year you did not do better than chance8 - though I hope you still had fun and will enter again in 2026!

1. Firestone: 0.145

2. James Hannam: 0.147

3. James B: 0.157

4. Andy Morris: 0.161

5. Principal P: 0.166

6. Peter Bennet: 0.167

7. Luke W: 0.169

8. JoeS: 0.170

9. Alex W: 0.171

10. Mike Smith: 0.171

11. Jonathan Portes: 0.172

12. Andy : 0.172

13. QuinL: 0.174

14. Barney Rubble: 0.174

15. Anon: 0.175

16. Robert Emery: 0.176

17. RC: 0.176

18. Ed: 0.177

19. Friso: 0.178

20. RMY: 0.179

21. Edrith: 0.180

22. Martin H: 0.181

23. Anon: 0.181

24. Anon: 0.181

25. Laurie U: 0.183

26. Anon: 0.185

27. Nick O’Connor: 0.185

[Wisdom of Crowds: 0.1878]

28. Eric Rees: 0.188

29. Anon: 0.188

30. Noble: 0.189

31. Westmorland 9: 0.189

32. JGWHerts: 0.189

33. Venetia: 0.189

34. Richard Vadon: 0.189

35. Will Bickford Smith: 0.190

36. Anon: 0.191

37. JO’L: 0.192

38. Andrew B: 0.192

39. Andy Hewitt: 0.193

40. rogerthomasyork: 0.193

41. Claretta: 0.194

42. MIchael Cluff: 0.194

43. Anon: 0.195

44. Rory: 0.195

45. Johnny Rich: 0.196

46. Anon: 0.197

47. Satis: 0.197

48. dodiscimus: 0.197

49. Anon: 0.197

50. Paul Jenkins: 0.198

51. HeatherS : 0.198

52. euanjs: 0.198

53. Mark Cannon: 0.198

54. Richard Arnold: 0.200

55. Bruce G: 0.200

56. Anon: 0.200

57. Alistair B: 0.200

58. MadDad38: 0.201

59. antifrank: 0.202

60. Anon: 0.202

61. Lesley Boorman: 0.202

62. Edward R: 0.203

63. Jake B: 0.203

64. Anon: 0.203

65. Shahid: 0.203

66. rb: 0.204

67. Anon: 0.204

68. Katie T: 0.204

69. Alan Williams: 0.204

70. Matt T: 0.204

71. TangerineSushi : 0.205

72. Wattsgoingon: 0.205

73. GBRChrisA: 0.205

74. alric8: 0.205

75. Anon: 0.206

76. Anon: 0.206

77. Anon: 0.206

78. Anon: 0.207

79. Oscar Bicket: 0.207

80. DrPauli: 0.207

81. Jo Pellereau : 0.207

82. Anon: 0.208

83. Coco: 0.208

84. PaulGG: 0.208

85. PV2005: 0.208

86. Anon: 0.209

87. Henry: 0.210

88. Rajasaur: 0.210

89. Ryan Turner: 0.210

90. Nick: 0.210

91. Anon: 0.210

92. Anon: 0.211

93. Daniel Cremin : 0.211

94. Paul Kearney: 0.211

95. Phil Newton: 0.211

96. Whazell: 0.211

97. Max Rothbarth: 0.211

98. Sam M : 0.213

99. Diaboth: 0.213

100. Robbo S: 0.213

101. Pooch: 0.213

102. Will McLean: 0.213

103. Ben R: 0.214

104. Anon: 0.214

105. Reabank: 0.214

106. John Purvis: 0.214

107. Gommo: 0.214

108. MusterTheSquirrels: 0.214

109. Tino: 0.215

110. Shoeshine: 0.215

111. JPod: 0.215

112. Anon: 0.215

113. Hugo Gye: 0.215

114. Mike Sharp: 0.215

115. Neil R: 0.215

116. Andrew Brook: 0.216

117. Sam R: 0.216

118. A Metcalfe: 0.216

119. Simon Pearce: 0.216

120. Alex Baynham: 0.216

121. Sean S C: 0.217

122. Anon: 0.217

123. Mahoney: 0.217

124. DParks: 0.218

125. NMacck: 0.218

126. Sue Julians: 0.219

127. Nick L: 0.219

128. Alistair MacDonald: 0.219

129. Alice W: 0.219

130. Andrew P Smith: 0.219

131. Anon: 0.220

132. Anon: 0.220

133. Anon: 0.220

134. CleptoMarcus: 0.221

135. Alan Stokes: 0.221

136. RolandW: 0.222

137. Moo: 0.222

138. Anon: 0.223

139. Nic: 0.223

140. literally_Chad: 0.223

141. Ollie RT: 0.224

142. OscarDaBosca : 0.225

143. David: 0.225

144. Bollieboy: 0.225

145. atreic : 0.225

146. Shiv5468: 0.225

147. The Absent Minded Professor: 0.226

148. Cannygeezer: 0.226

149. Daniel: 0.226

150. Timothy Lamb: 0.226

151. Rob C: 0.227

152. Brian: 0.227

153. AlexCM: 0.227

154. RV81: 0.227

155. Aldridge: 0.227

156. Anon: 0.227

157. Josh: 0.227

158. Anon: 0.228

159. Steve Broach: 0.228

160. 0UR0-13: 0.228

161. Anon: 0.229

162. Anon: 0.229

163. Greenfield Gibbons: 0.229

164. wisewizard: 0.229

165. markyboy: 0.229

166. Fcfmc: 0.229

167. ServiceKid74: 0.231

168. Adele Barnett-Ward: 0.231

169. Saddler: 0.231

170. Anon: 0.231

171. Em: 0.231

172. SpongeBrainBob1: 0.232

173. Anon: 0.232

174. Nick Hart: 0.232

175. alan chaplin: 0.232

176. deeharvey: 0.233

177. Ben V: 0.233

178. Ofjmx on Twitter: 0.233

179. Josh: 0.234

180. Joseph: 0.234

181. Matt: 0.234

182. Pmr : 0.234

183. Ian holmes : 0.234

184. BenA : 0.235

185. Jenna Cunningham: 0.235

186. Stephen: 0.235

187. Anon: 0.235

188. Rachel M: 0.235

189. Arj Singh: 0.235

190. RudyH: 0.235

191. Gasman: 0.236

192. Gatehouse123: 0.236

193. John Adams: 0.236

194. Matt N: 0.236

195. Boaly66: 0.237

196. Anon: 0.237

197. Clearlier: 0.238

198. Michael Barge: 0.239

199. Abhishek S: 0.239

200. Mr: 0.239

201. lord satan: 0.239

202. Anon: 0.240

203. Laura Spence: 0.240

204. From the Right Side: 0.240

205. Anon: 0.240

206. JutC.Predict: 0.241

207. siphuncle: 0.241

208. Anon: 0.241

209. MirandaJ: 0.241

210. Sandy Fyfe : 0.242

211. Dan S R: 0.242

212. Hugh Jones: 0.242

213. Phil C: 0.242

214. Ben P: 0.242

215. Steve Rowse: 0.243

216. wallaceme: 0.243

217. Anon: 0.243

218. Zoe Jardiniere: 0.243

219. Andrew21: 0.244

220. Tora Bora: 0.244

221. Anon: 0.244

222. Anon: 0.244

223. Anon: 0.244

224. A Garrido: 0.245

225. Niko: 0.245

226. Anon: 0.245

227. Gannister : 0.246

228. Rachael: 0.246

229. Anon: 0.247

230. Anon: 0.247

231. Anouschka Rajah: 0.247

232. derry: 0.248

233. Majician2000: 0.248

234. Austin platt: 0.249

235. Anon: 0.249

236. Pete Ford: 0.249

237. Rhiannon : 0.250

238. 2029d: 0.250

[+136 other entries]

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Appendix: Brier Scores and the Wisdom of Crowds

So what’s a Brier score then, anyway?

A Brier score is a way of scoring predictions that rewards both getting the prediction right and being accurate about how confident you were about that prediction. It has the advantage that it is hard to game: if you genuinely think the probability of something happening is 80%, you should guess 80%.

The Brier score is calculated as the average mean square error across all the questions. For example, if you predicted something had an 80% chance of happening, if it does happen your score for that question will be 0.04 (i.e. (1 - 0.8)²) and if it doesn’t happen your score will be 0.64 (i.e. 0.8²). The score for every question is added up and then divided by the number of questions, giving a score between 0 and 1, where lower scores are better. You can therefore improve your Brier score both by getting more things right and by being more realistic (’better correlated’) about how likely you are to be right, because you accrue a better score by getting something you were only weakly confident about wrong, than by getting something you were very confident about wrong.

Putting 50% for a probability guarantees a score for that question of 0.25. In this prediction contest I therefore awarded 0.25 for any question that participants skipped, as this was equivalent to them saying they thought it was as likely as not to happen. Someone could ensure they got no higher than 0.25 overall by putting 50% for every question; in theory, therefore, if people are correct about their confidence levels, no-one should get a higher Brier score than 0.25 - though in practice, that’s not the case.

I find Brier scores slightly counter-intuitive, so below are set out some hypothetical scenarios and the associated scores:

What about the Wisdom of Crowds?

There’s a theory which says that if you average predictions, the average will be better than most individual sets of predictions. Different people have different information; positive and negative random errors cancel out, and so on. The Wisdom of Crowds score is found by taking the mean of everyone’s forecast for each question and then scoring those means as if they were an entry in its own right.

When we look at the Wisdom of Crowds score, it had a Brier score of 0.188 - or better than 93% of contestants! Which is pretty good! It means that in most cases you are much better off trusting the average than any single individual (including many people who are specialists in the field). On the other hand, there are a few people who did significantly better - including some people who’ve done so multiple years runnning - which also shows it is very much possible to do better in predicting things than just averaging our guesses. It is, however, something which does not automatically come with domain knowledge (though it can be helped by it), but rather is its own skill.

Eldest began secondary school, a major change but one he was ready for, and it seems to be going well so far: he’s enjoying it, and I’m very happy with the school, which appears to be bringing out the best in him. Youngest has become increasingly in to chess and to Greek mythology, and is now well into those years where one is increasingly just enjoying spending time with them rather than ‘looking after’ them. Joy and grief made its appearance in the acquisition, and sad subsequent passing away, of a new kitten.

The year was book-ended by two very special holidays. In February we returned to the Philippines for the first time since we lived there ten years ago: a chance to relive old memories and to show Eldest where he was born. Then in early December we went to Disneyland Paris, which, particularly with the Christmas decorations up, was truly magical. Another highlight was retracing Hazel, Fiver and co’s journey from Sandleford Warren to Watership Down and thence on to Efrafra with S5 V6.

We’ve got a busy blogging schedule over the coming week: the 2025 Forecasting Results are out tomorrow, and the 2026 Forecasting contest will open on Sunday. If you’ve not tried it before, I’d encourage you to have a go - it’s a great way to make yourself think about what’s actually likely to happen in the coming year,2 a fun competition and doesn’t have to take long - plus the wisdom of crowds gives some interesting results. Then, on 6th January, the Christmas Quiz results will be out - following which normal blogging service will resume.

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What did I read, watch and play this year?

Some books, films and games I’ve enjoyed this year. Not a remote attempt at categorising everything I've read or seen, simply some that stood out for one reason or another.

Books (fiction)

After several years, I completed my Aubrey and Maturin chronological read-through, with some satisfaction. I also read all of Lois McMaster Bujold’s non-Vorkosigan books and Miles Cameron’s ‘Traitor Son’ (aka The Red Knight) series,3 all of which were excellent, and, following recommendations from my children, was unexpectedly gripped by the Percy Jackson series.4 Neal Stephenson’s Polostan and Robert Harris’s Precipice were two excellent pieces of historical fiction set in the early 20th century. Neil Gaiman’s Coraline was suitably creepy; Steinbeck’s The Red Pony deeply depressing and Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire pleasantly tacky.5

Books (non-fiction)

Gombrich’s A Little History of the World is my new ‘book that I tell everyone they should read’6: a brilliantly accessible world history, written by an Austrian art historian in the 1930s, banned by Hitler for being too positive about other cultures and translated into English by the author in the 1990s, it’s both delightful and informative. Nick Gibb’s Reforming Lessons: Why English Schools Have Improved Since 2010 and How This Was Achieved is a very good read not only for educationalists, but for anyone interested in how to bring about public service reform in a complex area. And Erik Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts was a chilling first-hand account of the rise of Hitler, told through the 1933 diaries and other documents of the US Ambassador and his family.

Films

I barely went to the cinema at all this year, though Jurassic World: Rebirth was quite fun.7 I did, however, watch a massive haul of films I’d never seen before on the very long flights too and from the Philippines. Conclave and Top Gun: Maverick were the highlights;8 Mulan and Galaxy Quest (not sure how I’d managed to never see these) were also good, and I’m glad I’ve now finally seen The Maltese Falcon, though it does show its age. Separately, I got around to watching Terminator 2, which really is as good as its reputation.

TV

Zero Day - a thriller in which the USA is hit by a massive cyber-attack and a former President, played by Robert de Niro, comes out of retirement to solve it - was my favourite new series of the year: I’d strongly recommend. Dougie Kamealoha was light, feel-good entertainment about a teenage Hawaian doctor.9 I very belatedly watched the Ambassadors,10 saw the fifth season of Slow Horses and am currently gripped by the final season of Stranger Things (no spoilers, please!).11

Games

I enjoyed playing the Civilization-esque board game Beyond the Horizon with N4 R6 and others - though it did need some tweaks for balance. I also played Warhammer 40k for the first time after Eldest got into it.12

On the computer, after multiple attempts I succeeded in beating XCOM 2, in Ironman mode, on Commander (hard) difficulty, an achievement which gave me an unreasonably high level of satisfaction. I also played a fair bit of 9 Kings, a great casual game with surprising depth, discovered the joys of the classic Sid Meier’s Pirates! and - acquiring it in a sale - tried out Hogwarts Legacy, which is a B- as a game, but A**** at providing the feeling that you really are a student at Hogwarts.13

Blogging

It’s been a great year of blogging. I’ve published exactly 52 posts and had over 140,000 views, with a a typical post now getting between 2,000 and 5,000 views. I end the year with a hair under 1500 subscribers in 48 countries, with 15 other substacks recommending me.14 I’ve been mentioned several times in national newspapers

Thank you all for reading, sharing, commenting, filling in surveys, lurking and otherwise being great readers - this site only grows via word of mouth and you readers are what makes it all worthwhile.

If you’ve joined partway through the journey, here's a list of my favourite post from each month to catch up on anything you've missed:

• January: Giants and Heroes. Which figures of the past should we learn about - and why?

• February: Collaboration, Defection and the Hostage’s Dilemma. Understanding Trump; or why the left’s systematic politicisation of supposedly neutral institutions leaves the right with only a choice of evils.

• March: To Veer to the Right or to Veer to the Left? Has Britain shifted right or left over the last two decades?

• April: The Scopes Monkey Trial of our Time. Applying insights gained from religious toleration to the trans debate - and why tolerating others’ false beliefs about reality must not require us to pretend to believe they are true.

• May: A Book List for Boys. Modern society often appears to not know what to do with boys - here are twenty books that can help convey the messages and values that our society struggles to.

• June: Seven Public Policy Rules of Thumb (my most read piece of the year). They’re not always true. But you’ve got grounds to demand strong evidence before accepting that one isn’t.

• July: Sanctuary or Struggle? Should those with minority views seek to create alternatives to mainstream institutions - or fight to maintain a place within them?

• August: We Too, Are Elves. Reflections on falling birthrates and ‘the Little Golden Age’.

• September: The Fallacy of the ‘Average’. It doesn’t matter to most policy debates what the return is on the ‘average’ graduate or immigrant. What matters is the marginal return.

• October: The Progressive Left has a Rule of Law Problem. From ‘direct action’ and vandalism to public officials ignoring laws under which they are required to operate, leftist causes have repeatedly claimed the right to disregard the law.

• November: Reeves in Zugzwang. The Chancellor has no good options left - and why incremental policy making is increasingly failing.

• December: For the 98%. Government should prioritise bettering the lives of the 80-90% in the middle of the population - warping it around the interests of those at the very bottom is as distorting as warping it around those at the very top.

Happy end of year to one and all!

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