Odds and Ends #41: Three quick hits for you this Sunday

A reminder! A podcast! And... postcodes.

I’m about 80% sure this is Dublin. Photo by David Field on Unsplash

Hello! My big essay is coming later this week, but there’s a lot going on! So in the meantime, I wanted to send a quick, timely updates on three different things!

Last chance to grab your tickets for Tuesday

It’s finally happening! This Tuesday the excellent Zion Lights is joining me, in a pub in London, and we’re going to be talking nuclear. We’re going to be digging into the questions of why Britain needs more nuclear energy – and exploring some of the options for how we can actually make it happen.

And even better – you are invited to join us! The last few tickets are now available – and paid subscribers to either me or Zion can get in half-price!

So come along and let’s figure out how to build the future!

Podding on Net Zero, the Tories and money in politics

Kemi Badeoch may think there are too many podcasts, but me and my friend, comedian Sam Hampson, just see that as a challenge. That’s why we’ve recently launched season three of What’s Happening Now, where each week we explore the big themes in the news and try to explain what matters, all with a light touch.

So far this season we’ve had some great guests too.

• On our money in politics pod, we were joined by Peter Geoghegan and comedian Alexandra Haddow to talk about the Labour freebies controversy.

• Last week we talked about whether the Tories can ever win over the young again – with the help of actual-young-Tory John Oxley and pretend-young-ish-Tory Rosie Holt.

• And most recently, we’re talking Net Zero. I spoke to former-BEIS bigwig and energy expert Adam Bell, to find out if Labour can actually achieve a carbon-neutral grid by 2030, and we were joined in the studio by self-styled “climate comedian” Stuart Goldsmith.

So if you’re not already, be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts.

Quick PAF update

The campaign to liberate the Postcode Address File inexplicably marches on.

This week there were two interesting developments.

First, it turns out that one of the reasons the government has resisted liberating the PAF over the years is because of the value of the dataset to Royal Mail – and the worries that taking back control of the PAF could harm the company.

But here’s what we discovered the other day: The numbers the government was working with were absolutely bananas. According to documents obtained by me using the Freedom of Information Act, the PAF was valued at £487m – which is crazy.

To find out why, I recommend reading my pal Peter Wells’ thorough debunking.

And secondly, something very interesting happened in Parliament this week. Jim Dickson, the new MP for Dartford submitted a Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office:

“To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether the Postcode Address File is critical national infrastructure under the National Security and Investment Act 2021.”

This is a super interesting and well-timed question, given the likely sale of Royal Mail to a Czech company. It seems pretty obvious to me that the PAF should be considered critical national infrastructure, given how foundational address data is to our lives – and something that shouldn’t really be in foreign hands.

It will be interesting to see the government agree. And whatever they say, we will of course be following up. So I’m afraid there is probably more postcode posting in the future.

But for now, I’m going to crack on writing this week’s essay. So look out for it later this week!

And if you value my writing, please do consider taking out a paid subscription, as it really helps me continue writing every week.