Odds and Ends #65: Everything is about everything

Plus why Britain can't build things... except for the Lower Thames Crossing, apparently.

It’s actually happening!

Hello! It’s time for Odds and Ends, your weekly round-up of the most interesting links I’ve seen lately – plus some shorter takes.

This week, I’m featuring:

• A comprehensible explanation of why the public finances are… bad.

• A dive into Britain’s maddening inability to build.

• A rare moment of good news – we’re actually going to build something!

• The scourge of “everythingism”.

• Some awesome new drone delivery technology.

• A very alarming piece about the Trump/Greenland nonsense that I hadn’t considered before.

• A London Overground discovery.

• …And how my friends are saving local journalism in Kent.

But first, some quick plugs for my own stuff!

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PODCAST! Episode 4 of The Abundance Agenda is out now, and I think it’s the best one we’ve done yet. This week, Martin and I talk about the Lower Thames Crossing, plans to build 18,000 new “affordable” homes (and why that might not be quite enough), and speak to Joe Hill from the think tank Reform, about his theory of “Everythingism”, and how it jams up British government. Plus, we weren’t planning it, but we ended up getting extremely mad at the boomers – when discussing housing, of course.

So please do have a listen to The Abundance Agenda – it’s on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Substack.

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MY WRITING! In case you missed it, my big piece last week was posted on, er, Sunday. So don’t forget to scroll back through your inbox, and find the plan for how the government can raise taxes – and get away with it.

Plus! I’ve also been writing elsewhere. For The House magazine, I wrote about the ‘Push Notification’ state, reprising some of the ideas from my exhaustively long digital government piece. They were even kind enough to mention it on the cover of the print magazine!

And over at CapX, I’ve been trying to persuade those buccaneering free-marketeers on the right of the merits of Abundance.¹

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Toytown Punks - Middle England

Now one last thing before we hit the wall – in a rare example of reverse nepotism I’m going to share a new song by… my dad.

That’s right, while I’m objectively an intensely boring man, my nepo-dad is much cooler than I am. Now that he’s 67 and retired he’s started making music. His latest song, “Middle England” is a nostalgic love letter to a time that no longer exists – and evokes the sound of The Kinks, Billy Bragg and Blur. What I’m saying is, if you click play you’ll enjoy it. Like and subscribe, as the YouTubers say.

Now let’s – finally – get on with the links!