Substacks recommended by James O'Malley | Odds and Ends of History

Recommended by James O'Malley

Yascha Mounk

Essays and conversations about big ideas that don't need a news hook. (Auch auf deutsch 🇩🇪. Aussi en français 🇫🇷.)

The London Minute

By Michael MacLeod

Today’s local news without the noise. Almost everything’s in it, innit.

Dividing Lines

By Tom Hamilton

A Substack about political attack, what it means and why it matters

Striking 13

By Ian Dunt

A newsletter about British politics. Written from the bad place.

What's Happening Now

What's Happening Now takes a first step into the biggest conversations, joined by experts and comedians to find out what's the matter with what matters.

Democracy for Sale

By Peter Geoghegan

A newsletter dedicated to revealing how dark money and hidden influence threaten our democracy

The Political Lawyer

By George Peretz KC

Thoughts on UK and EU law, politics and government and how they all relate to each other. The law will mainly be from my practice areas (regulation; public law; trade and EU-related): the politics will be broadly Labour.

The Week in Polls

By Dr. Mark Pack (The Week in Polls)

Keep on top of what you really need to know about the latest political polls with a concise weekly newsletter that dives behind the headlines, tells you what the numbers really mean and gives you the context to understand what’s going on.

Silver Bulletin

By Nate Silver

Essays and analysis about elections, media, sports, poker, and all the other things I care about.

Political Calculus

By Ben Ansell

A Substack on the connections between politics and the economy from the author of Why Politics Fails.

The Swingometer

By Rob Ford

Thoughts on elections, public opinion and politics. The Swingometer is named in honour of the late Sir David Butler, inventor of both "swing" and the device to illustrate it on television.

Logging the World

By Oliver Johnson

I try to make sense of the world using numbers, and this free newsletter explains how mathematics and statistics ideas can help a general audience. My book "Numbercrunch" was published in March 2023.

Everything is Light

By Zion Lights

Reporting on science, environment and energy. Pro-human, pro-progress commentary. Enter your email address to receive free articles.

Joxley Writes

Politics, history and culture from a right of centre perspective.

Robstack

By Rob Francis

Writing about whatever takes my interest, typically politics and culture, from a broadly social democratic perspective.

Rob is always interesting whatever the topic - even football, and I don't even like football.

- James O'Malley

Comment is Freed

By Sam Freedman

Politics, policy analysis, and foreign affairs from Sam and Lawrence Freedman

Sam is an incredibly smart writer who is always interesting read on a range of topics. And his dad, who shares his Substack, is essential reading on Ukraine.

- James O'Malley

For the Desk Drawer

By James Bloodworth

Essays, reviews and early access to my other stuff.

I always feel smarter after having read James’s writing.

- James O'Malley

Blocked and Reported

By Jesse Singal

A Podcast About Internet Controversies

There is no better podcast for making sense of that mad thing you saw on the internet.

- James O'Malley

Tox Report

By Sarah Ditum

Hi! The internet made me go insane. Perhaps you, too, have been driven insane by the internet. Let us consider the madness of the internet here. Journalist, author of the book TOXIC, big Britney person.

Local Authority

Award-winning independent Medway news covering local news, politics, culture, and the weirder side of our towns.

This Week, Those Books

By Rashmee Roshan Lall

A quick weekly post and podcast that join the dots on the week's big news story and the world of books. Makes you smarter, faster. More than 10,000, in over 110 countries, agree.

Hard Thinking on the Soft Left

By Emma Burnell

The Labour Party and the Soft Left

I always enjoy reading Emma's takes on the Labour Party as they're mostly correct.

- James O'Malley

The Newsletter of (Not Quite) Everything

By Jonn Elledge

assorted nerdery from a man who should probably be doing something else

Jonn is an excellent nerdy man who writes about trains and maps, and demographically speaking, if you like my work, you are 100% likely to be interested in these things.

- James O'Malley

Slow Boring

By Matthew Yglesias

Start your day with pragmatic takes on politics and public policy.

I am an unashamed Yglesias fanboy and my Substack is a pound-shop attempt to imitate the sort of smart takes that he does.

- James O'Malley

My Apophenic Haze

By Gia

a·po·phen·i·a æpoʊˈfiːniə noun --'the spontaneous perception of connections and meaningfulness of unrelated phenomena; the tendency to find personal information in noise.' ...but basically just a newsletter on whatever I'm thinking about now.

Gia is both super smart and has a really unique way of looking at the world, so it is impossible not to find her writing interesting.

- James O'Malley

Social Warming by Charles Arthur

By Social Warming: the Substack

Looking at the way social networks affect our societies, and in particular how they generate "social warming". It's why everyone seems so angry all the time.

Decisions, Decisions by Martin Robbins

By Martin J. Robbins

Regular thoughts and advice on decisions, the people and organisations who make them, and the ways they shape our world.

The Bluestocking

By Helen Lewis

I read the internet, so you don’t have to.

Helen always has interesting links and good takes in her weekly newsletter.

- James O'Malley

Singal-Minded

By Jesse Singal

A newsletter about science, social-justice-activism, why they sometimes fight, and how to help them get along better -- plus a good deal of other, more random stuff.

I like Jesse's writing as it is thoughtful and carefully parses through complex and often controversial topics.

- James O'Malley