history, sport, science & politics! green side but more about outcomes than party rosettes. works policy+pub affairs. Also podcasting, theatre & ancient glass!
Cardiff central / hay
Joined January 2012
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ceri retweeted
BREAKING: Israeli elections have ended and the exit polls are in. All three Israeli channels have Netanyahu's bloc at 50. Eisenkot's bloc is at 52 or 53. The Arab parties are at 17 or 18, the most seats they have ever won.
Likud finished first with 24 or 25. Yashar is second with 21 to 23. Bennett has 12 to 14.
Nobody has 61. Netanyahu cannot form a government without Bennett, and Eisenkot cannot form one without either Bennett or the Arab parties. Israel had the highest turnout in its history today, and the country is still split down the middle.
ceri retweeted
Re-opening rural railways is almost always a massive waste of taxpayers' money; the fare revenues don't even cover the operating costs. The only time it makes sense is if a big quarry, mine or industrial plant generates significant bulk freight traffic. thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/n…
For some
Reason there is chit chat at Cardiff council on aspects of this whole Middle East mess.
Seemingly not about stuff like this though.
ceri retweeted
Forgot to add to this that CPRW have claimed that undergrounding is in fact "50% cheaper than overhead".
I find this hard to believe!
On pylon politics in Wales:
> There is a broad coalition behind the ban: Plaid, Welsh Cons, Lib Dems all clear before the election. With Reform votes too probably a big majority in the Senedd (potentially 85+/96 votes?).
> Plaid won loads of urban Wales for the first time in May. But policy agenda arguably still tilted towards its old rural seats. Local interests > national interest.
> Not clear that there is any dissent within Plaid from its new urban MSs about the pylon ban and its broader implications. Party discipline seems v strong.
> CPRW and the farming business orgs (NFU/FUW) are now hugely influential on Welsh Gov policy and doing a lot of agenda setting.
ceri retweeted
Da iawn Slofenia!
“using the fuel-cell buses on routes with higher range requirements.”
fuelcellsworks.com/2026/10/2…
Whatever you think of the senedd this fella is so far out of touch of the modern office environment it’s embarrassing he holds such a senior political role as the confidence to spout forth
.
Stuff like this and more is and has been for some time private sector staple.
ceri retweeted
A local Gurkha family take over empty premises to open a shop and invite Shrewsbury's Mayor along to do the honours. The response from the local branch of the Reform Party? A slew of racial slurs. Excellent response from the local Lib Dems.
shropshirestar.com/news/refo…
ceri retweeted
If you're a chief executive on a telephone number salary, at least have the grace not to complain about the taxes that fund the benefits your workers have to claim because you refuse to pay them enough to live on
ceri retweeted
£1.30 in Feb this year. Rise probably cost me £350ish over a year?
Quite remarkable that the early cheerleaders for British involvement in the Iran War (Badenoch, Farage, Tice etc) have not really taken any reputational hit from it.
Average UK weekly road fuel prices statistics as at 26 October 2026 published today at: gov.uk/government/statistics…
Not my party but fair play kemi is slowly slowly putting the conservatives back together.
Fully expect them to be clear ip portion option to labour at the next GE.
ceri retweeted
I see it took less than a day for even the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street to become a culture war issue. Do we need a term for that brief moment of innocence between something happening and then the online fury? The pre-polarisation window?
ceri retweeted
There’s never a dull day learning Welsh.
Apparently there are more terms in Welsh for illegitimate children than legitimate ones
Of them all I think ‘plant llwyn a pherth’ is my favourite: children of bush and hedge
ceri retweeted
1/ The man most likely to rape a White British woman isn't on a small boat or an immigrant. He's her partner or her ex.
The graph by @TheEconomist is doing rounds, and @RestoreBritain , @reformparty_uk and the rest of the circus of the self-appointed protectors of White British women think that it proves their made up point: that White British women's biggest danger is immigrant men.
Well, data and facts say a different story, a story that the circus of the self-appointed protectors of White British women don't want normal people to know.
Here's the data. 🧵
ceri retweeted
The Left complain about “neoliberalism”. The Right complain about a “Big State” requiring a Milei-style chainsaw.
Both are half right. We have sold off national assets/critical industries to foreign shareholders, watched the public realm deteriorate, & built a financialised, globalised, low-investment, service-dominated open market economy, dependent on FDI, imports, consumer debt and inflows of cheap, low-productivity labour. Meanwhile, the private sector is throttled by regulation, building/development is blocked by a nimby vetocracy, the tax burden grows to fund ballooning cash transfers/entitlements, and gov. policy/Ministerial initiative is overruled by the judiciary/permanent bureaucracy/unaccountable state agencies. This is the nightmare hybrid legacy of Thatcher & New Labour.
It’d be no bad thing if a lot of Tej’s (👇) pro-market/supply-side agenda was combined with the restoration of a robust social democracy and an active, interventionist state.
Do a two-pronged Budget for *FULL ANGLO-DENGIST MARKET SOCIALISM*—
MARKET:
👉Zonal/non-discretionary planning system
👉Generous capital allowances/full expensing
👉Tax relief for UK investments — pensions, new British ISA etc.
👉Welfare reform/jobs guarantees
👉End to 3-lock properly
👉Bonfire of QUANGOs/consolidate regulatory agencies/leave Aarhus Convention etc.
👉End tax cliff-edges & shift burden from work/productive investment to land/unproductive asset wealth
SOCIALISM:
👉Medium-term plan for gov. joint equity stakes/full national/public/regional/municipal ownership of utilities/natural monopolies/critical infrastructure & critical industries
👉BIG investment in regional energy/transport/digital infrastructure + urban social housebuilding via NWF/GB Energy/BBB/GB Rail ‘puffins’ + local/mayoral authorities etc.
👉Sectoral collective bargaining agreements
👉Robust industrial strategy for supporting UK advanced manufacturing/science & tech via public procurement/tariff policy/R&D/‘triple helix’ public-private partnerships etc etc.
Begin a shift AWAY from a bureaucratic cash transfer/entitlement state, and TOWARDS an agile, investment-first/productive state. Be willing to fundamentally alter BoE-HMT relationship to this end. Do fiscal-monetary coordination, financial repression. Introduce PSNW accounting. Plan for a current budget primary surplus but combine with a BIG push to upgrade public capital stock. 👍👍💪🇬🇧
THREAD (1/7) Britain’s Budget on Wednesday is expected to be low-key. After recent chaos, that is no bad thing.
But escaping the country’s economic drift will require something far bolder: a dose of shock therapy.
My latest column for @FT:
as.ft.com/r/aa18babc-96c7-4f…
ceri retweeted
I worked the Brazilian elections for France 24.
For what it's worth (and armed with a degree in History and Politics!!), here's my take on what happened.
ceri retweeted
BREAKING: Netanyahu has announced that Brazil is just three weeks away from developing a nuclear weapon 👀
In fairness to central London I had to get a taxi from
Westminster to Paddington’s recently. (Not my choice)
And London was in gridlock then too - pre improving Oxford street.
