If @MarkUrban01 is right, and I fear he is, then we’ve reached the point where the political cost of rebuilding our defences is judged greater than the strategic risk of not doing so. One wonders what event will finally convince people that the peace dividend ended years ago.

Worth reading. Al’s having a good run. One of the weaknesses of modern government is that those closest to the problems are often the least free to discuss them publicly. The conversation only becomes fully honest once they’re out of office.

I used Fable 5 while it was up. It was everything people are saying. A clear step up from anything that came before. To say I'm troubled by what I've seen since its release, and subsequent withdrawal, would be an understatement. I can't shake the feeling that our participation and access to the future is now decided in Washington. It likely always was, but now it seems to be far more explicit. The British instinct is to watch chaos in Washington and assume stupidity. How could they possibly be the ones running the future. In my view, that is exactly the wrong read and means we completely underestimate the US. It doesn't matter whether a lab pulled it or a government did. It doesn't matter whether anyone meant it as a signal. The capability sits inside US jurisdiction, and it can go dark on a schedule we have absolutely no say in, and for reasons we will never be shown or made aware of. This is how a multipolar world actually works. Not one set of rules, but several. Washington sets the terms for its bloc. Beijing and Moscow set them for theirs. Each sets the operating manual for its own sphere, and the price of admission is paid to a different capital on their terms. What is new is the hand on the shoulder of allies. The old order assured its friends access as a feature of the alliance itself. The emerging world order, treats that access as a favour. Whilst you may have favourable terms today, they're in constant review. You can be a trusted partner and still be reminded that trust is a status... not a right. So the question stops being who leads. It becomes which bloc Britain wants to belong to, and what each one charges at the door. This is the bit that's so vitally important for Britain. Britain can still build sovereign strength. We have real advantages to compound, if we choose them deliberately. Deep capital markets, world-class universities, a legal system others still trust, the language the models already think in. We are not bystanders to this revolution either. Its foundations run from Turing to the founding of DeepMind in London. But membership is not leverage. The only countries that flourish inside a bloc are the ones their patrons and peers cannot easily do without. That is what should sit at the heart of any serious vision for this country. And not one of the parties competing to run it has grasped this. They are still campaigning for the world that just ended, based on assumptions that are now existentially dangerous.

Excellent thread from Jack Watling which puts the recent ministerial resignations into sharp focus. Much of the debate has centred on money. Watling’s point is more serious: credibility, once lost with allies and industry alike, is neither quick nor cheap to rebuild.

autonomous robot driving through the field at night. no chemicals. no pesticides. just UV light killing pathogens and pests while everyone sleeps. this is @tricrobotics. this is what chemical-free pest control looks like at scale.

The European mind understands it perfectly. This is what imperial decadence looks like: public institutions converted into branded spectacle, civic memory replaced by adrenaline theater, and the People’s House turned into a content backdrop for regime propaganda. The joke is not that Europe cannot comprehend it. The joke is that America no longer recognizes what it is becoming.

Worth your time. Britain needs more honest conversations about resilience, industrial capacity and national security. I suspect we’ll be hearing a few more from Al Carns in the weeks ahead.

What a mess! When both the Defence Secretary and his highly capable junior minister resign rather than continue the fight, the message could hardly be clearer: those charged with delivering the nation’s defence no longer believe the Government’s approach is credible.

Woeful. Someone needs to shout into their cloth-eared heads: this is the Defence of the Realm, not a Whitehall spreadsheet course!

Destroying confidence in the electoral system and other pillars of democracy (media, courts) is their goal, it’s not just pathetic whining. Then they use that lack of confidence to push strongman powers, restrictive voter suppression laws, and other crackdowns.

Nicholas’ last sentence ought to resonate. Rearming ≠ warmongering. It's about deterrence, which only works when capability is credible. NATO’s strength depends on what its members can actually field. Too many people are unaware of how far we've fallen behind.

Defence of the Realm should be priority one, especially in times like these. The uncomfortable reality is that military capability cannot be conjured up when a crisis arrives. Skills, supply chains and production capacity take years to build and only months to lose.

I have no idea what’s going on inside Trump’s head, not sure anyone does. But when a political leader spends more time fighting perceived enemies than advancing a coherent agenda, it’s usually a sign that something isn’t right. One wonders how much longer this can go on.

CEOs are quietly realizing the AI replacement plan has a problem. Two problems, actually. One: the token costs for running AI agents are now exceeding what they were paying the employees they fired. Two: when the tokens run out, the AI stops. Just stops. No continuity. No workaround. Just a spinning wheel where your workforce used to be. You fired humans to save money and bought a subscription that bills you into a corner. The employees you let go knew what to do when things broke. The AI just invoices you for the outage. And then there’s the permission problem nobody wants to talk about. To do its job, the AI agent needs access. Full access. Your systems, your patents, your contracts, your future plans. Everything you spent years building, handed over to a process that has no loyalty, no discretion, and no skin in the game. You didn’t hire a replacement. You gave a stranger with no soul the keys to everything you own. Enjoy.

Quite so. Every generation has its challenges. The 70’s made way for Thatcher - who will these times bring to the fore?

Fascinating insight into White House sycophancy. One suspects Marco Rubio will also prove among the most agile when the day comes to rediscover his independence.

A lot of time housebuilders get stick for failing to build 'the right number' of social houses as part of a development plan. It may help to get a little insight into how development economics works. You may find the below linked tweet interesting as well- it ties into what I am talking about here neatly: x.com/johndotwills/status/20…

Encouraging and necessary words but ‘strong signalling’ butters no parsnips.

One can imagine the heated conversations inside Number 10 as public anger erupted over suggestions Britain was quietly easing Russian oil sanctions. Muddled comms, yes, but reality bites. My latest Fault Lines piece: 👇open.substack.com/pub/rodwhi…...?

APPLEBAUM: The war in Ukraine is really fault line between democratic and autocratic worlds. Russians are trying to destroy Ukraine as a nation, they want it to disappear. As an empire, they want Ukraine to be their colony. And they understood perfectly well that by invading Ukraine, they were defying this liberal world order. They were defying the rules of post-war Europe, because in post-war Europe decision was made after 1945: we are not going to invade each other anymore, we are not going to have wars. Instead, we are going to decide everything by diplomacy, and borders will not be changed by force. And Russians understood they were breaking that norm when they invaded Ukraine. They also invaded Ukraine because Ukrainians were using that powerful democratic language we take for granted. Putin said, “If they can do it in Ukraine, then people could do it in Russia. So, I need to crush this Ukrainian democracy movement.”