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
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…
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…
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 👀
ceri retweeted
Hyundai has surpassed 50,000 hydrogen vehicle sales in South Korea, marking a major milestone for the country’s fuel-cell vehicle market.
fcw.sh/pT6zKk
#Hydrogen #Hyundai
ceri retweeted
Is anyone going to fucking stop Israel?!?!…
WTF is wrong with the world…
ceri retweeted
'Beyond a certain speed, cars create distances for all and shrink them for only a few.'
—Ivan Illich (1973)
👷 Our cities weren't built for the car.
🚜 They were actively destroyed for it.
(Before-after of I-980 in #Oakland by @SegByDesign)
ceri retweeted
FT’s report on Lula’s comeback says Flávio Bolsonaro’s “nine fingers” jab in the final debate, mocking the finger Lula lost in a factory accident at 17 while working nights, became a turning point.
The attack let Lula draw a sharp contrast between his own working-class history and Bolsonaro’s background, helping shift momentum in the runoff.
How Lula turned his election fortunes around in 3 weeks ft.trib.al/XwYLjjG
ceri retweeted
Solar has overtaken nuclear. A decade ago it supplied 1% of the world's power. In 2025 it met three quarters of global demand growth.
Almost nobody saw it coming. I spoke to Jocelyn Timperley at BBC Future about why.
bbc.co.uk/future/article/202…
ceri retweeted
The cost of two adult returns? £11.80😱
I can give my car a full charge for less - as well as get an advanced train return to Cardiff!
Thankfully, the 2yo loved it. I'm still recovering.
ceri retweeted
Wales is facing really significant budget cuts in the coming years.
This chart shows how much both the resource and capital budget have changed year on year, accounting for inflation.
Resource spending pays for day-to-day running costs and public services, while capital spending invests in long-term assets.
In simple terms, capital spending will build you a hospital, resource spending funds the staff working in it every year.
(It's best to ignore the period around Covid because the big changes to consumption patterns out everything out of whack).
The Welsh resource budget it going down in real terms by 0.7% next year.
The future does look particularly grim when we look at the capital budget, which is set to fall in real terms in each of the next three years.
This would be the first sustained three-year reduction in the capital budget since the austerity period of the early 2010s.
This is what is severely limiting Wales' ability to make big capital investments. In simple terms it is going to be harder for Wales to build/improve/fix roads, schools and hospitals.
This is why it is doubly important Wales gets fairer treatment on funding - esp on our ability to borrow.
Right now, we have less borrowing powers than a council and a worse deal that Scotland.
