Whitelocke
@cokeynesian.bsky.social
Ideologically idiosyncratic. On polichron.substack.com
Pinned
Whitelocke
@cokeynesian.bsky.social
· Jun 5
Why Britain Fell Behind, Part 1: Introduction & Index
A Study of a Surprising Failure
polichron.substack.com
I'm making my debut on Substack today with the first two parts of my essay on the postwar British economy, "Why Britain Fell Behind".
Subsequent, meatier, parts will be published... later. But I intend to write about other stuff as well.
polichron.substack.com/p/why-britai...
Subsequent, meatier, parts will be published... later. But I intend to write about other stuff as well.
polichron.substack.com/p/why-britai...
Yes, it should, actually. I don't want birds nesting in my fucking walls, but environmentalists insist that my home must be used as a bloody aviary.
This was the last chance to secure Swift bricks in the Planning Bill itself.
We’ll keep pushing for other ways to make it happen.
Nature shouldn’t be optional in the places we live. 🍃
We’ll keep pushing for other ways to make it happen.
Nature shouldn’t be optional in the places we live. 🍃
November 6, 2025 at 11:02 PM
Yes, it should, actually. I don't want birds nesting in my fucking walls, but environmentalists insist that my home must be used as a bloody aviary.
It's absolute bullshit that you aren't allowed to get rid of bats roosting in your own fucking home.
November 6, 2025 at 1:37 PM
It's absolute bullshit that you aren't allowed to get rid of bats roosting in your own fucking home.
Genuinely one of the worst chancellors in history.
Late period Osborne: interest rates at zero and 50-80bn of headroom: and his priority was “don’t invest”.
November 4, 2025 at 11:56 AM
Genuinely one of the worst chancellors in history.
The sheer amount of vitriol Abundance gets amuses me.
November 4, 2025 at 9:54 AM
The sheer amount of vitriol Abundance gets amuses me.
Reposted by Whitelocke
The actual answer to this problem is to make it profitable to build at a lower price.
Quicker permitting, lower obligations on development, and a planning regime that is more certain and has a wider range of sites. All increase competition, range of business models, and customer demand for supply.
Quicker permitting, lower obligations on development, and a planning regime that is more certain and has a wider range of sites. All increase competition, range of business models, and customer demand for supply.
October 30, 2025 at 9:36 AM
The actual answer to this problem is to make it profitable to build at a lower price.
Quicker permitting, lower obligations on development, and a planning regime that is more certain and has a wider range of sites. All increase competition, range of business models, and customer demand for supply.
Quicker permitting, lower obligations on development, and a planning regime that is more certain and has a wider range of sites. All increase competition, range of business models, and customer demand for supply.
Lisa Nandy having no understanding of agglomeration effects explains quite a lot about her views.
Hi Lisa Nandy! I’m a BAFTA winner from a small town. Instead of asinine questions like this, why not tell us how we can continue to make a living in the eviscerated creative sector over which you notionally preside?
October 31, 2025 at 3:08 PM
Lisa Nandy having no understanding of agglomeration effects explains quite a lot about her views.
Everyone brings up that Keynes quote but ignores the dual constraints of productive capacity and balance-of-payments that he was intimately familiar with from running the British war economy.
mmt is basically based on the frankly extremely odd idea that you could generate material wealth out of thin air by declaring it exists
believe it or not material reality is made up of material wealth that needs to be moved around to make things possible
October 30, 2025 at 12:13 AM
Everyone brings up that Keynes quote but ignores the dual constraints of productive capacity and balance-of-payments that he was intimately familiar with from running the British war economy.
It also ignores that having the civil service (which cannot be transplanted) far away from parliament would be wildly impractical. Ministers would have constantly travel back and forth between London and the North, not to mention their own constituency.
Side note, I used to be one of the people who suggested moving Parliament to the north, but it’s a silly idea that misidentifies centralisation as being cultural rather than political.
October 23, 2025 at 11:58 PM
It also ignores that having the civil service (which cannot be transplanted) far away from parliament would be wildly impractical. Ministers would have constantly travel back and forth between London and the North, not to mention their own constituency.
Reposted by Whitelocke
The number of posts and quotes that amount to 'just sell it for flats/turn it into a museum/let the Qataris have it' and 'build a modern replacement in *insert regeneration destination of choice' is so depressing.
A nation of gradgrinds with no love of their history.
A nation of gradgrinds with no love of their history.
The Palace of Westminster is literally going to either burn down, kill someone, or both because spending money to save it is perceived as so politically toxic.
October 23, 2025 at 7:15 AM
The number of posts and quotes that amount to 'just sell it for flats/turn it into a museum/let the Qataris have it' and 'build a modern replacement in *insert regeneration destination of choice' is so depressing.
A nation of gradgrinds with no love of their history.
A nation of gradgrinds with no love of their history.
My niche take is that it should be knocked down and rebuilt, but with broadly the original design/style.
The number of posts and quotes that amount to 'just sell it for flats/turn it into a museum/let the Qataris have it' and 'build a modern replacement in *insert regeneration destination of choice' is so depressing.
A nation of gradgrinds with no love of their history.
A nation of gradgrinds with no love of their history.
The Palace of Westminster is literally going to either burn down, kill someone, or both because spending money to save it is perceived as so politically toxic.
October 23, 2025 at 11:48 PM
My niche take is that it should be knocked down and rebuilt, but with broadly the original design/style.
The problem with this proposal is that the vast majority of the American working class are neither unionised or politicised. And of those who are, many voted for Trump.
October 20, 2025 at 9:08 AM
The problem with this proposal is that the vast majority of the American working class are neither unionised or politicised. And of those who are, many voted for Trump.
Who robbed the Louvre? Right answers only
October 19, 2025 at 10:28 PM
Who robbed the Louvre? Right answers only
I know everyone likes to mock AI, but it's damn useful when you're trying to find something you don't know the name of.
October 18, 2025 at 2:32 PM
I know everyone likes to mock AI, but it's damn useful when you're trying to find something you don't know the name of.
I remember Lynton Crosby saying that an electoral strategy should always begin by locking in you're base because doing otherwise is like building a house on a faulty foundation.
Good piece. Growing threat to Labour from Greens on the left flank has been evident for a number of years now - clear in local election results, in polling, and in last year's general election. Polanski has increased this by (a) boost membership - crucial reource (b) increasing attention to Greens
Labour has a Green problem – why Zack Polanski’s first month as leader shows he’s the biggest threat the party has faced from the left. www.newstatesman.com/politics/mor...
October 15, 2025 at 1:34 PM
I remember Lynton Crosby saying that an electoral strategy should always begin by locking in you're base because doing otherwise is like building a house on a faulty foundation.
It also ignores the fact that it's very well documented that most servicemen voted for Roosevelt in 1944. (Similarly, the military vote was strong for Labour in Britain's 1945 election).
Genuinely what the fuck is the reason why leftists are so eager to write off the contributions of ethnic and national minorities to allied victory in WWII because they do this with the Americans and the Soviets
October 12, 2025 at 11:13 AM
It also ignores the fact that it's very well documented that most servicemen voted for Roosevelt in 1944. (Similarly, the military vote was strong for Labour in Britain's 1945 election).
A lot of people seem to think that Israeli Jews can be forced to just up stakes like the Pied Noirs or White Rhodesians.
This is a person who is still taken seriously and published in left-wing spaces.
To be clear: No, most Israeli Jews are not descended from Polish Jews. And even for the minority who are, it would obviously not be safe for them all to go there now, given the Polish government.
To be clear: No, most Israeli Jews are not descended from Polish Jews. And even for the minority who are, it would obviously not be safe for them all to go there now, given the Polish government.
October 10, 2025 at 7:50 PM
A lot of people seem to think that Israeli Jews can be forced to just up stakes like the Pied Noirs or White Rhodesians.
Far more money went into the strategic bombing than on the Manhattan Project.
Also they ran just incredibly awful commentary with incredibly shawty evidence (which I’m sure will become feature at CBS now). For example, the author of this piece claimed the Allies won WWII with inferior technology minus the atomic bomb lol
October 6, 2025 at 8:11 PM
Far more money went into the strategic bombing than on the Manhattan Project.
The story of the author of this book is fucking insane.
> Born a Hungarian-Jew
> Used as slave labour by Horthy's regime
> Deported to Auschwitz
> Released, becomes a student in Vienna
> Captured by Smersh, sent to the Gulag
> Released, returns to Hungary...
> Born a Hungarian-Jew
> Used as slave labour by Horthy's regime
> Deported to Auschwitz
> Released, becomes a student in Vienna
> Captured by Smersh, sent to the Gulag
> Released, returns to Hungary...
September 18, 2025 at 12:15 AM
The story of the author of this book is fucking insane.
> Born a Hungarian-Jew
> Used as slave labour by Horthy's regime
> Deported to Auschwitz
> Released, becomes a student in Vienna
> Captured by Smersh, sent to the Gulag
> Released, returns to Hungary...
> Born a Hungarian-Jew
> Used as slave labour by Horthy's regime
> Deported to Auschwitz
> Released, becomes a student in Vienna
> Captured by Smersh, sent to the Gulag
> Released, returns to Hungary...
Reform are barking up a dead tree if they head down this route. Britain is not America, and anti-abortion politics will be a real liability for them.
Danny Kruger having a big role in Reform immediately takes them in a decidedly more anti-abortion direction. Implausible he'd have jumped without discussions on that point
September 15, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Reform are barking up a dead tree if they head down this route. Britain is not America, and anti-abortion politics will be a real liability for them.
Sandbrook once joked that Starmer was like Ted Heath: “He thinks Britain is stuck in a doom-loop, and that he must immediately schedule some more committee meetings.”
I think another thing that's just so bad about Starmerism is just the raw poverty of ambition. It's honestly shocking, he has a supermajority and strong party system to enforce compliance and they've gone for uh yeah
NEW: Keir Starmer has said he hangs the English flag in his home and 'always sits front of a Union Jack'
He told the BBC: 'I'm very encouraging of flags. I think they're patriotic and a great symbol of our nation.'
He told the BBC: 'I'm very encouraging of flags. I think they're patriotic and a great symbol of our nation.'
September 3, 2025 at 3:58 PM
Sandbrook once joked that Starmer was like Ted Heath: “He thinks Britain is stuck in a doom-loop, and that he must immediately schedule some more committee meetings.”
Another thing is that Schmitt is clearly opposed to what I would regard as being pillars of modern Western Civilization and way of life ─ rule of law; individual freedom (including reproductive autonomy); and a genuine, albeit deeply flawed, attempt at racial, sexual and gender equality.
man. if Eric Schmitt's speech to NatCon isn't a sign of the times, i don't know what is
!["America is not a 'universal nation.' ... [American] principles are not abstractions. They are living, breathing things — rooted in a people and embodied in a way of life."
Senator Eric Schmitt got a standing ovation at Nat Con DC for saying America as a nation is the property of a distinct ethnic people.
Americans are a mix of “the most adventurous, the most courageous, the most curious and innovative” of the English, Scotch-Irish, and continental Europeans, who came as settlers and have spent hundreds of years building, fighting, and dying for "a homeland for themselves and their descendants."
"We’re a nation of settlers, explorers, and pioneers — born on the ocean waters that carried the first ships to our shores and forged in the crucible of a wild frontier. Our people tamed a continent, built a civilization from the wilderness, and wrote our nation’s name in history.
"Our ancestors were driven here by destiny, possessed by urgent and fiery conviction, by burning belief, devoted to their cause and their God."
"The Continental Army soldiers dying of frostbite at Valley Forge, Pilgrims struggling to survive in the hard winter soil of Plymouth, pioneers striking out from Missouri for the wild and dangerous frontier, [and] outnumbered Kentucky settlers, repelling wave after wave of Indian war band attacks from behind their stockade walls, would be astonished to hear that they were only fighting for a 'proposition.'
"They believed they were forging a nation — a homeland for themselves and their descendants."
"America, in all its glory, is their gift to us, handed down across the generations.
"It belongs to us. It’s our birthright, our heritage, our destiny.
"If America is everything and everyone, then it is nothing and no one at all."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:hbpefio3f5csc44msmbgioxz/bafkreif3x7re3lubuj7kzurj3ayotcnq2l46kwb2p5hp2zid2dagzth5nu@jpeg)
September 3, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Another thing is that Schmitt is clearly opposed to what I would regard as being pillars of modern Western Civilization and way of life ─ rule of law; individual freedom (including reproductive autonomy); and a genuine, albeit deeply flawed, attempt at racial, sexual and gender equality.
In 1980, The Economist described American manufacturing workers as "often an alienated urban black or blue-collar ethnic who barely talks English".
August 30, 2025 at 8:52 PM
In 1980, The Economist described American manufacturing workers as "often an alienated urban black or blue-collar ethnic who barely talks English".
I've just written a new post about the myths and reality of the 1948 British Nationality Act.
Did Britain really "give" citizenship to its colonial subjects in 1948? Sort of...
open.substack.com/pub/polichro...
Did Britain really "give" citizenship to its colonial subjects in 1948? Sort of...
open.substack.com/pub/polichro...
1948 and All That
Did Britain "give" citizenship to its colonial subjects in 1948? Sort of...
open.substack.com
August 29, 2025 at 5:26 PM
I've just written a new post about the myths and reality of the 1948 British Nationality Act.
Did Britain really "give" citizenship to its colonial subjects in 1948? Sort of...
open.substack.com/pub/polichro...
Did Britain really "give" citizenship to its colonial subjects in 1948? Sort of...
open.substack.com/pub/polichro...
Reposted by Whitelocke
You do not have to like John Bolton to see this for what it is.
August 22, 2025 at 11:58 AM
You do not have to like John Bolton to see this for what it is.
Reposted by Whitelocke
I've seen a bunch of dunks on a piece of news that mentions me by name and NGL I now perfectly understand how I'd have been driven completely insane by Twitter discourse if I had 10% more followers and was 10% more neurotic and thin skinned
August 19, 2025 at 11:22 PM
I've seen a bunch of dunks on a piece of news that mentions me by name and NGL I now perfectly understand how I'd have been driven completely insane by Twitter discourse if I had 10% more followers and was 10% more neurotic and thin skinned