I salute your scholarship & effort.

For decades it didnt have a single source, but it did have a few very limited sources, in the main network news channels.

In this context, one is better than 3, but 3 is much better than 10 or 20.

A single shared source of truth is essential for a functioning democracy.

Without it you’re left with fragmentation, polarisation and a perpetual culture war where the discourse focuses on what divides us rather than what we have in common.

My column from last week: www.ft.com/content/5060...

No single US news source is consumed by more than 25% of Americans, whereas 60% of Brits regularly watch/read/listen to the BBC.

A single shared source of truth makes it harder for partisan echo chambers to form, or for divisive narratives to dominate. It’s good for social cohesion and compromise.

I disagree on this. That funding is mainly the result of the size of the US economy & market, & its appetite for innovation and risk

It would remain even if the dollar was not the reserve currency as it is real, productive investment.

Britain's economic problems predate Brexit and were its cause, not its consequence.

The only difference is that those problems are now visible at and impacting on the centres of power.

If a country runs a persistent trade deficit (defacto outsourcing its manufacturing jobs), there are by definition no spoils to share, because even benefits won't close the income gap, let alone address the dignity of work.

I agree on this, but there are many who believe that the dollar's reserve status and open US financial markets have been devastating for its blue collar workers and the driver for its deindustrialisation. I share this view.

In the US, the losers are now the majority.

Exactly. What is happening now is both rational (and, in my perspective, reasonable) from the US.

The EU and China *must* accept that the world will not support their surpluses indefinitely.

I disagree with the tenor of this whole argument. The 'rule based order' could never survive, because the EU and China ultimately won't accept they must run balanced trade.

It is not feasible or fair for the US to run that huge deficit in perpetuity. What is emerging is a new set of rules.

On which point, if you haven’t watched this, you really should www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

Fair point.

😬Not great, but at the very least, deficits and surpluses now have a visibility they didn't even have a few years back.

I just deleted mine.

I don't, and didn't have, a high profile, so less to lose, but after worrying about all the bookmarks and contacts I'd lose, once I did it, I've felt no sense of loss; just catharsis.

I've not looked back since.

India has now electrified almost 100% of their tracks, a poorer country with vastly more track. Over half of that has happened in just the last decade. The UK's poverty of ambition by comparison is truly staggering (and sad...) earthbound.report/2025/02/03/i...

I'm not suggesting Scotland and Wales don't contribute; they do, but it would be odd, on an integrated network, to have electrification stop at the border. So it really needs to be coordinated.