Alan Beattie

@alanbeattie.bsky.social

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Opiner for Financial Times/associate fellow at Chatham House. Globalisation, econ, snark. RT≠👍. Views own. [email protected]. Sign up to my FT Trade Secrets newsletter http://tdy.lol/NZKfpz.

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Alan Beattie

The failed assassination attempt on Trump was not important, and the heavy coverage it got was an abdication of journalistic ethics. It would have been important if Trump were killed; it was not important that someone shot at him.

My Trade Secrets today. The US is scrambling to stop Chinese goods (steel, aluminium, soon EVs) sneaking through Mexico into Fortress America. It's hard to run a security-oriented trade policy when even your allies don't take the China threat as seriously as you do. www.ft.com/content/e352...

Blocking China’s Mexican backdoor into Fortress Americawww.ft.com Washington has to keep acting to maintain its trade and tech barriers against Beijing

Met her once. Just as funny and lovely as you’d hope. Legend.

Ruth Westheimer, the psychologist known as “Dr. Ruth” who became America’s best-known sex counselor with her frank, funny radio and TV programs, died on Friday. She was 96. www.nytimes.com/2024/07/13/a...

My Trade Secrets today. Good to ditch the ridiculous Rwanda asylum-seekers scheme, but more broadly Labour's got little more idea than the Tories did about squaring the need for workers with public dislike of immigration. Result? More hypocrisy, more misdirection. It's depressing. on.ft.com/3Lmu3z7

That’s for 1688. #ENGNED

"Drastic measures" here include possibly saving less into a pension, possibly retiring later than early sixties and going full-time rather than working freelance. Oh, the humanity. www.thetimes.com/business-mon...?

Our children are at private school — here’s how we’ll keep paying the feeswww.thetimes.com Labour’s promise to put VAT on private education is driving some families to take drastic measures, reports Ali Hussain

TFW you realise you’ve been hanging out with the wrong crowd.

This is performance art.

NOBODY COULD HAVE PREDICTED THIS. cc @mcopelov.bsky.social

The rapid uptake of China’s yuan in President Vladimir Putin’s war economy, spurred by the fallout with the West over the invasion of Ukraine, may have hit its limit – Bloomberg

Russia’s Embrace of Chinese Yuan Stalls Over Risk from Sanctionswww.bloomberg.com The rapid uptake of China’s yuan in President Vladimir Putin’s war economy, spurred by the fallout with the West over the invasion of Ukraine, may have hit its limit.

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Alan Beattie

2 years ago the Daily Mail used one of my tweets in an article about airport chaos. They asked me if they could use it but before I could tell them to fuck off, they used it anyway. They'd embedded my tweet as opposed to screenshotting it so I did what was required of me.

Today's Trade Secrets. The thing about the human mind is that it looks for patterns when they're not necessarily there. It's true of disco lights (see next post) and it's true of the rise of the populist right in Europe. 1/2 on.ft.com/4eXdLdp

The dangerously simple story about radical populistson.ft.com [FREE TO READ] Open trade and the EU are not (yet) being destroyed by a phalanx of hard-right governments

Strong history here of top-notch political analysis of Europe from the not-at-all-driven-by-motivated-reasoning Andrew Neil.

OK EVERYONE TIME TO ADJUST THE NARRATIVE - CENTRE-LEFT NOW ASCENDANT IN EUROPE, POPULIST RIGHT IN DISARRAY, WE’VE ALL GOT THAT CLEMENT ATTLEE/LEON BLUM FEELING. THAT IS ALL. amp.theguardian.com/world/live/2...

French election 2024 live: exit poll shows shock win for left-green alliance as far right falls to third | France | The Guardianamp.theguardian.com New Popular Front predicted to get 172-192 seats, with Marine Le Pen’s far-right RN and allies down in third

Labour’s Britain 😀 1-1

😐 Labour's Britain

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Alan Beattie

😐 Labour's Britain

The question remains whether @PaulKagame returns the money already paid by the UK, or was that offer only valid under the government that handed it over? www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-poli...

Rwanda scheme abolished on first day.

Rwandan president Paul Kagame suggests UK could get money backwww.bbc.co.uk Paul Kagame tells the BBC he could return money if no asylum seekers are sent to his country by the UK.

🎉🎉🎉

Rwanda scheme abolished on first day.

The lights are going out. They will not be lit again in our lifetime.

If you were wondering if Rishi Sunak could do anything right, by coincidence someone just pointed me to a report he did in 2017 on the security of undersea cables. Credit where it's due. Probably doesn't outweigh the debit column though. #thecaseforRishi policyexchange.org.uk/publication/...

Undersea Cables: Indispensable, insecure - Policy Exchangepolicyexchange.org.uk We must do more to protect the indispensable yet insecure internet infrastructure provided by undersea cables, urges Rishi Sunak MP in a new report published by Policy Exchange, Undersea Cables: Indis...

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Alan Beattie

How 120 knife-edge seats may tip the Tories from defeat to wipeout - on.ft.com/4eP739u

How 120 knife-edge seats may tip the Tories from defeat to wipeouton.ft.com [FREE TO READ] Collapse of Conservative support means once-safe constituencies are in play

OK folks. Two days till UK election day. Hit me with your best #BanterHeuristic predictions. I'll start: Tories come second, just ten seats ahead of the LibDems. Eleven Tory MPs immediately defect to Reform, making Ed Davey Leader of the Opposition. #banter

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Alan Beattie

these Tory election leaflets are becoming increasingly desperate I feel

Two Slovxits in two days from #EURO2024. You might say we're on a go-Slo. Sorry.

My Trade Secrets today. There's quite a lot of bipartisan consensus over trade in the US (wrongheaded) and the UK (OKish for non-EU trade). But Marine Le Pen in France is a new and v dangerous departure, bringing protectionism to the French border. on.ft.com/4cnVuEr

Le Pen brings protectionism home to the French borderon.ft.com [FREE TO READ] The cross-party consensus on trade policy in the UK and even the US is absent in France

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Alan Beattie

Clearly on glue, so apt image

Preemptively announcing they’ve given up on the next election as well seems an odd tactic, but there you have it. Seven days of this to go folks.

My Trade Secrets today. It's not just political caution about Brexit restraining a Labour government from aligning with the EU economy. If the US presses the UK to join its anti-China camp on tech and trade, Britain will be pulled in two directions. on.ft.com/3zfXoZ6

Labour may face a tug of war between European trade and US securityon.ft.com [FREE TO READ] The gravitational force of the EU economy will pull against the UK’s strategic alliance with Washington

A clatter of hooves, a soft whinny of hope and YES! the magic PFI pony canters into view once again, tossing its single-horned head and swishing its rainbow tail. Sigh. (h/t @columnist.bsky.social) www.bloomberg.com/news/article...?

Labour Expects Billions of Private Investment After UK Electionwww.bloomberg.com Keir Starmer is teeing up plans for billions of pounds worth of new private investment in Britain in the first few months of a Labour government — a surge that the opposition party hopes is large enou...

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Alan Beattie

Every morning I check the news and it's like -SCOTUS Eliminates Three More Basic Rights, Only Six Remain -President Mispronounces a Word, Will Now Lose Election to Senile Hitler -New AI Company Uses Artist Blood to Let Billionaires and Racists Live Forever, Gets $45 Billion Valuation

Biden should totally call it the Do-Nothing Congress and run against it, do an actual whistle-stop tour, adopt a middle initial that stands for nothing, the whole nine yards. Maybe drop a couple of atomic bombs on someone for the full 40s retro thing.

We knew going in that House Republicans would make the 118th Congress a clown show, and wow did they deliver. Number of bills passed by Congress, past 20 years: 109th 482 110th 460 111th 383 112th 283 113th 296 114th 329 115th 442 116th 344 117th 362 118th 65