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Richard Dubourg

@richarddubourg.bsky.social
476 followers 209 following 5.7K posts

Economist. Academic, then consultant, then UK government, then EU regulator, now consultant again. Environment, health, crime. Mostly chemicals these days. Woke. Remain. Proportional representation.

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Reposted by Richard Dubourg
Nick Craw🇪🇺🇨🇦🇬🇱🇹🇭 @nickcraw.bsky.social · 6h
Post of the day.
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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 14h
"Don't speak ill of the dead" they say. But if you do, don't hold back: anwilson.substack.com/p/jeffrey-ar...
anwilson.substack.com
Jeffrey Archer
Fraudulence on a criminal scale
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HappyToast @happytoast.co.uk · 16h
#VanityFair
Vanity fair cover with Sam Altman stealing everything
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Matt Ashby @mattashby.com · 05/10/2026
More undocumented immigrants moving into a neighbourhood (🇺🇸) is associated with a small *decrease* in violent crime rates and no change in property crime. More legal immigrants moving to an area isn't associated with changes in violent or property crime. doi.org/10.1080/0735...
doi.org
Does unauthorized immigration drive community crime rates? Evidence from 11,500 U.S. neighborhoods
Research on the immigration-crime nexus has grown substantially, yet few studies differentiate among immigrants of different legal statuses, including undocumented immigrants. Of those that do, ana...
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
So the Green Party has over 200,000 members, but the Zionism motion was passed by 1000 to 800?
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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
As long as the Tories are threatening to leave the ECHR, they aren’t a serious party. Consider it the ultimate red flag. Any party who’d take this entirely unnecessary and ruinous risk with our rights and our country’s security and wellbeing should never get its hands on power. (Letter, Times)
Value of the
ECHR
Sir, In dangerous times, serious countries do not retreat into splendid isolation. They build alliances, multiply their influence and strengthen institutions. Key among those is the 46-member Council of Europe, at its heart the European Convention on Human Rights.As former independent reviewers of terrorism legislation we have seen at close quarters that the ECHR is not just a human rights instrument. It is a national security asset. Terrorist networks, hostile states, organised crime gangs and people smugglers do not respect borders. Tackling them requires arrangements for the closest possible co-operation with our neighbours, including through joint investigations and police access to European passenger, fingerprint, DNA and vehicle data.These arrangements expressly depend on internationally agreed human rights standards, applied by a supranational court. We detect no political willingness to excuse the UK from compliance with standards to which the rest of Europe already subscribes. As authoritarian powers grow more aggressive and democratic institutions face mounting pressure, Britain should not be abandoning one of its greatest postwar achievements.
The question is not whether we can afford to remain within the ECHR. It is whether, in an increasingly perilous world, we can afford not to.
Lord Carlile of Berriew, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, Sir Max Hill
Independent reviewers of terrorism legislation, 2001-18
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Informative thread.
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HappyToast @happytoast.co.uk · 04/10/2026
You got that Conservative Bayeux Tapestry I wanted? Yeah, real gory with blood everywhere like you asked What?
Part of Badenoch's Tapestry showing a crowd of people being shot in the eye with arrows and blood spurting out
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
And they are the absolute experts in drone warfare which, let's face it, is the future. If the UK intends to increase defence spending, it could do a lot worse than paying Ukraine.
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Bang on.
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Hammers News - West Ham United News @hammers.news · 04/10/2026
Nils Koppen says West Ham's major rebuild is only just getting started and explains why the Hammers will not follow a pure Moneyball transfer model.
hammers.news
Koppen: West Ham rebuild just getting started, won't be Moneyball
Nils Koppen says West Ham's major rebuild is only just getting started and explains why the Hammers will not follow a pure Moneyball transfer model.
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
The first single I ever bought. Still listen to it today (am now) and still think it's brilliant, 50 years later. Some years after found out that the Andy McCluskey we used to play with in the street when we lived in Meols in the 60s was the Andy McCluskey... youtu.be/WXvlzUCB74o?...
youtu.be
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - Messages
YouTube video by OMDVEVO
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
No brainer
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Does anyone else say sorry when you step on a snail?
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
This is insane. Stop and search by ethnicity is a massively sensitive indicator, but this shows it's completely unreliable.
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Good. Incredible no one was killed. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Man jailed for 15 years over Sidcup Ulez camera blast
Kevin Rees, 63, faces a tougher sentence because the offence had a "terrorism connection".
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Gavin Hales @gmhales.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
A really important factor in Home Office-calculated stop and search disproportionality is that the Census denominator is only updated every 10 years. GMP illustrates the impact of this demographic drag: a sharp step down when the denominator switched from 2011 to 2021.
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Paddy Carter @paddycarter.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
here is ungated version of paper in new AER about what happens when wealth taxes cause rich people to leave the country. The economic impact looks small and if I am reading correctly, if tax cut ought to raise £1, you lose 24p because of behaviour response - in aggregate. But ...
cowles.yale.edu
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I don't believe this one iota.
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The Kyiv Independent @kyivindependent.com · 30/09/2026
⚡️Kanye West concerts at Russia's Gazprom Arena officially cancelled. Ye had been scheduled to play two shows in St. Petersburg in October, which would have made him the biggest Western artist to perform in Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
kyivindependent.com
Kanye West concerts at Russia's Gazprom Arena officially cancelled
Ye, the controversial U.S. rapper formerly known as Kanye West, had been scheduled to play two shows in St. Petersburg in October —  which would have made him the biggest Western artist to perform in ...
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ABC News Australia @news.abc.net.au · 01/10/2026
Why Malaysia is deporting thousands of Myanmar asylum seekers
abc.net.au
Why Malaysia is deporting thousands of Myanmar asylum seekers
Malaysia this week deported about 1,500 Myanmar nationals, including children, as part of a refugee repatriation programme.
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Well, someone is lying.
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
"Sussices"..? BBC News - Sussexes condemn 'reckless intrusion' after photographer spotted near Archie and Lilibet's school www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Harry and Meghan: Photographer spotted near Archie and Lilibet's school as Sussexes condemn 'reckless intrusion'
One of two men seen outside the UK school attended by the children is understood to be an international press photographer.
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I am just listening to Gods and Monsters, and when the phrase "God's dead" came up, I started thinking. What would happen if somehow it was announced that all gods were dead? What would all the religious types do? How would they react?
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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 27/09/2026
Important context on rationalism as a religion ("sex cult") is that it is far from isolated. All of the TESCREAL bundle is studded with interlocking micro-religions. Silicon Valley is religiogenic, like the burned-over district of 19th century upstate New York.
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Heartwarming stuff.
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
It's long but quite extraordinary. youtu.be/4-_pIEL09nI?...
youtu.be
Philip K. Dick: We Live in a Simulation (Legendary Speech at Metz, 1977), voice enhanced
YouTube video by Uplift YourSelf
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Knifing the dinghy must be an offence.
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
What is perhaps most illustrative of this thread is the extent to which people who are already hyper-rich will go to save what to them is small change. I think a lot of us would pay the "correct" amount because that's "only fair". Some people just hate paying tax. True patriots.
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
This is a, er, mad thread.
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ABC News Australia @news.abc.net.au · 20/09/2026
We got a cybersecurity expert to hack this BYD. It was too easy
abc.net.au
Hacking this BYD was too easy. It didn't even have a password
To test the risks of surveillance and sabotage, Four Corners asked a hacker to show what China's top EV brand could see and do remotely.
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Stephen Collins @stephencollins.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

1
Wide shot of the BRITISH MUSEUM. There are suggestions of fascism around the streets - tanks, barricades, an Orwellian 'Big Brother'-style poster on a wall. A voice of a TOUR GUIDE emanates from the museum:

TOUR GUIDE:
So the Tapestry tells acrucial chapter of our nation's history...

2 
[Cut to interior of museum. A long Bayeaux-style TAPESTRY is on display, and the Tour Guide is speaking to a tour group]

TOUR GUIDE [smiling]:
How modern fascist Britain was created. 

3
TOUR GUIDE:
The Tapestry begins here with the 2008 Crash, then austerity, then the AI Crash...

4
TOUR GUIDE:
...and by the end of the room it's just full-on fash. 

5
CHILD IN TOUR GROUP [gesturing to the tapestry]:
What's this middle bit?

TOUR GUIDE:
This is the 2026 Battle of Legitimate Concerns 

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TOUR GUIDE:
[show a reporter standing next to the Dover protests]
Here's the media saying the government have got to do something about the legitimate concerns...

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CHILD:
...About the failure of capitalism?

TOUR GUIDE:
No about brown people on boats

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CHILD:
[pointing at boats crossing the sea on the tapestry]
Are these boats the mega-dinghies?

TOUR GUIDE:
Not all of them

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[we see one of the boats  is a giant yacht]
TOUR GUIDE:
That one's a superyacht,
carrying money from the American fascists to the British ones.

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TOUR GUIDE:
You see really it's as much a story of convergence as it is of conflict.

[An alarm sounds in the museum]
DING DING DING DING 

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TOUR GUIDE:
Ok, tour over everyone 

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TOUR GUIDE:
It's time for the Two Minute Hate!

[They all leave the museum]

[ends]
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
BBC News - Homes evacuated over fire-damaged hotel safety fears www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... A hotel fire in Folkestone is being treated as suspicious, you say? 280 people evacuated, you say?
bbc.co.uk
Folkestone council evacuates nearby residents after Grand Burstin hotel fire
Residents living near Folkestone’s Grand Burstin Hotel relocated after safety inspectors' concerns.
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
bsky.app/profile/rich... The truth is often a little more nuanced than first appears
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
MAGA. Make America Greek Again. Women for babies. Boys for pleasure.
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Does what @aoc.bsky.social describe sound at all like Tesla? Does anybody really think Tesla will ever pay dividends? At all, let alone to make the previous level of investment worthwhile?
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I should get "I swear to god these clowns" on a t-shirt.
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The Victorian Society @thevicsoc.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
The sad saga of Ecclefechan at 275 Addiscombe Road in Croydon is an example of why planning law surrounding permitted development rights urgently needs to change.🧵 📷 London Fire Brigade
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Christopher Walker as a gay, Canadian logger (*snigger*)
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
People are assuming this is true rather than some story dreamed up by a journo to create copy, sell newspapers and ragebait.
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
God, there's a load of shit written under the guise of philosophy.
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Eduin Latimer @eduinlatimer.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
This really should be bigger news. Most important driver on long-term changes in living standards is productivity and recent revision to how it is measured suggests output per hour actually grew almost twice as fast from 2009 to 2019 (up from 0.7% a year to 1.3% a year)
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The Institute for Fiscal Studies @theifs.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
NEW: People with different levels of disability get the same amount of Personal Independence Payment (PIP). Someone who can't wash and needs help dressing could get £5,960 a year – the same as someone who can't wash, dress, talk or read. THREAD on our new Green Budget chapter: ⬇️
Chart shows distribution of claimants’ PIP points for the daily living PIP component. Title states: "Everyone scoring at least 12 points in their Personal Independence Payment (PIP) daily living assessment gets the same amount, despite some having much higher levels of assessed disability."
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Nicolas Hénin @nicolashenin.net · 17/09/2026
Nice campaign by the Norwegian Consumer Council about the declining lifespan of products. Enjoy!
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Politics should only be a small part of life, says man who has spent entire life in politics
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Listening to a song you liked when you were 8 and 50 years later you like it for the same reasons...
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Richard Dubourg @richarddubourg.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
We truly live in a world where truth means nothing.
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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
quite something this paragraph.
After meeting with delegates from the two sides in South Florida, Kushner and Witkoff emerged with a peace plan that would have required Ukraine to accept nearly all of Russia’s demands: ceding territory, promising never to join NATO, and drastically shrinking its army. Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s press secretary, hailed the proposal as “a good plan for both Russia and Ukraine.” But, when the plan became public, it collapsed under a wave of outrage. Even Rubio reportedly derided it as “Russia’s wish list.”
Some observers suspect that Russia has effectively offered the Americans business deals in exchange for a favorable peace agreement. “This is the generally held view,” the former U.S. official in the region told me. A classified report produced by a European intelligence agency states that Trump and people around him have discussed several potential contracts in Russia. The report is not dated, but the European official who gave it to me said that the details were first discussed sometime after Trump invited Putin to Anchorage, in August, 2025. Twice that year, Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, was allowed to enter the U.S., where he talked about investment opportunities. “The privatization of American foreign policy is quite far along,” the official who gave me the report said. (A spokesman for Kushner denied that U.S. officials would profit from the deals under discussion.)
The document lists ten potential ventures, which it says appear to “have been originally designed by the Kremlin’s political and business elites.” They include reopening the Nord Stream 2 pipeline under American control, resuming ExxonMobil’s operations in Sakhalin, and drilling for oil in the Sea of Okhotsk. According to the report, there was discussion of unfreezing Russian assets that are held under American sanctions. The document mentions people who might participate, including Trump, Witkoff, and Kushner. It also names Richard Grenell, the former Presidential en…
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NBER @nber.org · 14/09/2026
Using telemetric data to document the racial composition of motorists on MA highways and assess racial disparities in police stops compared to common benchmarks, from Xiaofeng Gong, Yuling Han, Susan T. Parker, Matthew B. Ross, and Stephen Ross www.nber.org/papers/w35727
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JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I don't know if Matt Levine's theory about what's behind recent calls for AI regulation is correct. But it does sound plausible! www.bloomberg.com/opinion/news...
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