iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

not reading much into this tbh. Some of it is rotation from first term dragging on through the summer. Some of these people are not terribly relevant (even the Cabinet has outer tiers...). Some seems like natural attrition i.e. if people serve in cabinets for 3 years, you lose 33% a year.

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The ability to organise real-world facts into compelling narratives is recognised by readers. Somehow the Nobel overlooks it. Svetlana Alexievich (2015) is the one notable exception (Ernaux a bit as well, some might argue). But it should be a recurring theme, not a one-off.

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I like novels as much as the next guy (or indeed poetry and drama and even music, which occasionally get the Nobel). But the prize far too rarely goes to writers of non-fiction. In a time when storytelling steeped in reality is both popular and important, that is a regrettable oversight.

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Stanley Pignal @spignal.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

The litterature Nobel this week will go to yet another novelist (I bet). It should instead go to an author who had mastered some element of non-fiction. How about Robert Caro, the greatest living biographer? Karl Ove Knausgård, the memoir maestro? Or Emmanuel Carrère, the non-fiction novelist? 🧵

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In May I wrote about "Bre-entry"™️, which is back in the news. In short: the EU would *love* to have Britain back (a G7 country with a huge capital market and military). But the main concern will be the enduring fear it would try to leave again. www.economist.com/europe/2026/...

Bre-entry may be the next drama to grip the European Union

An old friend comes knocking

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Stanley Pignal @spignal.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Re-upping my Charlemagne from last month on Europe's budding French debt problem. Alas it turns out to have hit the nail pretty close to the head. www.economist.com/europe/2026/...

America has a whopping debt. But Europe has the whopping debt problem

The French-size problem at the heart of the EU

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Stanley Pignal @spignal.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Can you bear hearing about plans to leave again once they've rejoined? That's the one that really gets me in a funk.

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Robert Armstrong @robarmstrong.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

S&P 500 unchanged over three months -- with earnings expectations up and price/earnings multiples down. This is *exactly* what you would expect to happen when interestst rates are being driven higher by a mix of growth and inflation. Sometimes markets make sense.

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Stanley Pignal @spignal.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I think the flip-side of diplomatic immunity is you should have to stick to diplomatic business. You can't have a cadre of people shielded from repercussions in their business career because they have diplomatic ties. That was never the idea.

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Stanley Pignal @spignal.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

A town in Germany has banned the laying of Stolpersteine, the "stumbling stones" remembering victims of the Holocaust. A couple of years I interviewed Gunter Demnig, the artist who came up with the scheme, and met the family behind one of the over-100,000 stones. www.economist.com/europe/2023/...

Stolpersteine grieve for victims of the Nazis, one at a time

Gunter Demnig’s paving stones spark countless acts of remembrance

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Stanley Pignal @spignal.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Feels like ages since I've last been Lilicoed

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Stanley Pignal @spignal.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I will push back this vital decision to 2029, in keeping with Labour timelines

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Agathe Demarais @agathedemarais.com · 29/09/2026

Mainstream narrative of China shock decimating EU industry may be overblown • Over past decade, China accounted for just one quarter of growth in bloc's extra-EU imports • China's share of EU’s imports has barely moved over past decade, rising from 20.5% to 22.3% www.economist.com/business/202...

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Stanley Pignal @spignal.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The first thing I will do when I am appointed global dictator is mandate that PDF/report pages have to match, ie if the report page says it's page 28 it HAS TO BE on page 28 of the bloody PDF.

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Noah Barkin @noahbarkin.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Good piece from @spignal.bsky.social on why Europe’s populists haven’t demonized China. I think the main reason is that they are too busy demonizing their own governments. Paying attention to (and talking about) foreign countries is a step too far. economist.com/europe/2026/...

Why Europe’s populists don’t criticise China

An ideal target gets a free pass from the demagogues

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The Economist @economist.com · 26/09/2026

Even as most voters still plump for pro-capitalist outfits, parties on the populist left in Europe feel they have the revolutionary wind in their sails. Register to discover why bit.ly/4rEE7I8 Illustration: Peter Schrank

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Samantha Asumadu @samanthaasumadu.substack.com · 23/09/2026

So I think maybe I just figured out why @timeshighered.bsky.social has not reported anything negative about James Orr. I could very well be wrong, but here we go: In 2024, THE signed an agreement with Hungary's Culture and Innovation Ministry which oversees Hungarian higher education..

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Stanley Pignal @spignal.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

This is pretty incredible. Stocks of banks, travel agents, gyms, phone companies and other companies who benefit from "consumer inertia" got wallopped yesterday. The common thread: AI agents will allow people to get better deals. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

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David Simon @audacityofdespair.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

If Kissinger didn't have to give back his Nobel after Chile and East Timor then let no one ask this goodly man of peace to return the FIFA Peace Prize.

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Stanley Pignal @spignal.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

A couple of years ago, as Trump II was starting, I was looking for a way to write about Canada and the EU in a way that wasn't achingly dull. Here's a thought: why doesn't Canada join the EU? Well, as it happens… Some (bylined!) thoughts in The Economist www.economist.com/europe/2026/...

Café Europa newsletter: Canada’s love-in with the EU

Stanley Pignal, our Charlemagne columnist, explores what EU “associate membership” would actually mean for Canada

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Tom Nuttall @tomnuttall.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

The CDU/CSU has shed one quarter of its voters in six months.

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 21/09/2026

LMFAO -- Trump is holding an event at the White House right now but there's no audio because the press pool isn't there. The Newsmax host notes that this is an example of Trump's attacks on the press "backfiring just a little bit"

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Stanley Pignal @spignal.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

btw that's just about the highest compliment you can make regarding a column.

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Alex Hern @hern.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

One of those things you don’t notice until it’s pointed out

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Stanley Pignal @spignal.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

French-German spreads now at 100bps, the highest level since July 2012 (the month of Draghi's "whatever it takes" speech). This is NOT Greek crisis territory. But it is becoming pretty uncomfortable both politically and economically.

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Stanley Pignal @spignal.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

No, just that the right of the press to directly access any institution, even a public one, is a very secondary one compared to the right to free publishing.

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Stanley Pignal @spignal.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

My most contrarian opinion is that, while you have a constitutional right to print whatever you want, you have no constitutional right to an access badge to the White House. It's very disturbing media are excluded from briefings. But it is an order of magnitude less worrying than actual censorship.

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Stanley Pignal @spignal.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

People who have seen the De Gaulle films. Do I need to see them in order, and/or is one of them better than the other?

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Noah Barkin @noahbarkin.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Trump plans to greet Xi Jinping as he gets off his plane next week. He has only done this for one other leader in his second term. Three guesses who that was.

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Emma Jacobs @emmavj.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

lol www.ft.com/content/65f4... Ozempic confidential: men share their experience of GLP-1s

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Stanley Pignal @spignal.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

One might call it the "gravity model"

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Stanley Pignal @spignal.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

German chancellor + "frugal" allies: We need a SMALLER EU budget because that's what Draghi recommends. Spanish economy minister: We need a BIGGER EU budget because that's what Draghi recommends. www.politico.eu/article/five... www.politico.eu/article/a-co...

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Alex Hern @hern.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Ça fait 2,30 € le litre. Soit le plafond artificiel/subventionné pratiqué par Total en France.

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it remains fascinating that google, regularly purveyor of the world's best AI, insists on putting its worst model in front of exactly the people who are hardest to convince AI can help them

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Bannings kids from social media is a policy that creates more problems than it solves. But the EU's proposed approach - a staggered system that recognises teens can benefit from social connections, but that they should be regulated - is a sensible way to do it. From von der Leyen speech yesterday

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Nobody is saying closer ties between Canada and Europe is a bad idea, nor that it isn't happening. Just that the PR messaging may kick up unreasonable expectations. Canada will never be as close to the EU as Britain, for example. And yet nobody would think to call Britain an associate member.

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I disagree. First, the president of the Commission and the Canadian PM don't decide on everything -- and there are clearly reservations among EU member states. second, even if they use a term doesn't mean it has any substance. I can call Taylor Swift an "associate member" of my family - then what?

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Heatwave triggers potato shortage in Europe

People think crude oil is a wild market, but let me tell you about potatoes, man. in Europe we've gone from them being given away for free last year to an impending shortage because of the heat. www.ft.com/content/8eda...

ft.com

Extreme weather wiped out about 3.1mn tonnes of spuds, worth up to €620mn

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indeed! and the idea of "associate membership" for Ukraine kicked up just as many concerns.

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Why Mark Carney’s romance with Europe can only go so far

Good FT take on Canada-EU by @henryjfoy.ft.com and @andybounds.bsky.social. Announcing "associate membership" has a lovely feel, but the reality is likely to be a slog. Germans *on the record* already saying they don't like the term "associate" anything. www.ft.com/content/7b1a...

ft.com

Berlin opposes fast track to EU ‘associate membership’ for Canada, with officials warning Ottawa risks angering other partners

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saying EFTA is a sort of associate membership of the EU is OK as a sort of shorthand. But it's clearly not what the EU has in mind given the aim is for Canada "to be the first associate member of the EU". So we remain in the dark how someone could get even closer to the EU than EFTA/EEA.

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EFTA countries have membership of a thing which is not the EU. And, by the way, which Canada would not accept in a million years!

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In my defence I hadn't quite grasped that I had casually walked into a three-day bluesky brawl. Bikes shouldn't get a free pass and some are a menace. Insofar as we all care about road safety, there are other problems that also deserve attention.

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Fair point. Doesn't feel entirely unrelated & the rules for cars and bikes are enforced by the same people. I sympathise with people who are the victims of cycling incivility (this includes me!). Ultimately it just doesn't feel crazy to point out the bigger problem immediately adjacent to this one

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1500 dead every year in the UK from driving. I'm absolutely not absolving anyone of anything, and have endless sympathy for pedestrian victims of bike crashes. We can and should work on reducing both driving and cycling injuries. But one of them is a bigger problem than the other.

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