iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Toby Lloyd

Neal Hudson @resi-analyst.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Probably took about two years for H2B equity loan to be additional (deliver more new build homes than without it)

Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Sigh. This was predictable but still wrong: the persistent under delivery of new housing numbers, let alone the often poor quality and unaffordability of them, shows that we need a radically different model of house building - not pouring more subsidy down the broken pipes of the existing one.

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

For someone who worked in Westminster for the last two years, I too am rubbish at this MP Chain 🏛️ I recognised 2️⃣0️⃣ MPs in a row. How long is your chain? toys.jamesomalley.co.uk/mpchain/

toys.jamesomalley.co.uk

MP Chain — How many MPs can you recognise?

Pick the named MP from two portraits. One wrong answer ends your chain.

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Yes it’s not an easy or cheap thing, eg tunnelling through the Downs, but neither are any of the alternative expansion plans.

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Yes but they are a real - and sensible - barrier nonetheless! We could demolish huge swathes of central London, or convert Hyde Park into an airport within the constraints of physics, but I don’t think we should…

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

The barrier is London. And the Thames.

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Spot on. The best alternative (sadly rejected in 2019) was to link Heathrow and Gatwick by high speed rail, making them 20 mins apart and so functionally one airport. And the full HS4 line would have reduced the need for flying too by allowing direct Manchester-Paris trains too.

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

Greenwich used to have sign saying ‘Welcome to the centre of time and space’. Which is hard to top.

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

House I grew up had a ban on bean feasts.

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

Different measure: I was using mm per year en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...

en.m.wikipedia.org

List of cities by average precipitation - Wikipedia

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

Me too. So easily worth it. Genuinely beautiful work.

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

Much though I would love to have written Fervour, I’m afraid that’s a different Toby Lloyd. Congrats on your award!

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

In the famous Booth Poverty map studies of London and York one of the defining characteristics of the lowest vicious and semi criminal’ class was that they employed no servants. ie even the very-poor-but-quite-poorest might have done so.

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

I think these ones might actually live in my flat: “two female Yule pranksters who steal melted fat by stuffing it up their noses or putting it in socks.”

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Reposted by Toby Lloyd

Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 03/11/2024

Bargain! Great book....

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 24/10/2024

Combination of parenting and personal body clock means I tend to work 10-2pm then 10-2am…

T-shirt saying ‘people who get up early in the morning cause war, death and famine’

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 30/09/2024

File under 'can't be answered with a quick google search' aka 'complete mystery'.

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 30/09/2024

Don't think so - it's the public corporations line going negative, and I think they were owned by the relevant central government departments. But happy to be corrected.

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 30/09/2024

The OBR's recent report on investment has this startling chart, but not the data behind it. Do the green lines turn negative in the 1980s due to the New Towns Development Corporations paying off their debts, council house sales under the Right to Buy, or something else? obr.uk/docs/dlm_upl...

Bar chart showing public sector net investment in the UK since 1948.

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 09/09/2024

Yes the catch was rather my point: funding is more likely to disappear than fixed rails.

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 09/09/2024

The inflexibility of trams is, paradoxically, a bonus: permanent infrastructure has much bigger effects on incentives/decisions than services that could be cut tomorrow. Would you buy a home/business based on the current bus service nearby?

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 08/09/2024

This. Obsessive parochialism is the mark of the true Londoner. And real Londoners don’t just not get the tube, they don’t even live in places on the tube map. Also, the real divide is not the Thames but the Fleet: west London is basically Buckinghamshire.

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 06/09/2024

Top fact: a million seconds is about 11 days. A billion seconds is…. 32 years.

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 06/09/2024

What is common knowledge in your field, but shocks outsiders? A million pounds of public spending isn’t enough to count as loose change (equivalent to about 1p out of every £12,200).

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 06/09/2024

It has recently reached the tipping point of numbers and quality here to be absolutely worth making the switch.

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Reposted by Toby Lloyd

Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 19/08/2024

I’ve done a starter pack on economics, data, and a bit of AI. Although the picture below is male dominated it is 50/50. Do let me know of others to include and I might do a second pack go.bsky.app/R5q59tM

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 19/08/2024

Yes, the only real merits are its sheer damn silliness and quirky archaism - plus the pleasingly basic links to intimate bits of human anatomy.

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Reposted by Toby Lloyd

Steve Chambers @planningtransport.co.uk · 19/08/2024

Another plug for @transportfornewhomes.org.uk and @transportgood.org. Both no longer posting to the other place.

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 19/08/2024

I have broken my toes so many times in equally stupid and mundane ways that my GP made me go for a bone density scan. Which confirmed that I don’t have osteoporosis - I’m just an idiot.

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 19/08/2024

Bluesky has finally - and suddenly - achieved the critical mass of interesting/smart/informed contributors needed to provide me with my preferred diet of digestible geekery. Thanks Elon!

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 19/08/2024

This is beautiful. Almost manages to impose logic on the imperial system of measurements. Almost….

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 17/08/2024

As a former spad, and hopefully future expert adviser, this is all very sound advice.

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Reposted by Toby Lloyd

Anna Clarke @annaclarke.bsky.social · 16/08/2024

People seem to be asking whether there's a UK Housing starter pack, so I have made one up. Do share. And let me know if I've missed people off here (space to add another 15!) go.bsky.app/NRu8tPX

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Reposted by Toby Lloyd

Nearly Legal @nearlylegal.co.uk · 13/08/2024

OK, it might just be the former 'legal twitter' crew moving here en bloc and reassembling, but my impression is of a serious shift of (intermittently) serious people to this place over the last few days. Including some deliberately giving up big followings. This is qualitatively new.

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 08/07/2024

Thank you Mark - that’s very kind of you

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 29/06/2024

A real honour, if mildly terrifying, to be on The Expert Factor podcast with Paul Johnson and Hannah White - two of my wonk heroes - talking about why our housing system is such a mess. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

podcasts.apple.com

‎The Expert Factor: Can the next government fix the housing crisis? on Apple Podcasts

‎Show The Expert Factor, Ep Can the next government fix the housing crisis? - 28 Jun 2024

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 13/06/2024

Latest planning stats are miserable... the housebuilding downturn is getting serious. gov.uk/government/s...

Chart showing planning applications and decisions falling sharply since 2021

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 08/06/2024

www.forbes.com/sites/carlto... Sad to see them reneging on their own popular and successful policies to improve the environment, health and neighbourhoods.

forbes.com

ULEZ And LTNs To Be Scrapped Should Tories Win U.K. Election

Tories double down on pro-motoring rhetoric in hope of winning U.K. general election due to be staged on July 4.

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Reposted by Toby Lloyd

Liz Schiller #DefundthePolice @lizzzs.bsky.social · 16/05/2024

Delightful story (and actionable, if you're in the UK) of regular people creating cycling and pedestrian paths using some permitting and bureaucracy loopholes and lots of volunteer labor.

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Toby Lloyd @tobylloyd.bsky.social · 16/05/2024

Lovely story from Laura Laker this - the amazing difference that beautiful, safe pathways can make to rural communities. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

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