Today would have been my wife's birthday, which made it all more surprising/utterly unexpected for this to happen last night during what I thought would be a speech to @CPSThinkTank about free trade (and, as it turned out, Peppa Pig as an exemplar thereof) (1/?)
Any praise should go to @MedResFdn and the vitally necessary, world-class research they support - which you can donate to here. But I also want to talk about @PointsofLight, which I had no idea about justgiving.com/fundraising/an…
This daily award was started by George HW Bush, and brought to the UK by @David_Cameron. As @BorisJohnson says, every day the PM awards this prize (and sends a letter) to someone who has done good work in their community. They're now up to 1,795.
If you have a moment today (after donating to @MedResFdn...) go and read the winners' stories. There are so many inspiring people there (way, way, way more so than me) and so many good causes. It's a wonderful, unappreciated tradition. Please read/give pointsoflight.gov.uk
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There’s still time to join us at the Guildhall for #mtc21 but if you can’t make it you can watch on YouTube across the day, starting with @annietrev’s opening keynote on Britain’s new trade strategy. I’ll be tweeting the highlights…
.@annietrev pays tribute to Thatcher’s optimism, dynamism and clarity of purpose in liberalising trade - and says we need to set out how we will do the same
Citing her previous job in energy, argues that green innovation can deliver £170bn in exports by 2030
This may be the least popular argument you can make on Twitter, but as I argue in my @thesundaytimes column, we need to wean ourselves off the culture of catastrophe (1/?) thetimes.co.uk/article/ill-pr…
.@_HannahRitchie recently wrote an excellent piece pointing out that 50%+ of young people agree that 'the world is doomed' due to climate change - a conviction shared by approx 0% of serious scientists.
On sleaze/corruption, I've been pelted here for suggesting the Tories aren't irredeemably corrupt. But on second jobs, the numbers involved are far smaller than expenses - even if you assume that absolutely none of these jobs are legitimate, which is clearly nonsense.
Generally though we do seem like a bunch of softies. 'Occupation' further down, 'material well-being' not in the top five. We're also among those really keen on nature...
First panel: Lord Mandelson, Crawford Falconer, Susan Schwab, @ShankerASingham, Creon Butler. Such a concentration of trade expertise the stage may implode.
Some new stats from @ONS today on energy efficiency of housing which make clear how ambitious/costly Net Zero is going to be in this area. Direction of travel is to ban renting/make mortgages harder below EPC Band C - ie below 69/100 ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati…
The FT pointed out a few days ago that bringing all homes up to Band C by the 2035 target would cost £330bn. Ouch. ft.com/content/1d009a…
Even just bringing a home from Band D to Band C costs £6,472 on average, according to Savills - but saves only £179 in energy costs. Some hard decisions ahead about how ambitious we are - and who pays...