Morning all, I hope you’ve all calmed down from Wednesday and watching, what painful experience taught us was, an iron law of football being overcome. England, it turns out, do not always throw it away. And if Gareth Southgate manages to get a win on Sunday he’ll have overcome another iron law of the past … Continued

Afternoon all, It’s coming home. And we’re going out to watch it. It’s not clear what’s causing the bigger psychological shock to the English: finally beat Germans, or all the eye contact opening up has led to. What is clear is that all that beer facilitated cheering is very labour intensive. Furlough rates have fallen … Continued

Afternoon all, Politics is dominated by staffer chat this week – Keir Starmer’s moving some of aides around and Matt Hancock’s… moving around with one of his own. This is all rather distracting us from the big picture: we’ve adopted a herd immunity strategy for the youth without anyone talking about it. Now I’ve absolutely … Continued

Afternoon all, The people of Chesham have spoken. Turns out it’s harder to have a relationship with two people sets of voters at once than the Prime Minister has always hoped. Especially if you’re building a train line right through their back yard. Anyway, I’m looking forward to all the long reads explaining what’s going … Continued

Morning all, Thanks for your patience while TOTCs wandered off last week. Having entirely ignored the news, returning to sausage wars headlines on Monday was an unwelcome surprise. They speak to a serious national decline. Not in terms of what it means for Global Britain’s G7 relaunch, but because it shows our once great press … Continued

Afternoon all, Heavily emotionally conflicted this week. On the plus side is the news that the sun does in fact exist. But the combination of self-isolating after a Covid contact (tests all negative fear not) and Dominic Cummings’ omni-dumping on the Government inevitably drags you back to the traumas of last year – before the … Continued

Afternoon all, Here’s a thing: we increasingly don’t like economic change, but there’s quite a lot of it coming – in part because we’ve chosen it. This week’s TOTC special digs into this paradox, which is part of the motivation for The Economy 2030 Inquiry we and LSE’s Centre for Economic Performance have just launched. … Continued

Sign up for our weekly Top of the Charts reading email Afternoon all, Some big, if not particularly original, news. I’m off to get vaccinated the second TOTCs leaves my inbox to arrive in yours. Obviously excited about the whole lower risk of infection thing, but the main thrill is to discover that there is … Continued

Afternoon all, Turns out David Cameron had a cunning plan. Calling and losing a Brexit referendum may have cost him his job, but it’s proved electoral mana for the party he left behind. It’s hard to imagine a wedge issue that would quite so neatly turbo-charge England’s decades long political realignment. And do so in … Continued

Afternoon all, Glad to see we’ve had another Britain knocking it out of the park week. Our answer to a global pandemic very much not under control, and an economy in no way back to normal, is a ‘cash for curtains’ row. It’s not just the substance of it that’s demeaning: even the name of … Continued

Afternoon all, Perkiness is in the air. The sun is out, the parents are vaccinated and the world appears to be getting serious about the whole save the world/avert catastrophic climate change thing. The main win from Biden’s Leaders Summit isn’t the new US commitment (reducing emissions by 50 per cent vs 2005 levels by 2030), but … Continued

Sign up for our weekly Top of the Charts reading email Morning all, It’s been a difficult week for some of us, realising that we’ve somehow not managed to bag a second job with Greensill when it turned out they were handing out cash to any Tom, Dick or Harry (it does appear to all be men). To get … Continued

Afternoon all, TOTCs is back from a pleasant Easter break – it was nice to get away stay home, living the lockdown dream (hopefully for the last time). In retrospect it was a basic error not to have snaffled parenting duties for next week given that’s when the whole country will actually be celebrating something rising … Continued

Morning all, Top of the Charts is taking a short break this week for Easter. But we couldn’t let the week go without sending a single chart because today is a special day for the Resolution Foundation and, more importantly, millions of low earners across Britain. It marks the fifth anniversary of the introduction of … Continued

Afternoon all, In the olden times, symbols were subtle – gently alluding to the challenges and joys in our lives if we spent time looking at them. These days a ship the size of four football pitches just wedges itself into the most important waterway in the world, bringing global commerce to a halt in … Continued