Policy, by jurisdiction
Three systems I follow closely: the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Malta inside both. A small island state in the Union and a large country that left it make a useful pair, and the same pressures on housing, skills, cost of living and trust in institutions turn up in all three. This page sorts my writing by where it applies. Jump to a jurisdiction, or read down.
The single market, regulation and competitiveness, and what they ask of a small member state. Where Brussels overreaches I say so; where it gets the architecture right, I say that too.
Twelve omnibus packages have cut about €14 billion a year in administrative cost, on the way to €37.5 billion. Draghi's diagnosis asked for €750 to €800 billion of investment a year. Where the money did not go, measured against the US and China.
Europe's AI rulebook has just been loosened and pushed back by the May 2026 Digital Omnibus. For a small state like Malta, the delay is a window to build the capacity to implement well, not an excuse to do nothing.
Estonia runs almost its whole state online and saves about 2% of GDP doing it. The three things bigger countries, Malta included, can actually copy, and the honest reasons it is harder than it looks.
A bazooka approach to investment while respecting the subsidiarity principle: where the Union should act at scale, and where it should stand back.
EU citizens are around 30% worse off per head than Americans, and the mega-companies are not European. What the competitiveness gap is really made of.
If Europe wants to grow, it has to be a place where it is easy to start, scale and stay. A practical case for backing the people who build.
Governance, the economy and the gap between the country on paper and the country people feel. A large system I read against Malta's small one, often to useful effect.
The UK is not under-researching. It invests 11.1 per cent of GDP, second lowest in the G7, pays the highest industrial electricity price of any IEA member reporting, and has cut employer training spend per employee by 36 per cent since 2005. Read alongside the EU diagnosis.
The UK sells its industry the most expensive electricity in the developed world, four times the American price. What ten EU countries pay instead, and why cheap energy is now a security question. Every figure sourced.
Britain and Malta grew their economies by growing their populations. It flatters the headline and barely moves output per person. Real growth can come from productivity, participation and investment, but it is slower and harder. Every figure sourced.
England's biggest local-government shake-up in fifty years is called devolution. Tested against subsidiarity, a good part of it is centralisation wearing the language of its opposite.
The shattering of old certainties across the Western world, read through England's realigning politics.
GDP per head, inflation and jobs are improving, yet confidence sits at its lowest since 2023. What the UK's wellbeing data says about the gap between the economy on paper and the one people feel.
Do Scotland's regional house prices reflect their economies? Mostly yes, with two revealing exceptions. A region-by-region look, every figure sourced.
An honest look at the Chancellor's growth, stability and investment pitch, and what it would take to actually land it.
Housing, the economy, education and governance on an island the size of a mid-sized city. A small state with real advantages and a habit of leaving them unused.
460,648 licensed vehicles, an average trip of 5.5 km, and 84 per cent of trips by car. Free buses added riders without removing cars. The four moves the SPED revision and local plan review should make, drawn from Ghent and Scotland.
Rents have outrun wages and a flat now sells for around fourteen times a young salary. Getting on is starting to depend on who your parents are, not how hard you work. Every figure sourced.
Malta says its house prices simply reflect a strong economy. True on the average, false in the distribution. The imbalances the headline number is built to hide.
Malta's under-18s have no ballot and no lobby, so the rest of us decide their future for them. Five things they should be able to expect, each with a number attached.
Spending is up and outcomes are not keeping pace. What the money is buying, what it is not, and why employers keep meeting school-leavers who cannot write a clean email.
On a small island the horizon can start to feel like a boundary. The case for a more ambitious national vision, and what it would take to mean it.
Uncertainty, geopolitics and technological disruption are reshaping every small economy. How Malta moves up the value chain rather than running to stand still.
Malta's growth has leaned heavily on imported labour. What a different model looks like, and the honest trade-offs of getting there.
The same housing headlines repeat every year. A closer look at what is actually driving the Maltese market, beyond the slogans on both sides.
Good information is the foundation of a healthy market. Why transparency, not cheerleading, is what a serious property sector needs.
You would not buy something valuable blind, yet that is roughly how Malta's property market asks people to decide. The case for open, usable data.
How I read these three
Housing, skills, the cost of living and trust in institutions press on all three systems at once. Reading Malta against the UK, and both against the EU framework they sit inside or beside, is the quickest way to tell what is structural from what is just local noise. The method is always the same: name the trade-off, show the sources, and keep analysis separate from argument.
More about my approachOccasional, considered pieces on EU, UK and Malta policy. No spam. Reply to any email to unsubscribe.
