I thought it would be useful to build a framework for what I wish to accomplish with this page. I doubt I’ll get to a stage where I want to expand it to something more substantial, but even if not I’d like to organise a few shared principles by which I hope to operate. See below for a list - but this will probably evolve over time.
Always be improving: In writing, content and breadth of topics, I’d like this blog to be always improving (for vagueness sake, this improvement is broadly defined).
Not always serious (embrace memes): Memes are (in my view) a salient cultural medium, though they can come across a little trite when used badly. I’d like to write about memes and meme culture more extensively in future, but for now it’s enough to say that they’re nothing to be afraid of, and I won’t be afraid of using them at the right moment .
Always out of consensus: Newspaper columnists often suffer from a need to produce content at a fixed rate over time. This leads to (at times) surfeits and shortages of interesting content, much of it a rehashing of a baseline view. My aim is to write when I feel I have something interesting to say which is generally out of consensus - value-adding, as economists might say.
Not always about economics/policy: Though my background is in economics and policymaking, I’d rather not dwell on these topics too frequently. So I’ll try to write about history, cooking, culture and travel as often as I can do - if nothing else just for the sake of variety.
Always Be Generous (ABG): Writer and VC Morgan Housel has a line he repeats in his wonderful book The Psychology of Money - “no one is crazy”. I tend to think the same applies to most policymakers and cultural participants. I don’t think it’s heathy (either for yourself or the wider polity) to go around assuming the worst about people - so I’ll try (I said try) to do the same in my writing.
Not always right: This so easy it hardly seems worth mentioning. But it does give me a chance to recall a great line I first heard in Bill Clinton’s speech to the Democrat convention in 2012 - “nobody’s right all the time, and even a broken clock is right twice a day.” Something it’s important for anyone in the predictions game to bear in mind.
Always optimistic: This is a tricky one, but I’ll stand by it. Optimism is sometimes denigrated as an idiot’s virtue, but I think this is an extension of the “smart money is never bullish” mantra. Informed circles tend to assume pessimism implies seriousness, but this is often at the expense of being wrong on big calls more often than if you were a blind optimist. I try to avoid being an unthinking optimist - but sometimes it’s just unavoidable.
As I say, it’s an evolving list - and certainly tough to stick to these religiously in every item - but as an aspiration I’d say it’s not half bad…