Top all-time · #4615
Iain Martin
Personal blog · reaction.lifepoliticseconomics
Iain Martin writes REACTION, a personal blog at reaction.life about politics and economics. Since 2016, 17 different Hacker News readers have linked it 18 times, most often “We may already have herd immunity – an interview with Professor Sunetra Gupta”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-12, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (10) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Iain Martin's Reaction blog is linked for commentary on Brexit, UK economics and COVID-era policy, and for the satirical 'Britain Looks Like Brexit' post, which commenters use as a reference.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 10 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Iain Martin on politics, geopolitics, economics and culture.
Most-linked posts?
- /p/britain-looks-like-brexit3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2025-05-02
- We may already have herd immunity – an interview with Professor Sunetra Gupta2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-07-23
- Jeremy Vine: My Boris [Johnson] Story2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-12-10
What Hacker News says?
Bingo! Balance is key. Farmers working under communist rule in China who started private farming caused agricultural productivity to skyrocket and the number of starving people to drop [1]. Say what you will about human greed, but aligning a behavior you want with a natural economic incentive is a powerful tool. On the flipside, some industries like healthcare don't belong in such a ruthless system, because "voting…
Comment linking /chinese-capitalist-growth-happened-spite-state-not/
on “Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke”Submitted What if America turned off Britain's weapons? as a story · 76 points
HN discussion> Biased. I don't think that bit's biased, myself, George Osborne literally threatened a punishment budget before the referendum. He may not have used those words, but everyone else did and he did come out telling everyone that he would be having an emergency budget after the vote which others in his party described at the time as "economic vandalism". IMHO there's a difference between telling people that they're ma…
Comment linking /p/britain-looks-like-brexit
on “Retailers will soon have only about 7 weeks of full inventories left”Submitted Could Rome have had an industrial revolution? as a story · 38 points
HN discussionI'm an immigrant living in the UK, and have been for over 20 years. I'm practically British now, without the accent. I don't disagree with much of your post, but some of it feels emotionally biased. >the chancellor threatens the country with a punishment budget Biased. And whatever cause and effect ended up being, our taxes have risen, immediately after the result came in GBP dropped, we had inflation, and to counte…
Comment linking /p/britain-looks-like-brexit
on “Retailers will soon have only about 7 weeks of full inventories left”Submitted The approaching tsunami of addictive AI-created content will overwhelm us as a story · 4 points
HN discussion> This isn't even speculative: the current the COVID-19 response in America has required local councils and city boards to coordinate, particularly in the absence of any clear direction at a Federal and frequently State level. Yes. And so far the local responses have been better, or at least did less damage, than most of the more centralized actions. Like the FDA banning almost all tests. Here's an article https://r…
Comment linking /why-is-germany-able-to-test-for-coronavirus-so-much-more-than-the-uk/
on “Yet another novel I will no longer write”Submitted We may already have herd immunity – an interview with Professor Sunetra Gupta as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI think it might have been this, though it’s only two speeches and 18 months apart here. https://reaction.life/jeremy-vine-my-boris-story/
Comment linking /jeremy-vine-my-boris-story/
on “Ask HN: How to talk with logical flow and coherence at interviews?”Submitted The British get a nosebleed when they get too successful as a story · 2 points
HN discussionOne of the things I think will probably happen is that the US public will shift to be more favourable towards a primarily public health service such as many other countries have in one form or another. As a Brit, I am very sceptical of that. In the UK this crisis is painfully exposing the deep structural flaws of the NHS. The UK is now at the bottom of the world leaderboard for testing, because its 100% centralised…
Comment linking /why-is-the-uk-so-slow-at-increasing-testing/
on “Swedish expert: why lockdowns are the wrong policy”Submitted China could be upstaged by the new spice route announced at G20 as a story · 2 points
HN discussionCompare and contrast with https://reaction.life/britain-looks-like-brexit/ (It would be funny if it weren't so sad - looking forward to leaving the UK at this rate, really).
Comment linking /britain-looks-like-brexit/
on “Many UK petrol stations run dry amid panic buying”Submitted Free markets, free people, strong society – the secret to success? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionAs munksbeer posted... https://www.reaction.life/p/britain-looks-like-brexit It's /s, BTW.
Comment linking /p/britain-looks-like-brexit
on “Brexit Ten Years On: The Economy”Submitted Jeremy Vine: My Boris [Johnson] Story as a story · 1 points
HN discussion>Reading is hard I guess. I'm saying Brexit was not sold as being positive for the economy. This is a lie. Provably so. Exhibit the other post replying to you. But this is not unexpected, the entire brexit campaign was one lie after another, and the supporters lied about it continually too. For much hilarity, read this. I still laugh each time: https://www.reaction.life/p/britain-looks-like-brexit
Comment linking /p/britain-looks-like-brexit
on “Brexit Ten Years On: The Economy”> Furthermore, while lockdowns may have protected some vulnerable people from exposure to the virus, they may also have placed them at increased risk of future exposure by preventing high levels of herd immunity from establishing broadly across the population. This doesn’t make sense since anyone who is vulnerable now has now had the chance to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, making themselves immune without the danger…
Comment linking /we-may-already-have-herd-immunity-an-interview-with-professor-sunetra-gupta/
on a deleted thread
