William Tilbrook

Yes and no imo. Average person is not weirder than they were 10 years ago but i think a lot more Types of Guys have been added to our roster

I need the most “Labour’s strategy and its obvious consequences” poll finding you have, and make it snappy!

Labour bearing down on immigration will fix this any day now.

1) What the actual fuck how did this just get normalised in the space of three years…. Oh yeah everyone just hanging out on Twitter like boiling frogs

2) not broadcast, as they aren’t quite ready to push Ofcom on this. This is the “good stuff” for unregulated YouTube.

The party has never got over Partygate and also never processed why it mattered as a scandal.

So they are desperate to confect a parallel as a "Get Out of Opposition Free" card.

For all that has happened since, my Joker moment on UK politics media remains Boris taking office and immediately breaking every single red line he had laid down on Northern Ireland to accept a deal that had been on the table for years, then being hailed as a visionary who proved the doubters wrong

Think this is exactly right - political journalism that is completely abstracted from policy, which was not the norm before 2017, has become the default. Impossible to have a serious attempt to either shrink what the state does or widen the tax base (have to do at least one) on that basis.

Suggestion Rachel Reeves exaggerated fiscal pressures is absurd Chancellor was instead far too optimistic about public finances and government’s ability to secure cuts

Feel like I'm going mad. The Budget's 'headroom' is based on frankly irresponsible and wildly optimistic claims about what Labour will do in the final year of the forecast, and on ignoring a bunch of upward pressures on spending, and the claim is that she was being exaggeratedly *pessimistic*?

keep on truckin little your party

Any takers for the Greens? We're one short of a full set

“I was just following otters.”

Your Party running a sortition exercise for their founding conference then purging nearly 10% of those selected to attend isn't doing anything to dispell the notion that they're less a political party and more a performance art piece meant to mock the entire concept of left-wing organising

The (obvious in advance) limits of the government's strategy since it took office: a budget in which the majority of individual items poll well, yet people think it is the most unfair budget since YouGov started polling on this question.

If you want some good news this morning, I showed my three boys the PM doing the six/seven thing and now they have all stopped doing it.

Today's migration stats illustrate the migration doom loop in action...

(from my presentation at the IMF last week)

YOU WANTED NET IMMIGRATION TO COME DOWN! THIS IS WHAT THAT LOOKS LIKE!

It seems a stretch to describe this as a “step” unless it’s off a diving board:

Doing a U-turn on a tax the market both wanted and expected on the day of the budget itself would have been absolute smackhead behaviour. From great piece by @pronouncedalva.bsky.social www.newstatesman.com/cover-story/...

In the span of a hour, they stealth edited the article from trans woman to "biological male who identifies as a woman." The BBC isn't fit for purpose.

The UK is losing up to £250m a day in lost tax revenue due to the economic impact of Brexit, House of Commons Library analysis for the Lib Dems suggests.

Brexit has blown a "black hole of [up to] £90 billion a year in the public finances" the party says. Even under lower estimates the hit is ~£65bn

Labour's governing ideology is convenientism: it would be convenient if, e.g. reducing legal immigration fixed their electoral problem with the boats. It would be convenient if you could reduce poverty only with popular measures like hiking the minimum wage, etc. etc. etc.

No-one would actually argue that the meteor was good, merely that it was 'cutting through' among undecided voters.

This will be a battle because there’s a lot of well meaning anthropologist types who really do believe it‘s racist to say that eg: traditional chinese medicine is mostly bullshit, but it’s a fight well worth having.

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour. https://www.ft.com/content/75ce2fba-f6df-4d72-a5a4-0a297d50891f?emailId=5ae282da-81cb-4162-8f99-b98a89b5f638&segmentId=22011ee7-896a-8c4c-22a0-7603348b7f22 Successful social democracies spread both taxation and spending across the population. Everyone pays their way and everyone reaps the benefits in the form of high-quality and well-funded public services, fostering socio-economic solidarity with buy-in from the top and bottom alike. At the other end of the spectrum, the US has lower taxes and public spending, but a far more dynamic economy and strong incentives for work and innovation. Its robust growth means high living standards are no longer confined to the top but increasingly shared across much of the population. The UK has the worst of both worlds: it collects much less tax revenue from the middle of the income distribution than its European neighbours with better-quality public services, while at the top the combination of high and rising taxes with the abrupt withdrawal of public goods creates bad incentives and resentment all round. The UK’s curious experiment in eating the rich while shrinking the state has left Britons less satisfied with their public services than not only Scandinavians but most Americans, and poorer than not only Americans but most Scandinavians.

This (from: www.ft.com/content/75ce...) is something you can *feel* if you are in the UK, especially if you've experienced living abroad. But infuriatingly successive governments and our entire media are somehow absolutely committed to suggesting anyone who wants to change this is the devil...

Elected in 1972 as the first openly gay politician in the UK, Sam Green served his community with commitment and courage, and we’re proud that Ed Davey was there to unveil a plaque in his honour.

Wicked: For Good leaves critics less spellbound than the first film Several critics highlighted Ariana Grande's performance, but were cooler on the film overall.

FIlm adapting the weaker half of Wicked is weaker than film adapting the other half of Wicked, say critics. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This is probably an advantage Polanski has as a non-MP leader in the modern media environment - he has more time to long-form interviews.

Once you've seen this you can't unsee it (ht @stephenkb.bsky.social). politicians trying to describe things as "is this Labour", "this is not Labour", "there is nothing Labour about this", "this has the mandate of Labour, it partakes of the Labour nature" as a substitute for good or bad.

I am sure there will be no economic or structual consequences to this, in a country with a rapidly aging population and unsustainable population pyramid

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there are loads of votes in “the Ed Miliband agenda, but we tell anyone who liked Ed Miliband they are dirty liberals who should be ashamed”.