Isabelle Candy 🧡

70% of the additional spending from removing the two-child limit will go to families who are in work. This is targeting support for low-income working households who are being priced out of a decent standard of living despite doing everything asked of them.

The chart shows where spending on social security is shown as a share of GDP. As this makes plain, total welfare spending in Britain in 2025-26 is estimated to be 10.8 per cent of GDP. This is 0.8 per cent of GDP higher than it stood on the eve of the global financial crisis in 2007-08. But since 2012-13 (the peak in the post-GFC recession), total welfare spending has fallen by 1.2 per cent of GDP. Added to this, welfare spending is expected to rise by just 0.1 per cent of GDP across the forecast period until 2029-30 (after U-turns and before any decisions made at the Budget).

Is welfare spending ''out of control''?

Total welfare spending in Britain in 2025-26 is estimated to be 10.8 per cent of GDP.

That's just 0.8 per cent of GDP higher than in 2007-08, and total welfare spending has actually fallen fallen by 1.2 per cent of GDP since 2012-13⤵️

buff.ly/s5mz97u

Welfare spending is currently 1.2% of GDP *lower* than in 2012-13.

Abolition of two-child cap is best viewed as a correction than an increase.

Home Secretary opens consultation on "earned settlement" - Free Movement The consultation document is called “A Fairer Pathway to Settlement: A statement and accompanying consultation on earned settlement”. The consultation is open

In case you missed it: Home Secretary opens consultation on “earned settlement” | Sonia Lenegan

A chart showing child poverty in the UK increasing sharply if the two child limit remains in place, and falling if it is scrapped.

Why the two-child limit has to go, in a chart.

...And in terms of asylum applications per 10,000 people the UK is lower down, at 16 per 10,000 people in 2024...

Asylum system in UK ‘out of control’ and dividing country, home secretary says Shabana Mahmood to unveil new proposals modelled on Denmark’s controversial system

Everything about the current 'debate' around this is dismal, not just morally but because it is so stupid. For example:

It conflates asylum-seeking and illegal immigration (and sometimes with migration generally)

It shows no understanding of why there is AS

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025... 1/3

Famous Refugees Famous or not, refugees bring much more than their belongings with them to their new countries. Here's a list of public figures you might not know were

Helpful list of some of the people who, or whose families, Shabana Mahmood thinks should only have been allowed to stay temporarily

This⤵️

UK charities condemn ‘immoral’ plans to force asylum seekers to volunteer Making volunteering compulsory for refugees slammed as exploitative, bureaucratic and un-British

A key point about "volunteering" is that it should be "voluntary". By forcing migrants to volunteer this government not only treats us as if we are a free resource, but also ignores everything else we go through. This policy is dehumanising and exploitative.
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

We've been lucky to see some along the Exe estuary and recently the Otter estuary (both in Devon). Either too quick or too far to photograph though.

Still lots of flowers along the Otter estuary in Devon: red campion, ragwort, white flowered nettle, buttercup and yarrow
#wildflowerhour

Why governance matters quote - Samira Sadeghi, Director of Trust Governance.

This week we are celebrating the trustees and governance professionals whose curiosity and civic leadership strengthen trust culture, strategy and integrity.

#TrusteesWeek

Food banks provide help when people need it most. But real change means ending the need for them altogether.

Repost if you agree 💚

This TEDx Talk questions how journalists report on underrepresented communities in the UK media.

🔎 Is our reporting designed to inform… or inflame? 🔥

Let’s take a look at last summer’s anti-immigration riots…

Watch the full talk: youtu.be/fJy__NhRqJA

Forgot to add #WildFungiHour!

Fungi yesterday at Yarner Wood, #Dartmoor, #Devon.
After watching tonight's episode of Hamza's Hidden Wild Isles, I wonder what they look like illuminated by UV light.
Would love someone to identify what they are too.
#WildFlowerHour

Want to up your #WildFlowerID game this winter?
We just launched our Winter Webinar programme!
7-8pm, every Tuesday from 4 Nov - 10 Feb.
Thanks to funding from @daera-ni.gov.uk, these 10 great plant ID webinars are FREE for all of you to attend!
Programme & booking links: bsbi.org/botanical-sk...

Written questions and answers - Written questions, answers and statements - UK Parliament Information from UK Parliament on written questions & answers, written statements and daily reports.

4/ Source: questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-ques...
as well as DfE guidance such as: www.gov.uk/government/n...

3/ This should help to prepare pupils to play a full and active part in society. It teaches them how to explore political and social issues critically, to weigh up evidence, to debate, and to make reasoned arguments.
It sounds like many of our politicians need to go back to school and learn this!

2/ Citizenship is a compulsory subject for secondary students who are taught about Parliament, the importance of voting and elections, the legal system in the UK, different sources of law and how the law helps society deal with complex problems.

1/ If Nigel did his homework, he'd find out that all state schools in England are required by law to promote the fundamental British values of:
- democracy
- the rule of law
- individual liberty
- mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.
Who's the poisonous one here?

UK’s arm’s length public bodies are highly vulnerable to politicisation Seven in ten Britons say it is important for top scientific institutions to be independent in exclusive new polling.

🧵🚨

The UK’s independent scientific bodies are highly vulnerable to politicisation - over the past 5 months I've been working with @martinmckee.bsky.social to map out their vulnerabilities and it's not good news.

Today our report is published!
www.ucl.ac.uk/policy-lab/n...

1/11

I know statistics are poorly understood and are misused. But facts matter

Between the 1991, 2001, 2011 and 2021 Census *every* ethnic group in the UK has become *less* geographically segregated and *all* groups, majority and minorities, are more likely to interact with people not like them

I hope they will go and apologise to the residents of the hotel for being part of a party that encourages protests outside asylum seeker hotels. And that they review their views on other matters and call out the views of other Reform councillors too.

"Britain is not broken because of migration. Britain is broken because of inequality. Because of an economy that allows billionaires to hoard wealth while millions struggle to get by. Because of a political class that has lost its nerve and forgotten its purpose."

Talking of British values, perhaps he should have a look at the Life in the UK test you must pass to gain settlement. As someone who did it, I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry at this test question (the statement comes straight from the official study book) at the time and even less now.

This ⤵️

I am sad that I am still using it now, a decade later. But whenever I feel it's needed, here I go, politely,quietly but firmly "you're talking about people like me".

At the time of the Brexit referendum, many EU citizens like me were told by people they knew "it's not about you". So I started to use a short sentence often: "you're talking about people like me". Because it's much less easy to blame someone you know and relate to than an unknown group of "others".