polling like this just never asks for views on the whole system costs required for these schemes. "should generally be allowed" and "then sent back" do a lot of heavy lifting. Like with Brexit, people may express a view on a preferred outcome but the process and wider consequences matter

Seems like a good time (again) to share the guide I developed with @freedomfromtorture.bsky.social, which tells you how to talk about refugees and asylum in a way that actually convinces the undecided - based on testing 🧵 www.freedomfromtorture.org/changing-the...

when I hear Starmer speak about immigration and race he's spitting in the face of the Labour voters I knew growing up in Manchester, who put themselves on the line against the National Front - and often the police - in the 1970s and 1980s.

NEW: Andy Burnham will issue a warning to Wes Streeting over the government’s abolition of a national network of “patient voice” bodies Burnham's intervention comes amid fears locally that the move could “silence” residents' views By me, for Politics Home www.politicshome.com/news/article...

This is not suggestive of ‘build, build, build’.

A surprisingly bad set of labour market stats this morning. The story I was prepared for was "some weakening, but the shake out from the early part of the year is behind us". But it's worse than that - payroll jobs falling again, unemployment now up at 5%. Here is our PN

I’m afraid I’ve heard enough to take this seriously - No.10 is thinking of abolishing ECO, the main source of funding for upgrading fuel poor homes. There’s no way to sugar coat this: it would be a disaster. And it would mean this government spending less on upgrading homes than the last one

Do any uk political parties have policy on the regulation of fireworks and firework displays?

NEW: Our latest analysis suggests strict conditions faced by people in receipt of benefits are forcing them into low quality jobs. This risks undermining the government's employment targets, as people forced into low-paid, insecure jobs are less likely to stay in work.

Important piece by @resi-analyst.bsky.social this. Successive governments seem not to have understood that your regulatory framework over the longterm shapes who your market participants *are*. If want short-term (i.e. over the next 5-10 years) benefits of planning reform, need to be more active.

I keep being told spending cuts are easy. Honest proposals such as those recently outlined by Policy Exchange show they are not My column www.ft.com/content/f086...

The UK is not the destination of choice for asylum seekers in Europe. It is behind Germany & France and is 17th, or 5th at a stretch, of 28 www.gov.uk/government/s...

All networking events need at least one designated host who goes around looking for people on their own and introduces them to others with similar interests. This takes maybe a couple of minutes per person and is pretty fun and easy if you know what you’re doing!

I love being 60 mins into a 90 min meeting and we're moving onto item 1b

This is interesting - but for me it's a good exploration of how weaknesses in the ONS Labour Force Survey can distort a range of key statistics Just adds to the uncertainty around the current economic position and that harms policy development

There is no need for a moral panic about the UK's welfare system. Far from perfect but recent discourse is nuts Spending is controlled, not spiralling Worklessness is near record lows My column www.ft.com/content/ee67...

Investors are betting big bucks on the idea that AI will create an explosion of leisure time...e.g. it was a key part of the public rationale for the massive $55bn takeover of video games maker Electronic Arts. But are they right?? (short thread linked to my column today www.ft.com/content/4011...)

The aging population is the reason; restoring the state pension is just one of the mechanisms.

so much discourse from such a slight policy - many pubs close before their current licensing conditions force them to anyway. for the majority this will just make it easier to extend when there are events/holidays. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

this is great If you just want to drink gin with an olive in it then just accept that you didn't want to drink a martini in the first place

The social care system is not fit for purpose. Many people can't access the care and support they need and others are left facing catastrophic costs. Our new long read outlines the six key issues and the options cited to tackle them. https://bit.ly/3VPOdH3

I see the current status of the ONS is "beleaguered" on.ft.com/42rRC2r

You can get my book Borderlines in electronic form for an amazing 99p at the moment; at a time when politicians are fetishising borders, why not look at them in a bit more detail, and get the view from Europe’s borders? www.amazon.co.uk/Borderlines-...

The key to helping people with long term conditions or disabilities into work isn't the support provided or who delivers it but the number of accessible jobs And that's not just down to the willingness of employers but general market conditions www.bbc.com/news/article...

A thread of inspirational quotes from two of my idols: Kemi Badenoch and Ange Postecoglou (uh-oh, I may have gotten some mixed up... or have I??) 🧵

also goes for your favourite actor/comedian/musician/politician/athlete talented? sure hard working? possibly got the right breaks? almost certainly Luck is often left out of these or is described as a kind of karmic reward. Many talented people who struggle and persevere don't reach the heights

I worked on regeneration schemes in the 90's and it was a constant job to manage expectations of people outside target areas "We're improving everywhere but some places need extra" works better than "we're only improving one place" www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/2551043...

Read our response to yesterday's attack at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Manchester.

Seeing talk on here about class makes me wish people could at least acknowledge the Marxian point that class is not just another form of identity politics, but is about one's relationship to the means of production - eg I'm now bourgeois whatever my upbringing, prejudices etc.

the thing about the government creating new apprenticeships is that it can't. Govts can fund and incentivise apprenticeships - employers create them when there's a business case for them And the nature of the local economy can have a massive impact on availability

The essential failure of LLMs in the smart home - where natural language processing should shine - is the best evidence that LLMs as a technology simply may not be able to do the things they’re promised www.theverge.com/report/78717...

Increasing public investment isn't merely a matter of providing finance - that's easy. The problem is getting the real resources: labour, materials, decent management etc.

Might be time to dust down the old "keep volunteering voluntary" campaign again

When you run a poll and find that the public is concerned about AI, it takes crazy levels of AI boosterism to conclude that the public is wrong and the govt must educate them. Perhaps… the public is right. Politicians should listen to the public, not the Larry Ellison-funded Tony Blair Institute.

interesting conversation with someone working in a public sector org this weekend Jobs are being left vacant because only people with experience will be hired. The work is too intense and management so squeezed that they can't take on people to train. This may help with productivity but not output

just looking at the detail of the Pride in Place programme and it's a 63% capital/37% revenue mix that revenue has to support programme management, running a board, community engagement and scheme development so there won't be much capacity to fund social infrastructure and community activity

Could I just point out that not everyone from Greater Manchester is a “Manc”, a supporter of City or a fan of Oasis.

NEW REPORT: @instituteforgovernment.org.uk finds that confused missions, pervasive risk aversion, poor data quality, insufficient commericial capability, and a failure to focus on outcomes means that govt is failing to make the most of £400bn+ a year it spends on procurement

Our fifth State of the Sector Data Maturity report is on its way! We did say we'd give ourselves a break from producing a State of the Sector report this year but, hey, five years is a big milestone and it seems a shame to let all that data and insight go to waste. So get ready for the next report.

Yet again CPRE are claiming there's sufficient brownfield land and we don't need to build on any countryside. There are many reasons why this isn't correct 🧵

undark.org/2025/09/01/w... 32% remained on their GLP-1 at the end of yr1 15% at yr2 8% remained on drugs 3yr (NB muscle mass loss - www.thelancet.com/journals/lan... Rebound Rwbound and cycling can lead to worse net health - see bmjopen.bmj.com/content/15/8... Wasted resource and harm??

lots of measurement, lots of investment & centuries of progress in the science but because of the complexity of the environment we don't know where a storm will be on Friday Anyway, I'm sure the polls are accurate 4 years out from an election www.bbc.co.uk/weather/arti...

"Employees are using AI tools to create low-effort, passable looking work that ends up creating more work for their coworkers." Well, I'm sure bureaucracies aren't vulnerable to this and it won't create any issues for the govt's AI based productivity plans hbr.org/2025/09/ai-g...

I remember automated recruitment systems being seen as a major step forward for many employers in terms of reducing bureaucracy and enabling better skills matching the mass automation of applications is the other side of the equation - gains are cancelled out whilst new biases are generated

"In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limits." www.computerworld.com/article/4059...

This is bad advice on an individual level: most entrepreneurs fail, and it's better to get a good job in an existing business. On a social level, entrepreneurship matters, but it's determined by access to finance, things other entrepreneurs do, market size, not 'drive'.

Not sure this was clear. Collapse isn't an event, it's a process that historically is only clear in hindsight. That applies to us now. We still locate the possibility of collapse in the future. But we're already in what history will see as the process of collapse, and it has to be affecting us.

More or Less on DWP's (rubbish) out-of-work benefits data. They asked the right person (@benbgeiger.bsky.social) to explain all this. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...