Mad

Breaking the tax pledge is the right call...and politically sulphurous. Reeves must argue, far more forcefully, that taxes are *the* essential downpayment we all pay for a fairer society. Patrick Diamond and I wrote for @renewaljournal.bsky.social. Key points in 🧵 👇 renewal.org.uk/blog/if-labo...

Yes I really, really feel there's a worrying elision going on here (and I've been doing a lot of reporting on dodgy high street shops!) I really think the money laundering thing is enormously overplayed based on very little evidence and the tax evasion / lack of minimum wage underplayed.

All pain, less gain

Odd shift imo

Gavin speaks on behalf of Concerned Millennial Fathers At The Economist Group

Good argument here for not reducing childcare ratios. economist.com/finance-and-...

The Green surge is about to break Labour 🖊️ Scarlett Maguire

V good on the importance of Fat Men

"China can produce almost a terawatt of renewable-energy capacity in a year. That is enough to supply as much energy as more than 300 big nuclear-power plants." www.economist.com/leaders/2025... I love The Economist's bullishness here

Lovely interview with Anthony Barnett www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

I say this a lot (and I happily admit that it's the old fashioned romantic in me and it isn't coming back, for good or ill) but the decline in the scope and size of a lot of working class cultural and social bodies. (the trades unions, Co-Ops, WMCs) has contributed to that left-wing atomisation.

Labour needs to stop fooling itself and lean in to the political logic of its choices. It is a high taxing, high spending government. www.ft.com/content/00a5...

I think two questions this raises is the extent to which the modern left has an idea of the common good/really cares about it, and whether 'anti-bedtime leftism' is an expression of left individualism

Rhetorically, Gary Stevenson and Zack Polanski are on to something though. No question about it.

My own view is that you do need to raise taxes on median earners in the current fiscal context, when financial repression and/or higher inflation is not a realistic political prospect and when growth remains low. You should also tax some wealth/capital for reasons of fairness and symbolism.

It's easy to dismiss this as just a online thing - but increasingly the 'wealth tax/billionares will pay for it' is cutting through more generally You can see it on normal, non-politicos insta feeds-particularly driven by the Greens. It's hugely damaging to the leigitimacy of actual progressive tax

Yes. Ironically the MMT many on the left once supported tells us just this. We need taxes not to raise money but to control inflation. To do this, we need to cut spending rather than saving - which means taxes on the middlingly well-off.

So many lovely lines and phrases in this - I think “fractal cowardice”, to describe the interplay between leftwing thinktanks and the government at the moment, is my favourite:

Good stuff. Time for tax rises. www.economist.com/britain/2025...

Tax policy on the British left is pure "anti-bedtime left". Bizarre idea that you can have a big social democratic welfare state without everyone contributing properly www.economist.com/britain/2025...

Fun dynamic of the budget is that the Tories did all the easy bits when it came to hosing the rich, leaving behind an unbelievably progressive income tax system www.economist.com/britain/2025...

Wrote about the rise of the anti-tax left. If Labour cranks up income taxes, the left will boo loudest economist.com/britain/2025...

Yup

Salami splicing: jamming it all together to make a tax sausage

Terrific (and gutsy) Inside Politics by David today:

Fantastic piece you should all read

legend. we all like to think we'd do the right thing but it sounds like this guy did www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Very thoughtful challenge from @peteapps.bsky.social to my last column on role/use of victims in politics peteapps.substack.com/p/sweeties-f...

My latest: Move over bat tunnel, here’s the wild story of how HS2 were forced to build a multi-million pound bridge for a road that… doesn’t actually exist.

🚨 Full series out now 🚨 🔴 All six episodes of The Poppy Day Bomb, an investigative podcast for @thetimes.com into one of the darkest episodes of The Troubles, are available and free to listen 🎧 Listen here: podfollow.com/poppy-day-bomb Please do share if you have enjoyed.

Come work for us. The Economist is hiring a Britain political correspondent. Make the sample piece original and Economisty economist.com/britain/2025...

Wrote about the dominance of "victims" in our political discourse, which included this fab chart @owenwntr.bsky.social www.economist.com/britain/2025...

I reflect on annoying things backofmind.substack.com/p/the-annoyi...

"Victims" referenced more in Hansard than "Brexit", "welfare", "immigration", "pensioners" and "voters" in past five years. It's an huge half-century shift when the state would effectively kill people and just go "and what?" www.economist.com/britain/2025...

We're watching a world class gimmickmonger at work

The contempt the British state has held people in: a series. In 1966 after the Aberfan coal tip disaster killed 144 people including 116 children the National Coal Board denied wrongdoing & offered £50 compensation per dead child; raising this to £500. www.economist.com/britain/2025...

This is brilliant - and original.

"Lads, it's Russia."

"To govern is to lose". Discuss.

Lil bump

It’s great to identify issues and deliver enhancements to processes - particularly for relatively easy-to-fix issues like this, commentators need to move from a “this should never have happened” model to a model of “this should never happen *again*”

In the real world, a 97.5% success rate in a pilot program which resulted in enhancements to the appeals program to further reduce the error rate and the cost of appeals would be regarded as wildly successful

If some civil servant was “canned” for every program where we had a 2.5% error rate in *giving out* benefits and the program was cancelled, we would give out almost zero benefits

alternative headline: "Error caught in pilot scheme. Processes changed to avoid it in future."

Noticeable recently that the Kebatu investigation has been specifically instructed to speak to his victims although the question for the investigation - how did this mistake happen and how do we stop it happening again? - is not one they will be able to shed light on.

"Victims" referenced more in Hansard than "Brexit", "welfare", "immigration", "pensioners" and "voters" in past five years. It's an huge half-century shift when the state would effectively kill people and just go "and what?" www.economist.com/britain/2025...

Wrote about the dominance of "victims" in our political discourse, which included this fab chart @owenwntr.bsky.social www.economist.com/britain/2025...

Come work for us. The Economist is hiring a Britain political correspondent. Make the sample piece original and Economisty economist.com/britain/2025...

Good that Labour thinking about broad taxes. If you're gonna slap 1p on income tax, you might as well whack 2.5p on it. Same amount of rage, but much more cash