Over 1.6m children are now impacted by the Two-Child Limit - 11.6% of all children This is a cruel policy that unnecessarily drags children into deeper levels of hardship It needs to go, and the longer it is kept, the greater the scarring effects on children's health and education will be

The real test of Starmer is how he reacts to this rebellion. Two options: listen to the rebels and decide to govern like a Labour PM, or go all-out Blue Labour Faragist. One wins. The other makes Farage PM in 2029.

I broke my phone (but not my brain), saw 27 acts, walked for about 40 miles and wrote about it all for the New Cue

One reason the revolt on disability benefits is looking so substantial is the line being used to defend it lacks any integrity. To claim that the purpose of cutting PIP - a non-means tested benefit - is to help people back into work requires saying something untrue.

RIP Brian Wilson!

BBC's Arabic radio service in Lebanon closed after 85 years as part of a £28.5m savings drive. 'Just months later, in October 2023, the Russian state-owned Sputnik news agency took over the frequency. Its news bulletin opened with “This is Moscow”, replacing the previous “This is London” intro.' 🙄

I am constantly baffled by the inability of people making this argument to treat children as humans. Take a family. You think they shouldn’t have had a third child. Maybe they did, in fact, make a bad decision. You win. Now, what do you want the child to eat: is your scolding especially nutritious?

Duolingo right now: youtube.com/shorts/hL9pl...

"We don't understand. We've tried everything; writing op-eds declaring the Far Right are bang on & repeating their slogans; giving speeches with all the Far Right buzz words & rhetoric; changing laws and policies to give effect to Far Right demands; and... STILL people want to vote Far Right??"

A question that I haven't heard a good answer to: if cutting migration by a third in a year hasn't changed the narrative on it at all - what would make you think cutting it by another third (or half] would?

Today the Civil Legal Aid (Remuneration)(Amendment) Regulations 2025 come into effect, restoring an escape fee for welfare benefits legal help cases. Fixed fee is £208 and the escape threshold is now £624.

What Farage says about where his votes are coming from is also horseshit, of course. Latest YouGov poll shows Tories have leaked 20% of the 2024 support to Reform, but Labour just 6%. Though that still matters, it’s just a third of what Labour’s losing to Lib Dems and Greens…

What we saw today was two jumped up thugs and their bootlicking sychophants laughing at the US Constitution, the supreme court, and the idea that anyone can stop them from doing anything they want www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Amending regs to the legal aid Remuneration regs now out and take effect from 1 May 2025. Reintroduces an escape fee for Welfare Benefits legal aid casework. Very pleased to have played a role in bringing about this change. www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2025/41...

I may be tired and a little hoarse, but as I said again and again on the Senate floor, this is a moment where we cannot afford to be silent, when we must speak up.

To mark publication day of Maybe I'm Amazed, I've done a long read for the New Statesman about one of the book's elements: the inhuman, cruel grind of the Special Needs system & how it's collapsing... one of the things that James's love of music got us through t.co/GZhqO6E13i

Today let's remember that austerity kills. 🧵 Researchers at the University of Glasgow, found that an additional 335,000 deaths occurred in Scotland, England, and Wales between 2012 and 2019 compared to what was expected based on previous trends. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Yet again *another* Times columnist - this time Emma Duncan - makes a blatantly false claim about disability benefits "At present you can get signed off sick simply through a phone consultation with a GP." Just shockingly bad journalism, again and again and again. archive.ph/It3VS

I know we all love a dose of hopium, especially now. But the take, which I see all across here, that the far right was defeated in Germany tonight because 80% of Germans voted for other parties is very misleading and unhelpful. Understanding this really matters. 🧵

📣 Important High Court ruling paves way for legal aid for school exclusion appeals 📣 Our Stephanie Harrison KC & @olliepersey.bsky.social, instructed by Sabrina Simpson & Mital Raithatha of @cclcuk.bsky.social, represented the Claimant. Read on here 🔽 gardencourtchambers.co.uk/important-hi...

This should be changed asap. If we give someone refugee status, it can't be right to then refuse them route to become a British Citizen. To say they can have a home in our country, but never a place in our society and be forever second class. freemovement.org.uk/good-charact...

What you are seeing this morning over the refugee decision is Labour alienating and offending its remaining liberal supporters without bringing any new voters onside.

“This is bad, full stop. It creates a class of person who are forever excluded from civic life no matter how long they live here. It’s also a clear breach of the refugee convention.” Damn straigt, @colinyeo.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

My grandparents entered the UK illegally.

Disabled man self-harms in public and dies after losing PIP The Treasury: let's cut disability benefit www.disabilitynewsservice.com/disabled-man...

Of course it’s a coup. Miss the obvious, lose your republic. open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p...

Gosh. Council decision that a person who had obtained a secure tenancy by deception, and left when facing ground 5 possession proceedings, was intentionally homeless from that property was quashed on appeal as never had the right to occupy it. Case note will follow... www.bailii.org/ew/cases/Mis...

Wait, what? You're desperately worried about integration and then the first policy you come out with is to make citizenship, which has long been seen as a key element of integration, more difficult? Even leaving aside the administrative nightmare you'd probably create, that's odd - to say the least.

Nice article in the Law Society Gazette regarding judicial review regarding legal aid for welfare benefits. Many thanks to @monidipafouzder.bsky.social www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/welfare...

Really good reporting from @channel4news.bsky.social on the uk’s shameful rate of child poverty. We need an ambitious child poverty strategy that starts to rebuild Universal Credit so it protects families when they fall on hard times www.channel4.com/news/child-p...

Immigration doesn't increase crime (overall/average). But regularising unauthorised migrants does *reduce* crime.

Update on judicial review brought by Osbornes challenging legal aid rates for Welfare Benefits legal help work. We have been successful!

NEW: Labour has given its strongest signal yet that it will *keep* the Tories' planned disability benefit cuts, as it said it would re-run the consultation that was earlier today judged to have been held unlawfully The cuts would hit c450,000 disabled people by 2029 www.bigissue.com/news/social-...

Here's my story on the High Court's ruling against the DWP earlier today www.bigissue.com/news/social-...

Ah, that special feeling of a child's birthday when the other child loses their shit because it's not their birthday! Precious memories.

Farage making the astute (and only) move available to him here. Musk’s money would have been very useful. More useful still would be more moderate conservative voters (who Reform needs) to back him: which they won’t do if there’s any hint of association with Robinson.

Fun fact: reading silently is a recent invention in the West, Romans didn't know how to do it, it took until the late Middle Ages for Europeans to generally figure it out.

Sharing this again 😊 If you have relatives likely to spend Christmas dinner moaning about migrants, or praising Nigel Farage, this might be some useful info to bring to the table… Good luck!

"Legal aid is the stone that successive governments have left unturned when looking at alleviating poverty." Last year, Law Centres saved the government an estimated £172 million. With sustainable funding, they could do a whole lot more. 👉 www.lawgazette.co.uk/features/law...

14% increase in homelessness in a year. 1 in 47 people in London are homeless, 1 in 61 in Birmingham. There are dreadful, frightening figures. www.theguardian.com/society/2024...

Another day, another unlawful housing needs assessment and personal housing plan. One day I'll see a lawful one. One day.

We hear a lot about the costs of Temporary Accommodation crippling councils financially - but less about why this is. - Central Government is benefiting financially from households being in homeless accommodation rather than the PRS, because they pay just *90% of the LHA rate from 20211*

NEW: Why do we always think crime is rising, even when it isn’t? This week I looked at one of the big data mysteries. Britain is 2/3 less violent than the 1990s; thefts were higher pre-lockdown Why, then, doesn’t it feel like it? 1/8 @thetimes.com 🔗 www.thetimes.com/article/b63d...

New post just out: "The definition of madness" Why governments keep making the same incredibly expensive mistake over and over again. And what they should be doing instead. (£/free trial) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/t...

Excl: Ministers will announce millions in extra funding for lawyers to represent asylum seekers to help clear the backlog of appeals that is blocking efforts to move migrants out of hotels: www.thetimes.com/article/eddb...

Whatever people's views on the assisted dying debate (and there are clearly powerful arguments on both sides), the standard of the parliamentary debate was at its finest. Respectful, non-partisan, and engaged.

Just posting to share news that Osbornes has today issued a judicial review against the Lord Chancellor on the issue of fees for Welfare Benefits work. As things presently stand only appeals at the Upper Tribunal and above are in scope for legal aid.

1. Here's why I'll never use AI to assist my research or writing: A. I don't want to know exactly what I'm looking for. I mean that when I start researching a topic, I want to remain open to its contradictions and paradoxes, and to the unexpected paths that might lead off it. 🧵

Here’s a short story about who wins and loses from the status quo of our inheritance tax rules - and about, what you might politely call ‘sub-optimal’ journalism🧵