Some positive news in this morning's trade union stats. Membership up to 6.57 million, its highest since 2020. Public sector trade union membership at its highest level since 2010 (4.0 million). Stats are for 2025, so before the new trade union rights in the Employment Rights Act came into effect.

the 90s nostalgia trend has gone too far if you're expecting me to read a 5,700 word Tony Blair essay.

Saw a guy wearing a “I can’t go to hell, because satan has a restraining order against me” t shirt and can’t help but wonder 1. who administers and enforces the hell/earth restraining order system 2. what a man visiting Buxton high street on a bank holiday Monday did to get one in the first place.

okay not the main point here, but: who's got their laptop set up so that it only goes to sleep after half an hour.

letterboxd style app for talking about football matches called boxtoboxd.

This morning's labour market data has concerning signs for real pay growth (pay growth once you take inflation into account). Growth in real average weekly pay in Q1 slowed to 0.3%. Single month figures show no growth at all. We already have falling real pay in the private sector (-0.1% in Q1).

New TUC analysis shows that young disabled people being hit twice as hard by unemployment than young non-disabled people. Youth unemployment rate already high at the moment: 14.0%*, but the rate for young disabled people is 24.2%, compared to 12.2% for young non-disabled people. *Based on Q4 2025.

Unintentionally funny bit of the Jamie Vardy documentary where they’re talking about the Nigel Pearson sacking as mysterious and out of the blue and no one gives any context and it’s very

A chart from The Sunday Times showing the total wealth of the top 250 entries on its rich list since 2000. After the financial crisis, the average person saw the worst real pay crisis in over two centuries and the worst era of living standards on record. The wealth of billionaires rocketed.

Ultimate What Did You Do Yesterday booking: John Curtice the day after election results.

In 2023, the tory government cut the bank surcharge - a tax on bank profits - from 8% to 3%. Meanwhile, the big banks have been raking in profits: £13.8bn in the first quarter of this year already. Putting it back to 8% would raise £9bn over four years. Doubling that to 16% would deliver £24bn.

Dusted off and updated an old chart from the days of twitter to add a different angle to this. The numbers of pints you can buy with the average weekly wage has been in long term decline, taking a real hit during the post-2008 pay crisis, with some slight recent improvement.

duck at the counter, absolutely kicking off

Obviously hard to capture a full report in a headline, but IFS report seems to say how you choose to tax wealth should depend on your aims. A wealth tax redistributes wealth & hits existing wealth, but is tricky, whereas other forms of wealth taxation better at tackling wealth accumulation.

Not even real butter?

Don't worry guys, the banks and the oil companies are still doing okay.

More than a fifth of all “austerity generation” British children have been scarred by poverty for at least half their childhood, a new study shows. This is the legacy of the Tory governments who proudly gutted the safety net by tens of billions. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Hesitant to enter into the "whether people feel poorer" discourse, but do think it's important to remember that we have only just left a 16-year real pay squeeze that is the longest in living memory. Nothing close to comparable to it in any reliable records.

Both of these important reads, and both Emiliano and Polly must-follows when it comes to reporting on workers' rights.

I’ve spent the last year investigating how the UK's broken employment tribunal system lets rogue bosses evade justice. But this is the craziest case,by far. A restaurant chain that lost 21 tribunal claims over several years, yet never paid a single one🧵 www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2026...

If I wanted to see what the moon was like, I would simply watch the 1989 documentary A Grand Day Out.

This is a very hard read (the photos alone are heartbreaking) but such important journalism: four parents of the Iran school bombing victims speak about the worst day of their lives. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Always confused by the assumption that Salah's next step is a retirement destination. Salah had one of his best seasons last year, (understandably) clearly believes he should still be starting in a team that competes in the Champions League, and is leaving on a free. www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...

Seems very generous to the banks to say they're raising mortgage interest rates due to "expectations" rather than, and call my cynical here if you must, due to the chance to make more money.

We must be at the peak of trader joes tote bags in London now. Simply too many trader joes tote bags for one city. The Daunt totes, the LRB totes, the lesser seen Cubitts totes must all be facing extinction

Local shopping centre has a new robot hoover. Caught it today just stuck at the automatic doors, staring out onto the street. It yearns for freedom.

Imagine finally winning best mum in the world only to find out you’re now up against mums in galaxies you’ve never even heard of.

Luckily there's no recent examples of how raising interest rates to curb inflation caused by external shocks to energy prices is ineffective at best and actively damaging to the economy at worst.

Every time I see news that an indie band I haven't heard since 2009 has a new album out.

@tuc.org.uk condemns the dangerous escalation of military actions, precipitated by the attacks launched by the US and Israel over the weekend that flout international law, undermine diplomacy and the prospects for peace. www.tuc.org.uk/news/tuc-gen...

So much of the discussion on student loans focuses on issues impacting higher earners (e.g. the interest rates) and ignores abolition of maintenance grants (starting working class young people off with higher debts), the erosion of maintenance loans over time and family income threshold freezes.

The then government cancelled the second part of the Leveson Inquiry in 2018. It planned to look at the relationship between the media and the police.

Szoboszlai bravely sacrificing himself to help those of us who didn’t captain Haaland.

I’ve been idly humming a song to myself a lot recently but couldn’t quite place what it was until today. It’s the Diagnosis Murder theme tune.

One of the reasons I find intergenerational divide stuff a bit grating is that this is often its inevitable end point - not an expansion of good policies, but either a transfer or a scrapping.

There should be a minimum goals requirement for Match of the Day. If they don’t hit it, BBC just puts on Speed 2 or Wallace and Gromit or something instead. Still with the Danny Murphy and Wayne Rooney punditry though, they don’t get the night off.

Love the buzz of the big supermarket just before it closes early on a Sunday. Comforting to be amongst my people (those who have lived in a country with sunday hours for their entire lives but always seem to forget this until 3.30pm on Sunday).

🐱📈 Happy Fat Cat Day! We’re less than a week into January and FTSE CEOs have already earned what the average worker will make in the year. And if a 113:1 pay disparity feels outrageous, remember: on average the richest 10% pay less of their income in taxes (39%) than the poorest 10% (48%) too.

The TUC joins the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and ITUC-Americas in expressing our ‘absolute and unequivocal rejection’ of the US military attack in Venezuela, and the abduction of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. Yesterday's statement:

Can confirm, for those who have spent the past eleven months wondering, that this stayed as my favourite song of the year (and my favourite album).

Big fan of the large but helpful human-like toilet roll that helps you find nearby toilets in Lewisham.

Bore on about this a lot, but really was one of the worst parts of the government's response to the pandemic that they steadfastly and repeatedly refused to improve the existing sick pay system. Instead, they brought in a terrible temporary mess of a scheme six months in and ended it asap.

Strong belief that no one has ever paid full price for a bottle of baileys. One hundred percent of its annual sales are in the three weeks when you can get it for a tenner before Christmas. Would absolutely blow my mind if I ever saw someone buying a full price bottle in the heat of summer.

People complaining about having an old listening age, but this is somehow more embarrassing.

I know it came out a couple of weeks back, but still find the section of the latest report from the covid inquiry depressing but unsurprising. Despite clear advice on the need for better financial support for people to self-isolate, the treasury and the chancellor just ignored it.

My eyes called?

And the two child benefit limit is abolished. An enormous victory for those who have campaigned tirelessly for eight long years through successive governments. This will lift at least 450,000 children out of poverty. Fewer kids will be hungry. No more women forced to disclose their rape.

Spare a thought for those hit hardest by the early leak of the OBR document: those of us who were about to have a quick bit of lunch at 12.

Incredibly sad and unbecoming when you have to briefly use microsoft edge for something and it asks to be made your default browser. Have a little self respect.

Core argument of this seems to be that organisations supporting a wealth tax should instead be calling for policies that make structural change such as "changes to the labour laws to encourage union organisation". TUC named as one of the organisations and can safely say we do call for that!