… TUC commissioned polling found huge support for a package of taxes on wealth to invest in our local services, our NHS and more. Also huge support for a gambling levy, a windfall tax on banks, a 2% annual wealth tax, and for modernising our tax system to be more progressive.

Does it?

A bit intense for the side of a takeaway coffee cup.

This article a good summary of the rental market: it's all about a landlord being so scared of the changes they've sold 1 of their 9 flats, then about two-thirds in you finally hear from a renter who hopes the changes will stop her & her child being made homeless again. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Visited a place called Par last week and the local hairdressers was called Parsnip.

Wealth tax needed to help working people and avoid threat from Reform, says union chief

Food prices rising again, and not sure it's stated enough how steep the recent rises have been. Over past four years, food and drink prices have gone up by 38%. In contrast, in the four years before that, they went up by 4%. Really noticeable whenever you go to the shop.

Pacino, Gore, Yankovic. They all feel pain.

Absolutely love ref cam. Always wanted to watch football as if I’m playing a first person shooter game on the ps2.

All Points East yesterday has reminded me of my main cultural theory: every thirty something who was into music that has since been loosely defined as “landfill indie” has three bands that they will get weirdly defensive of if anyone refers to them as “landfill indie”.

Good to see more scrutiny of these numbers, but why weren't the journalists & newspapers using them for sensationalist headlines asking these questions before publishing? Also odd to pretend these are new doubts - The Londoner published the same concerns in early May. www.ft.com/content/28eb...

The outsourced company that runs one of our local council services has started doing a thing when you ring up where they put you on hold, tell you what number you are in the queue, wait until you're first in the queue, and then just cut off the call. A good comedy bit to be fair. Have to respect it.

Unsurprising to see City AM being against a wealth tax, but a bit surprising to see the editor using income tax stats to make a point about a wealth tax.

Thought this was a good, interesting article on the wealth ‘exodus’ and some of the dodgy data and reports around it. But odd to see this line on supporters of wealth taxes. Polling showing widespread support for wealth taxes across the political spectrum. www.theguardian.com/news/2025/ju...

New ONS data on health life expectancy a grim read. Not only is life expectancy, and healthy life expectancy, falling generally, but inequality getting worse. Life expectancy for men living in most deprived areas of England (72.6) is a decade lower than it is for men in least deprived areas (83).

But what about the essentials that families need to meet after paying for housing? Since the eve of the financial crisis, these have taken up a growing share of their budgets – particularly for those on the lowest incomes.

pleading with the supermarket staff to just let me have a little lie down in the big freezers.

Two, maybe three, seasons away from every sub having to go straight into a pitch-side recording of Stick to Football.

Solid thursday yesterday (ate a big sandwich, visited the Crystal Palace dinosaurs, went to see Lucy Dacus).

Another big article (this time in The Times) talking about Henley & Partners research without mentioning the legitimate questions about their methodology and data, so an excuse to share this article again.

Big Saturday night (finally googled how to pronounce the word “fugue”).

This is good to see: the Household Support Fund finally getting more than 6 or 12 months of funding at a time, with local authorities never knowing if it'll be scrapped or not.

New TUC polling shows public support for wealth taxes: • 6-in-10 think the wealthiest don't pay their fair share • Two-thirds (67%) believe there are too many loopholes to be exploited by the wealthy in the tax system • Same proportion (67%) support an annual wealth tax for estates above £10million

Ten years since Ivy Tripp-era Waxahatchee played in London with Girlpool supporting (the week after this album was released). Great gig, bumped into a lot of friends, but still remember it as the gig where I overheard someone say to their friend "why does everyone here have the same round glasses".

On this underfunding: an FOI sent by the TUC found that the government spent just £385m on the entire 18 months of the Test and Trace Support Payment Scheme. For context, this isn’t even half of what it spent on Eat Out To Help Out, which lasted just a month. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

I hate it when an online form throws out the "this is not a valid email address" as soon as you type in the first letter of your email address. A bit of patience needed, just give me a second, the email address will be valid soon.

But doctor, I am Postecoglou.

UN's Tom Fletcher: "The situation is dire.. we have thousands of trucks ready to go.. we are demanding that the world back us in pushing Israel to let us in.. [5 trucks is] a drop in the ocean.. there are 14,000 babies that will die in the next 48 hours unless we can reach them"

The news is full of headlines about millionaires fleeing London. But most of those stories are based on dodgy data created by a controversial wealth advisory and a one-man research firm that studies exotic birds. My investigation for @londonermag.bsky.social

a bit harsh from the Dice app.

A very "weird how music was really good when I was 20" opinion, but: enjoyed the recent string of new albums by Baths, Perfume Genius & Sleigh Bells and, after checking, realised all three released their debuts in 2010. Since fallen down a pit of nostalgia and think 2010 A Very Good Year for Albums.

Two things: 1. Over half of employees get full pay as usual when off sick. Is the assumption that they are all constantly skiving? 2. Is it "skiving" or is it a small improvement to statutory sick pay that will allow employees on SSP to take time off and recover (& not spread illness) when ill?

Some findings from new TUC-commissioned poll of 1,000 disabled workers: - Only 36% of reasonable adjustment requests accepted in full (44% part accepted, 11% not at all, 5% have never heard back) - 55% of disabled workers whose employers accepted a request are waiting for them to be put in place

Some of the narrative around today's vacancies data being linked to minimum wage rise seem a bit off. It's true that number of vacancies fell by 15% on the year, but this is pretty much the same rate they've been falling at since start of 2023 (averaging 16.5% across this two and a half years).

Some findings from new TUC-commissioned poll of 1,000 disabled workers: - Only 36% of reasonable adjustment requests accepted in full (44% part accepted, 11% not at all, 5% have never heard back) - 55% of disabled workers whose employers accepted a request are waiting for them to be put in place

Latest income inequality data was out on Friday. Main thing I always think about the data is that while there's interesting bits in year-to-year stuff, you have to pay attention to wider context: a hefty rise in inequality in the 1980s that's persisted since.

Nice to be on a long train so I can gaze out of the window and partake in one of my favourite hobbies: pointing out really big supermarkets.

Guess what: boosting workers' rights is popular www.theguardian.com/law/2025/apr...

Local supermarket has a new var-esque thing where if you place an item in the bagging area incorrectly, the screen above the till replays a birds eye recording of you scanning the item. Incredibly sad and unwanted view of your bald spot just because you placed some eggs down haphazardly.

Got to admire pancakes. Incredible product placement to get yourself into a biblical story.

Sad to see that my favourite film of the past year (rewatching the second half of the 1995 romcom While You Were Sleeping whenever I notice it's on ITV2 but never actually sitting down and just watching all of it without ads on a streaming service) failed to pick up any Oscars last night.

This is good news: 1.3m low paid workers now eligible for statutory sick pay. But as TUC gen sec Paul Nowak says in the piece, this should be the start not the end: the replacement rate of 80% should be raised, as should the rate of statutory sick pay itself. www.theguardian.com/money/2025/m...

The trade union movement is also against the undermining of copyright. Creative workers are the backbone of our creative industries.

Latest wages v private rent inflation data. Private rents have been rising faster than wages for past year and a half and continue to do so. In latest month with data for both (Dec 2024), private rents went up by 9%, 3 percentage points higher than wages.

Make real wage growth unremarkable again

Some context on strong real pay figures. Today's new data shows real weekly pay up by 3.4%, which is good. The recent strong growth comes after the longest pay squeeze in living memory - real weekly wages are still only just above 2008 levels. Strong real pay growth much needed.

Feathers McGraw on the baftas red carpet giving his four favourites to the letterboxd interviewer.

Important work from Tom & @lalithatry.bsky.social. Council tax arrears are such a common form of debt in low income households, contributing to poor mental health but also undermining their relationship with the local authority & the potential for positive engagement with other services

Thank god. Ridiculous that this guy was expected to live off just £4.9m last year.