“Nobody thought a Labour government would have to raise taxes by more than £70bn,” claims one insider in this excellent piece. Shows the problem of the climate of fear in meetings created by some of Starmer’s aides, in that plenty of Labour insiders, did, in fact, think this!

Interested by this comment: what is it about the language of economics that seems insincere in this context, even to an economist?

Odd article. The research paper cited is more like a blog post. And 'model the impact of extinction' is overstating it. As far as I can tell, the Fed authors have just drawn a line on a chart. www.ft.com/content/60df...

"Far from draining our welfare system, migrants are supporting the British state’s solvency." New analysis by @lgilbert.co ukandeu.ac.uk/lower-migrat...

and like I speak to a LOT of gilts investors/analysts and none of them have said this to me. Entirely possible they are talking to other people, who are not in fact in the gilts market, or who are and have different views. Takes two opinions to make a market i guess. 🤔

Hard to think that anybody with experience of UK university senior managements would have confidence that, left to themselves, they'd back academic freedom over an income stream.

The last 15 years of HE policy in the UK: Gov: act like you're in a market! universities: OK Gov: not like that!

Piketty: “I’m sorry that I wrote such long books”. www.ft.com/content/860f...

NEW: Today I co-published a report with think tanks from across the political spectrum. We disagree on many issues, but share common ground on the basics of UK tax reform. Our tax system is riddled with loopholes and irrationalities, holding back growth. This means that..(1/3)

open.substack.com/pub/geoffmul... A lot of very important points in a short post

Ah go on, you can. Comparing the value of my house to my income is not meaningless. Neither is comparing the contents of my son's piggy bank to his weekly pocket money.

You have to be careful about treating ordinal variables such as the IMD as cardinal, but these results are broadly in line with lots of stuff we've seen suggesting that the 'left behind' story of rightwing populism is substantially incomplete at best.

From the other place, a takedown of the 'top 10% account for 50% of consumption' statistic which has been doing the rounds.

Late period Osborne: interest rates at zero and 50-80bn of headroom: and his priority was “don’t invest”.

This IMF paper finds that during and after the 2022 global inflation surge - largely driven by supply shocks - inflation outcomes in inflation-targeting countries were no better than in non-targeting countries, despite the former implementing more aggressive interest rate hikes.

Reeves correct imo to say that the productivity “puzzle” is at least partly the result of underinvestment and economic mismanagement.

To deliver all the things we might want to state to do it is likely that the median household in the UK needs to pay more tax. Is that regressive? It depends what the state does with the money. But it seems unlikely. Net shift will be from people with fewer touch points w/ state to those with more.

If this is the case, then publishing this piece is a poor editorial decision to say the least. We should, at a minimum, expect stated financial statistics to be broadly accurate in the Financial Times.

There was a time the party opposite condemned Enoch Powell. We can hear the dog whistle. Being British is about our values, the way we act, and the way we cohere together 🇬🇧

I can't believe they left out AI and airports.

AI companies: The future of humanoid robots is here Humanoid robot:

SOAS University becomes the first British University to Issue a Statement on Scholasticide in Gaza www.soas.ac.uk/about/news/s...

Glad to sign this and see it out there alongside pressure from lots of other groups. www.lbc.co.uk/article/grou...

On the one hand: Interesting just how long post-imperial Britain could cling on to its relative economic position. On the other hand: Yikes. www.ft.com/content/d70c...

Yes, would have been much better to tell the truth "We're doubly screwed because Osborne cried wolf, it took a decade for people to realise his wolf was imaginary, but now it's really here."

I guess I must have imagined a decade of austerity premised on the claim that the bond markets leave us no alternative.

2nd edition of our The AI Shift newsletter is out. The question today: could AI be making us LESS productive? @jburnmurdoch.ft.com www.ft.com/content/2480... At the individual level, it's clear we're not reliable witnesses on this Q. At an organisational level, it gets even more interesting...

This is very good from @resi-analyst.bsky.social >> New homes: even if you build them, there’s no one to buy them www.ft.com/content/9080...

🚨 Today, Common Wealth launches the Green Planning Commission. A major new initiative to tackle the twin crises of our era: climate breakdown & the affordability crisis. To meet these challenges, we need a new era of democratic planning. 🧵 https://www.common-wealth.org/green-planning-commission

How dare you accuse me of saying “threshold”.

Good article, this.

I find myself in Berlin with the luxury of a day to spare, even if the weather doesn’t look great. How should I spend my windfall?

one of the most quietly damning things I've read in ages, this

I hope that the new Deputy Leader will continue to hold the Leader to account, as she does here.

Powell’s election is a sign of the disillusionment of Labour members - but there is a much much bigger and more worrying sign. Turn out was just 16%

The first thing she can do is not take office immediately after someone who cut 20bn off national insurance.

Unsurprisingly, people who actually have to deal with dead bodies in the water are more reluctant to embrace risky and dangerous methods than grandstanding politicians are.

🚨NEW PAPER🚨 We all know the 2022 energy price shock fueled the cost of living crisis. It also caused a profit bonanza for the very rich. We show the US reaped the largest profits ($377bn) of any country. 50% went to the richest 1%, only 1% to the bottom 50%. A🧵 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

who chooses the photographs? www.ft.com/content/1f79...

What fresh hell is this?

Killer chart from Gregor Semeiniuk and co-authors showing where in the income distribution pandemic windfall oil profits ended up.

At a conference. I’m told that over on X they are doing heterodox vs orthodox economics once again. I don’t feel like I’m missing out.

Bowing to the inevitable. www.theguardian.com/money/2025/o...

"Marshall’s network, laid out to its full extent for the first time by The New World’s special report, gives him end-to-end influence in the right wing sphere...Marshall is a one-man demonstration that donating directly to political parties is an outdated way of influencing politics."

Gilts on track for their best week since April and yields now below where they started 2025. Global risk-off move, a little bit more priced for BoE rate cuts, and "right noises" on headroom all helping, say investors Thank you for playing... www.ft.com/content/3295...

The Conservative immigration proposals cannot be allowed to stand without a profound and widespread statement of moral condemnation inews.co.uk/opinion/tori...

Talking to Ian Collins on Talk TV about immigration and welfare earlier. www.youtube.com/live/66URali...

Judging by the price/volume chart, it looks like the government carried out interventions at four key price levels over the past month: first 1475 in mid-Sep, then at 1425 followed by 1430 in early October, and currently the intervention is taking place at... 1488 exactly: