The true meaning of Christmas

London lit better than ever this Christmas. I consider myself incredibly fortunate to be able to live in and enjoy this amazing city

Many of us rely on social security to pay our rent, and often face some of the worst accommodation. For too long dodgy landlords have got away with providing squalid homes that make their tenants ill, so it's excellent news that MHCLG and DWP are now cracking down www.gov.uk/government/n...

The doom and gloom about London is ridiculous and harmful. Team FT is Team London - as.ft.com/r/19d3d36d-e...

Jo Cox was murdered before the vote by a far-right terrorist & this is the language this complete disgrace chooses to use

Wrote a piece in this about the growth in the scale and complexity of MPs casework, and how it is been driven in part by the crisis in the justice system (based on this year’s @nuffieldfoundation.org essay collection- ‘Public Right to Justice’)

FT defends London, one of the greatest cities in the world www.ft.com/content/dd79...

Delighted to have been approved today as the new Chair of @playengland.bsky.social and looking forward to working with @tomhayesmp.bsky.social and other friends to support the vital agenda of children’s play

Matthew Goodwin objects to prosecuting this: ‘I think it’s time for the British to gang together, hit the streets and start the slaughter. Violence and murder is the only way now. Start off burning every migrant hotel then head off to MPs’ houses and Parliament, we need to take over by FORCE.’

Despite the dark shadow of Bondi, a beautiful celebration of hope and light at the LJS Multi Faith Hanukkah service tonight, with many friends.

This entire weekend

In what is possibly the least surprising news ever….

Hard to overstate how stupid this is. But it is true. One young person I’ve been working with was refused a tenancy on the grounds they can’t afford the rent living alone (even though their rehousing would help free up a large, under-occupied flat which will therefore…stay under-occupied 🤦)

This is excellent news. A conscious choice to prioritise social housing in the face of housing need.

In the mid-1980s, Tory-run Westminster Council became one of the most corrupt local authorities in British history. It is a story with many dimensions. This is about one of them: www.onlondon.co.uk/true-london-... #london #truelondon

Happy 76th Birthday, Tom Waits!

The sky is darkening like a stain. Something is going to fall like rain. And it won’t be flowers. Auden ‘The two’ * I have been known to have fun at parties

'The whole system is near-criminal in its ability to harvest public money so that exploitative providers can provide inadequate housing and support to vulnerable people' Observer story on supported exempt accommodation in Birmingham observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

In the 80s/90s families spent years sharing one room in a B&B-I’ve stark memories of Bayswater homelessness hotels. Now children can spend their entire young lives in Temporary Accommodation. It’s good that the government recommits to a 6-week max in B&B. Next: LHA unfrozen and social homes built

Thanks to everyone who helped with this, all over the country. A team effort for our children. Now to get it all done. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6931e2...

Our Deputy Chief Executive, @danwilsoncraw.bsky.social, spoke to The Times about “unethical” ways letting agents are trying to avoid the new rules in the Renters’ Rights Act. Read more👇 www.thetimes.com/life-style/p...

This is vile and so so wrong. GB News is the TV version of X. Extreme racism like this should not be platformed as ‘news.’ It is absolutely disgusting and another attempt to drag ‘debate’ to the right and destabilise our democracy.

This is a borderline psychotic thing to put in a newspaper.

This is a great and welcome post. Bookmark!

The discussion on this point on the Today programme just now did not make for a calm start to the day.

Love this image so much, probably because it invokes an almost painful nostalgia for a world I never knew. Yet 2025 me is choked with anxiety about the health and safety violations.

This story is starting to make me feel I’m going slightly mad - maybe RR overdid the gloom, but the tax rises are paying for a) the welfare U-turns b) the £10bn-plus increase in headroom c) scrapping the two child limit d) bits of other spending eg higher local gov costs 🤷🏻‍♀️

Somehow this got missed off the "Benefit Street" front pages today

It's such a bizarre framing. Labour MPs think taking 450k kids out of poverty is putting the country first! That's why they wanted it to happen! It's not because they personally benefit.

"It's amazing what people get so angry about and on that side it's lifting children out of poverty," says Rachel Reeves as Conservative MPs try to shout down her announcement that she is scrapping the two child benefit cap which has pushed hundreds of thousands of children below the poverty line

💯yes to this.

This is another thing I had to cut from my piece - the minimum wage is best understood as an anti-poverty measure *for single or childless couples at the start of their working lives*. But it's not a lever that helps most people struggling to make ends meet. Only cash transfers do that.

A million low-income households have lost an average of £1,500 each because of Local Housing Allowance Freeze, says new analysis by @theifs.bsky.social ifs.org.uk/articles/fre...

I think we have tested to destruction the idea, argued by Ministers during the welfare ‘reforms’ post-2010, that if you cut help for low income renters, the market will respond by reducing rents.

Vote Tory in Westminster; get Reform. The second Westminster Conservative defection in recent months to Reform. Given how right wing some of the current Tory candidates are who else might make the jump particularly after the election in May? www.mylondon.news/news/zone-1-...

On asylum there seems to be no attempt to analyse different parts of the problem in a way that allows serious public discussion 🧵

Councils are on their knees after 15 years of financial squeeze. Enforcement (against poor quality accommodation, illegal evictions, illegal short lets) is difficult and expensive. Yet without enforcement capacity we won’t get the best from the legislation….

This is very much the majority/median position in the Labour Party, among Labour voters and the general public.

This is seriously the biggest change in tenancy law in 37 years. A huge thing, which will change renting short and long term.

But a) we were young and b) Stevie Wonder had just released Fulfillingness’ First Finale so obviously most people think ‘swings and roundabouts’

We have a date for the enactment of the Renters’ Rights Act. Excellent news for millions of private tenants across the country.

NOT NOW, CANNIBAL SOLAR STORM

A good example of someone using "economically inactive" to mean "available for work but choosing not to" and forgetting it covers students, early retirees, carers, severely disabled people, parents with very young children etc...

If this comes to pass then it really will be superb news.

Quick thread on the BBC and the political and societal significance of recent developments: One of the main reasons the UK has historically been so much less polarised than the US, is that Britain has a shared source of information, consumed and trusted by most people regardless of their politics.

This is lovely. As @cathfeely.bsky.social says ‘family history refuses to be contained’ and most of us know that to be true.

Donald Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives for inciting an insurrection. Why is the Director General of the BBC resigning?

How ever since Labour came to power, the British media has started to notice a whole series of problems they spent the previous 14 years completely ignoring www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/the-great-...

This Labour government is tackling England’s housing crisis by delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation. Today we’re launching the full details of our new £39 billion Social and Affordable Homes Programme 👇🏻 www.gov.uk/government/p...

A freeze to Local Housing Allowance is hard to reconcile with a child poverty strategy (especially if the government is prioritising the After Housing Costs income measure, as it was last I heard).