NEW: Migration Oxford podcast episode 🎙️ Should we be optimistic about the future of welcoming newcomers in UK cities? @jacquibroadhead.bsky.social, Director of the Global Exchange on Migration and Diversity, explores this important topic with host Rob McNeil. 🔊 podcasts.ox.ac.uk/how-welcomin...

It is a hybrid event, also on Zoom at 345pm zoom.us/meeting/regi...

In Oxford for a launch of Welcoming Cities by @jacquibroadhead.bsky.social at Kellogg College Covered on a podcast here podcasts.ox.ac.uk/how-welcomin...

Santa Claus is a woman. Always has been. (Always will be?) on.ft.com/43POQET

"This is more than simply a small group of concerned citizens pushing their interests. Attention, column inches, the cogs of public discourse and the ear of policymakers: none of this is an infinite resource. Whoever gets it denies it to someone else." We have a housing crisis, this is not it.

We live in a world where public spending is consistently framed as 'bad' or a 'drain' and the benefits of public spending (including future reduction of costs) are ignored or viewed with suspicion. This inhibits long term thinking and stops us from viewing public services as an investment.

We now know that the 2010s were a lost decade for economic growth and productivity - characterised by low public and private investment. As my former Treasury Committee colleague says, our economic forecasts should properly count the benefits of spending and the damage of cuts.

The impact of migration on the OBR's forecasts (and the overall discussion on the impact of migration on the economy as a net positive) is a shoe that has been waiting to drop for a while...

Loudly for those at the back, the OBR estimates that every net fewer 100k migrants creates an additional £7bn hole that has to be found from somewhere else.

In the latest 'tackling the asylum backlog' news, this week @privateeyenews.bsky.social reported that the Home Office has cut (CUT!) the number of asylum caseworkers by 407 since 2024, a 16.5% cut (down to 2057.) The backlog is the main reason for hotel use, so this is another baffling decision.

Today's 70% fall in net migration to 205,000 was not one of the six stories in BBC ten o'clock news. Ta massive assymetry in whether rises in immigration and falls in immigration are considered newsworthy by broadcasters Down by 140k isn't thought to be. Up by 140k undoubtedly would be.

The UK, where the day after a decision to take half a million children out of poverty, the media & political world has been full of sneering at those same children & their families, labelling them as ‘Benefits Street’, while the same people are moaning about a tax on £2m mansions. Shameful stuff.

One thing that is continually lost in the 2 child limit debate is that annually child poverty costs at least £39.4bn in public spending and lower future earnings. As well as a moral imperative, lifting children out of poverty is also an investment in future economic prosperity.

The fundamental political-economy for the government is that is objectively implementing a soft left economic policy on speed whilst being hated by lots of left leaning people because of its other policies and rhetoric.

Most of the public think net migration increased last year, when in fact numbers halved. New findings from the Ipsos/British Future Immigration Attitudes Tracker show that 56% of the public thinks immigration increased last year. Just 1 in 6 realise it was down www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Taking massive numbers of children out of poverty is unequivocally a good thing.

Why the two-child limit has to go, in a chart.

The Chancellor has scrapped the two-child limit, benefitting more than half a million families. In April 2025, out of families impacted by the limit: - 6 in 10 had 3 children. - 6 in 10 had at least one person in work. - And 6 in 10 are receiving a health or disability benefit.

Our @refugeecouncil.bsky.social analysis suggests that by the next election in 2029 the Home Office could need to process around 100,000 status reviews - about the same size as the current asylum backlog.

The last Labour government had multiple integration strategies - this government appears to be pursuing the opposite. It’s also a massive administrative challenge. Instead of only processing one ILR application at the 5 year mark, it could be 8 applications over 20 years.

Since Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah became the first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as a cause of death, nationwide progress on air pollution hasn’t happened fast enough. I urge everyone to back Ella's Law – a healthier, fairer future for Britain’s children is at stake.

Latest piece for the @thehousemag.bsky.social, on the island of strangers speech and similar. Also ft Bob Hawke. www.politicshome.com/opinion/arti...

In the UK 75% of ppl with graduate parents attend higher education 42% of ppl with nongraduate parents attend HE It therefore appears that the social class gap in well paid jobs is primarily driven by different HE participation rates. If more working class kids went to HE, earnings gaps wd narrow

Labour will lose in Scotland, Wales to left challengers, and probably heavily in London too, through low turnout, defection to progressives, some losses to populists as a smaller contribution. Rebuilding that with an "but its us or Reform" basis may be harder than the current leadership acknowledges

I’ve written a piece on the curious lack of media and political interest in the issues faced by our national @britishlibrary.bsky.social. This is strange given we live in a world where ideas, knowledge and research are a long-term source of innovation and insight www.cityam.com/the-british-...

It feels like we are pretty lost when the Home Office publish this data and yet seemingly don't believe it (afaik there is absolutely no reason not to believe it.)

Going to leave you with a Home Office chart from their most recent asylum stats so you can decide whether the UK is a magnet for asylum seekers with a uniquely generous asylum system www.gov.uk/government/s...

"Compared with other European countries, the UK received the fifth largest number of asylum seekers in the year ending March 2025, and the seventeenth largest intake when measured per head of population" - Home Office data www.gov.uk/government/s...

The Home Office actually published a quite good review of the evidence on asylum decision making in May this year which answers some of these very valid questions though there is precious little evidence it has had any impact on policy thinking www.gov.uk/government/p...

It is hardly the most important facet of the new asylum policy, but who exactly are the Home Office decision makers twiddling their thumbs and in desperate need of tens of thousands of additional decisions to make each year?

@jrf-uk.bsky.social has joined 100+ others to call on the government to fully scrap the two-child limit. Every child deserves the best start in life. Fully scrapping the two-child will deliver a decisive shift in child poverty, boosting children’s opportunities and the UK's potential.

Remain intrigued by efforts to link up skills planning and migration policy. New Skills England report setting out priority skills needs to 2030 and references link with the Migration Advisory Cttee, but still does not include migration in its estimates. www.gov.uk/government/p...

New from FM: Epping Council loses challenge to use of hotel as asylum accommodation | Sonia Lenegan

Chancellor offers the first straightforward acknowledgement of the principled argument for abolishing the 2-child limit that we’ve had from Labour’s top brass since Starmer’s 2023 announcement that he wouldn’t change it

When I was first elected, evidence showed it would take 193 years to bring London's air pollution within legal limits. Due to our policies, we've done it in 9. In Brazil this week, we showed that cities are giving the world reason to hope when it comes to tackling the climate emergency.

The BBC is now in a fight for its life. It enemies will be happy www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/media/...

NEW: Perceptions of division in the UK have reached their highest point since trends began in 2020, while the share who believe the nation is divided by "culture wars" specifically has risen from 46% to 67% today Our study with @ipsosintheuk.bsky.social reveals growing culture war tensions 🧵 ⬇️

It shouldn’t be forgotten that a big piece of Mamdani’s campaign was simply “cities are cool and lots of people enjoy living in them” which in and of itself dismantles alot of rightwing talking points

3 conclusions from recent policy proposals & discussion on immigration -Many still do not know why the Windrush injustice occurred just a few years ago -Some of the sympathy & apologies then issued were dishonest -Some do know why it occurred & think the hostile environment didn't go far enough

The reassertion or adoption of this principle is good news & should be welcomed

Really looking forward to this discussion this afternoon!

In the exact opposite of the public discourse, net migration is expected to continue to tumble. This is due to policy choices (exactly as the increase was due to policy choices.) As the government does not frame migration in terms of trade offs, it has no language to outline the risks of this.

The Local Housing Allowance freeze increases the cost burden on councils through the provision of temporary accommodation. Councils in England's net temporary accommodation costs reached £2.8 billion last year, a more than three-fold in the last decade. Read the Housing Outlook ➡️ buff.ly/iZ80qbA

What I think this demonstrates is 3 things (1) This mass deportation policy is wildly at odds with public opinion in general, and with opinion of many sensible Tory voters, members & MPs (2) Many ppl defending the policy didn't know what was in it (3) Informing and pressuring them therefore works

💡Happening this week! Welcoming Cities, Arrival Infrastructure: Introductory Panel. Join us this Thursday at 3:45 PM for a discussion on welcoming, arrival, integration, and inclusion in cities as sites of migration. ➡️ Register here: zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Important point from this blog which illuminates the shocking (but unsurprising) new report on asylum accommodation - 74% of HO staff are operational, but they are divorced from policy making teams, so operational insights don't practically feed into policy making

My thoughts on the recently shared Nick Timothy review for the @instituteforgovernment.org.uk: www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/shab...

And crucially, they highlight the 2026 break clause and 2029 contract end. If the government is serious about reform, it can’t sleepwalk into another five years of the same failed contracts. Full report here ⬇️ committees.parliament.uk/committee/83...

Lots of appreciation last evening for @jacquibroadhead.bsky.social launching her fabulous and very timely book.

A lot of people simply don't or won't believe this, but it is true and, similar to the net economic contribution of migrants, is one of those facts that sit outside the political debate because for some baffling reason politicians can't engage with them, even though it is the HO which publishes it!