Michael Prescott and Sir Robbie Gibb both bailed out of journalism years ago, and enjoy lucrative careers in corporate PR. And now they are the arbiters of BBC editorial standards. Go figure www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/media/...

Seasonal colours come naturally to Violet the pet hen

So pleased someone’s written this piece More tax on pricey property? Great! But do it this crudely & could unravel - Howls in plush provincial homes as bills DOUBLE while no rise for pricier places in London - “my neighbour’s got one less room & suddenly I’m paying twice as much” + farmers?!

“Message discipline” is liable to lapse into “thought indiscipline”

As the Greens close in on Labour in the polls, the unprecedented Starmer experiment in dealing with the 'awkward Left' by outright banishment has been judged too dangerous to continue Has the rethink come too late? Time will tell www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

“Austerity” = the missing word in all the panic over failing prisons

A punchy (& for HMG chilling) riposte to suggestions that manifestos can be lightly shrugged off But in a splintered politics - where “27% will do nicely” - there could yet be a narrow electoral case for persuading Lab’s bewildered public-sector base that it stands for something by raising tax

My first op-ed! What a day for it. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Thread on the 4 looming Budget judgments

A useful reality check on the culture wars c/o British Social Attitudes (Immediately fed into the unreality machine…)

Amid many a silly “free speech” panic, here is a genuinely chilling case … Sheffield Hallam professor accuses the institution of negotiating “directly with a foreign intelligence service to trade my academic freedom for access to the Chinese student market” www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Local Housing Allowance rates have been realigned to market rents in just two of the last 13 years, and current Government policy is for these to remain frozen. But this ongoing freeze means that the 'affordability gap' between LHA rates and local rents is set to reach record levels next year.

Rare opportunity. We are currently recruiting for a member of our senior leadership team to take forward our work on productivity and growth. Do get in touch if interested. www.resolutionfoundation.org/about-us/opp...

Resolution Foundation and @adamcorlett.bsky.social doing excellent work here. More details in the FT story after. We've set up a system that creates an artificial bias against employment

Tom is correct. Turnout is always much lower among trade union levy-payers than party members - even electing their own general secretaries it can be 10% or less. I don't have the breakdown, but members had to join by 8 March to get a vote so current membership couldn't be derived even if I did.

The reported “16% turnout” in Lab’s deputy leadership race is a % of a base dominated by members of affiliated unions They generally don’t vote: in 2010 for the actual leadership affiliate turnout was 9% web.archive.org/web/20170201...

Creating whole new communities might just kindle the “ordinary hope” that Keir Starmer promised but has thus far failed to foster, writes @tom-clark.bsky.social.

The awkward thing here is that, whatever the merits of Lucy Powell, a huge part of the appeal to Labour members was that the PM had recently sacked her

New towns could be a last best hope for Britain’s flailing social democracy But only if it learns to stand up to vested interests www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/society/hous...

Not my area of expertise but I’ve seen a few s73 apps over last year where there have been updates to the plans due to fire safety etc but the developer has also used it as an opportunity to renegotiate the s106. Eg this one in Bristol

One last appeal for any housing type to help me on s73/s106 interaction? As I say, it’s a pleasing chance to outsmart ChatGPT…

Interesting detail — this was not the usual by-election story of the “stay at home party” setting the rhythm. Turnout was up!

Not close in the end

1. A splendid day for London developers - Fast-track planning for a 20% (instead of 35%) affordable homes - Emergency relief from Community Infrastructure Levy - Some design restrictions withdrawn But do any big brains understand this perhaps deliberately mangled para? www.gov.uk/government/n...

Useful thread ... As we (hopefully) go through the EV transition, £30-odd billion in fuel duties & VAT on petrol disappears Can't afford that. Could mean - say - all UK policing disappearing too So make a virtue of necessity & think about how to tax motoring properly

Extraordinary exchanges — almost feels as if this policy was being designed to engineer something like a new Windrush scandal

CPI for September — & therefore benefits next April — rising at 3.8% www.ons.gov.uk/economy/infl...

Extraordinary story @patrickmaguire.bsky.social & G Pogrund - No 10 briefing against PM’s own recent pick of Cab Sec - floating replacing with limelight-drawing Louise Casey If no longer a career civil service job, who would Farage go for?! www.thetimes.com/article/fa96...

There are close to one million young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) - but before we can fix this problem, we need to understand who these young people really are. We set this out in today's @resfoundation.bsky.social report... www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications...

Fascinating pre-GE read from Morgan McS (published July 25). Spots several problems looming, from child poverty to ‘defining enemies’, where HMG has nonetheless been on back foot. Also early evidence of the disdain for many natural allies that is making it so tough to hold Lab’s coalition together

Some Budget speculation re new Council Tax bands at top (good!) potentially assigned via extrapolations frm 1991 valuations (weird!) Cld be a big snare Errors -> howls of anguish But how do you know which houses need fresh valuation without revaluing all?! www.standard.co.uk/news/politic...

Lots of insight in this discussion on the many “missing links” in the way Britain does social security — whether that’s the gap between claimed rationale & policy, or between policy & delivery

Weird for a load of opinion from Barclays on the specific advantages of cutting social security to dominate write-up of @theifs.bsky.social Green Budget Barclays provided the macro forecasts Have they any authority on the Q of how to divvy up the pain? www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

The real pressures: bond-holders & (to less accute way) pensioners

Bit of soothing context

Trump building, apparently successfully, on the argument that however important minority representation may be, the right to redraw the political map for party advantage must come first Reads like satire but, reportedly, could soon gut voting rights act www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/suprem...

BBC asking Ofcom to allow LESS peak-time current affairs programming OK, so there’s iPlayer now But has public service current affairs coverage ever been more urgent? www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and...

In one crisp para — & the 2 charts he highlights — @chrisgiles.ft.com bursts a huge number of “welfare” myths www.ft.com/content/ee67...

High-profile departures from the US - congrats to @econ.uzh.ch

There’s a good policy argument for more prudence But politically, it means taxing more (or cutting more) to move a very uncertain forecast for a few years out. And when you’ve already got to tax a lot. A tricky sell!

BBC & HMG deciding Gaza’s (for how long?) peace is all due to the unique style of Trump Really? Any US President could surely have pressed this on a war-weary Israel. Potentially earlier In 1956 Eisenhower said a firm “stop” & Israel stopped www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/me...

"These two years have been so long one hardly dares believe that they could end"

Ed Whitehouse was a life force & nearest thing I’ve ever met to a bohemian economist. He’s died horribly young at 56. Friends said he’d turn up at the office at 3PM & yet still turn out real gold Lovely tribute by his former colleague @theifs.bsky.social Richard Disney ifs.org.uk/news/edward-...

Unpopulism — latest www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Reposting this extraordinary story while deleting my original quote post due to some subsequent reporting I want to thread in … bsky.app/profile/davi...

There's a fascinating case study to be done on the different strategies of Macron and Sánchez. Both emerged, against the odds, from centrist milieux in the mid-2010s to lead their countries since 2017/18. But their fates are totally different.

France is going full Fourth Republic -- and the self-styled saviours this time are a lot more sinister than De Gaulle www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Here’s this week’s column - if there are chunky tax rises coming, Labour needs a coherent story about who should contribute more - or the Budget risks falling as flat as the winter fuel cut. www.theguardian.com/business/202...