This is the most alarming story I’ve read today. Giving up the fight before it’s started

How the right-wing newspapers still manage to dictate BBC coverage. Almost all of the Beeb's big post-Budget interview with the Chancellor devoted to asking whether she is a liar. Next to nothing on any of the big measures announced this week www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/the-real-b...

Populist Right: 'We're not racist, we just want immigrants to integrate & contribute.' Immigrant gains BA, MA, works for charities, marries a 'Brit', becomes Brexit-supporting, lockdown-sceptic Tory MP, then Deputy Speaker of HoC. Populist Right: 'People born abroad shouldn't be allowed to do this.'

"The disconnect between what politicians pretend the army can perform and the reality of what an underfunded, shoddily-billeted, morale-depleted, poorly paid and badly supplied soldiery at risk of prosecution through legal activism can deliver is a national disgrace." 👇👇👇

The "don't have an extra kid if you can't afford it" brigade get awfully upset when you suggest they don't stay in their £2m house if they can't afford it, don't they?

I have this whole theory, wch I can't get distracted by, which is that LLMs are going to make traditional written policy consultations completely pointless. AI will write the submissions, AI will read the submissions then play back the statistically most likely series of words

This used to be Politics 101, but we've become so confused about what parliamentary democracy is that it's now regarded as some kind of humiliation if elected representatives get to influence policy. More of this, please!

Yes, govt bent to pressure from MPs over the benefit cap. That's how parliamentary democracy works - and why it's a good thing. It means a leader has to carry a wider movement with them. There's a counter-pressure to the strategists in No. 10. It matters that we elect a Parliament, not just a PM.

Today's migration stats illustrate the migration doom loop in action... (from my presentation at the IMF last week)

👇🧵👇😀 (CMS = Content Management System)

I'm still really angry about all the pre-Budget leaking. Hugely damaging to the UK. The exit tax rumours in particular. The uncertainty didn't end with the Budget - I expect an ongoing impact on business confidence and domestic/foreign investment. Indefensible.

Like all too many children in the UK today, I grew up poor. I am no longer poor, and I am delighted to pay higher taxes to reduce - or ideally eliminate - child poverty. 1/3

BTW. Never ever schedule uploads of market sensitive or time sensitive material folks. It only takes a person putting 11.30 instead of 1.30 by mistake and there you are.

Massive shoutout out to whoever handles the Royal Canadian Air Force’s social media account. They responded to every single comment on their already very solid Trans Day of Remembrance post and they responded like this…

Hello, is that Russian Supreme Military Command? SACEUR here. Now, about your invasion of E. Europe. Could you possibly put it off for a month and a half so we can get our troops and armour over from the North Sea ports? on.ft.com/4oP5Jbc via @FT

Banx, briilliant as ever, in the @financialtimes.com last week.

Intrigued that the Labour Party has a Denmark policy - seize jewellery and assets from asylum seekers - and also an anti-Denmark policy - don’t tax middle earners enough to support welfare state.

Talking to my mum she's mentioned a few times that, in the fairly quiet town where she lives, it's more and more common for the older people she chats to when out and about to say increasingly racist and ill-informed things mixed in with morning pleasantries. What are Labour playing at?

The best way to understand what is actually “driving the small boats” is “if something carried a one in a 100 risk of death, would you do it it it gave you ten more years of healthy life?”

A counter-claim here would be a last resort. The objective should be to extract BBC from litigation, not tie it in more messily and expensively. A counterclaim would give Trump all the rights of a defendant as well as a plaintiff. Would be a nightmare, given his litigation game playing.

There are now >5,000 individuals whose ISAs are worth >£1 million. Hardly surprising that Ms Reeves is considering limiting this tax exemption.

The Resolution Foundation should take this as a sign of support from the editor of the Times that they haven't chosen to send out one of their credible, economically rated writers, but someone who's actually run a similarly-redistribution minded think tank, and former Tory candidate to boot

Reform's plans for the civil service (and for the House of Lords and Judicial Review) are discussed here:- ukcivilservant.substack.com/p/reform-uks...

Please God can we go back to the days of Budget purdah. Two months of quiet from Treasury ministers, spads, and officials whilst they put the budget together might help to wind down this incessant speculation.

This chart may surprise younger generations but, as Iain Mansfield points out in the 🧵, it's not all good news.

Former UVA president Jim Ryan, who resigned over the summer due to pressure from the Trump Administration, just shared this 12-page letter with the Faculty Senate, detailing his experience with the Board of Visitors and DOJ. It's a surreal--and troubling--read. drive.google.com/file/d/1Is6x...

A friend of mine job hunting this year eventually concluded that the only way to get a job in her sector now is to get friends/contacts to vouch for you specifically. Any open advertised job is basically so overwhelmed by assisted applicants it's impossible to stand out

The @nestauk.bsky.social & IFS "Be the Chancellor" tax calculator is just as nerdy! (We calculate the tax for the exchequer, rather than the individual) Prettiness is in the eye of the beholder, but our pink is lovely @danneidle.bsky.social @helenmiller.bsky.social www.nesta.org.uk/data-visuali...

Reform's plans for the civil service (and for the House of Lords and Judicial Review) are discussed here:- ukcivilservant.substack.com/p/reform-uks...

There's a certain type of politician that needs to believe themselves to be too moral to get involved in the dirtiness of politics and gets caught in the cognitive dissonance of hiring other people to do it for them. Gordon Brown was like that with Ed Balls and Damian McBride.

This is an appalling judgment to read. Two Chief Constables found in contempt of court for misleading the court about the existence of video footage. But this was only discovered when the matter made it to the Court of Appeal. Incredible perseverance. www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWC...

Interesting exchange below. I agree that many specialist leaders of specialist Arms Length Bodies are poor managers. (ONS = recent example?) It can be a good idea to ensure they are supported by an experienced manager who does not need to have similar professional expertise.

Lots of generations can be experienced in/near the Tower of London. This photo contains parts of the Tower itself, its Armistice Day poppy display and the Shard.

Crisis at the Critic Sketchcasting Corporation!

Maybe Keir should demand the heads of major US news networks any time they imply Britain is on the brink of civil war or that we live under sharia law. Or does it not work both ways?

Depressing that the BBC has so little inherent institutional strength, it is kicked about so easily. This is not good sign for our polity.

Just absolutely classic BBC. You've just broadcast the most successful programme of the year, uniting Gen Z kids online and Boomers on broadcast in a return to appointment television. And instead of celebrating, your DG reigns due to a made-up right-wing scandal.

I have used this mental glitch to rig "stakeholder sessions" with senior managers and academics.

Chris Mason is what happens when a Hospital Radio DJ, whose sole qualification appears to be a sort of soporific inoffensiveness, is somehow promoted to BBC Politics Editor - a position that demands unflinching insight, objectivity, and sharpness. It's like a puddle trying to be the ocean.

Important, timely, analysis by @lgilbert.co debunking the commonly used line that "migrants are a burden". Shows that migrants are overwhelmingly bet fiscal contributors. Basically, you target migration, you crash the country.

Very good politically-aware discussion of pay-per-mile road taxes. 👇👇

🧵 Here’s why a left-wing Democrat winning in New York is proof that Keir Starmer needs to move further left to win in small red wall towns in Britain. (1/245)

Constitutional guardrails depend on politicians & others adhering to settled standards of behaviour & other norms. These guardrails seem weaker these days. So would public law help c/servants restrain an anti-democratic government? Ben Yong thinks not: ukcivilservant.substack.com/p/could-the-...

If you want to understand the emotional end intellectual malaise of British politics, this piece by @mjrobbins.com is a pretty good place to start. It effectively describes a country that has gone mad. open.substack.com/pub/martinro...

It's sometimes hard to remember that public services can be delivered with pride and self confidence

Kew Gardens were lovely today.

Could the civil service restrain a Reform government? TL:DR No! A brilliant recent lecture by @bymyong.bsky.social is here: ukcivilservant.substack.com/p/could-the-...

There should be a word - maybe the Germans have one? - for when politicians get caught up on pettifogging rules they happily imposed on the rest of the population.

The Chancellor continues her assault on regulators:- ukcivilservant.substack.com/p/the-chance...