NEW: the Iran war may have cost households nearly £1,000 a year by 2029 – and wiped out any gains in living standards for this parliament! Why is Britain so bad at withstanding energy shocks? 1/2

Amid all the talk of freezing the price of groceries, I looked at what goes into the cost of a pint of milk. Two things jump out... 1/3

Voters like the idea of cutting welfare in principle, but singling out an undeserving group — eg stripping winter fuel payments from pensioners, or reducing payments for those unable realistically to work — quickly becomes unconscionable (£) www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/... By @tomcalver.bsky.social

Are resident doctors still underpaid? The BMA’s case for industrial action is undermined by the way the union uses data. 1/6 www.thetimes.com/article/895f...

There are two big problems with the triple lock One: it makes future spending impossible to predict. If we keep it, pension spending by 2050 could be a just a little higher than it is now. Or, if we have anything like recent volatility, it could be tens of billions higher. 1/5

1/ Good explainer in today’s Sunday Times from @tomcalver.bsky.social on why renewables are not cheap. I’d add this: The wholesale market price of electricity is the *short-run* marginal cost. When renewables dominate, it will often be close to zero.

The Greens are doing well in urban areas with insufficient incomes and poor access to housing. They have gained traction among the growing cohort who have gone to university and moved to the city but are struggling to keep up. (£) www.thetimes.com/comment/colu... By @tomcalver.bsky.social

Green support is rising under Zack Polanski. Who are its new voters? The party's new voter base is younger, student-y, more female, and less financially comfortable than their 2024 voters. They are the heirs of Corbynism: 39% of current supporters backed Labour in 2019 1/2

Will the rush to net zero save us from future energy price shocks? Since 2004, the UK has engaged in a risky experiment: generating less electricity. The bet is that enough wind will reverse that by 2030. But gas – overtaxed and neglected – will still matter www.thetimes.com/article/0227...

This week's column: choose your university wisely Post-1992 providers have been rapidly expanding business, law and computing courses. Yet the returns for students 5 years after graduating from these courses have, to date, been woeful 1/4

The death of the housing ladder The average income of a first-time buyer is £61k. But the average second or third-time buyer is earning £91k! Poor price growth in starter homes, plus rising moving costs, is trapping Brits in the first homes they buy www.thetimes.com/article/9302...

Scrapping the Equality Act would not conjure up better schools in coastal towns, or new graduate jobs in post-industrial areas. The real divide is between thriving places and surviving ones, which is a far more expensive problem to fix. (£) www.thetimes.com/comment/colu... By @tomcalver.bsky.social

Here's the real reason the government keeps freezing the student loan threshold The part of the loan that's repaid is classed as an asset on Treasury spreadsheets. But when plan 2 student loans started to be repaid, the percentage received back was less than expected... 1/4

What happens if Britain’s population starts shrinking - which could happen as soon as 2029? Really enjoyed recording this edition of @thetimes.com's story podcast podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/w...

Is the UK’s official child poverty measure about to be revised downwards? The survey used by the DWP to measure poverty misses an astonishing £43bn of benefits income a year! 1/4

Great article by @tomcalver.bsky.social on why income is often a poor indicator of whether someone is in poverty. Income is under-reported in the main survey used for poverty stats. A correction to that could soon shrink our official poverty figures overnight. www.thetimes.com/article/fb88...

None of this is an argument for mass sackings or football manager turnover rates. Stability and institutional memory are important. But we accept a system in which officials are much more likely to die than be sacked for weak performance (£) www.thetimes.com/comment/colu... By @tomcalver.bsky.social

This week's column: how can Scotland afford tax cuts? Its tax system may be more progressive the than rest of UK's. But the answer is not because it has cracked the code of Scandinavian-style democracy: it is because England pays the difference www.thetimes.com/article/ede4...

This week's column is about how we spend our most valuable asset of all: time Life has become less obviously strenuous. For women, unpaid work is being replaced with paid work. Men enage in more leisure than ever. Both sexes sleep more. Why, then, does life feel rushed? 1/3

What can 40 years of song lyrics tell us about society? I analysed the lyrics of 1,600 pop songs going back to 1985. Our music appears to be getting gloomier, less future-looking and more self-obsessed 1/6

Net migration was negative as recently as the 1970s. The difference was that Britain had a surplus of young people. We have never before been an ageing country that is also shrinking. (£) www.thetimes.com/comment/colu... Interesting by @tomcalver.bsky.social Britain on trend to shrink + consequences

Britain’s population could start shrinking sooner than we think Successive changes to immigration rules are seeing visa applications plummet. Meanwhile, revisions to data - plus an expected student exodus next year - should send the official emigration figures higher 1/4

Britain’s hospitals average 90% bed occupancy throughout the year, and 95% in winter. This is not normal! 1/3

I am helping man the phone lines for @thetimes.com Christmas appeal! We are raising money for three amazing charities this year, covering restorative justice, loneliness and bicycles! Give us a call on 020 7782 5555 if you can spare anything and fancy a chat

Great to see @tomcalver.bsky.social using this IFS chart in his (excellent) piece about the UK's economic and fiscal travails. The combination of low growth and high debt interest really does make for some unpleasant fiscal arithmetic. It's a tough time to be Chancellor.

After Liz Truss's mini-budget, just 15 per cent of people felt the Tories were the best party at handling the economy Today, the equivalent figure for Labour is 12 per cent www.thetimes.com/article/470f...

Her decisions may have had a small impact on borrowing costs & inflation. Other factors, like BoE policies & decades of poor growth have done more combined damage. Perhaps Reeves’s greatest failure has been to not see all of this coming (£) www.thetimes.com/comment/colu... By @tomcalver.bsky.social

Superb work from @tomcalver.bsky.social and @jburnmurdoch.ft.com showing how the UK's upper-middle classes have born the brunt of our 20yr long productivity stagnation, whereas lower earners have been insulated from this via ongoing minimum wage hikes, compressing earnings across the spectrum.

Fair-minded discussion by @tomcalver.bsky.social on the Brexit impact. I'm more worried about the trade data though - goods exports volumes declining since 2019 is a big problem, and finance and transport services have significantly lagged other advanced economies. www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

Fascinating as always by @tomcalver.bsky.social on the impact of Brexit. Would UK be better off without Brexit? www.thetimes.com/article/860b... 1/2

Strip out London, and Britain’s GDP per capita is just 3% larger than Poland’s 🤯

🇵🇱 My @thetimes column: Poland’s economic miracle 12 out of 17 Polish regions are now richer than West Wales. It has faster internet, cheaper electricity and more high speed rail than Britain When it comes to regional development it’s the UK, not Poland, that needs to catch up 1/3

Great chart from @tomcalver.bsky.social showing how a third of Britain’s economic output in the mid-1990s comprised fossil fuel extraction, electricity generation and mining. And financial services then stepped in before the financial crisis www.thetimes.com/article/a394...

NEW: Since the start of the Ukraine invasion, 17 out of 27 EU nations have spent more on Russian oil and gas than they’ve sent to Ukraine in aid! Despite an oil embargo, Europe is still sending £1bn a month on Russian energy. This week’s column: www.thetimes.com/article/dd9d...

Which country works the hardest? 🇺🇸 = long hours, minimal holidays 🇬🇧 = long hours, modest holidays 🇩🇪 = modest hours, lots of holidays This week’s @thetimes.com column 🔗 www.thetimes.com/article/5463...

"The real mystery is why, during a period of mass migration, the number of foreign prisoners hasn't risen by more." Good piece by @tomcalver.bsky.social (IMO bottom line is that migration/nationality status has little correlation, +be or -ve, with criminality). www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

NEW: Are migrants more likely to commit crimes than non-migrants? Here’s what the data does and doesn’t show. 1/8 @thetimes.com www.thetimes.com/article/72b6...

Data finally proves it: online dating leads to worse relationships This week’s column is about choice overload, the importance of shared context, and how too much data - when it comes to dating - is a bad thing @thetimes.com www.thetimes.com/article/82b7...

This is what $10,000 invested in Palantir on election day would be worth now. But can you do any better? Introducing @thetimes.com trading game. How much money can you make in 9 months? Free link 👇 www.thetimes.com/article/086b...

This is what $10,000 invested in Palantir on election day would be worth now. But can you do any better? Introducing @thetimes.com trading game. How much money can you make in 9 months? Free link 👇 www.thetimes.com/article/086b...

Imagine you could go back to election day in November 2024, with $10k and everything you know now. Could you successfully dodge Trump’s tariffs and outperform the market? Play our stock trading game ⬇️

If you could go back in time, to the day of the 2024 US election, with $10,000 US dollars and everything you know now, how much money do you think you could make? Try for yourself and watch how Trump's first six months in office have affected the markets. www.thetimes.com/us/news-toda...

This week’s @thetimes.com column is about how we’re bad at investing Decades of data shows that rather than investing for profit, UK savers are motivated by pessimism This “when shit hits the fan, save all you can” approach is bad for our finances, and bad for the economy 1/5

This week’s @thetimes.com column: what is a comfortable salary in Britain? Money does buy you happiness - but there’s a definite hump between £50k and £80k 👇 www.thetimes.com/article/f4dd...

Britain’s grocery prices used to be the envy of Europe; not anymore. This week’s column on food inflation 🔗 www.thetimes.com/article/5c2c...

A third of people in Britain now think the Covid pandemic was exaggerated to control people 🤯🤯 And 22% think the moon landings were staged! One of many striking findings from new @moreincommonuk.bsky.social report on shattered Britain. My write up here: 🔗 www.thetimes.com/article/bb0f...

🧵 This week's column is all about council tax! It's England's most hated tax, and hasn't been touched since 1993. The withdrawal of subsidies has made it even more regressive over time Yet don't expect it to be reformed anytime soon: nobody can agree what to change it to 1/3

Scientists spent much of the 20th century worrying about overpopulation. Their fears went unfounded: humans became richer as our numbers grew. Now, demographers are starting to worry about the opposite problem Review in @thetimes.com www.thetimes.co.uk/article/afte...

One down, four to go!

Rising wages, falling waiting lists: an unpopular take, but in a few ways, life in Britain has been (slowly) improving over the past year. But it doesn’t feel that way — and that’s a problem for Labour Free to read: 🔗 www.thetimes.com/article/33c0...