Social Justice Warriors, sir. Thousands of them.

Unconditional cash transfers for the poorest are a very good thing. End of.

This year's Xmas movie turned out to be Armageddoh. First time I'd seen it. Really quite astonishing how bad it is.

Antidote to the madness.

I don't think we should mock Geldof tbh. As far as I can tell he cared passionately and was desperately trying to do the right thing with the tools available to a pop singer. People who do this often get attacked both for virtue signalling and for not being virtuous enough, which is a bit crap IMHO.

"Much of MMT is neither new nor wrong: it’s just standard economic theory presented in different language. The disagreement arises not over whether government can compel the central bank to finance its spending, but to what extent government should do this." criticalfinance.org/2025/12/19/w...

"Every time I pull a lever" says the Prime Minister. This dead metaphor is killing his ability to get things done. There aren't any levers. There's only leadership. howtorunacountry.substack.com/p/there-aren...

I love @instituteforgovernment.org.uk very much, but goodness me this annual conference line-up is a bit stale. www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/event/govern...

🔔 New report out today 🔔 🪴 Rewilding Civic Life 🪴 Today at @kinship.works, we’re publishing a Working Paper that pulls together the evidence from Big Local, one of the world’s biggest-ever experiments in revitalising civic life and restoring social capital. 1/n www.kinship.works/publications...

I *loved* the best of Twitter and Bsky is a pallid replacement. But X contrived to replace stimulating discussion with ragebait. I found myself being edged into angry political discussions I didn't want to be part of. I am not obliged to use a product that's farming me for outrage.

Fond memories of the days when I spent a lot of time with very senior civil servants. Never have you met a more powerless crew. They knew what wasn't working but somehow never thought they could fix it. These people literally ran the country.

Let's assume MMT is right (I find it interesting descriptively). The idea that it allows you to spend as much as you like with no constraints except inflation glosses over the fact that inflation is a really, really big constraint.

Blue Labour covering itself in glory once again. www.desmog.com/2025/11/28/l...

“Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic and made way for parks, people-streets and bike-lanes.” Better for the climate, better for health, better for livability and quality of life. Common sense. Such a no-brainer, it’s remarkable that more cities HAVEN’T done the same.

You will be visited by three spirits.

Wrote about how serious games can help public sector organisations align their structure with their purpose. Shout if you think the game we've developed and/or the thinking behind it can help you design (government) organisations better! openpolicy.blog.gov.uk/2025/12/09/s...

I cannot overstate the ridiculous level of uncertainty we are working under in #localgov. Ministers have completely reset the entire funding system and we won't know what it means until next week. Our budget papers need to be finalised in mid-January. It's no way to run a country.

TIL about a memorial ceremony in Iceland in 2019 to mark the end of a glacier, changing the place name from Okjökull to Ok (jökull = glacier). Uncompromising wording on the bronze plaque: "This is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it".

From elected councillors to practitioners, from trade union halls and chapels to libraries and school classrooms, people learn it, live it, contextualise it and defend it, often in defiance of the systems they work in www.ucl.ac.uk/policy-lab/n...

Agree with this. No one is supporting Polanski because they think he will be PM. Labour's challenge is they want to have their left wing cake while eating more of the vote to their right, and voters are punishing them for it.

Yeah the anti-Corbyn playbook doesn't work on someone who is never going to PM.

Free speechwriting tip for the PM: www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

Among the weirder things about that Farage 70s TV meltdown is his misreading of Till Death Do Us Part, which was for its time a woke left mockery of racist old farts.

Not crazy about all of Galloway's language and examples, but I don't think it's bad to suggest men should be economically productive, take fatherhood seriously and protect those they love. Many young men need a positive masculine identity, and we don't progress equality by denying this.

My song of the year is Steve's Lava Chicken and I'm owning it.

There's a touch of sneery centrist dad about this thread. Your regular reminder that the only economist who backed Brexit was the risible Patrick Minford, and he won.

A wonderful example of why disinvestment in arts and humanities is too clever by half. These are fundamental to a society's curiosity and imagination!

Fancy reading an unashamedly unfinished history of relational public services? @nick80.bsky.social asked his Linkedin network if such a thing existed. @simonparker.bsky.social, @antlerboy.com and I had a go, drawing on 200 comments on Nicks post. Its a fascinating story www.ucl.ac.uk/policy-lab/n...

I goddamn love this story.

A rare foray back into the world of thinking. Delighted to get this collaborative piece on relational public services out into the world.

A Hundred Origin Stories – an Unfinished History of Relational Public Services. Simon Parker, Becca Dove and Benjamin Taylor explore the history of relational public services, ahead of Britian Renewed 2026. www.ucl.ac.uk/policy-lab/n...

Last month @nick80.bsky.social posted on LinkedIn seeking an accessible history of relational public services. I'm pleased to say myself, @beccadove2.bsky.social and @antlerboy.com have tried to rise to the challenge. We know it's incomplete but we hope it's useful. www.ucl.ac.uk/policy-lab/n...

You are a wealth tax that reduces inequality. I am a property tax that funds local government services. We are not the same.

My grandfather was a farm labourer. I am a senior local government officer. Social mobility is bloody marvellous and working with your hands in a mine or a cowshed is not inherently good for the soul.

Tourist Levy (tax) incoming www.gov.uk/government/n...

Middle class people and their bloody packaged lattes. Soak them all I say.

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

Worth more than £2m when? Today? Or in 1992 when all the other council tax bands were set?

There is too much polling. And it all shows that people support more taxes for someone else.

HMT is the Wizard of Oz. Secretive, forbidding and powerful, it speaks its own language and demands you explain yourself on its terms. Treasury civil servants thrive because only they know how the system really works. But pull back the curtain and it's just a finance dept stuffed with accountants.

Very niche council tax moan incoming... the fair funding review penalises parts of the country with below-average tax and says it wants to move to full equalisation. But you can only raise council tax by 4.99% and we all take the max. So places with low rates can never catch up.

This normalisation of neo-Nazism is off the scale. Stop.

New @resolutionfoundation.org @safety-nets.bsky.social report on the localisation of social security since 2013: Support delivered by local authorities isn't well understood but is an increasingly important part of the social security system: real spending on it is now 122 times higher than 2010-11

He's very good, that Adrian Harvey.

For the love of god... the more left wing party is always red. NOT BLUE. Get with the programme yanks.

The Guardian continues to be the voice of the NIMBY class. And the good people of Cambridge continue to both desperately want good quality, sustainable transport and to passionately object to any scheme that might actually deliver it. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

From what I'm hearing London's political map is going to be absolutely transformed.

I forget who said it originally, but the thing about unsustainable policies is they can't go on forever.

This is interesting. Slight danger it's Foundations for Centrist Dads... but the idea that we should focus on the things we are actually good at seems sound. Certainly better than wishing we could start from somewhere else.

One thing I've greatly enjoyed over the past few days is hearing government advisors diss every salary sacrifice tax break as a middle class thing. Only shiraz sipping bastards cycle to work! Yacht-dwelling latte sippers don't need pensions! Ed Miliband drives an EV!