Ed Conway Profile picture
Nov 21, 2019 6 tweets 3 min read Read on X
In their costings document Labour have quietly increased their estimate of how much British Broadband will cost to run. Now £579m a year in cash terms. They were previously saying £230m but they now admit that was an NPV value (so a bit meaningless for the pub finances) Image
Labour have, to their credit, provided the costings for their manifesto. LibDems did too. Wonder if the Tories will (they didn't last time around)? Below are Labour's spending and revenue totals. Full doc labour.org.uk/wp-content/upl… We'll be breaking it down in today's #CampaignCheck ImageImage
Pretty crucial footnote in Labour's manifesto costings document. Whlie they say nationalisations will be "fiscally neutral", the small print here admits that they might actually cost money... Image
For reference, Labour are planning on spending much more than the LibDems. LibDems promised 62.9bn spending. BUT 12.5bn of that was recycled from the spending round. Labour are proposing spending £82.9bn ON TOP of the existing spending round commitments. So: a LOT
Labour predict their income tax rise on the wealthiest will only raise barely half of what it might have - presumably because people will work less or move abroad. In theory it should raise £11.4bn. In practice only £5.4bn. Not clear how much of that is Scotland... Image
Labour should be commended for providing far more detail about how they work out their numbers than last time around. You might disagree with them (are Britons really likely to react to higher taxes much as the Scandanavians do?) but at least the assumptions are there in the open ImageImageImage

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More from @EdConwaySky

Feb 24
🧵Three years ago, when Russia invaded Ukraine, EU, UK and other nations vowed to wage economic war, via the toughest sanctions in history.
So... how's that going?
We've spent months documenting what ACTUALLY happened. Here's a thread of threads on the REAL story on sanctions...
1. Flows of dual use items, including radar parts, drone components and other parts used by Russia to kill Ukrainians, carried on from the UK and Europe to Russia, via the backdoor (eg the Caucasus & Central Asia)
2. Of all the goods sent by the UK to Russian neighbours, few were as significant as luxury cars.
Having sanctioned Russia (the idea being to starve Putin's cronies of luxuries) Britain (and Europe more widely) began sending those sanctioned cars in via the backdoor instead
Read 9 tweets
Feb 16
If the main thing the US really wants out of a deal with Ukraine is "50% of its rare earth minerals" then I'm surprised this can't be wrapped up pretty quickly.
Why? Because Ukraine doesn't HAVE many rare earth resources.
Really. As far as anyone knows it's got barely any... Image
Yes, Ukraine has lots of coal and iron and manganese.
It also has some potential sizeable reserves of stuff like titanium, graphite and lithium. Not to mention some promising shale gas.
But of the 109 deposits identified by KSE only 3 are rare earth elements Image
Now in one respect I'm making a pedantic point: a lot of people say "rare earth elements" when they actually mean "critical minerals".
The two aren't the same thing.
Rare earth elements are a v specific bit of the periodic table: actually they're NOT all that rare.
More on them👇
Read 7 tweets
Jan 17
🧵THE STRANGE CASE OF THE ONE MILLION POUND FINE
The story of an obscure press release on an obscure website which begs intriguing questions about Britain's "unprecedentedly tough" sanctions regime & why perhaps it's not quite as tough as it looks.
You may find it unsettling
👇
Back in Aug 2023, HMRC published this notice in the bowels of its website. Don't worry if it doesn't ring a bell - it didn't get any publicity.
But it's a big deal. A £1m fine for breaking Russian sanctions rules.
The single biggest fine in relation to trade sanctions. Image
But there are some gaping questions about this fine.
First: who paid it? Is this a firm we've heard of? Second: what did they actually do wrong? And what did they do to deserve to pay such a large sum?
There are no answers on the website. That's it. Here's why this matters. Image
Read 17 tweets
Jan 10
🇨🇳I was rather hoping to be writing this from China, where the Chancellor has just landed for the most significant economic mission in ages - restarting Britain's formal economic relationship with China.
Alas I'm still in London.
But make no mistake; this visit is a BIG deal.
🧵
Why?
Because this is the first such trip since 2017.
UK econ relations with China have been getting frostier for 6 yrs or more.
Huawei have been thrown out; rules imposed on Chinese businesspeople; accusations of spying.
& around the world nations are imposing tariffs on China.
But the UK is doing something different.
While nearly every other G7 nation has imposed tariffs on Chinese electric cars, the UK hasn't. While most countries are going colder on China (most notably the US), the UK is now cosying up to China. Why?
Read 19 tweets
Jan 7
🔥GAS PRICES🔥
Why are they on the rise again?
Why is Europe (and the UK) deindustrialising at a rapid pace?
Why have we failed (contrary to the conventional wisdom) to increase the amount of non-Russian gas in our system?
Lots of questions. Some answers in my five min primer 👇
This is a big deal - and not widely understood:
The volume of non-Russian gas in the European system is FLAT vs before the Ukraine war.
That's not the conventional wisdom.
Back in 2022 many assumed imported LNG would help make up the lost gas from Russia.
That didn't happen... Image
Instead what happened is subtly, but importantly, different.
Yes, the amount of LNG coming in from the US rose quite sharply - albeit from a low base.
But that rise was only enough to compensate for the fact that domestic production in the UK/EU was FALLING at the same time Image
Read 13 tweets
Jan 5
🌾 VERTICAL FARMING🌾
Could it save the world?
I used to be sceptical. There are MANY challenges.
But then I visited one. & I'm no longer so sure.
So with the world facing future food crises here's a thread on the most interesting thing to happen to farming in a long time...
🧵 Image
Let's start with a chart.
A few weeks ago I did a deep data dive into the state of farming in the UK.
It culminated with a v long-run chart suggesting our ability to grow ever more crops in a given hectare is slowing. Possibly stalling.
This is a really big deal
What if we could send the line in that chart 👇into the stratosphere?
It would have massive consequences. We'd be able to get ever more food from a relatively small section of land. Meaning more land for housing/rewilding or whatever else we'd want to use it for. But how? Image
Read 22 tweets

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