Mike Jones Profile picture
May 2, 2022 15 tweets 5 min read Read on X
The situation for the Conservative Party is worse than you think. The difficulty lies, however, in explaining how serious it is without falling into the language of hyperbole. So, I shall simply list some developments as dispassionately as I can.

🧵
1./ Lifting the UK’s chronically poor productivity has been the goal of successive Tory governments but it has proved elusive.

By the end of 2019, it was 20% below the level it would have reached if it had continued on its pre-(financial) crisis path. Image
2./ The UK’s great wage stagnation: real wages will still be lower in 2025 than in 2008. Image
3./ Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have announced tax rises worth 2% of GDP in just two years – the same as Tony Blair and Gordon Brown did in ten.

Source: ifs.org.uk/publications/1… Image
4./ The value of outstanding student loans at the end of 2020-21 reached £160 billion. The Government forecasts the value of outstanding loans to be around £560 billion (2019 20 prices) by the middle of this century. Image
5./ The average house price is 65 times higher than in 1970 but average wages are only 36 times higher. Image
6./ Record numbers of young adults in their 20s and 30s are living with their parents. Image
7./ For the first time, half of women in England and Wales remained childless by their 30th birthday. Image
8./ The IMF is warning that Britain faces the worst inflation shock of all major advanced economies over the next two years. Image
9./ British households face a record 54% energy bill rise as the price cap is raised. Image
10./ Comparison between weekly Universal Credit standard allowance in 2021/22 and £70 destitution threshold.

Source: trusselltrust.org/wp-content/upl… Image
11./ Hundreds of Britons have launched crowdfunding campaigns to raise money for private medical expenses, frequently citing their desperation after spending months on NHS waiting lists. Image
12./ Britons now pay almost as much as Americans on out-of-pocket healthcare. Image
13./ In 2008, roughly 1 in 30 of the poorest UK households incurred catastrophic healthcare costs. By 2019, that had doubled to 1 in 14. Image
14./ Inequality has risen again. The gap between the middle and wealthiest 10% has increased by £44,000 mid-crisis (on top of a £350,000 increase in the pre-crisis decade). Image

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More from @technopopulist

Jan 17
In politics, timing is everything. And Sir Keir Starmer’s timing couldn’t be worse. Britain – and the world – is heading for an economic crash the likes of which we haven’t seen in decades. When the dust settles, Starmer’s position will be untenable. 🧵 Image
Why do I believe this? What makes me so sure?

It all comes back to an economic forecast made years ago by @DaveHcontrarian, a contrarian macro strategist with over fifty years of Wall Street experience. Hunter’s track record is nothing short of impressive, with countless accurate predictions and an unparalleled understanding of markets. If his prediction comes to pass – and I believe it will – it will send shockwaves through the United Kingdom and prove disastrous for Starmer’s premiership.

So, what does Hunter predict? In short: we’re at the end of a 42-year secular bull market. A market that has defied gravity for decades but is now hurtling toward its final act. This won’t be just a correction – it will be an implosion. Hunter foresees a global economic crisis that will hammer the financial sector and trigger a deflationary bust. But before that crash, he predicts a spectacular melt-up in the stock market. Picture this: the S&P 500 soaring to 7,500 only to nosedive to 1,500 in a matter of months. That’s an 80% collapse from peak to trough.

When the full gravity of this forecast sinks in, it will be clear that Starmer’s premiership won’t survive. His disastrous start, paired with the ruinous policies of his Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will make it impossible for him to weather the storm. I believe he will be forced to resign when the worst of the crisis is over. And if he doesn’t resign, a challenger will almost certainly emerge in the shadows, as John Redwood did to John Major in the 1990s. In short, I don’t believe Sir Keir Starmer will lead Labour into the 2029 general election.Image
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DEBT AND DERIVATIVES
Hunter’s forecast, which I’m convinced will play out and catch everyone off guard, sounds so outlandish that it’s hard to describe without risking coming across as a crank. But I’ll lay it out as clearly and dispassionately as I can, and let you be the judge of whether it holds any water. Here it is:

Hunter predicts that 2025 will be a year for the history books. Investors could see returns in a single year that rival what would typically take three to four years to achieve. Think back to the frenzied run-up of the NASDAQ in 1999-2000: a parabolic rally of epic proportions.

But here’s the catch: what goes up must come down, and in this case, the descent will be brutal. The climb will be spectacular, but the drop on the other side of this mountain will be just as steep, and it will happen fast. Volatility is the hallmark of the final stages of a secular bull market, and this time is no exception.

Everything now, in Hunter’s view, points to an inevitable financial reckoning in 2025-26. Decades of reckless spending and skyrocketing debt have pushed the global economy to the edge of a cliff. This isn’t just a U.S. problem – it’s a global disaster in the making.

Consider this: global debt stands at a staggering $315 trillion (£250 trillion), with trillions (quadrillions?) in the notional value of derivatives – financial contracts whose value is derived from the performance of an underlying asset. As Hunter puts it, derivatives act as leverage on markets, while debt leverages entire economies. Together, they deliver a one-two punch, amplifying both the scale and speed of any economic collapse. This kind of debt doesn’t just create bigger crashes – it accelerates them. What might look like a roaring market one day could turn into financial freefall seemingly overnight.

What, then, will trigger the crisis? As I understand Hunter’s forecast, the economic meltdown will stem from a deadly cocktail of excessive leverage – particularly in the sprawling, opaque derivatives market – combined with historical blunders by the Federal Reserve and mounting vulnerabilities in the global economy, particularly in China.

Hunter points out that the derivatives market could unwind quickly, leading to major market disruptions. This unwinding will be spurred by a sudden shift in investor sentiment from greed to fear, causing a rapid sell-off of assets. On top of that, the Federal Reserve’s heavy-handed response to inflation – aggressively tightening monetary policy between 2022-23 – will amplify the fallout, turning what might have been a sharp correction into a full-blown catastrophe.Image
Read 6 tweets
Jan 12
Soul-crushing barely scratches the surface. This video exposes the moral bankruptcy of the British left. James Delingpole is silenced for daring to speak undeniable truths about grooming gangs and their ethnic profile.

Source: @RusGarbageHuman
I feel physically sick and mentally drained after watching this. A basic fact - that Kashmiri Muslims are overwhelmingly responsible for grooming gangs abuse - is outright denied by Nelufar Hedayat, an Afghan-British host and director. Image
Younger members of the audience, likely thinking of themselves as informed and edgy in their political views, can't fathom that everything Delingpole is saying is correct. Instead, they howl like banshees or spoiled children when they don't get their way. Totally unserious. Image
Read 6 tweets
Dec 31, 2024
The Rotherham rape scandal ranks among the top 10 most significant events in British history since 2000. It stands alongside Brexit, the Iraq invasion, foot-and-mouth disease, 7/7, the expenses scandal, and the 2008 Financial Crisis.

Yet, unlike these headline-dominating events, Rotherham was met with an astonishing lack of media coverage.Image
In fact, the Rotherham scandal is so pivotal - such a defining moment in modern UK history - that you could even place it in the top five. Why? For several deeply troubling reasons.

First, the sheer barbarity and sadism of the crimes. This wasn’t some dark fiction conjured from a warped imagination; it was Salò-level depravity, happening in real life, on an industrial scale, for decades. The crimes were grotesque enough, but their persistence over such a long period makes them uniquely horrifying.

Now, I’m an extremely calm and gentle man - something that might surprise you, given how adversarial I come across online. But when I read about the Rotherham rape scandal, I can’t help but lose my temper. It makes my blood boil in a way few things can. Even writing about it now, I’m absolutely seething. The only other times I feel this level of rage are when I read about the mass slaughters and rapes in places like Sudan or the DRC.Image
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(Of course, when I say 'Rotherham,' I’m not just referring to that one town. It’s a synecdoche - a stand-in for the many other places across the UK where similar large-scale atrocities took place. Rotherham stands out in many people’s minds because it became synonymous with the worst of these crimes.)
Read 7 tweets
Dec 7, 2024
This thread unravels one of the enduring mysteries of UK migration policy: why politicians consistently break their promises on immigration – despite knowing it’s politically toxic and perilous to their survival.

Buckle up 🧵 Image
THE GREAT DECEPTION
“Control”. It’s the word of the moment – a touchstone for almost every political debate in Britain today. We often hear about how we've “lost control” of cities like London, how control has shifted to lefty lawyers and shady bureaucrats, or how we've ceded control to international courts and NGOs.

This is why the Brexit campaign’s slogan, “Take back control,” hit home so hard. It wasn’t just catchy – it was cathartic. It appealed directly to people who felt disempowered, out of the loop, and ignored by those in charge. As Paul Goldsmith noted in How to Lose a Referendum, Vote Leave’s slogans weren’t conjured by spin doctors – they echoed what people themselves were saying.

And it worked. Boris Johnson declared, “[the] only way to take back control of immigration is to Vote Leave”, while Priti Patel vowed to end the “chaos” with a slick new system that would slash numbers and cherry-pick only “the best and the brightest”. It was a bold pitch – simple, direct, and perfectly tailored to sell the dream of a Britain back in control of its destiny.

Fast forward to today, and those promises feel like ancient history. The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show net migration hitting 728,000 for 2024 – more than triple what it was pre-Brexit. And if that’s not bad enough, 2023’s intake soared to a record-breaking 906,000. The immigration crisis is deeper, more entrenched, and more damaging than anyone anticipated.

This isn’t just a logistical headache for policymakers scrambling to build housing or keep public services afloat. It goes far beyond that. The stakes are existential. At its core, this crisis threatens the very fabric of Britain as a cohesive, prosperous, high-trust society. That’s what’s on the line here – and it’s hard to overstate just how high the stakes are.

Indeed, to call these figures “shocking” doesn’t do them justice. When the numbers landed on Thursday morning, I found myself, for once, utterly speechless. But the truth is, anger wasn’t my first reaction. What I felt, instead, was resignation. It’s not just that these numbers are terrible – it’s that they signal something far worse: damage that’s near impossible to reverse.

The most we can hope for now is to stop making things worse. Damage limitation is the name of the game. As the old saying goes: when you’re in a hole, stop digging.Image
THE CHORUS AND CASSANDRA
Unfortunately, our political leaders haven’t grasped this. In fact, they seem to live by the opposite principle: when in a hole, keep digging.

Labour Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer called the Tories an “open borders” party and accused them of conducting an “experiment” like a mad scientist in an anarchist’s laboratory. He then went further, claiming this wasn’t an “accident” but a deliberate strategy born of political calculation:

“What we didn’t hear [from the Tories]… is an explanation. Because a failure on this scale isn’t just bad luck, it isn’t a global trend or taking your eye off the ball. No - this a different order of failure. This happened by design, not accident. Policies were reformed deliberately to liberalise immigration.”

For many, Starmer’s critique felt like a watershed moment. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attempted to deflect by admitting her party had failed to “deliver,” but this only told half the story. Deliver, they did – but what they delivered was mass immigration, precisely as planned. Badenoch herself championed an uncapped immigration policy and openly worked alongside powerful lobbying groups, something she even boasted about in Parliament. Yet, this rather inconvenient fact has been swept under the rug. As I explained to @LeeAlanHall of @BritishThgtLdrs:

“Politicians haven’t lost control of immigration; politicians have surrendered control of immigration to various interest groups. And, of course, politicians have issued visas for humanitarian and foreign policy reasons. Now, these are intentional, deliberate choices.”

On this, Starmer and I agree. But while he’s nailed the diagnosis, his cure is all wrong. Labour’s refusal to cap visas, dismissing them as “arbitrary,” misses the point. Caps aren’t about mathematical perfection – they’re about drawing a line in the sand, about saying, ‘this far and no further.’ They act as a safeguard against the endless pressure from lobbyists and so-called ‘stakeholders’ who promise a moon on a stick if only we keep the borders wide open.

Even worse, Starmer is making the system even leakier. He’s bringing illegal immigrants into the asylum process, fast-tracking their claims without any plan for removals. Sure, Labour might manage a few token deportations to safe countries like Romania and Vietnam, but what about those from ‘unsafe’ hotspots like Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, or Iraq? The law means they’ll stay – and they know it.

Starmer recently told the public that Britain’s political system isn’t just creaking; it’s rotten to the core and needs radical change. And he’s right about that. The trouble is, Starmer isn’t the revolutionary he pretends to be. He’s not tearing down the old framework – he’s doubling down on it.Image
Read 9 tweets
Nov 19, 2024
Clarkson’s Farm stands out as one of the most important TV programmes in recent decades. It’s not just groundbreaking in entertainment or its reinvention of the documentary genre - it also tackles political and moral issues with subtlety, avoiding preachiness or self-indulgence. What does it reveal about Jeremy Clarkson’s political beliefs?

Quite a lot. 🧵Image
1. Entrepreneurial spirit
Clarkson thrives on experimentation, pushing boundaries, and embracing entrepreneurship. This has always been evident - from his Top Gear days to his documentaries on figures like Isambard Kingdom Brunel - but on Diddly Squat Farm, he turns his land into a living laboratory, exploring innovation and problem-solving at ground level.Image
Image
2. Pro-innovation, anti-Luddite
Clarkson’s enthusiasm for technology, engineering, and gadgets shines through. His invention of “Clarkson’s ring” to protect piglets is a perfect example of his productivity-driven, practical mindset. He champions innovation over regressive nostalgia or opposition to progress.Image
Image
Read 7 tweets

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