Edwin Hayward 🦄 🗡 Profile picture
Apr 19 4 tweets 1 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
Starmer deserved that.

Sunak and the Tories are utterly appalling, of course, but that doesn't take away from the fact that he walked right into it with his ridiculous choice of questions.

#PMQs
If you missed it, Sunak ambushed him with a copy of the law that gave Starmer better pension treatment.

But Starmer teed it up with his choice of questions.

REFERENCE: "The Pensions Increase (Pension Scheme for Keir Starmer QC) Regulations 2013"
legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/2588…
The fact that it was passed under the coalition is irrelevant. 99.999% of the electorate won't care about that level of nuance.

Starmer had his pick of countless vital topics that could not have triggered this sort of personal attack. But he misjudged the situation badly.
Brexit, strikes, inflation, high energy costs, cost of living crisis, NHS backlogs, etc. etc.

So many choices, so many opportunities lost.

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More from @edwinhayward

Apr 20
Let's look at a devastating 13 years of Tory misrule...

The UK has fewer hospital beds per capita than almost all advanced economies.

In 2010, we had 2.93 hospital beds per 1,000 people. By 2020, that figure was just 2.3 hospital beds per 1,000 people.
data.oecd.org/healtheqt/hosp… Image
Consider a couple (2 children) where one person works on 67% of the average wage and the other looks after the young kids.

If their partner took a minimum wage job, nearly 80% of their income would vanish in taxes, benefit reductions and childcare costs!
data.oecd.org/benwage/financ… Image
Investment in maintaining the UK's road infrastructure fell off a cliff under the Tories.

Compare the current disastrous situation with the amounts that had historically been invested in maintaining our roads since 1997.
data.oecd.org/transport/infr… Image
Read 16 tweets
Apr 20
Hmm. Looks like cancelling Twitter Blue doesn't cancel it until the current billing period ends. Sigh.

(I subscribed because the algorithm completely buried my tweets for months. And yes, things then went back to normal. But it doesn't feel right when so many are opposing Musk.) twitter.com/i/web/status/1… Image
Anyway, if you're following me, I hope you'll bear with me despite the offending tick. It's going as soon as Twitter lets me get rid of it. Thanks.
Here's a little more background...

You can literally see the day a virtual switch was flipped so that I suddenly stopped showing on most people's timelines. Image
Read 4 tweets
Apr 19
Three facts to bring you a little Brexit comfort...

A) 73% of 18-24 year olds and 62% of 25-34 year olds voted Remain.

B) Nobody below the age of 25 on 23 June 2023 voted in the 2016 referendum.

C) The lived experience of Brexit won't make new converts.
lordashcroftpolls.com/2019/03/a-remi… Image
In other words, since 2016 we have gained 7 years' worth of new voters, whom we can expect to be at least as Remain-oriented as the most Remain group in the 2016 referendum (i.e. 73%+ Remain).

As we move forward, this trend will eventually guarantee a strong push to rejoin.
It's also worth noting that (contrary to popular belief) young people voted in relatively large numbers in 2016.

"About 64% of registered voters aged 18-24 went to polls, study reveals, but 90% of over-65s voted".

64% is about 10% higher than in a GE.
theguardian.com/politics/2016/…
Read 4 tweets
Apr 14
This is what industrial-scale hatemongering looks like.

All the stories below attacking Meghan (mainly) and Harry (quite a bit) appeared on the Express website within the last 24H.

44 bile-filled rants in just one day. That's a pace of 16,000 attacks a year. Image
Perhaps you're wondering if it's some kind of weird unrepresentative blip?

Sadly not. Take a look at this thread of mine from two years ago...
Google has archived over 27,000 separate Express articles which have "Meghan" in the title.

(There will no doubt be many more that don't reference her by name in the headline.) Image
Read 6 tweets
Apr 3
Earlier today, I suggested that a relatively "easy" sell would be a push to rejoin the Single Market without joining the Customs Union.

Here's what Norway has to say officially about its key relationship with the EU (via the EEA agreement).
norway.no/en/missions/eu… Image
The only thing we would need to persuade the EU to change from Norway's agreement is the Schengen membership part.

But since the UK is cut off from the rest of the EU (excl. Ireland) by a sea border, that shouldn't be an impossible sell.

All the rest is existing template stuff.
By joining the Single Market, we would restore mutual freedom of movement (i.e. for UK citizens too).

Polls show that when the question is phrased in terms of restoring FoM for UK citizens, attitudes improve v dramatically from when it's only about what EU citizens can do.
Read 18 tweets
Apr 3
Rejoining the Single Market but not the Customs Union should be the easiest "Brexit improvement" to sell to a majority.

It would restore *mutual* Freedom of Movement yet let the UK keep indy trade deals (except those with lower than EU standards, which are undesirable anyway).
Queues at the ports would vanish. Paperwork burden on companies would ease (only customs declarations left). We could stop panicking about the Tories eroding environmental standards, working conditions etc. Companies wouldn't need to fork out for 2 sets of certifications.
Would it be as good as EU membership? Of course not.

But it should be an order of magnitude less contentious, especially without the Customs Union. (Some people love to see Britain strutting around the world doing deals.)

And that makes it realistic and achievable short term.
Read 8 tweets

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