Dear @reformparty_Uk, you say you want to get "up to 2 million" economically inactive people "back to work", and you think this will save £15 billion in benefit payments. Here's a reality check... 1/ As of December 2023, 5.44 million women aged 16-64 were economically inactive. That's about a quarter of all women in this age group.
3.84 million men were economically active, about 18% of that age group.

2/researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06…

They don't mean Bank of England debt, they mean the UK Gilts purchased by the BoE in return for new bank reserves during the various rounds of QE. The Bank of England has been selling these gilts off to drain excess reserves - what is known as "QT". Reform proposes to end QT. 1/

https://twitter.com/maitlis/status/1802458727292793093

As far as I can tell, Reform proposes to refinance gilts held by the Bank of England as zero-coupon 75-year bonds, which the Bank would have to hold to maturity. This would prevent the Bank draining any more of the excess bank reserves from the system. 2/

Sorry to throw a bucket of cold water over this, but economic inactivity is at almost the lowest level in history and far below what it was in 2010 when the Tories came to power. The small rise since Feb 2020 is largely explained by population ageing. coppolacomment.com/2024/06/the-my…

https://twitter.com/fletcherr/status/1799333640457122119

Here's the long view of the UK's inactivity rate. The tiny blip at the RH side is the rise since the pandemic.

More on that structural shift in the UK economy since the financial crisis. The quality of the labour force has been increasing, and that has compensated for both MFP failure and lack of capital deepening. 1/

But more highly educated workers doing more hours does not equate to more highly skilled jobs. We need to know what jobs they are doing. Stagnation of productivity and poor wage growth suggests that many are not doing jobs commensurate with their skill level. 2/

Farage's target of zero net migration relies on the idea that there is a large pool of low-skilled British workers ready and willing to be deployed into crucial sectors to replace immigrants. But there is no such pool. The UK is at full employment and has been for some years. 1/ The Tories have for 14 years tried to generate growth by forcing lots of people to do lots of work. This has been at the expense of innovation and capital investment. (chart from @CPSThinkTank using ONS statistics). 2/

Since I spent yesterday singing The Dream of Gerontius, I think I'll write a post about demons. We are expected to fear the demons, to feel relieved when they are safely "caged within their bars" like "beasts of prey". The good Angel tells us the hate they express has no reason, it is merely "the restless panting of their being".

Correlation is not causation, exhibit of the day. "Migrants are not to blame for the UK's inadequate fixed capital investment, but let's cap migration instead of increasing fixed capital investment"

I have only skim read this so far. Will give considered thoughts in a post in a few days. But my immediate reaction is that it is ascribing cause to what may be merely effects.

https://twitter.com/rcolvile/status/1788174001224794379

For example, high immigration and ethnic diversity in London compared to regions could be due to agglomeration effects. Agglomeration effects put pressure on housing and public services, but is impeding agglomeration really the best solution?

I have been doing a spot of research into LBC's owner Global Media and Entertainment Ltd. Did you know that it has made a loss every year since 2008 except for 2018? It borrows shedloads of money from its offshore parent, at exorbitant rates of interest, and pays out enormous sums to that parent in debt service.

"Trump is considering a 10 percent universal import tariff, the former administration officials said, and one result of that policy could be to make the dollar weaker relative to other currencies."

Dear oh dear. Someone needs to brush up on Lerner's symmetry theorem.

https://twitter.com/GavinBade/status/1779859622586696188

Increasing tariffs on imports strengthens the currency!

Astonishing lies from Lipman'. Let's debunk them.
1) The whole basis of the Zionist claim to the former British mandate of Palestine was, and is, based on Jews still having "right of return" after 2000 years.
2) Zionists were not given the whole of Palestine. The UN gave them part of it, but the rest they took by force. 3) The Balfour Declaration did not "give" Palestine to the Jews or create a Jewish state. The British Government had no power to do any such thing. The Declaration merely said the British Government would use its best endeavours to establish a homeland for the Jews in Palestine.

The 17-page letter from legal eagles does not merely call for the ending of arms sales to Israel, it also calls for the suspension of trade negotiations and trade agreements more generally and the imposition of trade sanctions. Here's the letter. lawyersletter.uk/wp-content/upl…

Dear @JamesCleverly, "National Insurance is a non-hypothecated tax on work" is a massive oversimplification, to put it mildly.
You might find my piece for Radix thinktank about the relationship between National Insurance and the State Pension helpful.
radixuk.org/opinion/budget… @JamesCleverly National Insurance is not an ordinary tax. It is widely (though incorrectly) regarded as contributions to a personal state pension fund.

And it is designed to give this impression. There’s even a “National Insurance Fund”. Here are its latest accounts. gov.uk/government/pub…

Has anyone clocked the obvious lie in Israeli statements claiming Israeli troops fired on a crowd of unarmed civilians because they felt they were "under attack"? Israeli forces do not guard humanitarian aid convoys. So WHY WERE THEY THERE? Some of the statements even claimed they were guarding the convoy. No they weren't. They have never guarded humanitarian aid convoys. Recently, they've bombed and shelled them.

I've just watched the BBC's Storyville documentary "Blue Box". It's the extraordinary story of Joseph Weitz, the man responsible for the forced "transfer" of Arabs out of Israel in 1948 and subsequent expropriation of their lands. bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod… "Our mood has improved significantly. Our forces have conquered one Arab village after another, and the terrified inhabitants are fleeing like mice."

Dehumanisation of Palestinians started in 1948.

When a small company that has been loss-making for years writes down a deferred tax asset of some £250,000 to zero, the end is usually nigh.

This is from the full year 2022 accounts of Southbank Investment Research Ltd, whose newsletter The Fleet Street Letter is fronted by Nigel Farage.

Can I just say why I am calling for an immediate ceasefire and complete change of plan.
It is not only because the loss of life in Gaza is horrific and the humanitarian conditions appalling. /1 It is not because there is no exit plan that does not involve genocide and/or ethnic cleansing.

It is not because of grave breaches of the UN Convention and the likelihood that some are war crimes. 2/

What is really going on here is a full-frontal attack on the right of vulnerable adults to self-determination. Over-16s are regarded as adults for healthcare purposes. thesun.co.uk/news/24097207/… And waiting lists for NHS gender treatment are so long that both these teenagers will be over 18 by the time they get to discuss surgery with gender specialists.

So what did I learn from reviewing that Sex Matters document?

Firstly, that muddle in a document that purports to interpret the law is intentional. If a section appears muddled and confusing, it is setting up some kind of chicanery. Secondly, that ignoring something doesn't mean the authors haven't read it. It means it doesn't suit their purposes.

I don't know which "experts" Forstater consulted, but she doesn't seem to understand schools' legal safeguarding responsibilities.

https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1698987705575567367

I've now found the Sex Matters report. Haven't read it yet. If anyone would like to critique it (esp teachers, please), the link is here.
I shall read it with KCSIE
and govt guidance on EA2010 for schools sex-matters.org/posts/updates/…
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…

Ok, so I am doing the analysis that @FraserNelson has not bothered to do. Why exactly has the proportion of people economically inactive due to long-term sickness risen? The ONS identifies two reasons: baby boomers approaching retirement, and NHS waiting lists. It is not clear to me how forcing these people to seek work by means of harsher criteria for claiming no-work-requirement benefits would benefit either these people or the economy.