Growth is much misunderstood, especially by Brexiters. Buckle up for a short 🧵

1/23 Growth is annual change in GDP expressed as a %. So if GDP in year 1 = £2 trillion (approx UK GDP in 2016) and in year 2 = £2.02 trillion, growth is 1%.

Prolonged negative growth = recession.

https://twitter.com/msjanebond007/status/1766756987025408068

2/ To calculate GDP, the ONS uses all sorts of measurements which are subject to uncertainty, so the numbers are often revised. Recently, they changed the method of calculation, causing previous estimates to be revised up. ons.gov.uk/economy/grossd…

1/4 🧵about fake economists.

A strange thing just happened when I responded to the IEA's @cjsnowdon's claim that the NHS was awash with money. His wiki bio says that he did an undergrad degree in Lancs so I asked him to justify his claim to be an economist.

Then he blocked me. 2/4 Which got me thinking about the qualifications of other so-called economists associated with the IEA, such as @CeeMacBee.

https://x.com/RichardBentall/status/1742245031803519403?s=20

1/17 It's time to join some dots and talk about one of the very worst effects of Brexit.

I am not talking about the economy. I am talking about its impact on honesty in public life and the integrity of our institutions. A 🧵 2/ So far, the national conversation has been about effects on trade, growth, etc. There's no doubt about a negative impact. Brexiters who once boasted of unicorns, now perform cognitive acrobatics to argue things aren't quite as shit as remainers say.

https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1694401973586411861?s=20

1/20 As desperate Brexit fanatics make bogus claims about the UK outperforming the EU, I thought it might be useful to gather together a few facts.

https://twitter.com/JPThrough1/status/1693014558133178495?s=20

2/ First up, the £, here compared to a basket of foreign currencies. Something seems to have happened to it in 2016.

1/13

A brief thread for any ‘A’ level students collecting their results today (and their anxious parents).

I’d like to tell you my story about how I screwed up my ‘A’ levels - TWICE! 2/ First time (C,E,F) at a well known public school which charged huge sums from my (actually not very rich) parents to tell them I was not very bright and, anyway, was too interested in psychology for my own good.

1/11 🧵

A sincere apology to all remaining Brexiters.

Yesterday I tweeted a simple and harmless anecdote from my travels in France for the amusement of followers (>3k have found it amusing so far).

I had no idea that it would trigger Brexiters so much.

https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1686812479899189250?s=20

2/11

There seems to be a bit of a theme in the way you reacted to it. Have you been talking amongst yourselves? You all seem pretty desperate to believe it didn't happen (it did).

1/15 A 🧵about sovereignty.

Some (not all) Brexiters wanted us to leave the EU because they thought threatened UK sovereignty. Although legally, EU membership didn't do that, they argued that all of our laws should be made in Westminster and none negotiated with our neighbours. 2/15 Although I would argue that the laws made in Brussels were very limited and Brexit has made the UK weaker on the international stage, and that Tory shenanigans since then have undermined the rights of ordinary people anyway, the argument at least had a certain kind of logic.

1/4: For the benefit of Brexiters, here's why Britain's new trade deals aren't worth much.

A standard FTAs removes (most) tariffs but not nontariff barriers (NTBs) which typically cost about 3x as much as tariffs. The EU single market removes both.

https://twitter.com/vendettaplace/status/1646047363629211650

2/4 The gravity model, which states that trade decreases by half as distance doubles, is an iron economic law ("social physics" according to Paul Krugman). It has applied historically, even in the days of the British empire (we traded mostly with Europe):

1/16 Reasons for remainers to be cheerful. A 🧵

Whenever I feel a bit low about Brexit, which is quite often, I try and imagine what it was like during Prohibition in the US - a change so 'irreversible' that they baked it into their constitution only to repeal it 13 years later.

https://twitter.com/implausibleblog/status/1620193612037492739

2/16 The parallels are remarkable. The campaign for Prohibition built up over decades, dividing the US into 'dries' and 'wets'. There were even soft dries and hard dries. There were Farage-like figures (Wayne Wheeler of the Anti-Saloon League, the UKIP of the day).

1/10 This is a really good article, although very depressing. TL:DR it is almost a certainty that the harms caused by Brexit will get worse between now and 2027.

https://twitter.com/Simon_Nixon/status/1618514000089866240

2/10 Nixon rules out the one thing that might mitigate these effects - rejoining the SM/CU - for all the reasons everyone else seems to. 1/ Refusal of UK political parties to contemplate it; 2/ Reluctance of EU to deal further with perfidious Albion.

1/6 Seems to me that Johnson thinks he deserves to live a billionaire lifestyle but never had the funds. A snake oil salesman, he's extracted gifts of money, holidays, luxury accommodation, food, and No 10 decor from rich, equally corrupt people wanting access to power.

https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1616937420636790786

2/6 My guess is that the credit line 'loan' was never going to be paid back. It was a gift of nearly £1 million to our prime minister, disguised as a loan and then hidden. This is banana republic-level stuff.

1/ Important post (behind paywall unfortunately) from @Samfr with polling confirming my own research finding that FoM isn’t toxic to leavers. blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpol…

https://twitter.com/samfr/status/1601506932568702976

2/ Freedman asked the question in a completely different way (we explained FoM and asked if people would be happy to accept it; he included it in a list of things people might worry about if we got closer to EU). Triangulation makes it clear FoM really not a problem for most.

1/14 My timeline has been polluted all day by right-wing imbeciles bleating about the small boats crisis. They have two factors in common: (1) they mostly blame anyone except the government that has been in power for 12 years; (2) they have no solutions of their own. 2/ A clue for you mutton heads out there: Just shouting that the boats must be stopped won't work. Unless you have a realistic understanding of the problem, you will have zero chance of solving it.

1/14 A short 🧵 on why the UK rejoining the EU is now inevitable.

I have been confident for some time now that Britain will rejoin the European Union, predicting it will happen in the early 2030s, and I have the tweets to prove it.

https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722?s=20&t=-MW-a5xMYu312tKchnC_qw

2/14 The events of the past few days have only increased my confidence, and make me wonder whether it could even happen sooner.

Arriving at the First National Rejoin March. Despite a rail strike and previous postponement because of the Queen’s death, a surprisingly large crowd.

We are already on the road to reverse the most monumentally stupid (and antigrowth) policy in modern British history! Lots of cars hooting support as they drive by. Still people converging on the March from all directions.

1/21 A 🧵about Brexit psychology. Watching the events of the past few days, I've been struck by the way that initial panic and disbelief at the economic chaos created by Truss and Kweteng has been followed by the usual Brexit ideologists doubling down:

https://twitter.com/BrugesGroup/status/1575231189656293377?s=20&t=AiKA4e_UbZiFyaP7GNnUEA

2/ Apparently, there is no crisis:

https://twitter.com/andrew_lilico/status/1575143426810695680?s=20&t=AiKA4e_UbZiFyaP7GNnUEA

1/6 It's no surprise that the usual right-wing suspects such as @BrugesGroup are masturbating over the election in Italy; they like anything that is trouble for the EU, no matter how bad it might be for everyone else. If the Nazis came back to life they'd be cheering. 2/ They've made a big thing about UvdL's comments, taking them out of context. She actually said the EU would work with any democratic country but that they have tools to address govts that behave anti-democratically. Apparently defending democracy in Europe is bad if EU does it.

1/9 Below is a Tweet made by the @BrugesGroup in a pathetic attempt to explain away Truss' admission that there will be no trade deal with the US anytime soon. It actually reveals more than Brexiters would like you to know.

https://twitter.com/BrugesGroup/status/1572181373728837633

2/9 Worth noting that, contrary to what they are claiming now, Brexiters promised a massive US trade deal before the referendum...

A few thoughts about The Festival of Brexit (which has been going on since March without anyone noticing) which is a £120 million flop. 10s of millions were expected to attend, but only > 300,000 have. 1/8 Of course the Daily Heil spot a remainer plot - an opportunity to celebrate Brexit has been sabotaged from within. 2/8 dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1…

I've been seeing a few posts today in which people are saying it will take many years for us to rejoin the EU and that the best we might achieve will be to return to the single market. I do not believe this is true, and here is why - a 🧵. 1/24 First, historical precedent. US Prohibition was introduced under spookily similar circumstances, made permanent by constitutional amendment, the US population split into 'wets' and 'drys', and everyone said it was permanent. And yet it took 13 years to reverse.

Why? 2/24

1/16: A short 🧵 on @trussliz, lazy UK workers, the economics of productivity, and the psychology of conservativism. 2/16: @trussliz has form for insulting UK workers, having previously called them "amongst the worst idlers in the world". This has got me wondering how she reached this conclusion? bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politi…