Councils have essentially become social and children's care funding agencies, which, as most people don't use those services, means they don't really understand where all their council tax is going...

https://twitter.com/JackTShaw/status/1848710335253123490

It's completely undermined local government in the eyes of voters who used to get libraries, SureStart, weekly bin collections etc...

Exacerbated by the Conservatives' decision to allow council tax to rise while cutting grants.

OLYMPIC PREVIEW THREAD - DAY 15 and 16

I'm doing the whole rest of the games in one preview as I'm going to Paris tomorrow night to attend the final session at the cycling on Sunday morning. So I won't be able to do it tomorrow...

There are 15 GB medals chances left... 1. First up at 9.15am we have Erin McNeice in the women's boulder/lead climbing final.

A much more outside chance of a medal than Toby Roberts. But not impossible.

OLYMPICS PREVIEW THREAD - DAY 14

Nine medal chances for GB tomorrow ranging from very good to longshots....

One of the busiest days... 1. A very early start with the men's marathon swimming starting at 6.30am.

Hector Pardoe won bronze at the world championships earlier this year so should be competitive.

OLYMPICS PREVIEW THREAD - DAY 13

The next three days are all big potential medal days for GB (and hopefully a few gold!)...

Eight chances tomorrow. Most of them good ones... 1. First up at 11.18 we have the mixed multihull sailing medal race that was postponed from today.

John Gimson and Anna Burnet are (just) in bronze medal position and silver is possible. Gold out of reach.

OLYMPICS PREVIEW THREAD - DAY 12

5 GB medal chances tomorrow - one of them guaranteed.

And a good gold chance in the athletics... 1. First up are two sailing chances (assuming the wind is better than it was today).

The men's dinghy medal race was postponed from today and is due to happen at 12.13.

Michael Beckett needs to come three boats ahead of the Peruvian one to get the bronze. A longshot.

OLYMPICS PREVIEW THREAD - DAY 11

Seven or eight (I'll explain) medal chances for GB tomorrow. Four (or five) are good ones with a few shots at gold.... 1. 9am is the individual showjumping final.

All three Brits who won team gold qualified (in a field of 30). It's highly unpredictable and tends to come down to tiny time margins as quite a few will jump clear.

OLYMPICS PREVIEW THREAD - DAY TEN

Five medal chances for GB tomorrow but all of them are big ones with gold potential.... 1. An early start with the mixed team triathlon relay at 7am. Four athletes from each nation do a "sprint" triathlon 300m swim, 6.6k bike ride and 1k run.

On form it should be GB vs France vs Germany for the medals.

(Germany are much better at the sprint version).

OLYMPICS PREVIEW THREAD - DAY EIGHT

Another big day for GB - 11 medal chances, 7 of them strong ones and 5 with real gold possibility...

A huge amount going on... 1. Kicking off at 9am we have the team dressage (horse dancing). Looks likely to be a bronze for GB behind Denmark and Germany but you never know.

Goes on a loooong time.

A couple of examples of why "Treasury costings" of opposition policies are *always* bollocks.

They are based on "assumptions from Special Advisers" which are written to maximise the costings even if they are obvious nonsense.

(Thread) Here's one from the Treasury document on Labour's plans just published. It's on all teachers having to have qualified teacher status. Look at the top assumption. It obviously wouldn't be applied to the independent sector, that's not Labour's policy. Assuming that adds cost.

A thread about one of the many public sector scandals going under the radar....

The DfE "safety valves" for special educational needs.

These were started in 2021 due to councils getting into deficit on school spending because demand for special needs support has risen so much. There are now 38 councils with "safety valve" deals with the DfE (the euphamistic nature of the term is quite sinister).

It means they have to agree programmes of cuts to SEND support to get their deficit under control in return for additional financial support.

Crucial stat from the OBR.

Post-election spending assumes no growth at all for four years per capita. The 1% increases are entirely eaten up by population growth.

If you think that will happen may I send you my catalogue of delightful bridges. Hunt has banked the growth from higher migration assumptions (now 315k a year up from 245k a year) without acknowledging the additional costs for public services.

The Public Accounts Committee report on HS2 is unreal.

"Crucially, the Department does not yet understand how HS2 will operate as a functioning railway following recent changes."

This is something that is costing us £67 billion even with the cancellation. We could have rebuilt every school that needs it in the country for that money. And had plenty left over for other infrastructure projects.

Just completely pissed away.

And these people have the gall to lecture us about sounds finances.

The Savanta poll today is an excellent example of how polls are used to drive narrative.

It shows a 7 point drop in the Labour lead in a week that's gone very badly for them. So it gets tied into the story.

But it really shouldn't be.... (thread) First we've had three other polls with overlapping fieldwork. Two showed an increase in the Labour lead -

R&W +4
Deltapoll +2

One showed a drop

More in Common -3

That's all just noise.

The detail of the YouGov MRP is far worse for the Tories than the topline result.

There are no seats where they score more than 40% of the vote. In only 74 do they score more than 35%.

There are fewer than 40 seats where they are 10pts ahead of the 2nd placed party. There are just 12 seats where the Tory vote share outweights the combined Labour and LD vote share. And only two if you include the Greens as well.

Gives an indication as to the damage heavy tactical voting could do.

Right so Sunak now has two strategic options.

1. He strengthens the bill and gets the GB News current and future presenters roster to vote with him but makes losing in Lords/courts more likely (and Commons if "moderates" can locate their spines). 2. He does nothing and calls the right's bluff. Turns third reading into a confidence vote and forces them to choose between supporting him and losing their jobs (in many cases).

Right time for a PISA thread. I'm going to start by talking about what I think is the most important chart in the report and then make a few other points. Here's the most important chart. It shows the UK is the *only* country in Europe where second generation immigrants outperform non-immigrant students. (And first generation don't do much worse).

Was wondering whether there was this much of an attempt to deny the inevitable by Tories + their media supporters in 1996. So I looked at the Telegraph archive for Oct/Nov that year. And, yes, it's full of it. Some examples coming up... Every poll which showed a drop in lead was reported like this.

The covid inquiry whatsapps are fascinating.

Talking about this front page James Slack wrote "Geordie [Greig - the editor] just desperate to get people back to work and buying a copy of the paper.."

Hancock replied "WE DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH MASKS TO SAY THESE THINGS" Slack: "Have a look at the Telegraph front page. They're financially desperate and it's making them write desperate things."
Hancock: "I get that. But we must hold the line on masks - or they will go like loo roll."

covid19.public-inquiry.uk/wp-content/upl…

Home Office finally published the economic impact assessment for the government's awful Illegal Migration Bill.

The estimated cost of sending someone to Rwanda is £169,000. Perhaps even more ridiculous is the rise in cost for accomodating aslyum seekers over the past few years. Due to deliberate decisions to use hotels rather than local authority accomodation.

New post just out

With more doctors strikes starting today; worst ever waiting lists/A&E times; + 1000s of excess deaths - I look at why the NHS crisis isn't getting better and what the key causes are.

"How bad does it have to get?"

(free to read)

samf.substack.com/p/how-bad-does… The post is based on a detailed @instituteforgov report I have out today - co-written with @racheljanetwolf - on what we called the "productivity puzzle". Trying to understand the key reasons things are so bad.

(Thread to follow)
instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/nh…

Felt a bit about there the day after the locals having this take when Thrasher and Co were talking about hung parliaments but as others have done more data analysis I think it's now pretty indisputable.

https://twitter.com/Beyond_Topline/status/1659495028723515392

Of course you can come up with all sorts of plausible scenarios that still lead to a hung parliament. Plenty of things that can go better for govt + worse for Labour but if the GE had been this month Starmer would have a good majority.