Starmer says Whitehall is filled with 'a cottage industry of checkers and blockers'. It’s too hard 'for the most enterprising people in country to just get on with the job'. So he's going to cut compliance costs for firms by 25%. Great! Just a few minor problems... (1/?) In his speech, Starmer cited Alison, a brewer and publican, who has to spend hours filling in forms. But Alison is about to be hammered by NIC rises and minimum wage hikes!

Welfare reform is not just a fiscal necessity, but a moral one - because as I argue in @thetimes today we're not just paying people off, but writing them off. (1/?) The govt is set to announce a rumoured £5bn in benefit cuts. It's already hugely controversial. Yet as I point out in my column today, it would cover just 1/16th of the predicted increase in the welfare bill. thetimes.com/comment/column…

Have written column today on the NHS - and the fact that @wesstreeting appears to be attempting the biggest shake-up since Lansley, even though no one's actually noticed. (1/?) Ever since Lansley, the NHS has had two hands on the wheel - the Health Department and NHS England, the latter of which actually *runs* the NHS day-to-day. This... hasn't worked well.

On Wednesday, the Climate Change Committee will publish a document far more important than any Budget or industrial strategy - because it will set the terms of trade for the British economy for years. (1/?) The Seventh Carbon Budget gives the govt its official blueprint for how much carbon we can emit in 2038-42 - and where emissions need to be before then, and (crucially) what kind of things might need to be done to reach those targets.

The triple lock is a wasteful, unfair and outdated policy. So why the hysteria when politicians even gesture towards questioning it? Thread, with charts and data and stuff. (1/?) As I say in my column today, the purpose of the triple lock - which sees the state pension rise by the highest of earnings, inflation or 2.5% - was to restore the value of the state pension, and tackle pensioner poverty. It’s succeeded.

Why did the Tories lose the election? Can they recover? If so, how? Today, @CPSThinkTank publishes a major piece of work by James Frayne, based on pre-election polling of 4,000 people plus immersive work and focus groups in key electoral battlegrounds. So what did we find? 🧵 The first and most obvious point: the Tories lost the election because people thought they were crap at running the country. In particular, they failed to deliver on the most important issues people cared about: cost of living, small boats, NHS waiting lists, GP appointments.

Grrr. @Ed_Miliband's team have responded to our critique of their assumptions on gas prices - but their rebuttal is simply not true. (1/?) telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/2… They told the @Telegraph that 'the gas price modelled in the report is based on the current price of gas'. It absolutely isn't!

The big story today is about a Cabinet minister being dishonest. But there’s another member of the Cabinet whose cavalier approach to the facts may cost Britain an awful lot more - @Ed_Miliband. (See what I did there?) 🧵 I’ve talked before about his promise - which he keeps bloody making - to save everyone £300 on their energy bills. This is, for the reasons I've repeatedly outlined, an outright lie. But now there’s something a lot bigger.

https://x.com/rcolvile/status/1856340022678495677

I can't believe that @Ed_Miliband is still using that £300 figure, but here is a quick recap of why it is hugely misleading - in fact, nakedly dishonest. (1/?)

https://twitter.com/GMB/status/1856240892983623698

The report comes from Ember, a pro-green consultancy set up by Bryony Worthington, a Labour peer and Miliband ally. It claims, as does Miliband, that 'a clean power system saves UK households £300 per year'.

Hugely important paper from @CPSThinkTank today - showing significant and repeated left-wing bias among all of the most popular LLMs on questions of politics and policy. (1/?) For the paper, @DavidRozado asked 24 LLMs a range of neutral questions:

- To propose multiple policy ideas for the UK/EU
- To describe UK/European leaders
- To describe UK/European parties
- To describe various mainstream ideologies
- To describe various extreme ideologies

The @ONS has published its latest stats on smoking. And it's good news! In 2023, smoking fell to the lowest level on record in every part of the UK. (1/?) ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati…
In particular, there has been a sharp and continuing rise in the number of people who have quit smoking. But as this chart shows, that didn't coincide with any new ban. That sudden spike upwards since the mid-2010s matches the rise of... vaping.

Over the years since the Second World War, the great cities of the West have grown and thrived. But there is one big exception. The boundaries of London still sit where they did when the builders down tools in 1939. Why? The green belt. (1/?) thetimes.com/article/labour…
If you look at a map of New York (source animation here ), or Macron's plans for 'Le Grand Paris' (), you can see how capital cities have grown and can grow. vimeo.com/297249350
capx.co/revealed-how-p…

As the GB Energy Bill passes second reading, a quick reminder of how incredibly dodgy the maths behind Labour's energy policies is. (1/?) Labour has promised to completely decarbonise the electricity grid by 2030. Most experts think that's completely impossible, at least without spending very, very large amounts.

Are the Southport riots a turning point for Britain? Do they reveal something new, hideous and broken about our society? Lots of commentators are saying so, very loudly. But there's still a strong chance - if you go purely by historical precedent - that the answer is no. (1/?) When the London riots happened in 2011, I wrote an op-ed on '10 ways in which these riots will change Britain'. There was universal agreement that they would do so (as well as some extraordinary attempts to argue that this just proved what the writer had been saying all along).

Yesterday, the Govt published new housing targets. The ambition – to expand housebuilding – is hugely welcome. But if you go council by council, there are BIG problems, which have the potential to a) cause huge resistance b) deliver housing where it’s least needed. Strap in (1/?) The govt is saying the new measure takes more account of affordability. But a map of housing affordability (R) looks NOTHING like what it’s done to council-level targets (L). If anything, the opposite.

I like a lot of things about Labour's housing reforms. But the decision to let London off the hook has me properly fuming. Quick thread. (1/?) When you're in power, you get to fuck over the people who didn't vote for you. That's life. The Tories did that with the 'urban uplift', which hacked housing targets in order to force more homes into the big cities. And now Labour have done the opposite.

https://x.com/breeallegretti/status/1818283491060252889

Right. Have been reading the changes to the NPPF, and it is genuinely game-changing on the green belt, in a way that is ambitious, necessary and potentially v v controversial - but also has very little to do with the 'grey belt'. Quick thread on what's changed. (1/?) The new NPPF (which they've helpfully done track changes on) introduces a new category of green belt land called 'grey belt', which is exempt from existing restrictions on green belt land.

According to @thetimes, @AngelaRayner is planning to increase/update housing targets, and make them compulsory for councils. Quick thread on why this is both welcome and necessary (1/?) thetimes.com/uk/politics/ar… 1) Housing targets are outdated. Most experts now think that they should be closer to 400k or 500k than the 300k originally set back in the 2010s. This isn't just because the population has grown, but because we've failed to build enough, creating an additional deficit.

Already seeing people saying 'we just need to reunite the Right, job done'. But I've been crunching the numbers and it's not quite that simple/encouraging. Quick thread (1/?) The Tories have lost 250 seats. In 166 of them, the Reform vote was larger than the size of the Tory majority. Farage has very clearly cost the Conservatives dozens and dozens of seats.

56% of voters think their taxes will rise under Labour. Which means 44% aren't paying attention. Have written for @thetimes on the nonsense numbers underpinning the campaign. (1/?) thetimes.co.uk/article/labour… 1) 'Decarbonising grid by 2030 and setting up Great British Energy will save £300 on your bills' - no. As highlighted the other day, the £300 figure is based on energy cap at Q3 2023 levels. It's now come down, meaning the Tories have delivered most/all of these 'savings'.

Argh. I know elections are a time for bad numbers on all sides. But Labour's sums on energy/savings are a particularly aggravating form of bullshit. Quick thread (1/?) bbc.co.uk/news/articles/… Labour says that its plans would 'turn the page on the cost of living crisis' and reduce bills by £300 per household. To justify this figure, it points to 'research by think tank Ember'.