If there’s one iron law of British governance, it’s that no matter how poorly the system performs, the civil service always seems to grow - with overall headcount now approaching 550k.

Here’s what we @the_tpa found in our latest briefing note: Growth of the Civil Service 2025🧵 For some context, in 2023 we found that between March 2016 and March 2023, civil service employment increased from 418,340 to 519,780 or 24.2% which represented the sharpest increase in at least 40 years.

In 2024, we found that this number had increased again by 4.4%.

Forget Reeves' spending review — this is a borrowing review.

She’s shovelling billions into the public sector with no real plan to pay for it. And when the state runs out of money? It borrows, adding to Britain’s spiralling national debt.

🧵 A short thread on our debt crisis For context, borrowing for the year 2024-25 was forecast to be £87 billion, but this was revised up to £152 billion due to Reeves' Treasury spending more than it received in revenue - paying off trade union bosses and setting up new quangos isn't cheap!

Figures from the ONS show that GDP per capita has shrunk for two successive quarters. That means for the average Brit the economy is shrinking regardless of the headline figures.

Brits are now in a what we at @the_tpa are calling a “personal recession”.

Here's what that means: A personal recession is when GDP per capita shrinks for two consecutive quarters.

But unlike a normal recession (based on total GDP), this actually shows whether the average Brit is getting worse off.

As @GuidoFawkes uncovered, Keir Starmer is about to give £310 million of taxpayers' cash to the World Health Organisation (WHO) over the next four years.

But unfortunately, this is just the latest in a long line of taxpayer-funded giveaways to global quangos.

Thread 🧵 As we at @the_tpa found, £85 billion has been poured into global quangos since 2009 - with another £7.5 billion per year lined up until 2027.

For context, this cash could cut the basic rate of income tax by 1p. But politicians would rather bankroll international quangocrats.

🧵 WHAT IS THE BROKEN WINDOWS THEORY? 🧵

Farage mentioned in the debate about how dealing with lower level crime such as shoplifting and graffiti could enable government to deal with more serious crime.

This is called broken windows theory, and here's how it relates to crime: The theory argues that there is a domino effect to crime. Namely, visible disorder and crime invites more disorder and crime. An abandoned building with a broken window that doesn’t get repaired can invite more broken windows, causing a sense of decay in an urban area.