No! Just a function of using shorthand in a world where everything has to be done in 650 words.
12.01.2026 10:25
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No! Just a function of using shorthand in a world where everything has to be done in 650 words.
This is a lot of ‘fun’🙈 — which is to say, genius illumination of fiscal drag effects. Dragging stealth tax out of the shadows, into the light.
A chart of the projected percentage point increase un share of income paid as income tax and national insurance from 2025/25 through to 2029/30. It whos that 'fiscal drag' is set to hit those at or near frozen personal tax thresholds
Screenshot of financial times fiscal drag calculator.
New: 'Shark's fin' chart reveals the uneven impact of 'fiscal drag', the stealth tax beloved of recent chancellors. Plus use our interactive calculator to see how fresh freezes announced by Rachel Reeves at todays Budget could affect you on.ft.com/3KqOYUL
Brilliant. So clear on the real agenda, which is “othering”. Creating a virtual ghetto (sic) which blurs the lines between illegal migrants, asylum seekers and millions with ILR, who are contributors to society, with their skills (NHS/care often), their labour and (lest we forget) their taxes.
Lords Heseltine & Kinnock seem more alive to these self-evident truths than most members of the Commons. Similarly, I find thinkers with direct lived experience of far right dictatorship, Greeks of a certain age for example, crystal clear about what’s happening now.
AI pushers talk about it "augmenting" capacity, but that ignores human nature. Why walk or bike, when you can drive? It's easier, so most of us do, but you get fat & lazy. AI will do the same to a lot of people's brains, I fear. Via @financialtimes.com piece on AI habits
ig.ft.com/ai-personal-...
WTO clings to signs Donald Trump still needs it — sometimes—While the US President’s unilateral tariffs have ridden roughshod over the WTO’s core principle of reciprocity in trade, diplomats argue… www.ft.com/content/15a9... @pmdfoster.bsky.social @financialtimes.com
Brutal BBC piece on how fast Switzerland’s glaciers are melting.
Drill baby drill. 🎶🎵
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Magnificent peroration to Simon Schama’s @financialtimes.com weekend essay on defending freedom of speech in the era of Trump - with help from Milton, Jefferson et al.
on.ft.com/4gSqvDw Simon Schama: What America’s Founders can teach Trump about liberty
Living. Working. Paying taxes. Contributing. This is a desperately poor editorial.
There is a more pressing issue. Ministers must ensure that the vast numbers of immigrants who arrived in the so-called Boriswave of 2020-21 are not automatically absorbed into the permanent population. They are about to cross the the five-year threshold into ILR, yet Labour continues to dither. Ms Mahmood must freeze the status of this huge cohort while a new residency regime is finalised. A million or more extra permanent residents in these islands, let in on the nod, is simply unacceptable. Finally, the home secretary must acquaint herself, and the public, with an accurate estimate of the actual number of foreign nationals living here, what taxes they pay and what services they consume. Without hard data, all the political parties are fumbling around in the dark.
The Times finds it "unacceptable" that people who came here legally in 2021 and have been living and working here since should allowed to stay.
The sad decline of a once great newspaper into ignorant xenophobia and casual racism
archive.ph/TFZY9
Brutal new MRP poll out today showing Reform at 311 and Labour support collapsing.
Worth reading steaming @financialtimes.com column on Starmer by @robertshrimsley.bsky.social
“Starmer can’t afford to wait for reckless Reform to implode”
on.ft.com/3VxxCaR
Financing infrastructure without unnerving the bond market @jenwilliamsft.bsky.social @tonytassell.bsky.social @pickardje.bsky.social @marymcd.bsky.social @pmdfoster.bsky.social @greenmirandahere.bsky.social
'Tylenol' is known in the civilised world as Paracetamol
2.4 million children born in Sweden between 1995 and 2019. Studied 186,000 children whose mothers were treated with paracetamol during pregnancy.
news.ki.se/no-link-betw...
I use this graph a lot.
Using the OBR data, the CPS attempted to put a figure on what this could mean for the fiscal cost to Britain of 801,000 migrants being granted ILR. Erring on the side of caution, it estimated the net cost at around £234bn to the UK – a figure cited by Mr Farage. However, the CPS said that changes in some of the definitions meant that these cost estimates should no longer be used – although its estimate of 800,000 being granted ILR remained intact. The think tank will now publish an updated estimate, which is still expected to reveal a significant net cost of tens if not hundreds of billions of pounds to the economy. Newly published Home Office figures bear out the argument.
I see the CPS is desperately trying to repair the damage.
The claim that their clear errors were down to "changes in definitions" is a lie. Journalists should treat any new estimates with appropriate scepticism.
archive.ph/JSo7O#select...
The data is in -- tourism to US dropped after Trump came in, while tourism recovered in rest of world...foreign arrivals at American airports down 3.8% compared with 2024, or 1.3m fewer people. With more Americans going the other way. See charts via @economist.com
www.economist.com/graphic-deta...
To even allow the appearance of this — Starmer’s No 10 adopting Trumpian media management policies — seems extraordinary to me. Very depressing.
Ambassador Matthew Wilson of Barbados pushes back on idea US can be browbeaten back to WTO bodies like currently moribund Appellate Body.
“We need to figure out what we are going to put before the US: what are the key elements that would be good not only for the US, but good for the system?”
Passion from WTO founder James Bacchus at @wto.org panel on “The WTO without the United States?”
“I have a message for 165 of the 166 members of the WTO: ‘stop letting the United States of America push you around. Stand up for your rights under the WTO treaty’. …’use it or lose it’”
Cue applause.
Bah humbug, Henig!
on.ft.com/4nhvSyM NEW: Trump tariffs on EU medical devices will drive up US patient bills, industry claims
…with a very testy White House response, which usually means they’re worried about it.
Me and @judewebber.bsky.social for @financialtimes.com
Chilling. The irony really doesn’t escape them.
Spending a couple of days at the @wto.org in Geneva taking the pulse at the annual Public Forum — the “Woodstock of world trade” as one rather enthusiastic participant put it.
Lots of jokes about whether WTO even has a pulse these days.
Might be on life support, but not dead quite yet…
Tariff exemptions to follow? 😏
Even Trump has had to walk back on this a bit, but the wider point as we've seen before is that raising barriers harms investment because companies need access to imports and skills. There's no new economic paradigm being created in the US.
The data that shows the internet removes guardrails and fuels populism — it’s either the unfiltered “will of the people” or digital mob rule. Take your pick.
Grabs from @jburnmurdoch.ft.com piece here:
on.ft.com/45WUaGw The end of the gatekeepers
What stood out to me from Richard Tice’s interview on #BBCR4Today was his praise of the economic policies of… George Osborne.
I wonder if that stood out for @nadinedorries.bsky.social too?
Indeed: the populists do make people poorer, but then they blame anyone but themselves: immigrants, unions, foreign wars etc.
Poor people are disgruntled.
Ripe for exploitation by populists.
Rinse and repeat. (As we’re seeing now)
As we prepare for the next tidal wave of nonsense around Reform in the UK, two points should stand out as the core rebuttal
- economic issues the UK faces are the same as many other countries
- populist right policies have made those issues worse