Edward Pinnegar

Former political campaign manager. Undergoing a gradual reintroduction into Twitter society after several years in abeyance.

[Edward Pinnegar @EdwardPinnegar]

I've written a 13,000 essay on why the Channel Island of Alderney is in decline, and how to solve it. Alderney was a C20th demographic and economic success story, but its decline is now accelerating an alarming pace. A thread 🧵⬇️ https://t.co/OesNcRdEWK

[Tom Calver @TomHCalver]

🇵🇱 My @thetimes column: Poland’s economic miracle

12 out of 17 Polish regions are now richer than West Wales. It has faster internet, cheaper electricity and more high speed rail than Britain

When it comes to regional development it’s the UK, not Poland, that needs to catch up

[createstreets @createstreets]

“If I had a pound for every developer, designer or official who told me that a bridge, office, home or factory must be ugly because it’s “all we can afford”, reader, I would be a rich man. But what they tell you is a lie: ugliness is always a choice” writes @boys_nicholas in …

[Sam Bowman @s8mb]

This – from Northstowe, England's biggest New Town since Milton Keynes – shows what New Towns are like in practice.

Unkempt and unused green space overgrown with cow parsley. Cheap, small, low quality homes. News about a "meanwhile hub", nauseating jargon for a prefab strip mall that's being thrown up because the place is a ghost town with no actual shops.

And Northstowe is 20 mins from Cambridge Town Centre. It has none of the problems with access to jobs that many other New Towns have had. If it doesn't work there, there is no hope for further New Towns.

The only option that will work is to extend and densify existing cities.

[Samuel Hughes @SCP_Hughes]

Over the last three years, housebuilding in London has collapsed. Molior recorded just 2,158 private starts in the first half of 2025, around 5% of London’s (low) targets, and still falling.

What is going on? I have posed this question to numerous specialists, most of whom cannot comment publicly for professional reasons. This thread is a summary of what I have gleaned.

[Samuel Hughes @SCP_Hughes]

Now, nearly all of these factors are specific to London and a few other large cities. Elsewhere, the prospects for building are much brighter. Across the Kingdom, planning consultants are furiously at work, drawing up applications to build on green belt sites marked for release under the new NPPF provisions. A wave of greenfield housing estates will indeed begin to spread across the land by the end of this Parliament.

This is, on balance, better than building nothing at all. But if the Government does not act fast, the impact of this will be outweighed by its historic failure in London. The housing shortage is overwhelmingly concentrated in London, and additional homes there have far more effect on housing scarcity and economic productivity than they do elsewhere.

If housebuilding remains this low in London, the Government could force a million houses on the shires, and the housing crisis would still be worse at the end of this Parliament than it was at the beginning.

[Alastair McLellan @HSJEditor]

The NHS spends less money on management than ANY equivalent health system - this is one of the results.

[Dan Neidle @DanNeidle]

Just a reminder that an individual's national insurance payments do not fund their State pension.

The average person's national insurance payments cover about half the cost of their state pension:

[John Burn-Murdoch @jburnmurdoch]

NEW: Is the internet changing our personalities for the worse?

Conscientiousness and extroversion are down, neuroticism up, with young adults leading the charge.

This is a really consequential shift, and there’s a lot going on here, so let’s get into the weeds 🧵

[createstreets @createstreets]

Almost everything about this street has been shown in multiple studies to appeal to most humans & to support happiness & health
✅Texture
✅Colour
✅Enclosure
✅Variety in a pattern
✅Embedded Symmetries
✅Greenery
✅Highly walkable
However, nearly everything would be banned in…

[Institute of Economic Affairs @iealondon]

🚄 "If you could put in an Elizabeth line for the North, you could have a single market for 9 million people - the same kind of thing as London."

Lord O'Neill's vision for a northern economic powerhouse. 👇

[Dan Neidle @DanNeidle]

And then what about income tax/national insurance - overtax employment, ridiculous marginal rates for people on relatively modest incomes.

VAT? Ridiculous zero rates that cost a fortune and subsidise the rich more than the poor.

[Dan Neidle @DanNeidle]

We can and should fix existing taxes. Abolish council tax (this chart!), business rates, stamp duty. Introduce a land value tax: more progressive, more efficient

Reform CGT so it's fairer, prevents avoidance and encourages investment

Reform IHT (and not by hitting farmers)

[Ben Hopkinson @Ben_A_Hopkinson]

Britain used to explicitly link housing & infra; the Met railway would buy up land, run a railway there, and then sell the much more valuable land for development into new homes and towns.

We've stopped doing this, but one small tweak would let homes & infra be built together🧵

[Robert Colvile @rcolvile]

The Government says London needs to build 88,000 homes a year. Last year, it started 3,990. My column today is on the urgent national crisis no one is talking about - the collapse of housebuilding in London (1/?)

[Edward Pinnegar @EdwardPinnegar]

@matt_fallaize @ViaerFou @YvonneBurford I think everyone was pro a solution which restored econs of scale. In '22, Aurigny & P&R argued this involved ATRs. Capital costs blew this out of the water; tenders came in far above 'should cost' estimates. Yvonne's amdt another route to restoring econs of scale by other means

[Edward Pinnegar @EdwardPinnegar]

@oldfarmhorace @captainpipkin @AlexSnowdon5 @YvonneBurford @sashakmiller https://t.co/YfODZMq9ir

[Edward Pinnegar @EdwardPinnegar]

@ViaerFou @YvonneBurford At the time it seemed one type ATR operation was best route to lower operating costs/more scale, but this was based on a grave misappraisal of capital costs of the required airfield. Yvonne was right that this model was unviable for Ald - it took the rest of us too long to see it

[Edward Pinnegar @EdwardPinnegar]

Hugely consequential day for Alderney. @YvonneBurford and @sashakmiller amendments to a Guernsey States proposition passed unanimously, proposing (a) a cheaper airport solution & (b) re-establishment of full inter-island air network, of the kind which used to exist:

[Yvonne Burford @YvonneBurford]

@EdwardPinnegar @sashakmiller @Govgg Well if I’m returned I’ll do whatever I can to keep things moving. There are still unknowns but progress was made today.

[Edward Pinnegar @EdwardPinnegar]

@YvonneBurford @sashakmiller @Govgg Of course, there are elections to @Govgg on 18 June, after which a new set of politicians could come back to the States & try to unwind these propositions. I hope they don't; the States has now voted 5 times in favour of these works in 11 yrs. The time for more delays has run out

[Edward Pinnegar @EdwardPinnegar]

@YvonneBurford @sashakmiller @Govgg My sincere hope is now that:

(a) this marks a clear turning point in the narrative of Guern's attitude towards Ald; from passivity & resentment, towards a proactive, pragmatic interest in its economic development & future success.

(b) @govgg steps up and gets on with the job.