Jamie Ratcliff

Independent consultant #ukhousing, whisky coinnoisseur, @NorwichCityFC fan & proud father of two mischievous children.

[Jamie Ratcliff @Jamrat_]

On 13 October 2024 with friends including @luke_cross1 & @petegladwell I'm running @RoyalParksHalf to raise funding and awareness for @BrainTumourOrg

If you want to sponsor us or find out more please click -
https://t.co/xS2Ndx87EH

Pls RT.

[Dan Neidle @DanNeidle]

The difficulty is that we've been taxing "other people" for a generation, and by international standards we have been remarkably successful. But we're done.

And given almost nobody knows that this has happened, persuading people to change course is hard.

[Noa Hoffman @hoffman_noa]

EXCL: The shrinking Labour Growth Group suffered because some of its MP members 'lacked any interest in the growth agenda’ and only signed up because ‘they saw it as the loyalist faction that might advance their careers’, party insiders have told me.

[Tim Shipman @ShippersUnbound]

Does any story truly exist until it has been slagged off by Tom?

[helen macnamara @helen_macnamara]

Oh dear.

I can’t think where these messages between Darren Jones and Peter Mandelson could have come from if Darren Jones “apparently” didn’t have them to give to his civil servants. Is it possible someone else kept the receipts? 👀

Bush league stuff yet again. Of all the things that grate the sanctimony about transparency…

[Looking for Growth @lfg_uk]

The "Soho Society" is objecting to EVERY new restaurant and bar in Soho.

Soho is in CENTRAL London.

The bars were there before they were. And yet, they object.

"It's too loud".

This is our planning system in action – it is anti young, and anti fun.

📱Caller on LBC.

[Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch]

Every life matters.

One law. One standard. For everyone. 

This is about justice, for Henry, for his family and for all our children. They deserve better.

[Conservatives @Conservatives]

BREAKING: Even Keir Starmer's Chief Secretary Darren Jones admits he doesn’t have confidence in Rachel Reeves to grow the economy.

Text messages continue to reveal what Labour will tell Peter Mandelson, but refuse to admit to the British people.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

So far this is the revelation from the Mandy files that will cause Labour most pain — now and for some time to come.

[quibble @quibbleUK]

Hello, we are Jonathan and Abigail - unashamed pedants who want to bring this affliction to bear on all things public policy and practice.
We believe that details matter, especially in public administration. This is why today we are founding quibble: a campaign to fix the small stuff.
Think, for example, about the cookie banner that we click on every webpage. Each instance is not a big deal, so we just put up with it. But its cumulative impact adds up - on average we press it 5 times per day. The European Commission estimates that it costs EU citizens 343 million hours per year.
And who is there to represent the impacts of seemingly minor issues like this in a systematic way? We want quibble to be the answer. In the case of the cookie banner, lots of advocacy has rightly focused on privacy, but has this meant that user experience has taken a backseat? We believe there are ways to improve user experience without compromising on privacy. We will share more about this soon.
Consider another example. Did you know that in some government-run car parks you can be fined for a minor keying error, such as accidentally typing a zero instead of an “o”? Again, we will come to the detail of this quibble in the coming weeks, but for now just consider again the question: who? Who is there currently to systematically represent the interests of the parker who is given an unfair ticket?
An inherent feature of consumer interests is that those who have them rarely have enough other things in common to make collective organisation and representation feasible. This is the gap that quibble seeks to fill. Now of course excellent consumer interest groups exist. But understandably quibbles might not be at the top of their lists. Our hope is that quibble will be complementary; picking up the bottom-of-the-list issues faced by various groups - the stuff they are almost too embarrassed to raise because they are too small.
We are not embarrassed about detail. If you’ve ever had a splinter, you know small things can have a big impact. This is what quibble is committed to tackling, and our wider hope is that by doing so we will also incentivise policy makers to be even more careful about detail.
Check out our website here, including our first four campaigns: https://t.co/gZiqqHbhIL

[Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall]

The Soho Society is objecting to *every* new bar/restaurant licence in what is supposed to be the centre of London’s nightlife. More planning/licensing insanity.

I asked them to come on my Sunday LBC show: "We will absolutely not be taking questions from journalists". Of course not.

https://t.co/0UfHJs9Klg

[CCHQ Press @CCHQPress]

While he’s taking credit for successes that are absolutely his, we would like to congratulate Rob Jenrick for being the brains behind Arsenal’s Premier League victory, the Artemis moon mission, discovering penicillin and inventing the wheel.

I’m sure Nigel is looking over his shoulder…

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

So things are so bad after fewer than two years of Labour that we now face wartime price controls and rationing?! Policies introduced then when we faced genuine shortages of essentials. Is that where we’re heading again? If so, Labour is heading for the knackers yard, never to return.

[GBTT — Great British Think Tank @GreatBritishTT]

For 20 years the story was simple: Britain can't build because land costs too much.

That's no longer the problem.

Across roughly half of England, a finished home is now worth less than it costs to build — so the land beneath it is worth less than zero.

How can that be?

[Joshua Garfield @JoshuaGarfield]

How it’s started. How it’s going.

[Sam Dumitriu @Sam_Dumitriu]

Labour were elected on a pledge to get Britain building again, but their councillors (Planning Chair btw) block 850+ homes on Brownfield land in the most expensive city in the country.

Labour are unlikely to outbuild the last Govt, let alone build 1.5m homes.

[James Cartlidge MP 🇬🇧 🇺🇦 @jcartlidgemp]

Ukrainian flags are flown from buildings, worn as badges & displayed on x profiles to show sympathy with their people - bombed & brutalised by Putin, without provocation. For a new Reform council to prioritise their removal looks, at best, callous - at worst, a win for Putin.

[Looking for Growth @lfg_uk]

We have some of the world's highest energy bills.

Industry is being destroyed, jobs are leaving the country.

And Natural England, a completely unelected, and unaccountable body would rather cater to the needs of fish.

What are we doing?

[Dan Neidle @DanNeidle]

When I reported on Zahawi I got a handful of abusive messages. When he apologised & it turned out I was right, they all stopped.

But Polanski? Wild levels of abuse, which just ramped up when Polanski apologised & it turned out I was right.

Does the Green Party have a problem?

[Jon Craig @joncraig]

I’m told govt whips believe: 1. Wes Streeting will make his move on Thursday, to avoid clashing with King’s Speech; 2. Andy Burnham doesn’t have MP ready to quit; 3. Besides 87 MPs who’ve publicly called for Sir Keir Starmer to go, same number privately want him to step down.

[Dan Swords @dan__swords]

And with huge huge majorities in every seat.

Reform said they would win every seat.

We got 60% of the vote vs Reform's 20% and with the highest turnout ever (nearly double that of the last election).

If you set a vision and deliver ruthlessly against it, you can win.