Joe Allen

Off-brand Joe Allen. I work at @The_TUC

[Michael Brendan Dougherty @michaelbd]

The Series B Irish banknotes, designed by Servais Haanen, are genuinely beautiful.

[Paul Johnson @PJTheEconomist]

Mindblowing chart from OBR. In 2029 real household disposable income per person expected to be just 1% higher than in 2019. What an unbelievably awful decade. It used to grow by 2%+ every year, not 1% in 10 years.

[robert shrimsley @robertshrimsley]

OBR chart on real household disposable income growth over the decades. Just wow

[David Phillips @fiscalphillips]

The #fiscaldevo roadmap if OUT.

Overall I'm pleased. The government has nailed its colours to the mast, with proposals for what I'd call a 'balanced' system of tax revenue-sharing. And its avoided a big pitfall that could have seen London race away.. BUT there are some buts...

[Sam Bowman @s8mb]

British AI application companies are only lagging behind American ones by revenues by about 50%, adjusted for nominal GDP. European ones are at 20%.

[Joe Allen @Joe___Allen]

Which is less than Welsh Lab squeezed out of the gov to add to ALN spend in the recent supplementary budget row.

[Joe Allen @Joe___Allen]

Funny thing about free prescriptions being such a totemic policy in Wales: if it was dropped and replaced with the English system of payments and exemptions it'd probably only save £40m a year.

[max tempers @maxtempers]

I had to pay for a prescription recently, and the guy at the counter seemed inconvenienced, almost annoyed, that I wasn’t ticking an exemption box and was making him pull out a dusty card machine instead. Worth remembering that only *one in ten* prescriptions are ever paid for.

[Ant Breach @AntBreach]

Quick thoughts on today's fiscal devolution roadmap, building off our four tests:

1. This is the end of the beginning for fiscal devolution. Government now accepts fiscal centralisation is a national economic problem - and over the longer term there is more fiscal devo to come

[Joe Allen @Joe___Allen]

Welsh Labour's deathbed conversion to devolution beyond the Senedd is cynical but also has merit.

[Joe Allen @Joe___Allen]

The English Fiscal Devolution Roadmap published today creates questions for Welsh city regions.

Mayors in England are being given a fiscal framework that rewards econ growth + more tools for financing investment.

Potential competitive disadvantage for us without a response.

[Joe Allen @Joe___Allen]

@Benji25294405 @SarahCLesadd A solid result but naming them would take the fun out for others!

[Joe Allen @Joe___Allen]

There is a surprising amount of ideological variety among the 13 centre-left Welsh MPs first elected in 2024.

[Henry Tufnell MP @TufnellHenry]

Do you think this is fair?

[Joe Allen @Joe___Allen]

@LewisRDNorton Glyn Davies was an excellent blogger!

[Joe Allen @Joe___Allen]

@Tonibel53 To an extent, sure. But I think there is still more base-level variety there than you might otherwise expect.

[Joe Allen @Joe___Allen]

"‘It will just fill up again’ is not, by itself, an argument against building anything – a road or a railway or a hospital. Filling up is the point."

Essential read on road building from our richer, vastly more successful celtic cousins.
https://t.co/AyKdZGldgO

[Joe Allen @Joe___Allen]

@SarahCLesadd @ClwydEnComu @CarterRoutes Controversial!

[Joe Allen @Joe___Allen]

@ClwydEnComu @CarterRoutes @SarahCLesadd Yes, bad (or at least silent) on devo but much more interesting than would otherwise be assumed.
My assumption is that the incentives of the Senedd electoral system = much less diversity and more blind loyalty vs FPTP. But time will tell.

[Sam Dumitriu @Sam_Dumitriu]

This is a very pithy explanation of why the 'induced demand' objection to roadbuilding isn't as powerful as anti-car campaigners believe.

https://t.co/2ZKjKFvc2F

[Joe Allen @Joe___Allen]

Taking just a small sample of the group:
> Socialist Campaign Group member
> Starmer Ultra
> Classic Rural Plaid Voice
> Pro-EU Liberal
> Techno Modernist (and arguably Gov’s best minister)
> Protectionist Posh Labour and Farm Tax Campaigner
> Pro Nuclear Plaid MP
> Overlord of 2010/20s Think Tank Social Democracy.

Quite a lot happening there!

[Kane Emerson @KaneEmerson]

NEW: The clock is ticking on the Government’s 1.5 million homes pledge.

Today’s Budget is a chance to change course. What would it take to get more homes?

Here’s where planning reform needs to go next. 🧵