Paul Spicker

Paul is Emeritus Professor of Public Policy at the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. He mainly writes on poverty, benefits, social justice and social policy.

[Paul Spicker @PSpicker]

The "stated purpose" of PIP wasn't part of the design. The predecessor benefits to DLA and PIP were supposed to do something else - to counter the long term disadvantages of disability at all income levels.

[Resolution Foundation @resfoundation]

In our new report on reforming PIP, our authors concluded that (improved) functional assessments remain the best approach to determining entitlement for the benefit.

Louise Murphy explains why 👇

[Campaign Against Antisemitism @antisemitism]

The Green Party has today voted that Jews are racists unless they explicitly adopt an extremist purity test set out by the Party. Under that test, Jews belonging to pretty much any synagogue in the UK would fail.

The Green Party Conference’s intentions could scarcely have been clearer. They have adopted the Soviet doctrine that Zionism is racism, meaning that Green Party policy is that all peoples of the world have right to self-determination except for Jews.

Far from being anti-racist, that policy is racism in its clearest form. According to our polling, only 6% of British Jews do not identify as Zionists, and 89% consider anti-Zionism a form of antisemitism.

Whereas past leaders of the Green Party stepped forward to oppose this motion, the current leader of the Green Party showed no leadership at all, skipping the vote entirely.

On the advice of our legal team we wrote to the Green Party prior to the adoption of this motion. As the originating complainant in the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s investigation that found unlawful discrimination against Jews in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, we have proven before that we will not stand by and let political parties bring antisemitism into the mainstream.

[Paul Spicker @PSpicker]

Why is this 'performative meanness'? It's mean, because the intention is to make benefit recipients suffer. It's performative, because it strikes a pose rather than seriously addressing any issue in benefit administration.

It's also deeply stupid. See https://t.co/TmJH826fNS

[Paul Spicker @PSpicker]

Performative meanness: the small cuts will require a huge infrastructure to implement. The table is from the ONS Family Spending team.

[BBC Radio 4 Today @BBCr4today]

"Isn't it patronising? To tell people how to spend their own money?"

@bbcnickrobinson asks shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whately, as the Conservatives promise to prevent benefit claimants from spending their welfare payments on alcohol, cigarettes and gambling.

[Paul Spicker @PSpicker]

On social care: this is a summary of chapter 5 of my book, How to Fix the Welfare State. https://t.co/fWBlZXotki...

[Paul Spicker @PSpicker]

Fame at last. After discovering that an article I published in 1981 was apparently produced by AI, someone clearly thought that I ought to be represented by an AI image.

[IntegralAnswers @IntegralAnswers]

@PSpicker Well, there might be another explanation?

[Paul Spicker @PSpicker]

The most plausible explanation is not that this obscure article has been used to train AI, but that a big chunk of my other writing has been - a million words in 60 scraped pieces, including 14 of 23 books. So my writing style has been judged by its similarity to my later work.

[Paul Spicker @PSpicker]

I tested something I'd written myself: my first academic article, published 45 years ago. It came in at 77% AI-generated.

[Paul Spicker @PSpicker]

I'd love to think that someone out there had read and liked it, but sadly I've no reason to believe that: it has no (zero) citations on Scholar. I've done a little better since ...

[JezzasLastStand @JezzasLastStand]

@PSpicker That could be because so many people have plagiarised it?

[Paul Spicker @PSpicker]

I tested something I'd written myself: my first academic article, published 45 years ago. It came in at 77% AI-generated.

[Prof. Devi Sridhar @devisridhar]

Exact same issue for me- I know my previous books and articles have been used to train AI (looking at you anthropic)- & when I run previous articles (written pre-AI) into AI checkers, they can come back as high as 90% AI. It's not artificial intelligence- it's collective human intelligence.

[Michael Foran @michaelpforan]

Taking both of these points together you can conclude:

1. Excluding men from a women’s facility is less favourable treatment, even if they have access to a men’s facility.

2. If that exclusion is because of sex, that is unlawful unless there is an applicable exception.

3. On a basic comparator test this is clearly direct sex discrimination: if the man was female he would have been included.

4. Since you can only rely on the Schedule 3 exceptions if you’re operating a service based on biological sex, anything other than that is not covered.

Therefore a service based on anything other than biological sex which excludes men from a women’s service (and vice versa) necessarily engages in unlawful sex discrimination without an applicable exception.

[Paul Spicker @PSpicker]

Poverty is really about social relationships; but even if one insists it's all about low income, this is ill-informed. Prices are relative - they reflect demand, and so the ability of *other people* to pay. Therefore the value of income is also relative. https://t.co/Z5aSMPpKrC

[The Critic @TheCriticMag]

Defining “poverty” upwards makes for bad economics, argues @worstall
https://t.co/VHxq8Mjqvk

[Paul Spicker @PSpicker]

@vick55top Tell me why this is not like Ronan Point. https://t.co/ZPMNrjGxr9

[Paul Spicker @PSpicker]

@HamishMcRae5 writes in the i paper that "If people have to pay more in tax they will have less money to spend on other things." That isn't a problem for transfer payments - higher taxes to pay for higher benefits. There's no good economic argument for child poverty.

[Bristol Uni Press @BrisUniPress]

"Countries that have cut back on certain types of #Benefits have nevertheless found themselves constrained to leave some forms of income support in place...It’s not an inevitable truth, but it’s something that can be charted and seen." @PSpicker @geomill
https://t.co/kqbU1G8Wu8

[Bristol Uni Press @BrisUniPress]

Listen to @geomill and @PSpicker talk about some of the historical roots, moral foundations, and practical workings of different #Welfare systems. #WelfareState
https://t.co/kqbU1G8Wu8

[Bristol Uni Press @BrisUniPress]

New in the ‘What Is It For?’ series, ‘What Is the Welfare State For?’ discusses the institutions and methods that characterise #WelfareStates around the world. @PSpicker

https://t.co/0I5uYVOvEo

[Paul Spicker @PSpicker]

@premnsikka Private equity doesn't rely on 'profit', in the conventional sense, so much as on the extraction of value - often achieved by converting current value into long-term debt. The model represents an existential threat to public services.

[Paul Spicker @PSpicker]

My new book has shipped: https://t.co/MTFU1mMbKU .

"A brilliant critical contribution and powerful overview about how we got here and what is at stake" (Camilo Perez-Bustillo)

"Concise and superbly written" (Daniel Béland)

[Paul Spicker @PSpicker]

@policyatkings @kcl_sfg The key question I have is this: what has been done to mitigate the known vulnerabilities of RCTs - the risk of random findings (e.g. https://t.co/fdRxGDaMML) , and 'bracketing off' the things that matter (see Pawson and Tilley, Realistic evaluation).

[Paul Spicker @PSpicker]

After 25 years and more than eight million views, I am closing down my educational website, 'An Introduction to Social Policy'. A legacy copy, and my blog, will still be available at https://t.co/xpAHaYsZ0D

Other posts will be at @paulspicker.bsky.social