Stuart Coster

Research & campaigns • Better democracy • End leasehold • Owner of broken cars • Director @DemocracyMovemt • Co-founder @PeoplesPledgeEU

[Stuart Coster @StuartCoster]

@MaxKendix @Steven_Swinford Welcome move, but where are all the other leasehold reforms; easier, cheaper renewals, quicker enfranchisement incl abolition of marriage value & sharing legal costs? Changes that will make a real difference. Has the PM had to intervene because his ministers appear absent? 😬

[Stuart Coster @StuartCoster]

@MaxKendix @Steven_Swinford Welcome move, but where are all the other leasehold reforms; easier, cheaper renewals, quicker enfranchisement incl abolition of marriage value & sharing legal costs? Changes that will make a real difference. Has the PM had to intervene because his ministers appear absent? 😬

[Michael Mosbacher @MossyMosbacher]

Order is restored: The Duke of Wellington and Lord Cromwell have returned to the House of Lords

[Stuart Coster @StuartCoster]

@MossyMosbacher @Telegraph Great piece.👏 Cruelty is absolutely at the core of this policy. Seeing @bphillipsonMP gleefully brushing off harms to 'the few' when that's thousands of children separated from schools & friends - over a tax grab - is sickening. Worse, cruelty looks intended, tax gain secondary.

[Stuart Coster @StuartCoster]

@bentleykarl @MossyMosbacher @Telegraph 'Subsidising', how? No public money was spent on independent schools. Opposite in fact. Children attending those schools saved the state money. But that's all beside the point about the cold cruelty of young lives being overturned just to grub for a bit of extra tax.

[Lara Spirit @lara_spirit]

EXC: Eleventh-hour No10 bid to fund defence investment plan revealed in today's Sunday Times

*All departments now ordered to cut 1 per cent off their capital budgets – due to raise around £6bn

*DESNZ and transport to suffer larger cuts but those to NHS causing most concern

*Rachel Reeves "deeply frustrated"

With @domhauschild @ShaunLintern

[Kate Ferguson @kateferguson4]

BIG story tonight!

EXCL: Keir Starmer will fight a leadership election against Andy Burnham if one is triggered.

PM spoke to key supporters this weekend and told them he will "fight" any challenge.

https://t.co/7Vl0aWRyUm

[Stuart Coster @StuartCoster]

Matt nails it, as ever ... 😄

[Steven Swinford @Steven_Swinford]

The Times's weekend read:

* The Labour leadership contest has already begun. In No 10 Starmer is fighting for his political life, putting huge pressure on teh system to bolster his Premiership in face of existential threat posed by Andy Burnham

* Expect a frenzy of activity in coming weeks - the defence investment plan, social media restrictions for under 16s, the Brexit reset. Announcements bogged down in months of bitter internal rows will finally come into public view

* All the announcements are coming before or shortly after June 18th, the date of the Makerfield by-election. Starmer is trying to send a message to Labour MPs that he can deliver

* He isn't the only one. Burnham has began issuing his own national leadership pledges - starting with a £300million cut in business rates for pubs and small businesses

* His press release directly attacked Starmer and Reeves, accusing the government of 'undervaluing' their importance to local communities. This is a *Labour* candidate directly criticising a *Labour* government

* The lines between the Labour Party and Burnham's campaign are increasingly blurred. Team Burnham now has a lot of the party machinery on his side - press officers, officials etc - and also has most of the cabinet out knocking doors in Makerfield. Power is already moving

* Starmer thinks he can fight Burnham, but his allies are unconvinced. One said that he thinks Burnham has behaved 'appallingly'. 'His view is why should he make it easy for him?'

* But there is an acknowledgement that Starmer is on borrowed time. That it is a case of when, not if he goes

* There are divides in Team Burnham over when he should amke a move if he wins Makerfield. The 'go-now' camp say he must seize the opportunity or it could slip through his hands, using the momentum of the by-election to act decisively

* But others think this could be disastrous - that he needs time to build up a proper plan for government and No 10. That if he doesn't he risks repeating Starmer's mistakes all over again

* Then there's what's being billed as the 'battle for the soul of Burnham'. There are those on the left - Louise Haigh, Miatta Fahbulleh and others - who favour a radical break from Starmer. Then there are the centrists - Josh Simons, Jim O'Neill - are are said to be emphasising the importance of fiscal credibility. It is potentially a v unwieldy coalition

https://t.co/tiUGeFJ0Jc

[Stuart Coster @StuartCoster]

@educationgovuk I saw the news about teacher numbers falling, yes. The government pledged 6,500 "additional" teachers. Are these 4,600 additional, or how many of them are? Here you go @bphillipsonMP, in case you forgot. 👇 I'm sure you're not misleading us.

@afneil @vicderbyshire

[Stuart Coster @StuartCoster]

@PaulfrYorkshire "Just not there"😆 Why suddenly "not there" ... vanished?🤦‍♂️

Starmer promised to recruit 6,500 "additional" teachers. Yet numbers are dropping. Apart from the broken pledge, how does that benefit state schools?

Pointless trying to swerve obvious reality.

[Stuart Coster @StuartCoster]

What a surprise; adding VAT to education, forcing 20,000 children out of their familiar schools, hasn't benefited state schools: "Number of teachers in England’s state schools drops for second year in row, despite Labour’s promises to increase recruitment" https://t.co/yrBqVFHVTO

[Dan Neidle @DanNeidle]

I apologies for suggesting earlier that the UK has 85 taxes. The correct number is 90.

And we have an interactive chart that lets you waste at least 15 minutes clicking pretty patterns (and getting depressed).

https://t.co/r9VxLXjk5T

[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

[Stuart Coster @StuartCoster]

A Starmer-Binface coalition should implement pledge no.9 immediately and sail to another landslide at the next general election.

[Count Binface @CountBinface]

Here it is: my 2026 manifesto for the #Makerfield By-Election. Makerfield Great Again! #VoteBinface #MakeYourVoteCount

[Stuart Coster @StuartCoster]

@BritainUnbound @northumbrian_ @LordAshcroft Since the EU budget will almost double to a shocking €2 trillion from 2028, any membership fee would certainly increase very dramatically - which will become ever clearer. Noisy 'rejoiners' are wasting their time. A referendum can't be won and, therefore, no PM will hold one.

[Cinema Tweets @CinemaTweets1]

Clint Eastwood has reportedly retired from filmmaking at 96. If this is really it- if Eastwood never walks on another film set again- it’s been absolutely one hell of a ride. I can’t think of a single person who has done more for Cinema than Clint. He’s an ambassador to film 🎂

[Alex Wickham @alexwickham]

Exclusive: Andy Burnham will not call an early election if he becomes PM

His spokesperson says he is ruling out a snap election

It means he’d likely govern to 2029 if he successfully challenges Starmer this summer

The move by his campaign to end speculation about an early vote comes after reports in recent days that he’s been considering it

Harriet Harman and others in Labour have talked up the possibility

It will come as a relief to Labour MPs worried about losing their seats

https://t.co/Rpy4emmkyV

[caroline wheeler @cazjwheeler]

Exclusive: Cabinet ministers have turned on each other over the release of messages relating to Lord Mandelson’s appointment as UK ambassador to the US, The i Paper can reveal.
It comes as it can be revealed that several ministers, including Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, have used the disappearing-message function on WhatsApp.
The revelation has angered some in Cabinet who fear they have been exposed to far greater scrutiny than some other colleagues. W/ the i team

https://t.co/CjOEY1jixl

[Stuart Coster @StuartCoster]

@nicholadrummond @LiamHalligan You ask "why would any country voluntarily make trade with its largest and closest market more difficult?" At face value the answer is that the alternative of all-in central EU lawmaking comes at too high a democratic price. Sadly we have the EU in Europe, forcing that trade-off.