Yes. The motto of my own institute is an old Irish proverb: "A good start is half the work/journey". This is the Civil Service choosing its own starting point for analysis, into which a whole raft of assumptions and presumptions are smuggled. Those assumptions/ presumptions should be challenged at the outset, because they are founded on an initial 'gestalt' that is highly likely to be unproductive. A better starting question for ten would be: Why is is the civil service such a sprawling, monopolistic entity when great swathes (but not all) of its activities are not, in any economics sense, 'natural monopolies'?
I can tell Lisa Nandy that, when I was doing the Brexit negotiations, I got waves of disagreement & often abuse on this platform in its pre-Elon form (and I still do to some extent).
I don't complain. There's a mute button for the worst. It's the price of also reaching lots of people.
Lisa Nandy needs to toughen up a bit. She also needs to remember she is a Secretary of State who should be using all relevant channels to communicate.
🧵I've been in Europe for 2 months (Poland, Estonia, France, next Hungary, Belgium, Germany). I'd like to share a few observations before @NATO summit in Ankara. BLUF: Most of Euro policy elites don't understand current US politics--and often refuse to understand their own. 1/11
The review of the civil service announced this week lets our bureaucrats mark their own homework. That won't end well.
My @Telegraph column this morning.
https://t.co/Kj1uwd14LY
This is absolutely outrageous. Alastair Hilton @London_W4 expressed a perfectly lawful opinion about a Green councillor's mission to prevent outside seating in pubs along the Strand-on-the-Green. I've had a pint or two in those pubs (@Wayne_Sleep lives along there), and this is police harassment about Alastair's “behaviour on certain posts”. It is a ‘Minority Report’ intervention under the guise of “raising awareness”. What an an absurd waste of time for two @metpoliceuk officers this is.
I can tell Lisa Nandy that, when I was doing the Brexit negotiations, I got waves of disagreement & often abuse on this platform in its pre-Elon form (and I still do to some extent).
I don't complain. There's a mute button for the worst. It's the price of also reaching lots of people.
Lisa Nandy needs to toughen up a bit. She also needs to remember she is a Secretary of State who should be using all relevant channels to communicate.
I've decided to leave this platform and my Department will too.
A platform originally designed for free speech and expression now favours abuse and misinformation over meaningful debate.
It isn't healthy for our democracy or our communities and I don’t want to support it.
@DanNeidle 1. Tax levels were historically very high, and rising, even before the Reeves madness.
2. Do you disagree that collecting £15 bn more tax through a crackdown is economically pretty much the same as a tax rise?
An extra £15bn in tax *is* a tax rise from the economic point of view, whether it comes from higher rates or more assiduous collection.
It's money that would have been in private hands and is now in the government's coffers.
What if Andy Burnham could raise £15bn – without a tax rise?
There's one catch. He'd need to solve the UK’s biggest and least-discussed tax problem.
Almost half of all small business corporation tax isn't being paid - and nobody knows why.
Thread:
Useful reminder 2 my liberal Tory friends @UKHouseofLords there's a reason a Conservative Govt failed to legislate for #ConversionPractices Bill for six years: Because it's impossible to reconcile competing rights as well as free speech, parental autonomy & religious freedom
X - I need your urgent help.
My new film 5 SOLDIERS is due to screen at Hereford Military Festival at The Courtyard on Sunday 27 September.
It has been on sale since 7 May.
I have just been told it has sold ZERO tickets.
Zero.
This is a film about soldiers’ bodies, training, injury, courage, fear, comradeship, trauma, recovery and service. It was made after years of working with soldiers, veterans and military families. It is not party political. It is humane, serious and, I believe, necessary.
If we cannot sell tickets, the screening may not go ahead.
So I am asking directly: please help me save this screening.
Buy a ticket. Bring someone. Share this. Tag anyone in Hereford, the Armed Forces, veterans’ networks, military history circles, dance, film, culture or anyone who believes that art about soldiers still matters.
Zero tickets is not normal.
Let’s change that.
Hereford, Sunday 27 September, 2.30pm.
Booking link:
https://t.co/Le2BUp5gfb
Please RT and share!
"The @Telegraph Big Debate: Tories and Reform must speak up for Brexit, says Lord Frost"
We need to go up a gear in arguing for the benefits of national independence and rubbishing the Brexit scare stories.
https://t.co/kpNQX0i4ax
Today is the fifth anniversary of the European Climate Law which imposes net zero ("climate neutrality") on EU member states. Brexit means Britain can exit net zero with a single Act of Parliament, something that would be impossible if we were in the EU ...