Joe Bilsborough

political economy | economic history | research assistant @sdueconhist | previously @clesthinkdo | words for @tribunemagazine

[isaac @_isaacrose]

“Greater Manchester, far from representing a story of a dynamic break with the neoliberal consensus, instead represents a crystallisation of it.”

Me on the contradictions of “Manchesterism” for the @NewStatesman .
https://t.co/okpMrOmu6q

[Duncan Alexander @oilysailor]

we're on course for 312 red cards at the 2026 World Cup

[Despotic Inroad @DespoticInroad]

Again, an awful lot of gaslighting re: "neoliberalism", denying the existence of a ~50yr policy/governance agenda on the basis of "the state spends a lot of money".

Public spending as %-of-GDP isn't high because we've had a period of Leftwing hegemony. (Outside of the arts, the academy & the social/cultural policy sphere, that's obvious nonsense). Rather, it's high because:
👉Demographic pressures have pushed up the 2 massive spending outlays, health & pensions – a problem common to the vast majority of Western democracies
👉UK growth/productivity has been stagnant for ~18yrs, since The City of London collapsed under the weight of its own poor investments, while spending pressures have continued to grow apace
👉We have a growing (& expensive) debt pile as a result of the taxpayer twice being forced to bail out the private sector to the tune of several hundred £BN – 1st during GFC, 2nd during Covid lockdown
👉We have huge revenue pressures from "sticking plaster" subsidies covering up the underlying issue of chronic low investment, e.g. housing benefits ballooning while municipal capex on housebuilding shrinks; or tax credits/UC top-ups disguising stagnant real wages; or increasing day-to-day NHS spending after years of squeezed capital budgets/social care sector collapse

Neoliberalism is defined by privatisation, the embrace of globalisation/free trade, monetarist central banking, the emasculation of the labour movement, & the transformation of the state from a prime actor in national production/investment into a post-hoc fiscal distributor. It has been consciously driven by market-liberal true believers (some even self-identifying as "neoliberals") – on the Right by Hayekian/Friedmanite think tanks, business groups & various Conservative ideologues, and on the Left by Third Way modernisers (see Blair) and their intellectual forebears in Marxism Today's revisionism, the Democratic Left etc. etc.

Pretending none of this happened (because 'muh the state still spends £££') is pure sophistry. They want us to believe they didn't sell off airlines, steelmakers, coal mines, energy generators, water companies, car manufacturers, banks, bus/train contracts & millions of council houses. That they didn't deregulate financial services to get their 'Big Bang'. That they didn't abolish rent controls, or capital/exchange controls, or wage boards, or price commissions. That they didn't outsource core services and state capacity to corporate providers. That they didn't impose some of the most draconian/restrictive trade union laws in the democratic West. That they didn't cede monetary policy to an independent central bank, or cede trade/migration policy to an unelected, supranational, continental bureaucracy. That they didn't squeeze public investment or prioritise tax cuts over infrastructure spending. That they didn't eschew industrial policy and take a lax approach to deindustrialisation because the future was services & the "knowledge economy".

This isn't simpy an accumulation of random policy titbits, but is the outcome of a coherent intellectual project that has consistently rebalanced the labour/capital relationship in the latter's favour. These people are conning you.

[Joe Bilsborough @joebilsborough]

@MagnusBarsoe Blair skriver eminent, det er der ingen tvivl om, men hans argumentation hører desværre, ligesom den økonomi der gavnede New Labour, fortiden til. Læs evt. nuværende Labour MP Torsten Bells analyse: https://t.co/0ere9XkxuX

[Torsten Bell @TorstenBell]

Blair putting on full display what is in many ways his special ability - to lay out a political argument grounded in his own view of global trends (globalisation in the 2000s, tech in the 2020s). But…

[Future Adam Curtis B-Roll @adamcurtisbroll]

A humanoid robot tumbles while dancing to Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’ and lies motionless before being dragged offstage, May 2026.

[Eastern Bloc Visuals @eastblocvisuals]

Photographs from Maryam Omidi's book 'Holidays in Soviet Sanitoriums'.

[Jeremy Gilbert @jemgilbert]

Wrote this about the current state of UK politics / Labour leadership after the May local elections disaster for Labour. Written for Rosa Luxemburg Siftung, so should be accessible to non-UK readers who want a good summary of where things are at:
https://t.co/kwf1ODQYGC

[Joe Bilsborough @joebilsborough]

@IwanDoherty98 Indeed. There are many such examples: England is the *only* country besides Chile (famously non-neoliberal economic experiment!) to have fully privatised its water system.

[isaac @_isaacrose]

Since it is topical; here is some stuff I wrote / spoke about regarding Manchester and its economic model.

An interview with @InvisibleMapper for @Metropolitics_

https://t.co/8fi9TJm8Vm

[Joseph Elliott @J_Elliott94]

New from JRF: we need Rent Controls (and Tax Reform).

Landlords have been cashing in on rents and house price growth, making excessive returns, while tenants are paying exorbitant rents which drive economic insecurity, poverty and homelessness.

New policy and research from us⬇️

[James Heale @JAHeale]

As Keir Starmer now prepares to say that “incremental change won’t cut it”, a reminder of what he said to @TomMcTague last summer:

[Jonathan Shainin @jonathanshainin]

Labour sources telling me that backbenchers hope to force Starmer to surrender by cutting off water and power to Number 10. I asked if that was legal and they texted back “I think the PLP does have that right, it’s an ongoing situation”

[Joe Bilsborough @joebilsborough]

One of many excellent sections in @piercepenniless piece on the local and devolved elections.

"Anger is a bad passion, and a rotten basis for choosing who governs. It is also a rational response to the state of things"

https://t.co/sFCMzyLI7I

[Joe Bilsborough @joebilsborough]

Something bizarrely apposite in Paul “everyone’s a Tankie!” Mason now channelling Brecht - “the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government And could win it back only By redoubled efforts”

[Paul Mason @paulmasonnews]

Your cut-out-and-keep guide to what's happening in England:

[Eastern Bloc Visuals @eastblocvisuals]

The hypnotic geometric patterns of Soviet era residential facades

[Common Wealth @Cmmonwealth]

Wrong call.

The UK is one of the only countries in northwest Europe without rent controls.

For much of the 20th century, rent controls *did* operate in the UK — and they helped stabilise housing costs until their end in 1989.

Find out more 👇🔗
https://t.co/yB0hbgYlAL

[Eastern Bloc Visuals @eastblocvisuals]

A man pulls away a dismantled Stalin statue, Budapest, 1990.

[Ben Fowlkes @benfowlkesMMA]

So jealous of the writer who, while profiling Linda McMahon for The New Yorker, got to tell Werner Herzog that he had been watching Vince’s real family in the ring all those years ago. Then when Werner replies with this you KNOW he went, yeah that’s definitely going in the story.

[Eastern Bloc Visuals @eastblocvisuals]

Frank Herfort's photographs of Soviet era metro stations around the former USSR

[Callum Williams @econcallum]

The innocent days of 2019!