J Halton

Assistant general counsel @FT. “Assessing legal risk is something, I think, beyond the human mind” – David Davis. Own views. He/him.

[J Halton @johnhalton]

Coverage of trans people and their rights in the UK media is (as we know) A. Total. Shitshow. A major reason for this is the lack of trans representation in newsrooms, which is why it's great that @TransJA exists. Here's their style guide for media orgs: https://t.co/sk8eCXbOrt

[J Halton @johnhalton]

Anyroad up, not really doing Twitter at the moment, but just wanted to pop in to share that link. <exits>

[J Halton @johnhalton]

Tips include: "hire trans reporters and editors", "talk to trans people about trans people", "trans woman is two words", and other advice that really shouldn't be earthshattering but apparently is, even for news outlets that really ought to know better

[J Halton @johnhalton]

Coverage of trans people and their rights in the UK media is (as we know) A. Total. Shitshow. A major reason for this is the lack of trans representation in newsrooms, which is why it's great that @TransJA exists. Here's their style guide for media orgs: https://t.co/sk8eCXbOrt

[Ian Dunt @IanDunt]

Labour should absolutely refuse to participate in that committee, as the SNP have done. Let it be seen for what it is.

[J Halton @johnhalton]

For one day only (Wed 3 Nov), all @FinancialTimes content is free to read: no paywall. So fill yer boots! #FTfreetoday https://t.co/Svc1X6FSxl

[Seb Dance @SebDance]

Can you imagine if Labour’s flagship policy reduced our GDP by 4%? The outcry!! The Tories are not the party of opportunity and wealth. They’re ideologues weighing Britain down with a Brexit millstone around its neck.

[J Halton @johnhalton]

Announcing a restoration of the 0.7% aid budget (thus mollifying liberal Tories in the home counties) while using accounting trickery to reduce the amount of money that actually gets paid is, I imagine, what commentators mean by a “politically deft” budget https://t.co/I3fh40pocO

[J Halton @johnhalton]

Shameless

[J Halton @johnhalton]

It may be significant that the “burden” figures are sourced to the IMF, while the “receipts” figures are sourced to the Bank of England and OBR. So presumably there’s two different forms of calculation going on here

[J Halton @johnhalton]

Hoping a clever economist person can explain to me how the “UK tax burden” can be 33.5% of GDP, rising to 36.2% by 2026/27, while a chart shows “total UK tax receipts” at roughly 37% of GDP, rising to 40%? What is the difference between these two concepts?

[Streatham Rovers Football Club @StreathamRovers]

@johnhalton @robertshrimsley Read this eagerly expecting some state funding but this suggests we'll be punished for being in a constituency that hasn't voted tory since 1987? The campaign to change that starts today.

[J Halton @johnhalton]

“Tories do not normally see it as the state’s job to safeguard badly run, non-essential businesses that struggle to attract paying customers.” – @robertshrimsley

I trust you’re not going to take this lying down, @StreathamRovers??? https://t.co/HHS9kY5Irg

[Rt Hon Sir Peter Mannion MP @MatthewHawxe]

Footfall's coming home.

[J Halton @johnhalton]

"With the Johnson government unable or unwilling to give a clear lead on racism, it has been left to the team manager to articulate the role the England team can play as a symbol of national unity."

[Giles Wilkes @Gilesyb]

Not sure I've ever seen @FT take the gloves off like this:

"There is no doubt that a substantial proportion of the governing Conservative party shares Patel’s contempt for the England team’s anti-racism efforts"
- https://t.co/HRXD7lY9qs

[J Halton @johnhalton]

"We will act to protect you if the worst happens" – the "you" here are the people to whom the worst had not previously happened, and who had never imagined that Universal Credit would ever eat *their* face.

[J Halton @johnhalton]

Hard to shake off the sense that the government regarded the previous level of UC as what its recipients *deserved*, rather than what they needed; but the Covid crisis meant that people might now be claiming UC who didn't deserve its "disciplinary" aspects. Hence the uplift.

[Sarah O'Connor @sarahoconnor_]

This week I've written about the impending cut to people's Universal Credit in the UK, and why I don't think we should do it. https://t.co/NwwZbxjiLg

[Joe Weisenthal @TheStalwart]

People dunking on that Goldman #ENG prediction. I think it was predicated on them running the final at least 10,000 times to get the true superior team. Doubt Goldman realized they were just going to play it once.

[J Halton @johnhalton]

Looking forward to the crusaders against “cancel culture” taking up the fight on behalf of @jessbrammar here. A clear example of someone facing “cancellation” for exercising their free speech online, they’ll be all over it, I’m quite sure

[I Am Incorrigible also on Bluesky, threads & masto @ImIncorrigible]

In 1938, Sir Nicholas Winton brought Jewish children from Nazi German-occupied Czechoslovakia to safety in the UK. Fifty years later, That’s Life reunited him with some of those children

Under the Tories' anti-refugee law, Sir Nicholas would be a criminal

#RefugeesWelcome

[J Halton @johnhalton]

But I’m not sure that’s quite what’s happened. It’s that people who think they are hearty English pragmatists (but are actually deeply ideological) have read the EU’s behaviour as ideological (when it’s actually been driven largely by pragmatism).

[J Halton @johnhalton]

“It was curious that a group of ideological purists expected their interlocutors to be ideologically flexible and pragmatic.” – @anandMenon1, quoted by @martinwolf_, on the Brexiters’ misreading of the EU. https://t.co/pLC9JPvT7L