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Resurrecting this thread for purely selfish reasons
Starting a thread of traditional Christmas songs today on St Cecilia's day, to give you all time to learn them.
Shirley and Dolly first
youtube.com/watch?v=pHYi0KK-…
Frances Smith retweeted
The War on Low Pay (led by the likes of @resfoundation) is, in practice, a war on wage differentials. Relative prices are necessary to allow markets to function and clear properly. This is why the labour market is screwed up!
Minimum wage increases since 2015 have all but ended ‘low’ pay.
In 2011, 21% of workers were low paid – defined as hourly pay below two-thirds of the overall median. By April 2024 3.4% of employees were low paid on this measure.
Read more: buff.ly/0OSArrI
ALT Chart showing proportion of employees with hourly pay below two-thirds of the median: UK
Frances Smith retweeted
The Prime Minister seems very conflicted on Brexit.
Ahead of the budget tomorrow, he's announced the removal of import tariffs on over 100 products like baked beans, chocolates and fertilizer.
This is a freedom you don't have as an EU member at all.
gov.uk/government/news/every…
Frances Smith retweeted
This is very easy to check. Returns to Europe from the UK under the Dublin Regulation were in the 100s per year--vs just under 30k today.
Fred is right, and the PM is unfortunately making stuff up.
Almost everything Burnham says in this piece is a lie.
- We didn't get a "harder" Brexit than what was mentioned in the Referendum. We left with the most comprehensive trade agreement the EU has ever signed.
- The small boats crisis didn't emerge because of losing "returns agreements". While we were in the EU we were a net-, recipient of illegal immigrants from these agreements, the small boats crisis has emerged because of a global surge in illegal immigration and pull-factors like our human rights laws.
- Immigration within the EU was not "revolving door". It has been permanent, and significantly more than estimated at the time. Over 6 million people have come here on the EU Settlement scheme, double estimated.
The Prime Minister is dishonest and cynical, planning to hand border control to the EU, and likely pay them British taxpayers money while he's at it.
Frances Smith retweeted
A little too much (thank you @GuidoFawkes) is being read into my quote welcoming this @Prosperity_Inst report prosperity.com/media-publica…. I don't endorse the report's precise prescriptions on behalf of @reformparty_uk. The size and shape of the Armed Forces is downstream of the national security policy work we are doing - more on that soon. But I do welcome the report's clear-eyed focus on our core national interests, and its recognition that the refusal to invest properly or make decisions about priorities has created our 'overstretched and hollow Armed Forces'. I am more sceptical about 'single service' strategies ('more Navy', 'more Army' etc). We should be procuring capability rather than platforms, with much more scope for spiral development and constant upgrading as technology changes. And most of all we need a trajectory of immediate and sustained public spending increases, with clear demand signals to attract the private capital that will create the defence innovations of the future - innovations Britain is brilliant at, but currently can't create at the scale and pace that we need.
Frances Smith retweeted
Now, obviously, Labour will never admit it, but this is a retreat from their manifesto commitment and stated policy goals (which were to raise the peg even higher and abolish age bands!). xitter.cf/PolitlcsUK/status/2114…
Frances Smith retweeted
A (small) win for minimum-wage-sceptics… This is essentially a break with the 2/3 median wage peg, which would’ve required a 5.4% increase to £13.40 to maintain, and the smallest real-terms increase in a while. Will be interesting to read the full LPC report when it comes out.
Frances Smith retweeted
Hi, the comment is based on my @Prosperity_Inst report, which advocates for a maritime-first approach to UK defence, & argues for fully resourcing the 3rd Div (with depth) before considering building out the 1st Div to reestablish British Army credibility. prosperity.com/media-publica…
Frances Smith retweeted
Defence policy requires acknowledging trade-offs and prioritisation of resources in Britain's interest. That's why we commissioned the paper by @joshuachuminski. I'm sure you know that we have tried to do too many things badly and left the fundamentals to wither. A Navy-first plan makes sense for Britain's geography and interests. Maybe you think otherwise.
Frances Smith retweeted
Rather than just reading headlines or the partisan guff, read the paper. It’s a serious and much-needed contribution.
This article & Mr. Kruger's comments are based on my @Prosperity_Inst report, in which I advocate for a maritime-first UK defence strategy. In the absence of vastly more resources, critical choices are necessary, such as building out the 3rd Div to a credible strength, first.
Frances Smith retweeted
The whole biodiesel quota is a massive scam. We are adulterating petrol with crops that could be used for food, because no one imagined that electric cars would be a thing.
Frances Smith retweeted
The only logical explanation is that a team of civil servants went to the pub and held a competition to mash together the dumbest policies into one ultimate masterpiece of stupidity.
Frances Smith retweeted
This is all very small beer, plus it’s also things the EU could do on its own but doesn’t as it’s preoccupied with cutting off the outside world & telling everyone that it’s an economic superpower while shutting down their own factories with the pointless regulations they think up
Frances Smith retweeted
I was a criminal intelligence analyst for a decade, then a consultant in that kind of thing. I've never seen crime data portrayed like this, for good reason.
Logarithmic scales are used to compress exponential differences (bacteria multiplying, stock markets doubling year on year, differences between towns and cities).
In the Economist's case, a log scale would make sense if there was a reason for Afghan men to commit more of these crimes (if each Afghan had a hundred cocks, or was actually ten men inside one suit). But there isn't. The log scale just obscures the vastly higher rates of offending by these imported Labour voters.
The casual reader will skim over it and assume it's a linear scale. The one advantage is that it makes proportional differences below/close to the baseline easier to see. But it obfuscates the truth.
Frances Smith retweeted
Same data shown on a linear plot.
Why they would use a log plot?
(Because a log plot helps hide how bad the problem is.)
Frances Smith retweeted
The Economist put the chart on a log scale.
I wonder why they did that?
Here it is on a normal one.
Frances Smith retweeted
I'm not sure how long "yeah, we know the people we're letting in are predators, but we're basically OK with that" is going to survive as a pitch
A hard look at Britain’s data suggests so. But it is hardly an epidemic economist.com/britain/2026/1…
Frances Smith retweeted
Burnham's camp did not like the joke about a Blairite, a Brownite and a Corbynista walking into a bar, and the barman saying "What's it to be Andy?"
But it remains an accurate description of the man. He's all over the place.
Here - in my view - he's correct on his headline point. But if you don't agree, another principle will be along in a minute:
Frances Smith retweeted
This is how our disgusting snake of a PM reacted when the presenter said “you’ve just spooked everyone saying stockpile.”
(I don’t care if you view those who chose to stockpile as fools. This isn’t the debate. The issue is this utter disgrace of a PM and his cronies deliberately promoted the idea, simply to play with people. As if it’s all a game to them.)
You can’t push survival kits and 3-days worth of supplies, and then smirk when you’re told that you’ve spooked people.
I get it’s Halloween season, and this ghoul plays his own version of trick or treat. It’s called trick or trick.
