On the autumn statement 2026

Rachel Reeves in front of No 10/1 with a red box

A quick note on the budget, remembering I wasn’t as critical of last year’s as some, at least not on macro-economic grounds. I was obviously against the failure to abolish the two child cap, but also against the failure to properly fund universities, students, and local government.

So this budget is, to me, a bit meh and I agree with Fisher, why wait for a year? Still nothing on HE or Local Government finance, and the wealth taxation is very weak and poorly focused. No capital gains tax equalisation, no financial transaction tax.

The freezing of tax free allowance amounts is probably more damaging to those on the margin of the upper rate tax band but as I read it, it’s a piece of accounting magic. There were no plans to change it for the next two tax years anyway, and they can change their minds, although some of the impact will occur after the next election.

Also the FT reports that leading business people consider it insufficiently stimulating of growth, which in their case is probably not code for, “We need to rejoin the single market and customs union.”, although there are many, including me and Liz Webster, that are saying so; our macro-economic arguments recently augmented by a report from the US non-partisan National Bureau of Economic Research and by Ryan Bourne’s recanting of his pro-Brexit position.

Image Credit: from freemalaysiatoday cc 2024 by …

Digital Justice in the EU

Image Sign in front of the CJEU's Palais de la Cour de Justice

The Commission of the European Union has issued a report proposing what they call the digitalization of justice. At the moment, this is mainly about best practise, although it seems they plan to improve digital access to the European court’s case law. A commentary has been made by the EU’s agency for fundamental rights cautiously welcoming the report but highlighting both the risks to privacy and the threat that such schemes will fail to improve justice for citizens, or worse. A further commentary can be found at the EU Observer, taking an equally cautions approach.  …

The EU Hokey Cokey

dancers in a european square

I watched the first day of the EU UK parliamentary partnership assembly. The first session was on general issues & trade and the second on defence. I made some notes which you can read overleaf. Following the agenda of the meeting, I talk of Trade and Defence in two parts. Throughout, I question the UK's half hearted commitment. Use the read more button to see the whole article. ...

Parties need pluralism

Ed Miliband at #lab14

I was writing about something else, and wrote this on party management. It’s coherent, but doesn’t belong in what I am writing, and so I thought I’d share it now,

“Your Party” is planning a Sortition based founding conference. It has probably chosen this for reasons of control but, “Your Party”’s problems occur in many parties, and I am reminded of the white paper “The (Unintended) Consequences of New Labour: Party Leadership vs Party Management in the British Labour Party…, a white paper to the PSA” by Emanuelle Averil on New Labour, which examines its managerialism and the destruction of its activist commitment and influence.

The paper was published in 2015 before the General Election. I read it in 2017 and strangely ended up sitting next to her at Conference ’19. I posted my comments in a blog, A note on Emanuelle Averil’s “the unintended consequences of New Labour” and in that article I selected some quotes. While being 20 years old, these comments seem equally relevant today, particularly about the Labour Party. I quote her on how suppressing the activist layer was mistaken and led to a failure to connect to the electorate, how factionalism suppresses plurality which made renewal impossible, how triangulation led to voter alienation and its control freakery led to a toxification of its image.

We might debate about the noughties, but it’s clearly true today. …

Immigration based on compassion and dignity

Immigration based on compassion and dignity

The Government have announced major regressive changes to the Asylum regime. These are all regressive, & vindictive. They must be opposed, and those MPs & Peers opposing these measures supported. This article looks at a couple of statements in opposition, and points at the Momentum model motion. While various press sources seem to have seen the proposals, I can't find the formal government statement. (10:57), see overleaf for more ...

About the AI Boom

an AI chip on a board

Five things

  1. There’s no positive business model, they can’t replace staff, or at least not without new supervisors.
  2. They are now borrowing to invest in each other.
  3. Hallucinations are a feature, it gets things wrong,
  4. The rule base’s ownership is obscure and Code is Law
  5. It’s [deliberately] wasteful of resources which people need to live.

It’s useless as a pillar of a growth/industrial policy. …

Labour’s membership

a red rose

The Labour Party staff stopped reporting membership to  the NEC earlier this year, but they reported the end of year membership to Annual Conference and of course the electoral commission.

A number of years ago, I made  a chart  showing Labour’s membership from 1989 to 2021; I have just updated it using the end of 2024 figures.

There are stories published that Reform have overtaken Labour in terms of membership numbers; it would take an extraordinary amount of departures for this to be true. This article in the New Statesman published under a pseudonym as a gossip column is headlined as such and points at Labour List reporting the membership in Feb as 309,000. …

The downsides of the A.I. industry.

Karen Hao in front of a book shelf

I have recently, watched the YouTube video, “How tech CEOs are lying to you”, where Karen Hao is interviewed by  Aaron Bastani on Novara Media's channel. Ms Hao has just published a book, “Empire of AI” and the interview covers the topics of the book.

At the centre of her arguments are, that large language modules aka AI, and their use of resources, water, power, land and rare metals are a choice, and one that society cannot afford. She questions the business model of the AI industry, sees it as a threat to [US] wealth and notes its scofflaw approach to its own regulation and its oppression of poor and vulnerable communities. She is highly critical of the motivations of the oligarchs funding the AI bubble.

The remainder of this article, which is over 2000 words is overleaf, use the "Read More" button ....

How much has Brexit cost us?

Reuters Square, if its still called that in black and white.

While posting my notes on my reference back for Labour Conference I fell back on the OBR statistic that Brexit had cost the UK 4% of GDP. I thought a chart would have been helpful and so went looking for one.

The NIESR published an article, Revisiting the effects of Brexit, which now they’ve archived it, no longer has the chart they made from the model, but google search can still find it today.

Their model tries to disentangle the effects of the COVID slump, and the article, dated 2023, says,

These estimates suggest that Brexit had already reduced UK real GDP relative to the baseline by just under one per cent in 2020 as consumers and businesses adapted their expectations even before the TCA came into force. Our estimates further suggest that three years after the transition period, UK real GDP is some 2-3 per cent lower due to Brexit, compared to a scenario where the United Kingdom retained EU membership.

 …

Today’s issues for Labour

Portraits, Powell and Phillipson

Labour is holding an election for the position of Deputy Leader, I have five questions I want to ask them.

  1. Where do you stand on immigration and the fact that copying Reform legitimises and emboldens them?
  2. Where do you stand on closer relations with the EU on defence, trade and economic co-operation? Where do you stand on rejoining the single-market?
  3. Where do you stand on fiscal/monetary policy? How can we end austerity and make people feel better off and what will you do?
  4. Where do you stand on Welfare reform? Why are we increasing poverty?
  5. What do you think the Government should do about Gaza and Palestine?
  6. I believe a Deputy Leader, in fact all MPs, should represent the Party membership to the PLP and its leadership, will you start to do this?
  7. What measures will you take to turn the Party’s democracy back on?

Now how to put these questions to them. …