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Ben Ansell

Ben Ansell

@benansell.bsky.social

30K followers 990 following 6.4K posts

Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions, Nuffield & University of Oxford, FBA. http://benansell.substack.com. BBC Reith Lecturer 2023. Host BBC Radio 4 Rethink. Columnist for Prospect. Director, Centre for Advanced Social Science Methods (CASSM). .. more

Ben W. Ansell is Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions at Nuffield College, University of Oxford and, with David Samuels, editor of Comparative Political Studies.

Source: Wikipedia

Political science 47%

Economics 40%

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Reposted by Ben H. Ansell

Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 6h

Once again doing the "there's nothing Labour about [X]" non-argument, I see. Honestly why are these people so allergic to actually making a proper case for *anything*?

Starmer to launch fresh push for welfare spending reform

Prime minister will risk Labour MPs’ ire by arguing that tackling the spiralling benefits bill is a moral imperative

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 8h

Super interesting on both

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 8h

Yes it's comparatively bad (better than it was though) and I have been a tentative supporter of the triple lock because of that.

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 8h

I like to imagine this is a very elaborate economics 101 class and 'Morgan' will pull his face mask off and it will be Paul Krugman and we'll all chuckle and promise in future not to undermine all our exports.

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 8h

Absolutely - though in some ways UK is in a better situation than many of our continental peers with more generous pensions and earlier retirement ages and it's not exactly as if they have figure out how to reverse out if that problem either.

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 8h

What if... and hear me out... we eliminated all winners from the Budget?

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 8h

Ah thank you- I took the FT number as gospel there!

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 8h

Frantically checking whether the titles of any of my lectures were mistranslations by bloody Zizek ;)

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 9h

While I agree in general about the dependency ratio, lots of pensioners do pay quite a bit in taxes, so not quite the same as say when you have very large cohorts of children.

Reposted by Ben H. Ansell

Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 9h

A validation of this marvellous piece from @igmansfield.bsky.social about what Reeves should have done:

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 9h

The government opposed it and I'm sure the wealthy in Switzerland were able to campaign effectively through the media and otherwise... but at the end of the day the proposal commanded less than 20% support.

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 9h

That's right - median earners have done OK out of past decade and a half, tax-wise (though their earnings have stagnated). Upper middle-class have generally been leant on more for taxes (and cutbacks in spending, e.g. child benefit, childcare).

Reposted by Will Jennings

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 9h

On wealth taxes and whether the Budget was a missed opportunity, the recent referendum failure in Switzerland on a tax that only the very wealthy would pay shows that what might seem on the face of it very popular turns out not always to be so.

www.ft.com/content/f03f...

Swiss voters reject 50% inheritance tax for the super-rich

Overwhelming majority opposed wealth tax in contentious referendum

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 10h

Looks like something that might qualify for Culpepper/Lee scandal status….

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 10h

Isn’t May basically a ‘free hit’ though? Like starting as a new manager with Arsenal away

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 10h

Yes that’s right and IIRC there are quotes from Reeves aligned people that the headroom did need to be substantially larger than that

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 10h

Well not least that it wasn’t listened to in the end

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 10h

I’m old enough to remember when Keir Starmer’s conference speech had quieted the doubters and stabilised him… so I suspect this Budget ceasefire will last a similar amount of time.

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 12h

And thank you for your kind comment. Appreciated.

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 12h

Briefly on this website yes a couple of times. I think it’s very unfortunate they made that cut. I have to imagine it was legal that made them do it in this case. Which is very sad but may be out of the hands of the editors etc

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 12h

Ok then!

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 13h

Rare pleasures and all that

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 13h

Very good piece this by John Harris about Labour’s distaste for their squeezed middle class voter base. Connects to a lot of what I said a few week’s back in my Substack piece.

benansell.substack.com/p/british-po...

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 15h

Palace…? Indeed

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 15h

A good question

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 15h

Have to say it’s deeply frustrating that the BBC News team simply cannot ask a tough question about POLICY rather than politics. It is infantilising the audience - unless the audience is other journalists in the lobby.

Michael @michaeljsc.bsky.social · 18h

I’ll give Laura K some questions for free:

Are you really going to introduce tax on salary sacrifice pension contributions on your own voters months before the election?

Where will the money for special educational needs come from when it’s moved from local government to central?

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 15h

Chronic secondhalfitis

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 16h

I find the puritanism in the discipline about all this a bit frustrating. We cannot ensure perfection ex ante. That’s why we have the ex post possibility of critiquing published articles. People seem to want peer review to accomplish things it cannot.

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 16h

Structural problems are by their nature very hard to resolve. We currently have a solution called publishing papers and other people criticising them. I think that solution is OK.

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 16h

I’d prefer people to do as normal and submit afterwards for the reasons noted above. I really don’t think making the review process slower and more costly is in anyone’s interest.