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Jonathan Portes

@jdportes.bsky.social

63K followers 610 following 4.1K posts

Professor of Economics and Public Policy, King's College London; Senior Fellow, UK in a Changing Europe. Immigration, economics, public policy. Personal views only; usual disclaimers apply. Books: Immigration (Sage), Capitalism (Quercus) .. more

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Jonathan Daniel Portes is a professor of Economics and Public Policy at the School of Politics & Economics of King's College, London and a senior fellow at UK in a Changing Europe.

Source: Wikipedia

Political science 31%

Economics 28%

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Reposted by Jonathan Portes

Peter Jukes @peterjukes.bsky.social · 41m

The new edition of @bylinetimes.bsky.social goes to the printers tomorrow.

And we go where others fear to tread…

Subscribe by tonight and you’ll get it delivered to your door

subscribe.bylinetimes.com/editions/

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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 46m

It's the Lord Denning defence - "despite the incontrovertible evidence, this can't be true, because if it were I and others would have to change our worldview, which no sensible person would regard as acceptable."

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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 1h

On that, it's the combination of "any Palestinian who is any way associated with Hamas is a genocidal Jew-hater" with "Israel/the IDF can do no wrong, any evidence to the contrary is fabricated/imaginary/just a few bad apples" that I find particularly morally abhorrent.

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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 11h

No - that's a rationale for raising the floor. People on skilled work visas earning > 40-odd K are well over median. Nowhere near the floor. (I can tell you this is not a JvR policy!!)

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Reposted by Colin Murray

Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 11h

Indeed.

The government has chosen to prioritise reducing (skilled, legal, for work) migration over growth and hence over improving public services.

No economic rationale - but even worse, no political rationale either.

Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 17h

One mistake Labour made in their first year is loading quite a few new costs onto business all at once. They are risking doing something similar on immigration, I think.

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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 11h

Finkelstein has still not apologised for accusing me, and other Jews who criticised Israel's atrocities, of being "antisemitic trolls", nor indeed has he withdrawn this absurd and morally bankrupt claim.

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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 12h

For Danny Finkelstein, the systematic and deliberate massacres of civilians, and the use of mass starvation as a weapon, is the fault of Hamas and some unnamed individuals - as opposed to him and his fellow apologists.

archive.ph/CaNZH

And yes, there rose in Israel a war coalition, including vengeful and obnoxious individuals seeking the eradication of neighbours they saw as enemies.

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Reposted by Jonathan Portes

Dan Sohege @danielsohege.bsky.social · 16h

We can all bitch and moan and call out the utterly contemptible policies suggested by the likes of Reform and the Conservatives, but if that same condemnation is not applied to Labour then it shows it is not about supporting migrants, it is about being party political. 2/

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Reposted by Jonathan Portes

Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 16h

Hey news people: I know you like to pretend this doesn't exist, but you need to pay attention to the Nazi drama on Twitter. Basically, it seems as if Elon just restored two major neo-Nazi accounts that were banned by his product head, and might be about to fire the product head for banning them

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Reposted by Jonathan Portes

Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 17h

One mistake Labour made in their first year is loading quite a few new costs onto business all at once. They are risking doing something similar on immigration, I think.

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Reposted by Jonathan Portes

Yair Wallach @yairwallach.bsky.social · 1d

On the 6th of October Israel had about 5,000 Palestinian prisoners.
Today, *after the exchange* Israel holds at least 9,000 prisoners, most of them have not been charged.
Conditions in prisons became intolerable after Oct 7. Torture and starvation are standard.

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Reposted by Jonathan Portes, Steve Peers

Tony Yates @t0nyyates.bsky.social · 1d

Thing by me on today's Econ nobel in @alphaville.ft.com : www.ft.com/content/b8aa...

Idealist and/or materialist theories of economic growth

[FREE TO READ] Nobel committee: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

www.ft.com

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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 1d

It *is* our GDP: growth and trust in government.

Can't be overstated how much of our (and Europe's) political dysfunction is downstream of low growth since 2010..

cepr.org/voxeu/column...

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Reposted by Jonathan Portes, Nandita Sharma, Peter Murphy , and 1 more Jonathan Portes, Nandita Sharma, Peter Murphy, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò

Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · 1d

Front page of Scottish newspaper The National today.

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Reposted by Jonathan Portes, Steve Peers

Tristan Grayford @tristangrayford.scot · 1d

An important precedent set which I hope is wielded broadly

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Kent police apologise to protester threatened with arrest for holding Palestine flag

Force agrees to pay damages to Laura Murton, 43, who also had sign saying ‘Israel is committing genocide’

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Jonathan Portes

Gabriel Milland @gabrielmilland.bsky.social · 1d

People now *lie* to claim they live in Hackney to get access to schools in that Borough. If you told someone that 20 years ago you would simply have been laughed at.

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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 2d

I wouldn't start this one at 0. Starting it at 95 is just hilariously bad/dishonest though, which is why I posted it

Reposted by Steve Peers

Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 2d

Great chart of UK's "soaring" debt from the Telegraph..

archive.ph/gZEYW

chart showing UK debt "soaring" as a % of GDP from 96 to 99%

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Reposted by Jonathan Portes, Steve Peers, Richard Waite , and 1 more Jonathan Portes, Steve Peers, Richard Waite, Brian Keegan

Dmitry Grozoubinski @explaintrade.com · 2d

This is an exact encapsulation of why I moved to Bluesky.

No amount of handwringing in the Atlantic about how I owe some eternal Promethean suffering to the discourse is going to make me stay on a site I hate, that stopped doing anything for me professionally years ago.

Well – no. Bluesky may or may not be, as one centre-right friend who felt unwelcome put it, “self-righteous island”. But the idea that’s why we went is nonsense. That I’ve largely stopped posting on a site that’s done more to shape my career and social circle than the rest of the internet combined is less about avoiding rival opinions (I love arguing with people who are wrong!) than with the fact the site simply became unusable. It stopped generating the things (good jokes, interesting debate, clicks) I wanted; it became extremely good at generating the things (racists, pornbots, racist pornbots) I did not.

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Reposted by Jonathan Portes, Lesley A. Hall, Margot C. Finn

Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 3d

“I’m old enough to remember when mainstream British politicians, who should know better, stirred up racial hatred as a path to power. You’re old enough to remember too because it was last Tuesday. And it was Robert Jenrick”

Cathartic anger at flag-flying racism.

www.thenerve.news/p/stewart-le...

Stewart Lee: The thugs have taken my flag. So I’ve taken theirs

What do you do with a lot of cheap banners hanging from motorway bridges once you’ve torn them down?

www.thenerve.news

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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 3d

My point -which you couldn't be bothered to read or understand -is taxes need to go up regardless of what Reeves or the OBR says the "black hole" is. Seriously, not sure why I waste my time. I shall leave it there.

Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 3d

Sigh. Your endless witterings are irrelevant to my original thread - the whole point of which was that the OBR/fiscal rules aren't the issue. Can you not bother to even read/think before jumping in?

Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 3d

actually not, technically (models can and will incorporate different marginal propensity to consume. That usually means taxing the rich reduces demand less). But in any case there is still an intertemporal government budget constraint.

Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 3d

the *whole point* of my thread was that the OBR is not the issue here! I do wish people would actually read what I say before jumping in...

Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 3d

And on your point - no, it's nonsense to suggest that having a fiscal constraint obscures the choices! If you have to put up tax it has to go up on someone/something. What obscures the choices is those on the left & right who pretend there is no constraint because MMT or Laffer or whatever.

Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 3d

if he'd said "yes taxes need to rise but I think the target should be X" that would have been fine - probably wrong but OK - but almost entirely irrelevant to my thread.

Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 3d

No. Not really at all. Phil jumped into this thread to claim that those of us who think fiscal constraints are genuine/taxes need to go up are somehow part of an Osborne conspiracy.
bsky.app/profile/mcdu...

Phil McDuff @mcduff.bsky.social · 4d

You can say this all you want, but the chancellor is out here saying that's how it works and telling the papers that black holes need to be filled, so in reality it's exactly how it works, isn't it?

Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 4d

This from Andy Haldane gets some basic stuff wrong, notably this:

"A £30bn will need to be filled in this year’s Budget,e ven though a stalled economy needs a 1% of GDP fiscal tightening like a hole in the head."

Just wrong. Not how the fiscal framework works at all.

www.ft.com/content/1c4d...

Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 3d

Raising income tax would mostly hit those with incomes well over median - that's how a progressive tax system works (and ours is quite progressive). But (as I've written elsewhere) there are quite a few other things I'd do on tax that would hit upper/upper-middle incomes/better-off pensioners.

Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 3d

sure, it's complicated. And I agree if doctors are unemployed then we should employ them, and immigration would boost supply and ease some constraints (as you know I've written extensively on this). But the overall macro constraint remains (and it's partly global remember)

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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 3d

I don't think the markets have any problem with infrastructure spending. But the overall savings-investment balance is a macro question; we can't "do" it (because we have limited overall resources) without increasing expected inflation. So we can't afford it..(unless we raise taxes/cut other spend).