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Nathan🌹 @nathanwylabour.bsky.social · 7h

Oh that looks like it will be good!

Nathan🌹 @nathanwylabour.bsky.social · 7h

Both my parents were the first in their family to go to uni, but the fact my dad has a PhD probably eased my sister's path to medical school, and gave my mum the confidence to start the PhD she's doing now

"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 8h

It's always striking seeing other academics talk about their academic parents and be reminded that close to a quarter of all tenure-line academics have at least one PhD parent.

That's not a critique, but I always wonder how different it would be to have a parent who already understood academia.

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Nathan🌹 @nathanwylabour.bsky.social · 7h

Yes but a) Sultana is much closer ideologically to Corbyn than she is to anyone in the Greens, b) she and Corbyn view the independents as useful idiots to co-opt, c) the level of internal democracy in the Greens means she'd never be able to assume the level of control that she wants

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Nathan🌹 @nathanwylabour.bsky.social · 8h

The Green party is far too wet for her, far too internally democratic

Nathan🌹 @nathanwylabour.bsky.social · 8h

Because she is a very radical Marxist and practically no one in the Greens is?

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Nathan🌹 @nathanwylabour.bsky.social · 9h

Moving around a lot as a single mid-20s graduate can very good for career advancement, but I think middle class people like me are sometimes oblivious to how detrimental having to move that often is for working class families with school-age children.

Nathan🌹 @nathanwylabour.bsky.social · 9h

Yes exactly! I'm not the sort of person whose ideology would usually be described as 'communitarian', but it's just incredibly obvious to me that stability of tenure is vital for building strong communities. And for social mobility as well!

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Nathan🌹 @nathanwylabour.bsky.social · 11h

Not just the UK either – Canada and the other constitutional monarchies in Europe had different names for it as well

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Nathan🌹 @nathanwylabour.bsky.social · 14h

Water is such a mess for two main reasons:

1) No competitive incentives built into the system

2) Ofwat in the 2010s started acting like the water boards used to – holding bills down below inflation! The result: water companies became overleveraged and essential investment got delayed.

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Nathan🌹 @nathanwylabour.bsky.social · 14h

Exactly - we see this in so many areas.

In energy, privatisation has (broadly speaking) been a success, in that we have a market that's delivered one of the most rapid energy transitions in the OECD.

(Bills are high, but that's mostly bc govt levied policy costs on bills rather than through taxes)

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 15h

The biggest reason for privatisation is that the temptation with state owned utilities is for the state to say "no price increases/capital expenditure this year lads" and just keep kicking the can down the road so as to spare consumer pain or pocket the profits for other purposes

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Nathan🌹 @nathanwylabour.bsky.social · 15h

Common Wealth and We Own It are certainly not the most ill-intentioned groups in the Labour ecosystem, but they might just be the most annoying

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Nathan🌹 @nathanwylabour.bsky.social · 16h

Whereas if you increase one or all of the major broad-based taxes, the losses are diffuse (so no one feels like they've lost more than anyone else), and the gains can be concentrated (i.e. you spend the increased revenue on the people most likely to vote for you)

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Nathan🌹 @nathanwylabour.bsky.social · 16h

I mean, this is just a prime example of why fiddling with minor taxes is rarely worth the political bother! The gains are diffuse, the losses are concentrated.

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Nathan🌹 @nathanwylabour.bsky.social · 16h

There are always trade-offs but I'd rather give tenants that security, than allow landlords to evict people by the back door.

Sadly it's common for landlords to whack the rent up to get the tenant out, list at that price, then gradually discount to the level at which they can attract a new tenant.

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Nathan🌹 @nathanwylabour.bsky.social · 16h

Labour and Tories are in different positions here IMO.

Tories have pivoted too far from their original base, but Labour arguably hasn't pivoted far enough.

Govt is behaving as if it thinks a substantial group of pensioners are Lab voters – which *was* the case in 2005, not so much in 2024 though!

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 16h

Perfectly put from @stephenkb.bsky.social and follows on from my piece about both the Tories and Labour negging the PMC groups who were their normal base before they went all in on retirees.

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

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Nathan🌹 @nathanwylabour.bsky.social · 16h

Yes exactly, and that's what happens in France!

The aim of indexation controls is to smooth the cycle and provide security to long-term tenants. Now that the UK government has legislated to give greater security of tenure, it's the logical next step IMO.

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Nathan🌹 @nathanwylabour.bsky.social · 16h

Then you have models like NYC, where some properties are rent-controlled and others aren't. But we already have a version of that in the UK: it's called social housing!

The real question is whether you extend rent control to parts of the private sector or restrict it to council/agency provision.

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Nathan🌹 @nathanwylabour.bsky.social · 16h

The other end of the spectrum is the German model, which holds down rents below market rates, and while you wait for a rent-controlled property your only option is dodgy sublets.

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Nathan🌹 @nathanwylabour.bsky.social · 16h

IMO the case for indexation-style rent controls (like they have in France) is very strong, as they don't interfere with market signals, but do stop rogue landlords from handing down huge above-market annual rent increases to tenants.

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Nathan🌹 @nathanwylabour.bsky.social · 16h

It's very frustrating that UK discourse treats 'rent control' as one homogeneous thing, rather than an umbrella term for a range of really quite different policies

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Nathan🌹 @nathanwylabour.bsky.social · 16h

And those of us in the UK who are practising Christians are, shall we say, not generally that receptive to right-wing populism

DanTechnik @dantechnik.bsky.social · 18h

We’ve all noticed the right now trying to brand us all as Christian. It sounds weird and sticks out like a sore thumb in the UK, because we just don’t really identify like that anymore. It’ll be interesting to see the knuckle draggers all claiming to be Christian and reciting the Apostles’ Creed.

Henry Mance @henrymance.ft.com · 1d

The right-wing campaign group that helped topple Roe v Wade in the US is now working to roll back abortion laws in the UK, with the help of Nigel Farage.

Its first step? Trying to create a debate around "free speech"
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/w...

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Nathan🌹 @nathanwylabour.bsky.social · 1d

Yes, but that is outweighed IMO by the fact that Trump has made pissing off China more dangerous for the whole of Europe

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Nathan🌹 @nathanwylabour.bsky.social · 1d

Just been to see the film I Swear.

Icl I sobbed through most of it. Such a powerful film, it it doesn't get a Bafta I'll be annoyed.

Nathan🌹 @nathanwylabour.bsky.social · 1d

Idk, that may have been the Trans+ Solidarity Alliance?

Labour for Trans Rights were just doing the mornings to promote our event

Nathan🌹 @nathanwylabour.bsky.social · 1d

If you spoke to a blonde-haired, early 20s, 5'8 guy, that would have been me! I wasn't there all the time though

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