Simon Wren-Lewis
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sjwrenlewis.bsky.social
Simon Wren-Lewis
@sjwrenlewis.bsky.social

Emeritus Professor of Economics, Oxford University.

Simon Wren-Lewis is a British economist. He is a professor of economic policy at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University and a Fellow of Merton College.

Source: Wikipedia
Economics 95%
Political science 5%

This is very good. We need to tax wealth and raise taxes on middle earners.
My pre-budget take for the LSE Politics blog is up:

Labour are unable to articulate any vision or sense of purpose.

Much of the left has convinced itself that government spending can be maintained without broad-based tax increases.

Not a great budget backdrop.

blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandp...
Wealth tax and looser fiscal rules won’t save the Budget | British Politics and Policy at LSE
The narrative on the left that a wealth tax and looser fiscal rules would solve the Chancellor's 2025 Budget headaches has got out of hand.
blogs.lse.ac.uk

Reposted by Simon Wren‐Lewis

"Much of the left appears to have convinced itself that wealth tax is all that is needed. This is incorrect — and an incessant focus on wealth taxation is obscuring the need for broader tax increases." Clear and interesting piece by @jomichell.bsky.social:
blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandp...
Wealth tax and looser fiscal rules won’t save the Budget | British Politics and Policy at LSE
The narrative on the left that a wealth tax and looser fiscal rules would solve the Chancellor's 2025 Budget headaches has got out of hand.
blogs.lse.ac.uk

Reposted by Simon Wren‐Lewis

When can you declare an emergency over?

The 5p “emergency” petrol tax cut was introduced in March 2022, to offset a spike in prices

They are now about 30p down on that month, & about 50p down on the absolute peak
My pre-budget take for the LSE Politics blog is up:

Labour are unable to articulate any vision or sense of purpose.

Much of the left has convinced itself that government spending can be maintained without broad-based tax increases.

Not a great budget backdrop.

blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandp...
Wealth tax and looser fiscal rules won’t save the Budget | British Politics and Policy at LSE
The narrative on the left that a wealth tax and looser fiscal rules would solve the Chancellor's 2025 Budget headaches has got out of hand.
blogs.lse.ac.uk

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture.

They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

New post: Expertise, Government, the Media and Covid
mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2025/11/expe...
The Covid inquiry shows not just political failure on a deadly scale, but of media failure to transmit expertise and to hold to account politicians that let tens of thousands die unnecessarily.
Expertise, Government, the Media and Covid
It is now generally (although not universally) accepted that those of us who campaigned vigorously against the government’s auster...
mainlymacro.blogspot.com

Robbie Gibb describes the BBC's Political Editor Chris Mason as the "unsung hero of covering politics" and "absolutely first rate"

Reposted by Simon Wren‐Lewis

I have taken an hour out to have a look at the CPS's attack on our current fiscal rules.

I am mostly confused about what they want.

freethinkecon.wordpress.com/2025/11/24/w...
what, the fiscal rules, again?
The conventional wisdom, at least of the sort of crowd I hang out with, is that there is nothing wrong with the fiscal rules, nor with the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) that measures polic…
freethinkecon.wordpress.com

This focuses on politics. But we should also care about *outcomes*.

In the UK, migrants (both from EU and elsewhere) are more likely to have a job than the UK born. In Denmark, there's a gap of 15-20%. Similarly for education outcomes.

Why would we want to copy that?
After more than 10 years of “the Danish Model”, nativism is hegemonic in the country, the far right polls near level highs again, and the Social Democrats lost Copenhagen and poll at historic low.

European Social Democrats should look at the facts, not the myths!

Me in @theguardian.com
The ‘Danish model’ is the darling of centre-left parties like Labour. The problem is, it doesn’t even work in Denmark | Cas Mudde
This week’s local elections are the latest reminder that when social democrats move rightwards, they’re making a mistake, says academic and author Cas Mudde
www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Simon Wren‐Lewis

"Trans people could be asked about whether they should be accessing single-sex services based on their physical appearance."

No. not "trans people". ANYONE. This moral panic leads inexorably to the policing of women based on their appearance deemed to be "unfeminine".

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Trans people could be barred from services based on appearance
The new code of practice on access to single-sex services cannot gain legal force until it gets sign-off from ministers.
www.bbc.co.uk

Mahmood/government should say explain *objective* of increasing time to settlement for 15 years for care workers who arrived 2022-24

Is it

A) to get them to leave? Why?
B) to save money? Then why not just restrict benefits?
C) to "encourage integration"? How? Will do opposite.
15 years for people in medium skilled jobs and care workers too. I believe this goes down to 10 years if they earn over £50,270. Someone in a high skilled job earning over that qualifies in 5 years.

A very timely research project on the myth that bringing far-right parties into government coalitions will somehow “expose” them — a strategy that simply doesn’t work.
📣 New op-ed in Süddeutsche Zeitung: What the data say about the “Brandmauer”

I summarize key findings from a study with @anninahermes.bsky.social across 57 democracies

➡️ Far-right parties don’t get weaker in government, they get stronger (~6 points by the next election)

tinyurl.com/4j6jaud2
Demokratie: Wenn die Rechte mitregiert, wird sie nicht geschwächt – im Gegenteil
Eine Untersuchung von 57 Ländern zeigt: Wenn die Rechte in Verantwortung kommt, gewinnt sie dazu. Daraus lässt sich für Deutschland lernen.
www.sueddeutsche.de
 "so deep was the fiscal crisis that public spending was cut and taxes on the rich went up. The result is that Britain’s top 10 per cent is the only segment paying more in taxes today than in 2010" on.ft.com/4a6clNL

if this were more widely understood, Reeves' job would be somewhat easier
Britain’s tax system combines the worst of the US and Scandinavia
The UK’s experiment in eating the rich while shrinking the state has left everyone worse off
on.ft.com
Eh? How on earth is this your headline, BBC News website, when surely the main finding of the report is that tens of thousands of people died unnecessarily because, on more than one occasion and for all sorts of reasons (complacency, toxic culture etc.), those in charge didn't lockdown early enough?
Covid inquiry: Lockdown could have been avoided and other key findings
The long-awaited report is published into how well or badly the government handled the Covid pandemic.
www.bbc.co.uk
Shabana Mahmood's proposal to stop being told to "go back home" is to send people "home". Her proposal to stop black and brown people from feeling like they don't belong, is to bake in to the immigration system that they will never belong.
Having Johnson & Cummings in Downing Street when Covid struck was, just like Brexit, an entirely avoidable disaster caused largely by utterly appalling journalism. And now exactly the same clowns, arses & bigots with bylines are rolling out the red carpet for Farage.
www.thetimes.com/article/1b15...
Covid inquiry live: ‘Inexcusable’ delays under Johnson led to 23,000 deaths
Lockdowns may have been avoided if Boris Johnson’s government had acted faster, damning report finds
www.thetimes.com