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Declan Gaffney

@greyskiesthinking.bsky.social

7.5K followers 530 following 5.6K posts

Research, analysis & grey-skies thinking on labour markets, social security, public finance & equality. Usual disclaimer. Cheap foreign labour 🇮🇪. Profile pic is Takashi Shimura with Toshiro Mifune in Stray Dog (Akira Kurosawa, 1949).

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Declan Gaffney @greyskiesthinking.bsky.social · Aug 22

If all young people deferred having children until they could meet the entire cost of raising them, there'd be no workers to pay for pensions in thirty years time.

Tim Bale @timbale.bsky.social · Aug 22

Dickensian vibes. Letter in today's @financialtimes.com

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Lewis Baston @lewisbaston.bsky.social · 39m

Ben Gvir does sound, from this and other things, like the kind of degenerate who likes turning up to torture sessions. Just the sort of person who flourishes in the 2020s.

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 4h

Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti assaulted by Israeli prison guards, son says

Family fears for 66-year-old’s life after assault while he was being transferred between prisons * Gaza ceasefire – live updates Palestine’s most popular leader, Marwan Barghouti, was beaten unconscious by Israeli prison guards and his family fears for his life, his son has said, citing evidence given by former Palestinian detainees released this week as part of the ceasefire deal. Arab Barghouti said his 66-year-old father was assaulted by eight guards on 14 September as he was being transferred between Ganot and Megiddo prisons. Continue reading...

www.theguardian.com

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Declan Gaffney @greyskiesthinking.bsky.social · 1h

'Charitably' there is a term of art that should not be read as implying any goodwill to the appalling Eric Kaufmann.

Declan Gaffney @greyskiesthinking.bsky.social · 1h

Not an error so much as a deliberate and (charitably) downright weird methodological choice: to use raw survey results with no weighting for demographic representativeness to construct a time series. If research results are being premiered on Unherd, caveat emptor always applies!

Erin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 1h

1. Many of you have seen a graph purporting to show trans identification has decreased in recent years.

Matt Walsh and Elon Musk celebrated it as a victory over "transgenderism."

Turns out, the entire graph is based on an egregious math and statistics error.

Subscribe to support our journalism.

Fact Check: No, There Is Not A New Survey Showing Trans Identity Is Decreasing

The claim, which originates from far-right professor Eric Kaufmann, appears to have made a glaring error: the survey actually shows more people have come out, not fewer.

www.erininthemorning.com

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LOWρUF🐸 🇵🇦🇬🇱🇨🇦🇲🇽 @lowrhoufo.bsky.social · 3h

I feel like Ben Gvir personally being in the room when Greta Thunberg was being tortured should be bigger news

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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 9h

A much needed corrective by @chrisgiles.ft.com to the "welfare is out of control" narrative, drawing on research by my colleague @benbgeiger.bsky.social

www.ft.com/content/ee67...

No need for a moral panic about the welfare system

It’s far from perfect, but the UK’s spending is broadly controlled and employment is high

www.ft.com

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Chris Giles @chrisgiles.ft.com · 10h

There is no need for a moral panic about the UK's welfare system.

Far from perfect but recent discourse is nuts

Spending is controlled, not spiralling

Worklessness is near record lows

My column www.ft.com/content/ee67...

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Declan Gaffney @greyskiesthinking.bsky.social · 12h

Yeats liked Morris, so you can imagine the treatment he reserved for those he didn't like.

Declan Gaffney @greyskiesthinking.bsky.social · 12h

'A blunderer who had said to the only unconvinced man at a Socialist picnic in Dublin, to prove that equality came easy, 'I was brought up a gentleman, and now, as you see, associate with all sorts' and left wounds thereby that rankled after twenty years ...' Yeats on William Morris.

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 14h

We are absolutely going to get rooster taking credit for the sunrise stuff when the government claims its immigration policies being introduced now are responsible for the already baked in decline in numbers that will be announced in just over a month.

Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 14h

Journalistic shorthand is net migration "currently stands at 430,000": that was the last figure (Jan-Dec 2024) in May 2025

It is a fact - not a prediction- that it is currently lower. (2025 data visa shows down again). I can predict that will obvs be confirmed on Nov 27th in data *to June 2025*

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Declan Gaffney @greyskiesthinking.bsky.social · 14h

About time. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Vets could be made to cap prescription prices after UK watchdog investigation

Market ‘not fit’ for purpose, CMA says, as it proposes shake-up including publishing treatment costs

www.theguardian.com

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Brad DeLong @delong.social · 1d

...Mamdani's Fast Bus Socialism Is More Radical Than You Think
Mamdani's promise to Speed Buses is in in the Tradition of the Sewer Socialists Who Strengthened Local Control of Urban Infrastructure…
<https://nathannewman.substack.com/cp/176186380>
2025-10-14 Tu 4/END

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Declan Gaffney @greyskiesthinking.bsky.social · 1d

You're way ahead of me.

Declan Gaffney @greyskiesthinking.bsky.social · 1d

The invisible hand.

The Verge @theverge.com · 1d

Sam Altman says ChatGPT will soon sext with verified adults

ChatGPT is about to get flirty.

buff.ly

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Declan Gaffney @greyskiesthinking.bsky.social · 1d

Again.

Declan Gaffney @greyskiesthinking.bsky.social · Sep 10

I'd like to go back to the times you got your news by going to an excellent café where the newspapers were attached to bâtons and you had a chance of spotting the surveillance.

Reposted by Declan Gaffney

Tom Reagan’s Hat @rufustsuperfly.bsky.social · 1d

Milei looks like all the cast of Are You Being Served in one

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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 1d

Trump is unable, at the memorial event for a murder victim he knew well, appears simply unable to control what has all the hallmarks of sociopathic narcissism. (This resembles his televised comment on 9/11 that Trump Tower was now the tallest building in New York again)

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Trump at the Charlie Kirk memorial event: "They fired sniper rifles at ICE agents, and me. But I made a turn at a good time. I made a turn at a good time. Charlie couldn't believe it, actually."

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Declan Gaffney @greyskiesthinking.bsky.social · 1d

Wasn't their first album called 'The Decline of British Sea Power'? (They had nothing to apologise for afaics.)

Reposted by Declan Gaffney

Ned Richardson-Little @historyned.bsky.social · 1d

East German border guard shooting policy but the death strip is the Caribbean and the targeting profile is “men in boats”. No wonder they can‘t find even military lawyers used to signing off on the most dubious of drone strikes to approve this outright murder.

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Joshua Eaton @joshuaeaton.bsky.social · 1d

If you’re a man in the room and a public official says this about your female colleague, you don’t continue as if nothing happened.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Trump ignores a question from a woman reporter but says, "I just like to watch her talk. Good job. Thank you darling."

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Declan Gaffney @greyskiesthinking.bsky.social · 1d

The clown is randomly murdering people in international waters is all.

The New York Times @nytimes.com · 1d

Breaking News: A U.S. military strike killed six people on a boat in international waters near Venezuela, President Trump said, asserting without evidence that they were drug smugglers for an unspecified group his team had labeled terrorists.

U.S. Military Kills 6 People in Another Attack on Boat, Trump Says

In a social media post, the president said the people aboard a boat were suspected of smuggling drugs for an unspecified group his team had labeled terrorists.

nyti.ms

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Bo Jacobs Strom @bojs.bsky.social · 1d

Headlines going to the English requirements but I'd completely missed this part of the plans, yet another act of idiotic self harm. Completely incompatible with the government's stated aims on housebuilding, growth, etc.

The immigration skills charge is being raised by 32%

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Libération @liberation.fr · 1d

🔴 Déclaration de politique générale : le député socialiste Laurent Baumel assure que le groupe PS ne censurera pas Sébastien Lecornu

Suivre notre direct : bit.ly/493NgT9

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Jane Casey @janecasey.bsky.social · 1d

Iago is the first men's rights advocate in literature and the reason Coleridge couldn't discern a motive for him was because he actually liked women, not because there isn't one.

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 2d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

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Stephen Kirchner @insteconomics.bsky.social · 1d

Was at an EIU conference once and they gave out free copies of Malcolm Gladwell’s latest. Saw a guy start reading it at the top of the escalator to the lobby only to then put it in the bin conveniently located at the bottom of the escalator.

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Wile E. Coyote @legumann.bsky.social · 2d

À toute fin utile pour ceux qui voudront évoquer le sujet, sachez qu’on ne dit pas « Malgache » pour désigner les habitants de Madagascar, mais « Malagasy »

C’est une demande forte de leur part car l’autre terme est d’origine coloniale comme vous vous en doutez

RFI @rfi.fr · 2d

🔴 URGENT - Crise à Madagascar: le président Andry Rajoelina a été exfiltré par un avion militaire français [Info RFI]

Crise à Madagascar: le président Andry Rajoelina a été exfiltré par un avion militaire français [Info RFI]

Le président malgache Andry Rajoelina a été exfiltré par un avion militaire français le 12 octobre 2025, est en mesure de confirmer RFI, après un accord avec le président Emmanuel Macron. Les autorités…

rfi.my

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