Neil Stockley
@neilstockley.bsky.social
Reposted by Neil Stockley
Politicians, media have a responsibility to counter extremist rhetoric. Connor's view is anti-democratic & a rejection of the pluralistic values of our country.We can passionately disagree on issues but his position crosses a red line that I hope all politicians from all parties will publicly reject
The normalisation of extremism in British politics and parts of the media is shocking - as is the complacent response of so many supposed anti-racists.
GB News now broadcasting calls to remove the ethnic minority MPs from parliament
December 3, 2025 at 8:51 PM
Politicians, media have a responsibility to counter extremist rhetoric. Connor's view is anti-democratic & a rejection of the pluralistic values of our country.We can passionately disagree on issues but his position crosses a red line that I hope all politicians from all parties will publicly reject
Reposted by Neil Stockley
Why anyone's surprised by this, I've no idea. One thing many of us sad enough to study British Politics for a living agree on is that, for all the fragmentation, voters are sorting themselves into two blocs. In that context, 'unite the right' makes sense, especially if the left doesn't follow suit.
Farage tells donors he expects Reform UK will do an election deal with Tories
Rightwing populist party could pursue a merger or pact with the Conservatives
www.ft.com
December 3, 2025 at 6:51 AM
Why anyone's surprised by this, I've no idea. One thing many of us sad enough to study British Politics for a living agree on is that, for all the fragmentation, voters are sorting themselves into two blocs. In that context, 'unite the right' makes sense, especially if the left doesn't follow suit.
Reposted by Neil Stockley
This is precisely the way he 'managed' the will he won't he join the dance of the 2022/24 period. Appear somewhere say something, then say not in current conditions. We can I think expect a pact being categorically ruled out in Week 1 of the short campaign in 2029 and then announced in Week 2
Farage says deal with Tories ‘as they are’ would cost Reform UK votes, as he dismisses claim he’s contemplating electoral pact - www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...
Farage says deal with Tories ‘as they are’ would cost Reform UK votes, as he denies election pact – UK politics live
Reform UK leader says report of an election deal with Conservatives is ‘false’, but suggests only under their current leadership
www.theguardian.com
December 3, 2025 at 11:42 AM
This is precisely the way he 'managed' the will he won't he join the dance of the 2022/24 period. Appear somewhere say something, then say not in current conditions. We can I think expect a pact being categorically ruled out in Week 1 of the short campaign in 2029 and then announced in Week 2
Reposted by Neil Stockley
Kemi Badenoch - who admits to a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 - demanding someone resign because they misphrased the title of a chess championship they won is quite the metaphor for political discourse in the UK in 2025
December 3, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Kemi Badenoch - who admits to a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 - demanding someone resign because they misphrased the title of a chess championship they won is quite the metaphor for political discourse in the UK in 2025
Reposted by Neil Stockley
The party has never got over Partygate and also never processed why it mattered as a scandal.
So they are desperate to confect a parallel as a "Get Out of Opposition Free" card.
So they are desperate to confect a parallel as a "Get Out of Opposition Free" card.
The Labour Chancellor has delivered a Budget whose headroom is still small, and is based on a series of optimistic assumptions and tax rises in an election year, and your story is...litigating which one of the chess competitions in the 90s was the *real* under-14 champion? Really?
December 3, 2025 at 2:13 PM
The party has never got over Partygate and also never processed why it mattered as a scandal.
So they are desperate to confect a parallel as a "Get Out of Opposition Free" card.
So they are desperate to confect a parallel as a "Get Out of Opposition Free" card.
Reposted by Neil Stockley
All this budget news, claims, counter claims is confusing, but two things of consequence.
1. We're all talking about that, not any financial benefits (or losses) of the budget.
2. Yet more focus on the very weird few weeks and politics of it all. Starting to feel dangerously like a norm.
1. We're all talking about that, not any financial benefits (or losses) of the budget.
2. Yet more focus on the very weird few weeks and politics of it all. Starting to feel dangerously like a norm.
December 1, 2025 at 1:09 PM
All this budget news, claims, counter claims is confusing, but two things of consequence.
1. We're all talking about that, not any financial benefits (or losses) of the budget.
2. Yet more focus on the very weird few weeks and politics of it all. Starting to feel dangerously like a norm.
1. We're all talking about that, not any financial benefits (or losses) of the budget.
2. Yet more focus on the very weird few weeks and politics of it all. Starting to feel dangerously like a norm.
Reposted by Neil Stockley
Feel like I'm going mad. The Budget's 'headroom' is based on frankly irresponsible and wildly optimistic claims about what Labour will do in the final year of the forecast, and on ignoring a bunch of upward pressures on spending, and the claim is that she was being exaggeratedly *pessimistic*?
Suggestion Rachel Reeves exaggerated fiscal pressures is absurd
Chancellor was instead far too optimistic about public finances and government’s ability to secure cuts
www.ft.com
December 1, 2025 at 11:05 AM
Feel like I'm going mad. The Budget's 'headroom' is based on frankly irresponsible and wildly optimistic claims about what Labour will do in the final year of the forecast, and on ignoring a bunch of upward pressures on spending, and the claim is that she was being exaggeratedly *pessimistic*?
Reposted by Neil Stockley
This sums up Badenoch's leadership to a T: against a failed and flailing government, cannot ever clear the bar of 'not sounding both insane and out of her depth'.
What is she even talking about? The OBR is, by design, not under the control of Rachel Reeves.
December 1, 2025 at 4:58 PM
This sums up Badenoch's leadership to a T: against a failed and flailing government, cannot ever clear the bar of 'not sounding both insane and out of her depth'.
Reposted by Neil Stockley
Terrific column this.
Latest from me: on the budget, Labour's troubles, & the government's increasingly tense & distant relationship with the UK's squeezed middle www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
The ‘squeezed middle’ is back – and this time it could be Labour’s undoing | John Harris
Last week’s budget left middle-income families anxious and angry. The party is turning its back on voters it can little afford to lose, says Guardian columnist John Harris
www.theguardian.com
November 30, 2025 at 5:27 PM
Terrific column this.
Fair comment. But they aren’t exactly helping themselves.
What we're seeing is exactly what we saw in the late 1940s, the late 1960s and the mid- to late 1970s: a concerted and hysterical campaign to delegitimise a Labour government, and indeed the very idea of Labour governments at all.
December 1, 2025 at 8:52 AM
Fair comment. But they aren’t exactly helping themselves.
Reposted by Neil Stockley
It's part of the electionification of everything, which is why we as a country are failing to have a proper conversation about our actual problems. It's bad for the left *and* the right.
It's such a bizarre framing. Labour MPs think taking 450k kids out of poverty is putting the country first! That's why they wanted it to happen! It's not because they personally benefit.
Headline on The World at One just now:
"Sir Keir Starmer has denied putting the Labour Party before the country by ending the two-child benefit cap".
Can we please go back to reporting the actual news, not someone's partisan take on it?
"Sir Keir Starmer has denied putting the Labour Party before the country by ending the two-child benefit cap".
Can we please go back to reporting the actual news, not someone's partisan take on it?
November 27, 2025 at 10:17 PM
It's part of the electionification of everything, which is why we as a country are failing to have a proper conversation about our actual problems. It's bad for the left *and* the right.
Reposted by Neil Stockley
We have got to make politics intellectual again. It is the only way that societies thrive is when politicians have the capability to actually think and reflect deeply:
![I confess that I always had difficulty with interpreting the Biblical precept to love our neighbours “as ourselves” until I read some of the words of C.S. Lewis. He pointed out that we don't exactly love ourselves when we fall below the standards and beliefs we have accepted. Indeed we might even hate ourselves for some unworthy deed.
None of this, of course, tells us exactly what kind of political and social institutions we should have. On this point, Christians will very often genuinely disagree, though it is a mark of Christian manners that they will do so with courtesy and mutual respect. [Applause] What is certain, however, is that any set of social and economic arrangements which is not founded on the acceptance of individual responsibility will do nothing but harm.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:xbnsfdtxoothg654ujxe3p25/bafkreicrdgbtvm54qnmttwe6crhxwt4be5v3izjmqtnvlxmaljwg5wolai@jpeg)
November 28, 2025 at 12:15 PM
We have got to make politics intellectual again. It is the only way that societies thrive is when politicians have the capability to actually think and reflect deeply:
Reposted by Neil Stockley
The Energy Company Obligation (ECO), an insulation scheme funded through energy bills, has been scrapped.
The latest version faced structural issues and needed an overhaul, but ECO has run for over a decade, supporting a steady supply chain for retrofit businesses.
So, what does this mean?
🧵1/4
The latest version faced structural issues and needed an overhaul, but ECO has run for over a decade, supporting a steady supply chain for retrofit businesses.
So, what does this mean?
🧵1/4
November 26, 2025 at 2:53 PM
The Energy Company Obligation (ECO), an insulation scheme funded through energy bills, has been scrapped.
The latest version faced structural issues and needed an overhaul, but ECO has run for over a decade, supporting a steady supply chain for retrofit businesses.
So, what does this mean?
🧵1/4
The latest version faced structural issues and needed an overhaul, but ECO has run for over a decade, supporting a steady supply chain for retrofit businesses.
So, what does this mean?
🧵1/4
Reposted by Neil Stockley
Cannot wait for GBNEWS and Nigel Farage to join the barricades about an arch Trump critic having his words censored by the BBC - they must be absolutely furious about this 🤔
November 25, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Cannot wait for GBNEWS and Nigel Farage to join the barricades about an arch Trump critic having his words censored by the BBC - they must be absolutely furious about this 🤔
Reposted by Neil Stockley
"By 2025, Brexit had reduced UK GDP by 6% to 8%, with the impact accumulating gradually over time. We estimate that investment was reduced by between 12% and 18%, employment by 3% to 4% and productivity by 3% to 4%"
Read the Stanford report:
siepr.stanford.edu/publications...
Read the Stanford report:
siepr.stanford.edu/publications...
The Economic Impact of Brexit
Other
siepr.stanford.edu
November 25, 2025 at 7:31 PM
"By 2025, Brexit had reduced UK GDP by 6% to 8%, with the impact accumulating gradually over time. We estimate that investment was reduced by between 12% and 18%, employment by 3% to 4% and productivity by 3% to 4%"
Read the Stanford report:
siepr.stanford.edu/publications...
Read the Stanford report:
siepr.stanford.edu/publications...
Reposted by Neil Stockley
This would be the right decision, as there are better ways to cut energy bills that do not incentivise burning more gas. But after briefing a VAT cut on energy bills for so long, you have to ask what the hell is going on in there? www.ft.com/content/82f0...
Rachel Reeves decides against cutting VAT on energy bills in Budget
Chancellor expected to continue with support package for households, including easing of electricity costs
www.ft.com
November 25, 2025 at 6:01 PM
This would be the right decision, as there are better ways to cut energy bills that do not incentivise burning more gas. But after briefing a VAT cut on energy bills for so long, you have to ask what the hell is going on in there? www.ft.com/content/82f0...
Reposted by Neil Stockley
Brilliant thecritic.co.uk/auntie-in-th...
November 24, 2025 at 10:06 PM
Brilliant thecritic.co.uk/auntie-in-th...
Reposted by Neil Stockley
The fact that in both 2019 and 2024, the winning party did so with a set of manifesto promises that could not be kept and dissolved upon contact with actual office is something that as an industry we should be much more bothered by than we are.
November 23, 2025 at 12:35 PM
The fact that in both 2019 and 2024, the winning party did so with a set of manifesto promises that could not be kept and dissolved upon contact with actual office is something that as an industry we should be much more bothered by than we are.
Reposted by Neil Stockley
Boris Johnson didn't apologise to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, even when she told him in person the lasting impact his comments about her had on her detention in Iran, her husband tells the BBC
November 23, 2025 at 10:00 AM
Boris Johnson didn't apologise to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, even when she told him in person the lasting impact his comments about her had on her detention in Iran, her husband tells the BBC
Reposted by Neil Stockley
iirc, the broadcast coverage of the last election campaign mainly involved yelling at any passing politician, "Please make another promise about tax that you, me and lots of voters know is untenable!" before minutely reporting an inaccurate poll, interrupted to break some news about a gaffe.
To add to this - it's not like the public is being well served by broadcast news moving at the pace of 24 hour scrolling and the politically obsessed - it just means every election large numbers of people end up googling 'what is austerity?' 'What is brownfield?' etc. etc.
This is bizarre. Like the editor of the guardian or mail or any other paper complaining repeatedly about the front page lead they decided to run with.
Very good example of what's wrong with broadcast news - they've given up deciding for themselves what is or isn't news and what the priorities are
Very good example of what's wrong with broadcast news - they've given up deciding for themselves what is or isn't news and what the priorities are
November 23, 2025 at 1:06 PM
iirc, the broadcast coverage of the last election campaign mainly involved yelling at any passing politician, "Please make another promise about tax that you, me and lots of voters know is untenable!" before minutely reporting an inaccurate poll, interrupted to break some news about a gaffe.
Reposted by Neil Stockley
I found 2024 incredibly frustrating. Because I (and lots of other people) kept explaining that the fiscal position of all parties was literally impossible but broadcast (in particular) was never willing to go that far.
The fact that in both 2019 and 2024, the winning party did so with a set of manifesto promises that could not be kept and dissolved upon contact with actual office is something that as an industry we should be much more bothered by than we are.
November 23, 2025 at 1:52 PM
I found 2024 incredibly frustrating. Because I (and lots of other people) kept explaining that the fiscal position of all parties was literally impossible but broadcast (in particular) was never willing to go that far.
Reposted by Neil Stockley
Unnerving how much this government just convinces itself of things where you go “well, it would be lovely if that were true”.
November 22, 2025 at 12:29 PM
Unnerving how much this government just convinces itself of things where you go “well, it would be lovely if that were true”.
Reposted by Neil Stockley
The Labour right is composed of two tendencies that are really quite distinct – and the liberal tendency increasingly feels marginalised within this government (as @morganj0nes.bsky.social and @stephenkb.bsky.social have reported)
November 20, 2025 at 1:40 PM
The Labour right is composed of two tendencies that are really quite distinct – and the liberal tendency increasingly feels marginalised within this government (as @morganj0nes.bsky.social and @stephenkb.bsky.social have reported)
Reposted by Neil Stockley
The Covid inquiry’s findings are shocking but unsurprising now, so the main thing it left me thinking is that without a vaccine we wd’ve been utterly screwed. & if you worked round the clock to make a thing that saved millions of lives globally, to see that legacy trashed by anti-vaxxers…
November 20, 2025 at 5:50 PM
The Covid inquiry’s findings are shocking but unsurprising now, so the main thing it left me thinking is that without a vaccine we wd’ve been utterly screwed. & if you worked round the clock to make a thing that saved millions of lives globally, to see that legacy trashed by anti-vaxxers…