Paul Hebden
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paulhebden.bsky.social
Paul Hebden
@paulhebden.bsky.social
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FWIW - this is how food prices spiked in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and how the cost of essentials is spiking again now.
This is also really good to see by Labour, Miliband has been excellent.
www.theguardian.com/business/202...
Ed Miliband confirms crackdown on North Sea exploration – but new drilling will continue
Strategy paper released with budget allows new oil and gas projects to move ahead if they are linked to existing fields
www.theguardian.com
November 28, 2025 at 6:06 AM
This is good by the gov't. What a joke that victims of the infected blood scandal, could have had to pay tax of up to 40% of that compensation back under IHT. This is a tax relief everyone can get behind, far more worthy than the IHT on agricultural property given to wealthy farmers.
November 28, 2025 at 5:58 AM
Reposted by Paul Hebden
I seriously thought he was going to orgasm on-camera as he said it more and more.
1. Tucker Carlson, in a manner bordering on sensuous euphoria, said the word Fa**ot twenty times in his interview with Piers Morgan.

Tucker was saying it as some sort of protest to a woman who was allegedly arrested and charged for using it in response to her domestic abuser.
November 28, 2025 at 5:40 AM
Yes Tucker WE KNOW gay people use the word F*****, WE KNOW black people use the word N***** just because you like to use those words, doesn't mean you have the right to enforce their use by others. Other people are decent, you're an authoritarian cunt, that's the difference, you slimy cap end.
1. Tucker Carlson, in a manner bordering on sensuous euphoria, said the word Fa**ot twenty times in his interview with Piers Morgan.

Tucker was saying it as some sort of protest to a woman who was allegedly arrested and charged for using it in response to her domestic abuser.
November 28, 2025 at 5:47 AM
Reposted by Paul Hebden
Many newspapers and politicians have been calling yesterday's fiscal statement a 'Budget for Benefits Street'. Here's three reasons why that is not accurate 🧵
November 27, 2025 at 4:38 PM
Reposted by Paul Hebden
also this @alicettimes.bsky.social col on yoof leaving Uk looks prescient given today's emigration stats - hear this more & more from parents of uni-aged kids, wondering if they'd have more prospects overseas (watch those figs if we do a proper youth mobility deal) www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...
Youngsters are a bigger loss than non-doms
Billionaires come and go, but driving away ambitious doctors, nurses and scientists will do real long-term damage
www.thetimes.com
November 27, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Reposted by Paul Hebden
If the current government isn’t final proof that the British press cannot be appeased by craven, wormlike obsequiousness and unquestioning obedience, then I wonder what it would take. Should we just put maybe four newspaper editors in charge, and let them fight it out? It’d be less tiresome.
November 27, 2025 at 8:55 AM
Reposted by Paul Hebden
Do we or do we not live in a country where these awful people got their way at almost every major decision point of the century so far? We do! Is it good? No, it is a national calamity. Are they sorry? No they’re not, they’re *absolutely furious* that they haven’t got more and worse.
November 27, 2025 at 8:52 AM
Reposted by Paul Hebden
It doesn’t make any difference whether the public are getting second hand inhalation off the BBC and Radio Norwich, or whether they’re honking it pure straight out of the crackpipe. It is all the same. A great Nordstream horseshit incitement pipeline, blasting 24/7 into every home in the land.
November 27, 2025 at 8:49 AM
Reposted by Paul Hebden
It is IMO not possible to operate any kind of meaningful democracy when your national press is a joke and a travesty, but your mileage on that may vary. I think it’s incontestable that it is impossible to govern well and effectively, while being in hock to these pantomime clowns.
November 27, 2025 at 8:46 AM
Reposted by Paul Hebden
The important bit about this story - in reality the only important bit because nothing here is new - is that it delivers to an audience previously unaware of it a truth about the BBC's relationship to power: craven. www.theguardian.com/media/2025/n...
BBC tells staff they cannot quote Trump line removed from Reith Lecture
Journalists not allowed to repeat Rutger Bregman’s corruption claims against US president in coverage of edit
www.theguardian.com
November 27, 2025 at 1:43 PM
Party at the weekend I will be playing only boogie funk, post disco and the wonkiest house music. No requests
November 27, 2025 at 1:13 PM
Reposted by Paul Hebden
"In the long run, the employment probability and employment quality of sanctioned benefit recipients are lower than those for the comparison group of non-sanctioned benefit recipients"

Effects of social assistance benefit sanctions on employment quality url: academic.oup.com/ser/article/...
Persistent or temporary? Effects of social assistance benefit sanctions on employment quality
Abstract. This article analyzes the effects of sanctions for unemployed recipients of the social assistance benefit in Germany. I conduct an analysis using
academic.oup.com
November 27, 2025 at 1:06 PM
Seeing alot of people complaining that the left don't support "the most left wing government in a generation." And I think that what this really misses, is the terms of debate and meaning that have been set around every fiscal moment since at least Gordon Brown was PM. >>>
November 27, 2025 at 12:24 PM
Seriously, when did the Independent become so obsessed with the wealthy?
November 27, 2025 at 12:10 PM
Reposted by Paul Hebden
The predictable crushing uniformity of the coverage of this Budget tells you an awful lot about the priorities of those papers, and also why there's actually quite a lot to praise in it bylinetimes.com/2025/11/26/t...
November 27, 2025 at 9:40 AM
Thing about this is that I don't even think Goodwin's position represents the majority of even of Reform voters. Reform is now a broad based political party. This kind of insanely nasty racism opens up a real wedge between the extremists like Goodwin and others in the Reform base
Reflections on the budget from the head of Students4Reform
November 27, 2025 at 11:34 AM
Our media is vile.
November 27, 2025 at 11:19 AM
Most of the tax raised in yesterday's budget is not going to be spent on public services, but on the "headroom" spreadsheet stuff that allows the government to avoid breaking its own self-imposed fiscal rules.
At least the markets will be happy.

open.spotify.com/episode/7iDV...
Budget Breakdown Special w/ Carys Afoko and Hannah Peaker
open.spotify.com
November 27, 2025 at 11:11 AM
"granny tax" is another right wing trope.
Not to say there isn't an issue around asset rich, cash poor homeowners, but this can always be resolved.

It's just interesting to me how long loved these tropes of the right are.

"Granny tax" is part of the reactionary trinity of tropes: >>
November 27, 2025 at 8:38 AM
The Daily Telegraph is a newspaper of Nazis
November 27, 2025 at 7:42 AM
Not massively engaged, but I feel the vibes around the budget (whether or not I agree with it) were quite.... competent? Almost like if a Labour chancellor just does what a Labour chancellor wants, no bullshit "missing billions" & ignores the constant emergency narrative, they look credible.
November 27, 2025 at 7:20 AM
Framing 101 guys.... please.

Don't start with you opponents frame.
November 26, 2025 at 2:47 PM
Reposted by Paul Hebden
Outside government, the need for serious tax reform is universally accepted and there is remarkable agreement over how to do it. We must turn our attention to the reasons why successive governments have failed to deliver, despite this consensus.
November 26, 2025 at 2:42 PM
Reposted by Paul Hebden
Recently, authors from CenTax and eight other think tanks from across the political spectrum declared agreement on the way ahead. It’s regrettable that this Budget contains barely a hint of progress against any of the seven reform packages we proposed 👇

centax.org.uk/tax-reforms-...
Tax Reforms for Growth | CenTax
centax.org.uk
November 26, 2025 at 2:42 PM