Daniel Harkin
@danharkin.bsky.social
Blue Labour captures the views of the actual right of the Labour Party. (Blairites aren’t the right, and they’re pretty rare in the party.) And the genuine Labour right is largely what Reform is: statist, communitarian and authoritarian.
There's no space in British politics for Blue Labour. They think they can hold socially liberal voters hostage forever and peel off 13 key voters in 65 constituencies to tactically squeak past a divided right. It's a hopeless, miserable ideology. Made worse by the self-congratulation of its authors.
November 29, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Blue Labour captures the views of the actual right of the Labour Party. (Blairites aren’t the right, and they’re pretty rare in the party.) And the genuine Labour right is largely what Reform is: statist, communitarian and authoritarian.
In early Christian times, there were no iPads, so I think that you could argue that iPads are unchristian.
November 28, 2025 at 2:57 PM
In early Christian times, there were no iPads, so I think that you could argue that iPads are unchristian.
I’m willing to go out on a limb and propose that most states throughout human history have some form of welfare system. “No state, no welfare in the past” is one of those happy fictions a certain type of right winger or libertarian likes to comfort themselves with before bed.
Also the Romans literally had a welfare system that included cash transfers for poor children. (And subsidised grain for low income workers...).
There was no state. Who does she think crucified him, an anarchist collective?
November 28, 2025 at 12:43 PM
I’m willing to go out on a limb and propose that most states throughout human history have some form of welfare system. “No state, no welfare in the past” is one of those happy fictions a certain type of right winger or libertarian likes to comfort themselves with before bed.
Reposted by Daniel Harkin
Even after the mansion tax is applied, the owner of a £5m home in Westminster will pay proportionately less in property tax than the owner of a £210k Band B property in Sunderland.
November 28, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Even after the mansion tax is applied, the owner of a £5m home in Westminster will pay proportionately less in property tax than the owner of a £210k Band B property in Sunderland.
The median UK earner pays 11% of their income in income tax. The median European earners pays something like 17% of their income in income tax. The highest effective rates in the UK is something like 60% taking into account the withdrawal of personal allowance for high earners.
November 28, 2025 at 10:39 AM
The median UK earner pays 11% of their income in income tax. The median European earners pays something like 17% of their income in income tax. The highest effective rates in the UK is something like 60% taking into account the withdrawal of personal allowance for high earners.
Just because I’m chronically online this morning: the government should let local authorities do their own valuation exercises and design their own property taxes - so they can do an eminently sensible but unpopular thing without drawing all the public ire for it.
November 28, 2025 at 9:41 AM
Just because I’m chronically online this morning: the government should let local authorities do their own valuation exercises and design their own property taxes - so they can do an eminently sensible but unpopular thing without drawing all the public ire for it.
I have one family member currently undergoing cancer treatment and a this morning a friend trying toto get an emergency appointment and I’m reminded how the NHS is simultaneously amazing and a big pile of poo.
November 28, 2025 at 8:41 AM
I have one family member currently undergoing cancer treatment and a this morning a friend trying toto get an emergency appointment and I’m reminded how the NHS is simultaneously amazing and a big pile of poo.
(This is up there, for me, with environmentalists being against HS2 and nuclear power.)
Nothing has made more furious this morning than listening to a supposedly left wing commentator say that it’s not progressive for nurses to post higher rate of income tax.
November 28, 2025 at 8:27 AM
(This is up there, for me, with environmentalists being against HS2 and nuclear power.)
Nothing has made more furious this morning than listening to a supposedly left wing commentator say that it’s not progressive for nurses to post higher rate of income tax.
November 28, 2025 at 8:04 AM
Nothing has made more furious this morning than listening to a supposedly left wing commentator say that it’s not progressive for nurses to post higher rate of income tax.
While freezing thresholds effectively puts up income tax you don’t build public support for it. Brown was canny: the Wanless report, then a 1p on NI which was hypothecated to the NHS. Instead it’s just another tax raising budget to no specific purpose that connects to improving people’s lives.
November 28, 2025 at 7:43 AM
While freezing thresholds effectively puts up income tax you don’t build public support for it. Brown was canny: the Wanless report, then a 1p on NI which was hypothecated to the NHS. Instead it’s just another tax raising budget to no specific purpose that connects to improving people’s lives.
Obviously would much prefer for a political party that instead did their job of engaging in public reason, persuading the public and building the political will for a liberal and humane immigration system.
Maybe when we’ve left the EU, the ECHR, and magically got net migration to near zero, the British public can have the lonely, impoverished, neglected retirement they wanted all along. Or Logan’s Run.
November 27, 2025 at 8:42 PM
Obviously would much prefer for a political party that instead did their job of engaging in public reason, persuading the public and building the political will for a liberal and humane immigration system.
Reading the outrage about jury trials on here you’d be surprised to learn we are in the minority for having them in the first place. Getting rid of jury trials is not going to improve anything: moving towards an inquisitorial system is what would make justice cheaper and more equitable.
November 25, 2025 at 7:36 PM
Reading the outrage about jury trials on here you’d be surprised to learn we are in the minority for having them in the first place. Getting rid of jury trials is not going to improve anything: moving towards an inquisitorial system is what would make justice cheaper and more equitable.
Miliband 2.0 May ‘26
November 24, 2025 at 7:10 PM
Miliband 2.0 May ‘26
It makes me a little sad he can’t imagine why a healthcare professional would have this attitude *regardless of their actual views on the matter* simply out of an interest to make sure someone accessed the care they needed.
Why is transphobia the default state for so many arseholes?
November 23, 2025 at 4:40 PM
It makes me a little sad he can’t imagine why a healthcare professional would have this attitude *regardless of their actual views on the matter* simply out of an interest to make sure someone accessed the care they needed.
Labour are astonishingly bad at asking members for money immediately after doing something shitty
November 23, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Labour are astonishingly bad at asking members for money immediately after doing something shitty
Me this morning: how do I watch the ashes.
Me two minutes later: no point
Me two minutes later: no point
November 22, 2025 at 11:18 AM
Me this morning: how do I watch the ashes.
Me two minutes later: no point
Me two minutes later: no point
Just a warning that if you put up your Christmas decorations before Christmas Eve, although I might like your Instagram post I’m actually tutting.
November 21, 2025 at 1:45 PM
Just a warning that if you put up your Christmas decorations before Christmas Eve, although I might like your Instagram post I’m actually tutting.
My favourite pastime in the UK is competitive feeling vaguely miserable and uncomfortably cold in your own home.
BREAKING: Millions of households will see a slight rise in gas and electricity prices at the height of winter after regulator Ofgem outlined its next price cap
November 21, 2025 at 9:02 AM
My favourite pastime in the UK is competitive feeling vaguely miserable and uncomfortably cold in your own home.
Reposted by Daniel Harkin
There are lots of ways to make the argument for higher pay. The public love NHS doctors! Talk about skills, other nations, squeezed wages! But elephant in the room is the BMA and consultants are (whisper it) often from privileged circles and get lost in the rhetoric of entitlement and inequality.
November 20, 2025 at 4:08 PM
There are lots of ways to make the argument for higher pay. The public love NHS doctors! Talk about skills, other nations, squeezed wages! But elephant in the room is the BMA and consultants are (whisper it) often from privileged circles and get lost in the rhetoric of entitlement and inequality.
The way the left has suddenly decided it is against tax increases is exhausting.
Either you support a tax on wealthier people or you don’t.
on.ft.com/44azcE6 Rachel Reeves under pressure to scale back Budget raid on expensive homes
on.ft.com/44azcE6 Rachel Reeves under pressure to scale back Budget raid on expensive homes
November 20, 2025 at 11:37 AM
The way the left has suddenly decided it is against tax increases is exhausting.
This article says land value taxes are impossible to implement and then, in a footnote, says that Denmark has a land value tax. I’m kinda in awe of the brazenness.
worksinprogress.co/issue/the-fa...
worksinprogress.co/issue/the-fa...
The failure of the land value tax - Works in Progress Magazine
Land value taxes are once again becoming a popular all-purpose solution to housing issues. But implementing them in early 1900s Britain destroyed the then-dominant Liberal Party.
worksinprogress.co
November 18, 2025 at 5:48 PM
This article says land value taxes are impossible to implement and then, in a footnote, says that Denmark has a land value tax. I’m kinda in awe of the brazenness.
worksinprogress.co/issue/the-fa...
worksinprogress.co/issue/the-fa...
Current Labour Party sure loves signalling how right wing it is before caving in to a horrified PLP, managing to look weak and heartless all at the same time - a well known recipe for electoral success.
November 17, 2025 at 8:01 PM
Current Labour Party sure loves signalling how right wing it is before caving in to a horrified PLP, managing to look weak and heartless all at the same time - a well known recipe for electoral success.
I once had a paper rejected because someone had argued something similar in the 1980s. In French. The reviewer did not give the name of the work and I’ve never been able to trace it.
November 16, 2025 at 9:53 PM
I once had a paper rejected because someone had argued something similar in the 1980s. In French. The reviewer did not give the name of the work and I’ve never been able to trace it.
Or maybe AI doesn’t have perverse incentives to reject as many papers as possible.
This is what happened when AI acted as both author and reviewer - a study found AI peer-reviewers accepted fake AI-generated papers 4 out of 5 times. We need #PeerReview to be better, and human oversight is more vital than ever!
#ResearchIntegrity #AI #AcademicPublishing #ResearchSky #AcademicSky
#ResearchIntegrity #AI #AcademicPublishing #ResearchSky #AcademicSky
AI peer reviewers are fine with AI-fabricated papers
Study finds artificial intelligence reviewers accept AI-generated scientific studies 4 out of 5 times
cen.acs.org
November 16, 2025 at 9:53 PM
Or maybe AI doesn’t have perverse incentives to reject as many papers as possible.
💯
Is this going to be the new pastry tax? Will they manage somehow to do a budget even more unpopular than hiking the basic rate and still not raise enough money to fix anything?
Evening.
November 16, 2025 at 7:03 PM
💯