tom-clark.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Chart from Tony Blair Institute of UK Aid spend over time - the successive steps down to 0.5% and now 0.3% of GDP unwind virtually all New Labour's increase Defence has pressing claims in a real security crisis. But when US is slashing aid as well, a development crisis also looms

submitted 11 hours ago • 5 comments

A useful corrective from @peterkellner.bsky.social — despite the President’s claims to the contrary, both he & his policies are polling poorly open.substack.com/pub/kellnerp...

submitted 17 hours ago • 2 comments

Last October, the Government said: "It is shameful that child poverty has increased by 700,000 since 2010, with over four million children now living in poverty in the UK." This rise in poverty was not due to a lack of breakfast clubs. https://buff.ly/3XecgAk

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

Government borrowing now running a huge £12.8bn higher than the OBR forecast over the first ten months of the fiscal year (Apr-Jan). That's a significant gap when you consider they only delivered their most recent forecasts four months ago!

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

Old school foreign affairs: know your enemy Trump school: bolt your enemies out of your echo chamber Never mind rest of the world, wonder how that’ll end for Washington

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Blimey - that was a long time ago....32 years... I had hair ifs.org.uk/publications...

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

Is Council Tax creating ‘poll tax’ style problems for poorer households? Read the blog by @lalithatry.bsky.social and @tom-clark.bsky.social 👇 https://buff.ly/4gILOG2

submitted 8 days ago • 4 comments

🚨 New research published today 🚨 For the poorest half of working households, income from work has increased & benefits decreased. But lower income families are spending a disproportionate amount of their income on Council Tax, which has become increasingly regressive. https://buff.ly/4gE0beF

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

New @resfoundation.bsky.social report out from me today, on how low-to-middle income households’ earnings, benefits, taxes and housing costs have changed over the last 30 years. Here are some of the key findings:

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

1/ The rocketing Council Tax burden at the bottom of the income distribution quietly recreating the worst problems of the Poll Tax www.resolutionfoundation.org/comment/risi...

submitted 8 days ago • 8 comments

2024 FULL YEAR UK TRADE DATA from ONS is out today Goods exports fell 5.1% 2023-2024, while imports declined 0.5%, reflecting weakness in manufacturing In contrast, services exports rose 3.4% Y-o-Y & services imports grew 3.3%, reflecting robust services output A thread...

submitted 12 days ago • 1 comment

Tim knew everything & cheered everyone up. Often rescued us on Guardian leaders desk with an irresistible piece on the hidden life of coral or the secret minds of mushrooms. Brilliant writing tips in these 25 commandments

submitted 12 days ago • 1 comment

🚨 Hiring: Research Assistant 🚨 Join Christiane Szerman for exciting research on labour market inequality! 🔍 Role: Data analysis, STATA, Python/R 📍 London-based graduate student 💰 £23.23/hr | ⏳ 7 hrs/week | 📅 Start: Feb/March 2025 📝 Apply by 22 Feb: cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/a...

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

How much of a pay boost would it take for you to change jobs? New paper on German workers finds that 'switching costs' = 7-18% of annual pay. i.e. workers really don't like changing jobs, the pay rise has to be large to make it worth it. www.nber.org/papers/w3344... 1/n

submitted 15 days ago • 1 comment

“When some, but not all, enjoy a platform of material security from which to try risky things that skews everything, from who gets the chance to start their own business to the composition of the creative professions”. @tom-clark.bsky.social

submitted 16 days ago • 1 comment

decades-long asbestos cover-up has claimed countless lives, as @charlottehelen.bsky.social knows to her cost She is passionate, forensic & utterly devastating in exposing the depths of corporate deceit www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/pol...

submitted 19 days ago • 1 comment

Really looking forward to discussing the insightful and sobering work the team have done on housing affordability and ethnic inequality tomorrow with @florenceeshalomi.bsky.social @kwajo.bsky.social and @camronaref.bsky.social www.resolutionfoundation.org/events/no-pl...

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

Ranging podcast chat with @aloner.bsky.social & @ellenhalliday.bsky.social about whether or not “growth at all costs” can work for the country & the govt’s political prospects

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

This is interesting & subtle stuff, which defies the usual Left-Right binary, but bubbles with warnings about today's UK but even more particularly Trump's America...

submitted 20 days ago • 1 comment

"New official figures showed the wealthiest 1 per cent of households held at least £3.1 million individually and collectively as many assets as the whole bottom half combined." @tom-clark.bsky.social on why Labour must tackle wealth inequality to uplift Britain's youth @lsepoliticsblog.bsky.social

submitted 22 days ago • 2 comments

Labour's "mission" to "shatter the class ceiling" will be mission impossible absent a reckoning with Big Wealth A short blog boiling down everything I've read on the riches-to-life chances link. With a killer last line c/o @pjtheeconomist.bsky.social blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandp...

submitted 22 days ago • 1 comment

Higher than 5% Council Tax rises = likely & desperately needed in some places But due to the Cameron coalition’s destruction of the nationwide rebate system, the effect on the poorest will be terrible unless protections are provided www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

submitted 24 days ago • 2 comments

Context (just highlighted by Court of Appeal in ruling against the previous govt’s plans) is the disjoint between the “work” & cost saving objectives No. expected to move into work was only 3% of those set to lose ££s What plan to improve that dreadful ratio? www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

submitted 24 days ago • 3 comments

A more youthful Keir Starmer would have been turned off by the elder Starmer’s Labour party—and that is becoming a political problem, writes @tom-clark.bsky.social. www.prospectmagazine...

submitted 26 days ago • 2 comments

The inconvenient truth is that housing is, in no small part, a distributional question

submitted 26 days ago • 0 comments

One of the central arguments of Res Foundation’s Economy 2030 report last year

submitted 26 days ago • 0 comments

Starmer vs. Starmer @tom-clark.bsky.social for @prospectmagazine.co.uk writes that the younger Keir Starmer would not have been a fan of Prime Minister Starmer. And this is a political problem www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/lab...

submitted 26 days ago • 7 comments

Unfortunately, it feels like a very good moment to sign up to this

submitted 26 days ago • 1 comment

Not all assets are created equal. Cracking down on riches that serve nobody but owners could give a lost Labour government direction, argues @tom-clark.bsky.social. www.prospectmagazine...

submitted 27 days ago • 1 comment

UK population expected to increase by 5m over next decade due to net migration, ONS says - www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

submitted 28 days ago • 7 comments

1/ High Court's recent judgment against Work Capability Assessment "reforms" is important in itself, but also encapsulates how "work is the best route out of poverty" rhetoric can distort Only 3% of the c400k hit hard in the pocket expected to move into work publiclawproject.org.uk/content/uplo...

submitted 29 days ago • 2 comments