Nick Gray

I'm optimistic that this will be interesting.

Also, it's a public event so eyes down looking in for the supercilious bingo. I'm obviously looking out for "inequality within regions is a bigger challenge than inequality between regions", but "maybe our biggest problem is that we don't shout enough about what we are good at" is a good one too.

gov.ukChoice on units of measurement: markings and salesWe are inviting views to gather information for the government review of units of measurement for consumer transactions.

I've just twigged to the latest pledge to go back to imperial measures. The ink is barely dry on the last consultation. www.gov.uk/government/c...

As you might remember, it wasn't a close run thing.

11h

What message could flip this back? This platform knows median earners aren't highly taxed *and* public service pressures with an aging population are going nowhere. But if voters dissgree there's going to be trouble for all politicians.

Luke Tryl@luketryl.bsky.social

🧵Am struck by how quickly the thermostatic flip in public opinion on tax and spending seems to have happened this Parliament. In 2024, Britons prioritised investing in public services over cutting tax (54% - 30%). Now, that’s flipped: 49% choose tax cuts, 36% public services

11h

I don't think people are totally malleable to media messaging but the ambient noise of highest tax burden since the war, yhe ballooning welfare bill, and 'the boats', has to promote the idea that there's a simple, mostly painless route to lower taxes.

How does Justin Webb get away with his flagrant facebook-uncle politics?

Peter Smith@redpeter99.bsky.social

The presenter of #r4today opines.

Richard Tice on the radio... I'm not sure anybody is buying his argument that the current government is 'hard socialist'.

theguardian.comHow cocaine conquered the UK: in pubs, festivals and workplaces the drug has become an everyday habitPreviously considered a middle-class drug, price drops have made cocaine more widely available, and created a new set of problems

The middle classes are taxed out in a cost of living crisis: latest www.theguardian.com/society/ng-i...

huffingtonpost.co.uk'I’m The Prime Minister. Here’s How My Government Will Deliver Growth In Every Postcode'Writing exclusively for HuffPost UK, Andy Burnham explains his push to devolve spending powers in the upcoming Budget.

I very much welcome this. Not the content - I haven't read it yet. I mean I welcome the government having a catchy name and implied conceptual underpinning for it's regional policy agenda. It's very convenient for academics and think tankers. www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/andy-b...

After cities and local growth, Northern Powerhouse, and levelling up, this was a glaring omission from the Starmer government. It means we can write papers nobody reads and have seminars the usual people turn up to on "good growth in practice" or "what is Manchesterism?"

Well that was a bit cynical. I don't know what came over me.

Does Haldane have a history of fiscal hawkishness? If he does then I don't remember it. And 'taxed out'? The UK might be currently sensitive to higher taxes, and people might not want to pay more, but we are objectively not a high tax country. I know that's not a brave thing to say on here

Similarly, many people voted Labour because they were fed up with the state of public services. There's no world in which the UK government simply cuts spending.

bbc.co.ukWhy should I stockpile and what will I need?The UK government has warned households to have three days of essential supplies on hand.

I'm going for things best consumed at room temperature - brandy, whiskey etc. It's difficult to stockpile ice cubes and I'd rather die in whatever the coming armageddon is than drink warm g&t. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

hartlepoolmail.co.ukExperts believe Hartlepool would benefit from new university offering shorter degreesA report aiming to improve prospects for young people has concluded that Hartlepool would be one of the places to benefit most from a new wave of technical higher education institutions or universitie...

Also, on my 40 minute train journey yesterday from Newcastle to education cold spot Hartlepool, I was sat next to some Newcastle University students.

Nick Gray@path-dependent.bsky.social

If only Hartlepool had a successful FE college that offered highly regarded training in technical subjects, in partnership with the local post 92 University. www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/education/re...

If only Hartlepool had a successful FE college that offered highly regarded training in technical subjects, in partnership with the local post 92 University. www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/education/re...

If you believe the university and college are crap because the likes of me are crap then you probably need get rid of me pay more to get someone better.

The obsession with the skills supply side continues.

If only Hartlepool had a successful FE college that offered highly regarded training in technical subjects, in partnership with the local post 92 University. www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/education/re...

If you believe the university and college are crap because the likes of me are crap then you probably need get rid of me pay more to get someone better.

Clearly neither are crap... and Darren Hankey should get a bluesky account.

If only Hartlepool had a successful FE college that offered highly regarded training in technical subjects, in partnership with the local post 92 University. www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/education/re...

These reports obviously start with the self evident truth that all existing institutions are inadequate, unionised, dens of woke.

They could say "yes but you're not good enough", at which point these assumptions about institutional inertia start doing all the heavy lifting. They always do because they are low cost.

Young woman next to me on the train... "Well you can see me in forty minutes if you pick me up at the station. [...] What could you be busy doing that's more important than being my mother?" Cheek can be funny when it's not your offspring doing it.

gateshead.gov.ukCentral Gateshead roads - what's next - Gateshead Council

This is interesting… the council aren’t replacing a much-used road and that’s that, hard cheese. I’m obviously happy that it’s partly a deliberate attempt take through-traffic off my local high street, but other people are raging. www.gateshead.gov.uk/article/3568...

I’m not sure who is going to get the blame for this latest attack on hard pressed motorists. Andy Burham, probably.

Carry on what you've been doing, basically.

theguardian.com‘Corruption has only got worse’: can a new version of Our Friends in the North still shock audiences 30 years on?Peter Flannery’s 90s TV drama classic is getting a theatre reworking in Newcastle. The director and cast talk about doing justice to its themes of scandal and decay – and emulating its star-making act...

I've just revisited the TV programme and it's obviously great, but some of the accents are... heroic attempts. www.theguardian.com/stage/2026/o...

But here's Alun Armstrong as not T Dan Smith...worth the ticket.

Obviously the median viewer finds it a bit jarring hearing Gina Mckee's softened east Durham pitmatic transplanted to Newcastle.

There's some consternation on X that the government isn't ostentatiously preparing for France-style civil unrest. Of course, when we recently did have civil unrest here, and the state came down like a ton of bricks, these people complained.

Newcastle United FC have commissioned a recording of Blaydon Races and I've just heard it for the first time. Oh dear god no. I’m going to have to find a way of keeping it from Dr Mitchell for a long as possible. When she discovers it, she will torment me.

'Coming home Newcastle' by Busker still floors her with laughter. She's from Hampshire, we live up here and she finds the mawkish Geordie stuff enduringly hilarious. Has done since shortly after we got together and I was drunk and almost tearful watching the 1999 FA cup final in a London pub.

Out of luck...she knows already She's singing "coming home Newcastle" again with her own improvised made up lyrics... keep your southern softies etc.

A regional cost saving. This would be grade 7 in London and possibly elsewhere.

An apparently respectable small business owner on a local Facebook group just told me to open my eyes to what's happening. He appeared absolutely convinced that government is covertly bussing huge numbers of 'migrants' into Gateshead. The internet has driven people mad.

I'd only commented on a post to say if planning permission was granted for self contained flats then that's what would be delivered. People have decided that every piece of building work in town is an HMO for 'them'.

Whatever anyone's view on the fairness of the home office approach to housing people seeking asylum, Sunderland is objectively not full. The city's population is still smaller than it was thirty years ago.

I'm going to correct "Sunderland's weak economy" to "Sunderland's weak economic position" For those who care, that's a more place-based, relational perspective. We're not blaming Sunderland's residents, businesses or political leadership for all its problems.

That's me getting up in the morning and reflecting on what I actually wrote in my bloody PhD.

Sunderland's problem is a weak economy. Every asylum seeker could leave the city tomorrow and Sunderland's problem would still be a weak economy.

As I understand it, Home Office contractors have historically looked for cheap properties which they find in places weak economies and low demand.

chroniclelive.co.ukTwo rescued after getting stranded on Holy Island causewayTwo people were brought to safety on Sunday

A late season one. We purposefully don't put a level crossing style barrier on the causeway because sneering, hooting or sad headshaking at these incidents is a regional pastime. www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-e...

@roastdinners.bsky.social

If only the US has some sort of Nobel prize winning, high profile, public intellectual economist who had constantly gone on about Republicans being fiscal hawks in opposition but increasing the deficit in power, including in mainstream books that you can even buy at the airport.

Chris Jones@chrisjones1.bsky.social

Christ alive, that US deficit

Nick Gray reposted

Roast Dinners In London

Replying to @chrisjones1.bsky.social

My only expertise is on roast potatoes, but I'm going to suggest this doesn't end well.

Today, the Telegraph can exclusively reveal that people who've got nowt often live near each other in less well off neighbourhoods. More as we get it.

What's the implication? That people claiming social security are maliciously living on the same street? Congregating in urban rookeries to come up with ever more wicked schemes to freeload of the taxpayer?

Reminds me of when the Telegraph revealed the Stalinist "parts of the UK" were more than half of people were in the pay of the state. It turned out to be jobs not residence, and places like Morpeth - the county town for Northumberland - where local public services and admin clustered.

Today, the Telegraph can exclusively reveal that people who've got nowt often live near each other in less well off neighbourhoods. More as we get it.