A message for our industry

EXCLUSIVE 👗Billions of pounds of imports... ↗️Rising by more than 50% a year... 🛬Planes stuffed with cheap clothes... 🇨🇳And a loophole saving Chinese companies from £billions of UK taxes. Behind the scenes of one of the biggest stories in the modern economy: e-commerce 👇

#britishairways #lhr excelling themselves this morning - place a full size boeing that has travelled 8hrs on a remote bus stand and have no buses - waited nearly 45mins to disembark so far - shockingly poor

In an attempt to throw some light on things…some thoughts on yesterday’s Budget announcement on Inheritance Tax Reliefs (APR/BPR) and farm businesses… (1/) 🧵

"Concerns from suppliers that they could lead to higher prices for shoppers" - it's not the controls that would lead to higher prices. The decisions that lead to higher prices were taken years ago we're just still in denial /1 https://t.co/RNB0mLwL36

RE this: the case for modular housing. Rule of thumb is you need ratio of one contruction work per completed house (so a 300k workforce delivers 300k home/year). BUT if you build modular, in factories, you need about half the number of workers. (UK only has one modular factory)

This is England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 ❤️❤️

Vet alignment, may also not remove need for checks, the single biggest concern of EU is protection of single market from ‘backdoor imports’ of foods like chlorine chicken and hormone beef - EU would want alignment + some kind of reassurance on food trade deals UK-> RoW

Labour is expected to do that, and per @jundu_econ at Aston, that could lead to a +22% uplift in food exports to EU, but even then, in context (h/t @JohnSpringford) is not gamechanging...that'd by c£2bn a year. UK goods exports to EU c£150bn. /5

Well done Abi - proud, fearless reporting getting the recognition you deserve

Just wanted to thank every single person who has sent me messages of support or responded to critics since we published THAT story. I've missed loads. Your backing & the fact that so many women & girls have shared their own experiences has kept me going amid the friendly fire.

What Brussels and Washington don't want to hear - but need to... "The inadvertent result of rising protectionism in the US and Europe could be to drive many emerging markets into China’s hands." You can't compete globally from behind high walls. https://t.co/9qqLbWUtcj

Next UK government must pursue better EU trade relations, say business group & grandees. 🇬🇧 Biz still being hit with costly new Brexit changes 🇬🇧 UK “must face reality” 🇬🇧 “Biggest act of economic & reputational self harm in modern history” w/ @pmdfoster https://t.co/rJrMg8q1UB

Theresa May was a genius campaigner next to this. Someone ask Sunak how this will apply in NI...

I wondered whether I would do this, when the time came. But there don’t seem to be many tales of him as a person going round. And, for reasons that will become apparent, I’ll always be grateful. So anyway here it is: A 🧵on the personal kindness of @Keir_Starmer

On the money as ever @DavidHenigUK Having just finished the latest @ShippersUnbound epic - it is so embarrassing to see the naive, superficial and unserious nature of our leadership - a fundamental inability to make real world decisions and put in the work

Time to give a bit of focus to an upcoming Brexit muddle, because all indications from both Labour and EU are that an SPS agreement is already sinking into confusion - and it is the fault of both sides. But not for the ECJ reasoning of the headline.

TL:DR - Labour has a long way to go to understand how to build the stronger UK-EU relationship. But so does the EU. There's a lot that needs to be reset in the relationship. That could happen after everyone's elections. But it will take quite some work.

Vet alignment would remove 90% of the friction in post-Brexit food trade - BUT - the only model that really works is UK ‘taking’ EU food rules - a pretty hard sell politically - and if agreed requires a level of cooperation and strategic delivery UK has not yet proved capable of

🗣️@ColdChainShane tells us of the great successes that the @gccaorg 🧊 has achieved recently: “We are significantly more #efficient than 5 years ago, we consume less energy, release less #CO2 and have become more #transparent. But, more importantly, we became more #resilient”

🚨BREAKING🚨 UK emissions in 2023 fell to lowest since 1879, new @CarbonBrief reveals 💷Emissions now 53% below 1990, as GDP up 82% ❤️‍🔥Drop in 2023 largely unrelated to policy ⛰️Coal now lowest since 1730s (!) 🚗Transport is largest sector, then buildings ⚡️Power now likely