Simon Cook
@cooksimon
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Data at @the_tpa Helpful regular correspondent
Canterbury, UK
Joined October 2009
Anyone interested in the UK benefits debate should check out
benefitsdata.uk
Explore data on UK benefits and welfare
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šØBREAKING: Rachel Reeves' Ā£20bn blackhole didn't actually exist. Reeves raised taxes not to fix the finances, but to fund more spending on welfare in order to keep Labour MPs happy. Taxpayers have been the victims of a political manoeuvre. @yarwoodwilliam explains š
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Echoes of Alistair Campbell, Tony Blair and the Iraq War Too afraid to make the positive case for their course of action, they had to spin a complex web of duplicity to hoodwink the public Just own up to it: you're raising taxes to pay for welfare, because that's your ideology
Millions were pitched punishing stealth taxes on the back of a downgrade in productivity forecasts But the OBR told Reeves said downgrade was offset by wage rises Chancellor continued the downgrade line publicly Now No10 spox denying the public were lied to
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The one think I'm taking from #raceacrosstheworld is @itsanitarani's dad is one of the nicest people in the world
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Dearest @HSBC_UK "rest assured, this page is genuine" is *exactly* what a scammer would write....
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"Perhaps we need to think about cutting spending" - wisdom from @John_Stepek in his newsletter today but I suspect something @UKLabour are not interested in
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Important to remember that the Assisted Dying bill was in no oneās manifesto, had inadequate scrutiny in the commons, passed with a much reduced majority at 3rd reading, is attracting increasing opposition from experts and that Lords have the right and duty to scrutinise it well.
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Help me here, Iām trying to see a senior position at the BoE
They demean her because sheās a woman, however, you donāt hold a senior position at the Bank of England and become Chancellor of the Exchequer without knowing what youāre doing. Prepare to eat your words.
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Wonder why there arenāt mighty left newspapers? Maybe left wingers donāt like having to pay for things these days?
A tory govn would block without hesitation an equivalent if there were mighty left newspapersā¦not that there are.
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This is a thread really worth reading but the ever brilliant @thomasforth
Got the time to get the data I needed to think about the Centre for Cities paper. I can't reproduce that floorspace per hectare methodology. It looks quite good within the very high limitations of the raw data. I don't think it adds much over considering population tbh.
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Cannot understand why @Ed_Miliband keeps making statements that he must *know* are materially untrue. And yet he does
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At the start of COVID I ended up responsible for a Ā£100k wine cellar. We didn't know how it was transmitted but thought it might be touch. I simmered each bottle in water to kill any virus on the glass. I didn't know that simmering wine ruins it.
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Great to be back in @TheCriticMag writing about how the social contract between the taxpayer and the state is broken. Taxpayers are paying more for things they never voted for and now are told by Reeves to ādo their bitā. But for what, and who are they doing their bit for?
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I mean if ever you wanted a sign that the Covid enquiry was flawedā¦
Congratulations to the COVID committee. The UK government was criminally slow and indecisive . The should have acted 3 weeks earlier. Even 1 week earlier would have saved 23,000 lives. And the lessons have not been properly absorbed.
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Ok I think this column by @whippletom might even be better than Fraserās
thetimes.com
At the start of the pandemic two professors, Martin Landray and Peter Horby, did something that should have been banal but was also rare: they tested drugs
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Siri - show me āutter delusionā
Starmer claims heās restored trust in politics since becoming PM. Asked by ITV Political Correspondent @harry_horton at the G20 in South Africa if he could āhand on heartā say heās restored respect to politics, he replied āyes'.
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This is an excellent column by @FraserNelson - so sad that the enquiry didnāt - to be blunt - do its job properly https://t.co/bl2T8lda4p
thetimes.com
Long-running inquiry asserts 23,000 lives could have been saved by earlier lockdown but lacks the evidence to prove it
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All the post-war prime ministers described by the Inbetweeners
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What a disaster that, flying in the face of the data we now have from Sweden and other states that opted for *less* stringent lockdowns rather than *harder, faster*, the British state should reach this moronic conclusion. This is collective face-saving and motivated reasoning.
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