Research & campaigns • Better democracy • End leasehold • Owner of broken cars • Director @DemocracyMovemt • Co-founder @PeoplesPledgeEU
Joined May 2017
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'EU reset' deal puts the deep freeze on high growth agri-tech investment. Appears the UK will merely be in 'transition' towards looming new EU rules, despite promising a carve-out. Who would invest in meantime? So much for growth.
@griffitha @JuliaLopezMP @afneil @SamCoatesSky
Stuart Coster retweeted
After all the psychodrama of this on-off 'EU reset' deal, the PM touts basically the same GDP uplift (0.4%) as the OBR noted the Brexit trade deals delivered (0.38%), mostly agreed calmly years ago. Yet, has the Treasury factored £bns in related EU costs, not to mention lost freedom opportunity costs, such as the deep freeze now placed on agri-tech growth?
@JackElsom @bbclaurak @afneil @vicderbyshire @nicholaswatt @SophyRidgeSky @Steven_Swinford @JasonGroves1 @Peston
A vet to inspect yoghurts.😆 The EU is a total joke. Under the 'reset', will all yoghurts now have to be inspected by UK vets, instead? A great leap forward for trade!
So debasing to concede to copy obviously daft EU laws.
@PrivateEyeNews @GuidoFawkes
@max__young @CeeMacBee
Vast cost of the pandemic + general govt incompetence on public spending, incl councils constantly hiking council tax, has led to taxation crossing a line to repress disposable income and, consequently, growth. Tax HAS to be cut back and that requires less waste on spending.
Stuart Coster retweeted
"Those who want to rejoin the EU" made, and lost, the argument in 2016.
Britain only left the EU six years ago. Remainers pushing already to re-open that argument are telling us only that they have no respect at all for democracy.
Today, the EU is even more unappealing to be locked within;
📜 criticised by its remaining members for over-regulation, destroying their industries,
📈 loaded its members with a mindblowing €800bn of extra debt, on top of national debts,
💶 despite these many failures, pushing to near-double its budget to a massive €2 *trillion* and introduce new EU taxes.
❓ Big question: Why are some in Westminster *so* desperate to hand government back to the EU?
#respectdemocracy #Brexit
Those of us who want to rejoin the EU must now make the argument thetimes.com/uk/politics/art…
The 'luxury car tax' VED supplement has become the 'hybrid car tax' & a used car rip-off, blocking people switching from petrol to a used hybrid. Totally self-defeating but @hmtreasury is cashing in. Working as intended, @JohnHealey_MP?
telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/ne… @raymasseytweets
I thought the idea was to move civil servants out of London to 'No.10 North'? There seemed at least some merit to the plan on that basis. Instead, turns out we'll be paying for two sets of No.10 officials, who'll undoubtedly just clash pointlessly over decision-making territory.
Andy Burnham's Number 10 North goes on multi-million pound hiring spree bbc.in/4BB5qr9
Poundland's previous owners warned that the chain's costs would be afflicted by Rachel Reeves's 2024 budget tax rises, before it was sold to Gordon Brothers. Though sales were also down under Pepco Group management.
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg8…
Stuart Coster retweeted
Increasingly clear that Andy Burnham's government is planning to take the profoundly anti-democratic step of reversing at least part of the Brexit referendum decision (freedom of movement) or perhaps the vote entirely (rejoin) via the next general election, at which a wide variety of other issues will also be at stake and motivating decisions for voters.
It will not be credible to take a general election result as a definitive public view on the EU alone; the referendum delivered that. A repeat referendum would be needed to change that.
Nor is the scale of votes at a general election likely to match that of the referendum. Any assumed mandate will look like a specious swerve of genuine public opinion and be hugely open to question.
Burnham looks to be planning this in direct contradiction of his statements before the Makerfield by-election and just six years after we left the EU; a direct snub to the 17.4m people who voted to reject EU membership, only years after that decision was delivered. It will still be less than a decade of Brexit, if this parliament goes to full term.
Freedom of movement was obviously a huge part of that referendum debate. Post-referendum polls suggest it was a top motivator for the Leave vote, along with democracy/control.
Britain is in the peculiar, sad position of democracy and voters being under attack from our own government, machinating to sideline clear and widespread expression of public opinion they don't agree with, due to a clique of politicians and civil servants being absolutely fixated on handing control of government back to the multi-failing EU.
#Brexit #democracy
Ultra authoritarian. All of us would have to show photo ID to use social media, to prove we're over 16, @ofcom says. Who wants to hand their ID docs over to Facebook, Twitter, TikTok? No thanks. Government will have to drop these plans.
🚨BREAKING: All Britons may need ID to use social media, the UK's online safety regulator today announces
“This plan for a government ‘social media ban’ is a national ID system by the back door.
Both the government and Ofcom have admitted that children will get around the ban, which means the real effect will be normalising adults and children alike to hand over their passports just to get online.
Hundreds of thousands of people without ID, who tend to be poorer people, and many more who don’t want to risk handing their passports over to foreign tech companies will be locked out of huge parts of the internet.
The plan will kill anonymity online, whilst the UK’s culture of speech policing is reaching a crisis point. The policy is painfully misguided, an Orwellian assault on free speech and privacy, and will make children no safer at all.
The false illusion that children aren’t on social media will cause the companies to abandon all their child safety measures. The Government could be promoting meaningful safety measures and supporting parental controls that genuinely protect children - instead, they’re demanding government ID from the whole population just for uncensored internet access. It is authoritarian madness.”
- Silkie Carlo | @silkiecarlo
Read ⤵️
telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/10…
Stuart Coster retweeted
That felt to me like a small, defensive Budget, with the big decisions punted.
Political imperative appeared to be protecting the Burnham bounce by avoiding a third massive tax hike.
Tax only raised by £7bn, compared to £40bn and £26bn in Reeves’s two budgets. Chancellor made merit of no raise on workers. Popular targets hit: Banks, bookies, vape shops, landlords.
Focus from spending on taking the edge off cost of living in a targeted way. £100 quid off for council tax bands A-D. Zero biz rates for 70k more high street firms. But v limited: Just £6bn extra spending.
No path to 3% GDP defence spend by 2030 laid out (though ‘target’ now publicly adopted). No overhaul of welfare yet. No big change to departmental spending. All punted to 2027.
Meanwhile economic numbers are bleak. Growth down to 1% next year (down from 1.5%). Inflation heading to 4% early next year. Real living standards now falling rather than rising. And all fundamentally out of Downing Street’s control: Trump’s Iran conflict defining the weather here.
Treasury pointing to “radical” devolution, handing over tax receipts to mayors, and non-tax moves like encouraging AI growth and tax cut for entrepreneurs.
But in scale it felt small. The big qu: Can this government afford to be small given the scale of challenges faced?
(NB: George Osborne just called it “the least consequential budget that I can remember” on tax and spend).
Stuart Coster retweeted
Flavio Bolsonaro flees Brazil for the United States thetimes.com/world/latin-ame…
Disturbing interview. @AngelaRayner fails to stand by her earlier commitment to making lease extensions & enfranchisement cheaper. Instead, when pushed, refers only to ground rents & service charges. Has this govt caved to exploitative freeholders?
@Victoria_Spratt @andyburnham
HUGE political story.
Rayner is rattled.
Labour are betraying their manifesto promise to end leasehold.
@mtpennycook is ditching his own “guiding principle” from opposition: lowest possible premiums for leaseholders, for much cheaper lease extensions and freehold buy-outs.
Stuart Coster retweeted
***The 2026 Budget - what to expect***
FISCAL HEADROOM
* John Healey is expected to lower the fiscal headroom from £23bn to around £15bn after economic hit caused by Iran war
* Ministers fear fresh military strikes by the US against Iran in wake of mid-terms will render OBR forecasts obsolete within days - worse is to come
ENERGY BILLS
*Healey will extend the warm homes discount for families on benefits, giving them another £100 off their energy bills
* But households not on benefits will bear the full brunt of the rise in January, when bills are due to go up by 27% to an average of £2,192
* Gas standing charges will be scrapped next year, saving £27 on a typical bill although those with larger homes who use more energy will pay more
* Healey will announce long-term plans to move more green levies off energy bills in a bid to reduce them 'for good
* He's also expected to announce long-term plans to remove the link between gas prices and electricity prices
FUEL DUTY
* The fuel duty freeze - which was due to end in January - will be extended to help with soaring prices at the pumps
BANKING TAX
* The biggest 'revenue raiser' in the Budget. Healey has been lobbied to restore the 8% surcharge on corporation tax, which would raise £2bn
ONLINE RETAILER TAX
* Online retail giants like Amazon, eBay and Temu will be made responsible for collecting tax from retailers selling on their platforms
FAMILY BUSINESSES
* Thousands of high-street shops, cafes, pubs and hairdressers will no longer have to pay business rates. Move funded with online retailer tax
MINIMUM WAGE
* The living wage, paid by older workers, and the national minimum wage, paid by those aged 18 to 21, will increase by 3.9%. Healey has chosen to stop the huge rises in the minimum wage amid concerns it was pricing young people out of work
PENSIONERS
* Healey will announce plans to shield 1million pensioners from paying income tax
* The state pension is due to rise by 3.9%, taking 1million people with low incomes above the income tax threshold
* Healey will introduce a new tax allowance for low-income pensioners
* He has also decided not to reduce the tax-free pensino lump sum
DEFENCE SPENDING
* Healey's immediate priority is filling £4.7bn hole in the defence investment plan. Cuts expected to departmental budgets elsewhere
* He is also expected to announce additional borrowing to fund government investment vehicles, which will then be used to fund defence
* But he WILL NOT set out a timeline for hitting the 3% defence spending target. That will come in the spending review next year
HELP TO BUY
* A revived Help to Buy scheme called Your First Home
* It will offer first time buyers a 20% equity loan to help them buy a new-build home, with a minimum deposit of just 2.5%
* The earnings cap will be set at £140,000 in London and £110,000 outside London
RECORD TAX LEVELS
* The OBR is expected to once again say that the tax burden will rise to another post-war record
* It's being driven by fiscal drag. Half a million people will be dragged into paying the higher rate
* The freeze - which is pencilled in for more than a decade - is effectively the single biggest tax rise in history
OBR forecasts
* They will highlight the huge uncertainty caused by the war in Iran. Ministers think it could make the OBR forecasts obsolete within weeks
* The tax revenues underpinning the Budget assume that Rosebank will be given the go-ahead, despite Cabinet splits on the issue
WHAT ISN'T IN IT
* Healey has rejected calls from colleagues to increase Capital Gains Tax amid concerns that doing so would damage growth and end up reducing tax revenues
* Major welfare reform will wait until after the Milburn review, which is coming after the Budget. It will require significant upfront investment in employment support
* Defence spending - the big decision has been deferred until the spending review, expected in Autumn 2027
Stuart Coster retweeted
Reality on UK exports to the EU, after @AngelaRayner's inaccurate claims to @bbclaurak yesterday. It would certainly help an informed debate if journalists are prepared to challenge dodgy stats. Hopefully Angela Rayner herself will be having words with whoever supplied her with these misleading figures.
FYI, talking about Brexit yesterday, Angela Rayner claimed that...
“The evidence is really clear in terms of 20% down in exports to the EU, 16,000 businesses no longer exporting to the EU, it has been the red tape on the EU deal we got, has been damaging to the economy”.
But if this is indeed the evidence, it really is not clear!
Let's unpick it... 🧵
Dodgy antics in #Brazil's presidential election, as voting is kept open 2hrs longer after mysterious public transport shutdowns affecting buses and flights prevent voters getting to polling stations.
🚨🇧🇷 BREAKING:
Brazil has EXTENDED voting until 7PM
Minister Zanin, of the Supreme Federal Court:
"Considering the seriousness of the facts narrated, which came to the attention of the Supreme Court, and given the evident urgency in the measure, I determine an extension for two hours, until 7 p.m., Brasilia time, of the closure of the receipt of votes in all sections throughout Brazil."
Lula's coalition filed a petition with a request for an emergency injunction this afternoon, requesting the extension of the voting time until 7 pm, in municipalities affected by public transport problems.
The lawyers of Lula's campaign say that reports of failures in the transport of voters multiplied throughout the day in several regions of the country.
Source: g1 / Writer: Michael
Oof, damaging for @hmtreasury right before the Budget. Revealing what most already knew, of course, that government struggles to understand entrepreneurs and the needs of start-up businesses. As tax changes since 2024, as well as rumoured changes to come, have shown.
BREAKING
The Treasury’s entrepreneurship adviser has announced she is quitting.
Alex Depledge tells my colleague @hannahprevett start-ups are treated as a “sideshow” and a “nice to have”.
“Entrepreneurship can’t be seen as a good news bonus on the margins of economic policy. That mentality is really dangerous for British business as a whole…”
Depledge due to leave her role on Thursday, the day after the Budget.
Read her full comments here👇
thetimes.com/article/b28ab86…
"Britain is at or close to being taxed out", says Andy Haldane. Searching around for new niches to hammer with tax hikes isn't a solution either, especially if easily mobile. Does @JohnHealey_MP see the problem?
Andy Haldane interview:
**The financial situation is precarious - the penny hasn't dropped in No 10**
'The penny has not yet fully dropped, including in Downing Street. You see that in us having the highest borrowing costs in the G7, despite not having the highest debts and deficits
'It’s the old [Ernest] Hemingway thing, isn’t it? How do you go bankrupt? First slowly, then very quickly.
'Keir [Starmer] lost the dressing room. Andy’s biggest risk is that he loses the dealing room. And then that’s an even more painful way to go, as Liz Truss would tell you.'
**Britain is at or close to being taxed out**
'The truth is, as a nation, we are at or close to being taxed out,” he says. “And we are at or close to being maxed out in terms of borrowing.
'So for me, the economics of this are very straightforward. We have a public sector, a government sector with a balance sheet whose productivity has failed to rise this century. And we have a private sector which is actually primed, its balance sheet is in good shape.
'If you want good growth in every postcode — dear God, I want that as much as the next man, probably just as much as Andy in fact — the root is by unlocking those animal spirits and that means a smaller state, lower taxes and that means lower government spending and tough choices around that'
**The economy could 'crater' without spending cuts**
“This is not a hypothetical risk. Look across the Channel, not just to what’s happening in France, but what’s happening in Greece or Italy or Portugal or Spain a decade and a bit ago. Avoid that like the plague
'Because when you are forced involuntarily into making much more draconian cuts to appease financial markets and get them back on side that will, one, crater the economy. And, two, almost certainly crater your popularity
'That for me is the peril that comes from prevarication on this front. The peril that comes from not using up political capital and making hard choices'
**A 'mañana' Budget does not speak to the urgency of now**
'The public finances dimension is of course a real concern for me. I feel the time to get on top of that is now because who knows what might turn up tomorrow. And a mañana budget doesn’t speak to the urgency of now
'The mañana choices will not be easier tomorrow. They’re going to be much harder. So backloading them, crossing your fingers and hoping that the weather turns, for me would not be the preferred course, would not be the prudent course, and risks next year being even more of a heavy lift than would otherwise be the case'
**Banking taxes are 'penny wise, pound foolish'**
'The point that actually weighs with me most heavily is that this isn’t just about the banks. If you are felt to be a country that is in the business of doing windfall taxes — if you earn profits, the taxman cometh — that is not a hospitable environment for investors.
'It means you mark down the value of UK businesses and mark up the cost of lending money to those businesses. And that is not a good growth strategy over the medium term. Penny wise, pound foolish'
**What does ending 40 years of neoliberalism mean?**
'Have you been to Manchester? You know it’s the embodiment of neoliberalism done well. Success is founded on being a magnetic attractor of capital, or people, of business and culture. That’s what the UK should become'
**What does public control of utilities mean?**
'From kind of full fat nationalisation, which would cost an arm and a leg, right through to tinkering with the regulatory rules. If you’re in the water industry, the energy industry, parts of the transport industry, investors are saying, ‘Hang on a sec, I’m not putting money in here.'
thetimes.com/uk/politics/art…
Is this true @mtpennycook; you have dumped your election pledge & commitment to making lease extensions & enfranchisement cheaper for leaseholders? Seems @AngelaRayner needs to keep a closer eye on her dept, to ensure it's genuinely delivering.
@NickFerrariLBC @Victoria_Spratt
