Jonathan Hopkin
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jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin
@jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
7K followers 3.9K following 5.9K posts

Professor of the Political Economy of Europe at LSE. Interested in democratic representation and inequality, worried about the survival of democracy. Author of Anti-System Politics (OUP, 2020). Also random thoughts on football, cycling, the weather etc .. more

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Jonathan Hopkin is Professor in the European Institute and the Department of Government of the London School of Economics and Political Science. He obtained a PhD at the European University Institute in Florence, and lectured at the Universities of Bradford, Durham and Birmingham, joining LSE in 2004. He teaches comparative politics and political economy, and has published in the areas of political parties and elections, political economy, inequality and welfare states. .. more

Political science 69%
Economics 17%
Posts Replies Media Videos

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 6h
British electorate eyeing a Reform government: ‘gimme some more of that!’
josiah.writes.news Josiah Mortimer @josiah.writes.news · 18h
The UK is losing up to £250m a day in lost tax revenue due to the economic impact of Brexit, House of Commons Library analysis for the Lib Dems suggests.

Brexit has blown a "black hole of [up to] £90 billion a year in the public finances" the party says. Even under lower estimates the hit is ~£65bn

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 6h
I still remember him coming up to me in Florence, when I’d already know him a while, and saying ‘so you’re from Beverley! Haha’ in a gotcha tone. He seemed to think that meant I was posh and was very satisfied in a way that perplexed me at the time but now makes a lot of sense.

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 6h
Or the Wheeltappers and Shunters Club of Palmers Green

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 6h
When Keir Starmer is finally spat out the other end there won’t be much left of the Labour Party

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 6h
Smart move for a party whose voters are increasingly university graduates. Or were.

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 7h
Is there any other political party out there so hostile to its own base I wonder

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 7h
It beggars belief that Labour are taxing universities’ most lucrative revenue streams at a time when three quarters of them are in the red

Reposted by Anna O. Law, Ian Campbell, Jonathan Hopkin , and 2 more

cwolbrecht.bsky.social
Christina Wolbrecht @cwolbrecht.bsky.social · 9h
Look, women no longer do shit for free is actually at the root of a lot of social disruption. The question is whether you think the solution is women going back to being unpaid and unprotected by their own labor.

Reposted by Jonathan Hopkin, Christina Pagel

duncanrobertson.bsky.social
Dr Duncan Robertson @duncanrobertson.bsky.social · 9h
# We don't need no education #
www.theguardian.com/education/20...
Fifty higher education providers at risk of exiting market in England, MPs told
Regulator says 24 are at more immediate risk and may have to stop degree courses within next 12 months
www.theguardian.com

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 10h
The slavish devotion to motoring is one of the most frustrating things about UK public policy over the past decades

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 10h
Early sign that doing anything on climate was going to meet very violent resistance

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 10h
If you're still tinkering with a fundamentally flawed tax system one year into a five year parliament with a massive majority, it can only get worse from here

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 11h
He wants family, community and tradition, but not by Muslims

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 11h
Spot on

Reposted by Jonathan Hopkin

sianberry.bsky.social
Sian Berry MP @sianberry.bsky.social · 12h
Since 2011 the fuel duty freeze has cost the Treasury £133 billion.

This huge amount could have paid for lower train and bus fares, better stations, safer walking, wheeling and cycling and much more!
www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...
Rachel Reeves will freeze fuel duty to dodge ‘political suicide’
The chancellor will also highlight a rise in the minimum wage and plans to cut energy bills as she tries to win over voters by focusing on cost of living
www.thetimes.com

Reposted by Jonathan Portes, Simon Wren‐Lewis, Benjamin Braun , and 2 more

jomichell.bsky.social
Jo Michell @jomichell.bsky.social · 13h
My pre-budget take for the LSE Politics blog is up:

Labour are unable to articulate any vision or sense of purpose.

Much of the left has convinced itself that government spending can be maintained without broad-based tax increases.

Not a great budget backdrop.

blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandp...
Wealth tax and looser fiscal rules won’t save the Budget | British Politics and Policy at LSE
The narrative on the left that a wealth tax and looser fiscal rules would solve the Chancellor's 2025 Budget headaches has got out of hand.
blogs.lse.ac.uk

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 18h
Oh Lord
cinemashoebox.bsky.social Ben @cinemashoebox.bsky.social · 18h
are you fucking serious

Reposted by Jonathan Hopkin

isabellamweber.bsky.social
Isabella M. Weber @isabellamweber.bsky.social · 18h
"[I]f history were to repeat itself and we were to return to the so-called "normalcy" of the 1920's—then it is certain that even though we shall have conquered our enemies on the battlefields abroad, we shall have yielded to the spirit of Fascism here at home."

Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1944

Reposted by Ben H. Ansell, Jonathan Hopkin, James Cameron

cinemashoebox.bsky.social
Ben @cinemashoebox.bsky.social · 18h
are you fucking serious

Reposted by Jonathan Hopkin, Molly Scott Cato, Federica Genovese , and 1 more

josiah.writes.news
Josiah Mortimer @josiah.writes.news · 18h
The UK is losing up to £250m a day in lost tax revenue due to the economic impact of Brexit, House of Commons Library analysis for the Lib Dems suggests.

Brexit has blown a "black hole of [up to] £90 billion a year in the public finances" the party says. Even under lower estimates the hit is ~£65bn

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 19h
A lot of young Muslim students, which he seemed very bothered about

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 19h
Yeah it’s an interesting reading of him for sure

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 19h
And just in case this sounds like special pleading, I don’t personally have much skin in the game. I can afford to pay more Council Tax and didn’t move to London soon enough to grab myself a mansion.

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 19h
So we’re left with the income- and capital-rich. Not so many of those and usually they’re smart enough to make their affairs tax efficient. In short, it’s not the free lunch it appears

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 19h
So the dilemma is: the big (illiquid) capital gains have gone to the income poor, the income rich have mortgaged themselves to the hilt to pay for these now expensive houses.

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 19h
What about the newbies? They can afford it, surely? The problem is they have probably stretched themselves to the limit to buy at something close to current prices. Not much unearned capital there

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 19h
So there is a lot of capital to tax. The problem is, pretty much everyone who lived there when I moved in was on a lower income than us. Often, much much lower. Jamaican or Cypriot families who had moved there decades ago when it was relatively cheap. They can’t afford a mansion tax

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 19h
Let’s talk about my street in North London. Ever since I’ve lived there (best part of two decades) each time a house comes on the market, some youngish professional family moves in. Prices went up, and now a terraced house is worth more than a million (like just about everywhere else in London).

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 19h
This is a hell of a thorny problem. On the one hand, there are a lot of totally unearned capital gains out there! Let’s just tax them, why not?

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 19h
Very good thread on Council Tax and mansion taxes
danneidle.bsky.social Dan Neidle @danneidle.bsky.social · 19h
Here are the English council tax bands.

To work out which band your home is in, you have to play a particularly boring game of "let's pretend" in which your house and everything around it flashes back in time to 1991, and it's that pretend house that you value.