Miranda Green
greenmirandahere.bsky.social
Miranda Green
@greenmirandahere.bsky.social
Yakking. Tippy tappy typing. More yakking. Politics. Education. FT columns, Political Fix podcast and videos here https://www.ft.com/miranda-green - please check out Not Another One https://open.spotify.com/show/7u4nlhVNmzzZrLjmB7z137?si=dcf00d7580444ccb
Pinned
erm ... hello?
Reposted by Miranda Green
Word of the day is ‘quockerwodger’ (19th century): a puppet politician whose strings are pulled entirely by someone else.
November 21, 2025 at 12:59 PM
Reposted by Miranda Green
Annotated: the full text of Trump’s 28-point Ukraine-Russia peace plan on.ft.com/3XtPapn
Annotated: the full text of Trump’s 28-point Ukraine-Russia peace plan
Draft agreement has shocked Europe and is unlikely to satisfy Kyiv or Moscow
on.ft.com
November 21, 2025 at 12:43 PM
Reposted by Miranda Green
Prosecutor Mark Heywood has today told the Old Bailey: "It is clear that he read from the script he had with him."

Gill sent a YouTube link to his speech to Voloshyn and wrote "V should be pleased by this".

He was then asked to "encourage other MEPs" to take a similar stance
November 21, 2025 at 11:41 AM
Reposted by Miranda Green
Here's what appears to be the result - Gill and two other MEPs making strikingly similar comments to the European Parliament, following a trip to meet the pro-Putin TV channels
November 21, 2025 at 11:45 AM
Reposted by Miranda Green
Worse still, the increase in time spent alone has been especially steep among this economically and socially dislocated group.

*Seven hours* of daily free time spent completely solitary in the most recent US data.

My column from last week in full: www.ft.com/content/bd61...
Young adults are growing increasingly economically dislocated
A disconnected class is taking shape, but is absent from the headline statistics
www.ft.com
November 20, 2025 at 10:25 AM
Topiary joy!
Lovely snow this morning at our new CECS home at Heslington Hall, including the 18th c Dutch style topiary garden behind the Tudor manor house:
November 19, 2025 at 10:36 AM
For anyone stuck in the same mad loop trying to get a home visit Covid jab for housebound elderly folk it seems you can email via this page (the letters/ endless SMS messages say it's via the GP who today after weeks of fobbing off said ' nothing to do with us') www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/...
Coronavirus » Local COVID-19 vaccination contacts
Coronavirus » Local COVID-19 vaccination contacts
www.england.nhs.uk
November 17, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Really in a very bad mood this evening and Radiohead The Bends is extremely helpful especially turned up quite loud. That was the end of my public service announcement.
November 17, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Reposted by Miranda Green
Danny Kruger performs a vital Parliamentary function of acting as a Peace Wall between the co-leaders of Your Party.
November 17, 2025 at 6:44 PM
Reposted by Miranda Green
Plug in your postcode. deprivation.communities.gov.uk
deprivation.communities.gov.uk
November 14, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Reposted by Miranda Green
My future as a motivational speaker is now assured - by me for @financialtimes.com - Should we just give up now that it's winter? With added Kafka (a great "joke" from him in fact) and prescription of some improving Victorian literature www.ft.com/content/2ca1...
Should we just give up now it’s winter?
Modern life isn’t very indulgent of just going back to bed. But there’s nothing wrong with doing it from time to time
www.ft.com
November 14, 2025 at 11:34 AM
My future as a motivational speaker is now assured - by me for @financialtimes.com - Should we just give up now that it's winter? With added Kafka (a great "joke" from him in fact) and prescription of some improving Victorian literature www.ft.com/content/2ca1...
Should we just give up now it’s winter?
Modern life isn’t very indulgent of just going back to bed. But there’s nothing wrong with doing it from time to time
www.ft.com
November 14, 2025 at 11:34 AM
Reposted by Miranda Green
Lucid and withering by one of the best:
My column in today’s FT: a government with no real vision is reverting to its comfort zone of launching campaigns and drawing dividing lines - against Wes Streeting, on tax. Meanwhile in the real world its position keeps getting worse:
Brain-dead Labour retreats to its comfort zone: campaigning
Downing Street’s bizarre war on itself is a symptom of a government whose ideas dissolve on contact with reality
www.ft.com
November 14, 2025 at 10:18 AM
Reposted by Miranda Green
Yes, I think this is what the “it’s smart not to do income tax” stuff is missing. If you remove salary sacrifice on someone’s pension contributions you are increasing their income tax! If you freeze thresholds you are increasing their income tax!
Issue for Labour now isn't whether they break their manifesto pledge on tax. It is whether they do so in a way which is blatant, honest but sustainable - or whether they do so by a myriad of complex and likely insufficient means whilst arguing they are not.

Imho, one seems more toxic than the other
November 14, 2025 at 10:16 AM
A consensus is forming - David Sheppard of the FT @oilsheppard.bsky.social is actually the chancellor - he wrote this last week www.ft.com/content/5480...
Why Rachel Reeves won’t raise income tax
An unpopular government cannot afford to be branded dishonest by the public
www.ft.com
November 14, 2025 at 10:15 AM
This may be the first time one of my FT Political Fix stock picks actually delivered a return
Congratulations to @JoshBabarinde.bsky.social - newly elected President of the Liberal Democrats.
November 12, 2025 at 10:56 AM
This is a fun but also non-trivial exercise actually
If MPs defected at the same rates as their voters, the Commons would look like:

Labour: 212 (-199)
Lib Dems: 110 (+38)
Conservatives: 99 (-22)
Greens: 87 (+83)
Reform UK: 86 (+81)
SNP/PC: 25 (+12)
Others: 31 (+7)
November 12, 2025 at 10:54 AM
Reposted by Miranda Green
NEW POD! FT's 📻 @pickardje.bsky.social @katie0martin.ft.com and Sam Fleming pick over the taxes Reeves might raise and how; the political damage thereof; crucially from Katie, what the markets *really* think of the UK, Reeves and Farage; PLUS how to pronounce smorgasbord www.ft.com/content/359e...
To tax, but who to tax, that is the question
What are Rachel Reeves’ options?
www.ft.com
November 7, 2025 at 3:53 PM
NEW POD! FT's 📻 @pickardje.bsky.social @katie0martin.ft.com and Sam Fleming pick over the taxes Reeves might raise and how; the political damage thereof; crucially from Katie, what the markets *really* think of the UK, Reeves and Farage; PLUS how to pronounce smorgasbord www.ft.com/content/359e...
To tax, but who to tax, that is the question
What are Rachel Reeves’ options?
www.ft.com
November 7, 2025 at 3:53 PM
OK so I posted a piece by Helen Lewis that is excellent. A bunch of people told me she can't be admired as a journalist because she is an evil person. I defended her right to write, mine to read and recommend, now I'm told she's an actual Nazi and wants people to kill themselves and I'm an enabler.
October 23, 2025 at 10:19 PM
I see we still have a lot of people on here, as on Twitter, who can't cope with people who have different opinions on complex issues but don't choose to reveal who they are while targetting women by name - do we all have to pass our catechism to be allowed a voice on Blue Sky?
October 23, 2025 at 9:10 AM
Reposted by Miranda Green
In a world of slop and angry voices, we need organisations like @financialtimes.com who bring calm, evidence based journalism. And more than finance, as this important series shows. Thankyou!

Do check out their podcasts too. My favourite is Political Fix with @greenmirandahere.bsky.social
You might be living with lead poisoning and not know it: the toxin is often invisible to the eye, but wreaks havoc on our bodies once we're exposed.

@laurahughesft.bsky.social uncovers a lead poisoning epidemic in Toxic Legacy, a new season of our Untold podcast: on.ft.com/3WU8YS8
October 22, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Reposted by Miranda Green
This is really interesting by Matthew Barnfield and colleagues. Our research shows Labour is losing more support among its 2024 voters who feel financially insecure, which - together - suggests voters leaving Labour cant *afford* to wait for ‘jam tomorrow’.
October 20, 2025 at 9:20 AM