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Declan Gaffney

@greyskiesthinking.bsky.social

7.5K followers 530 following 5.5K posts

Research, analysis & grey-skies thinking on labour markets, social security, public finance & equality. Usual disclaimer. Cheap foreign labour 🇮🇪. Profile pic is Takashi Shimura with Toshiro Mifune in Stray Dog (Akira Kurosawa, 1949).

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Declan Gaffney @greyskiesthinking.bsky.social · Aug 22

If all young people deferred having children until they could meet the entire cost of raising them, there'd be no workers to pay for pensions in thirty years time.

Tim Bale @timbale.bsky.social · Aug 22

Dickensian vibes. Letter in today's @financialtimes.com

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Declan Gaffney @greyskiesthinking.bsky.social · 6h

Was on the list along with Winetavern St, Aungier St, the Forty Foot etc

Reposted by Declan Gaffney

Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 7h

Invading Norway because he didn't get the peace prize would be so on brand.

Kevin Rothrock @kevinrothrock.me · 8h

another day in very normal times

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Libération @liberation.fr · 8h

«C’est un endroit sacré, intouchable, où il a toute sa place»

Robert Badinter au Panthéon : dans la foule parisienne, des larmes et de la reconnaissance

Robert Badinter au Panthéon : dans la foule parisienne, des larmes et de la reconnaissance

www.liberation.fr

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Declan Gaffney @greyskiesthinking.bsky.social · 9h

Read L Ron Hubbard's Wiki last night (well, some of it, there's only so much I could take) and that confluence between crank medicine, fraud, anti-democratic conspiracy and crazed inhumanity was awfully resonant with what's going on now.

Acyn @acyn.bsky.social · 9h

RFK JR: There are many other confirmations -- there are two studies that show children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism. It’s highly likely because they are given Tylenol

Declan Gaffney @greyskiesthinking.bsky.social · 10h

It's the hairdressers, mere underlings of the republic. In fairness, he's trying to rationalise the exclusion of most of the population from the franchise that most republicans favoured at the time.

Declan Gaffney @greyskiesthinking.bsky.social · 16h

FFS

Le Monde @lemonde.fr · 16h

La tombe de Robert Badinter profanée à Bagneux, à quelques heures de son entrée au Panthéon

L’ancien ministre de la justice doit entrer au Panthéon jeudi soir. « Honte à ceux qui ont voulu souiller sa mémoire », a dénoncé Emmanuel Macron.

www.lemonde.fr

Reposted by Declan Gaffney

Kate Bevan @katebevan.com · 17h

This intro (from a Guardian piece) contains two of the most overused words in the English language: "nestled" and "quintessentially". They're words people use when they CBA to spend a millisecond thinking of a better word. I delete them on sight from copy I edit.

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Mr Roger Quimbly @rogerquimbly.bsky.social · 19h

Conservative Comic Con cosplay. Robert Crumb, Dr Combover Neckbeard, evil mutant, FBI agent.

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Declan Gaffney @greyskiesthinking.bsky.social · 1d

The Four Courts

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 1d

What’s the word where you’re from that, when pronounced exactly as it looks, identifies a tourist immediately?

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Will Jennings 🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 1d

You'd think there would be more interest from the US media that Trump is simply delusional - at best being fed complete fabrications by his team, at worst in serious cognitive decline and unable to recognise reality.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Trump: "I don't know what could be worse than Portland. You don't even have stores anymore. They don't even put glass up. They put plywood on their windows."

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Birmingham 81 @birmingham81.bsky.social · 1d

Delta 5 performing Mind Your Own Business at Hurrah, NYC in 1980. This and other Hurrah concert recordings are available on a pay-to-view basis at artclips.free.fr/PRIVATE-STRE...

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Reposted by Declan Gaffney

Niamh @niamhpuirseil.bsky.social · 1d

Anyone familiar with Dawson St will know how much space The Ivy has taken up with its outdoor tables it doesn’t use and the planters around it. Now it wants more but at the Luas stop. If you’d like to be able to walk down the street and not be in over by trams please think about objecting

An application for a table and chair licence for noted tip robbers The Ivy

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Mike Brewer @mikebrewerecon.bsky.social · 1d

My small contribution to today's great RF report on wealth inequality was to have us headline with the metric for measuring wealth gaps that I first came across in the work of the late John Hills

www.theguardian.com/inequality/2...

Lifetime of earnings not enough for UK workers to join wealthiest 10%, report says

Research finds it would take average worker saving all their earnings for 52 years to match wealth of richest 10th of society

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Declan Gaffney

The Journal @thejournal.ie · 1d

The loyalist paramilitary group, the UVF, issued a threat to torch any Belfast City Council vans or depots bearing dual language logos including Irish.

jrnl.ie/6836699

Irish language groups to stage 'celebration' event at Belfast City Hall following UVF threats

The loyalist paramilitary group, the UVF, issued a threat to torch any Belfast City Council vans or depots bearing dual language logos including Irish.

jrnl.ie

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Reposted by Declan Gaffney

Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 1d

No, it's not. It's all a lie. The blunt truth is across the 1991, 2001, 2011 and 2021 Census *every* ethnic group in the UK has become *less* geographically segregated and *all* groups, majority and minorities, are more likely to interact with people not like them.

Iain Mansfield @igmansfield.bsky.social · 1d

Outstanding piece by Stephen Daisley.

Ethnicity is no barrier to Britishness - it's culture and integration.

That means 'smaller cohorts and aggressive integration policies' - and tackling the institutions that 'have amplified grievance narratives and radical anti-Western ideologies'.

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Alison McGovern @allymcgovern.bsky.social · 1d

We cannot accept this.

news.sky.com/story/abject...

'Abject failure' as UK's homeless deaths rise - including children

The government's homelessness minister, Alison McGovern MP, has described the increased number of deaths as an "abject failure that cannot be tolerated".

news.sky.com

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Reposted by Declan Gaffney

Marcus Hutchins @malwaretech.com · 3d

People keep endlessly falling for this idea that if they can just finally prove once and for all that Trump is a bad person, his voters will turn their back on him and it'll all be over. It's not even remotely close to reality and should have been clear as day the second he got elected back in 2016.

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Declan Gaffney @greyskiesthinking.bsky.social · 2d

It's not usually hard to identify the point in a Simenon novel where he's bored and just wants to get it over with. When the same character is called Nina in one chapter and Anna in the next you kinda know you're not in for an elegant resolution.

Reposted by Declan Gaffney

Lewis Goodall @lewisgoodall.com · 2d

Am wondering if all of those suddenly deciding they’re against communities living “parallel lives” might reconsider their support of religious schools? Or indeed private ones?

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Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 2d

THE SECRET PROJECT I'VE BEEN WORKING ON FOR THE PAST FEW MONTHS IS FINALLY LIVE

CHECK IT OUT

outsidersartsclub.com

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Reposted by Declan Gaffney

The Secret Barrister @barristersecret.bsky.social · 2d

This is a lie.

There are many criticisms you might sensibly and truthfully make of the Sentencing Council and the Sentencing Guidelines. I’ve been making them for years.

But this is an outright lie. Pure fabrication. A fraud on the public.

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Declan Gaffney @greyskiesthinking.bsky.social · 2d

No. It's because they just didn't do the work, which is tricky and time-consuming. There's lots of other official data that doesn't fit with
government messaging.

Declan Gaffney @greyskiesthinking.bsky.social · 2d

I really really don't want an election in France, presidential or legislative.

Reposted by Declan Gaffney

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 2d

Oh, that kind of integration… ah well… nevertheless

Dom White @domw.bsky.social · 2d

"We want people to be living in mixed communities, don't we?"

Robert Jenrick's home is in Eye, Herefordshire, where 165 out of 166 residents were white at the time of the last census.

Best for Britain @bestforbritain.org · 2d

Wow. Robert Jenrick doubles down by branding a black journalist's questions "ridiculous" and saying that the problem is not his comments, but "journalists like you who pop up and try to knock me down", adding that "this is the reason why terrorist attacks happen". ~AA

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Declan Gaffney @greyskiesthinking.bsky.social · 2d

🧵This is not just an issue for specialists. Official data which is not fit for purpose is feeding a crisis narrative on benefit claims that is for the most part accepted uncritically by political elites and the media.

Louise Murphy @louisemurphy.bsky.social · 2d

It's increasingly perplexing that DWP aren't prioritising improving their stats to better reflect the move from legacy benefits to UC.

Until then, we'll keep getting misleading headlines like 'Long-term sickness claims rising by 5,000 a day' - you can't blame journalists when the stats are so bad!

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