Jennifer Williams
@jenwilliamsft.bsky.social
24K followers 390 following 1.9K posts
Northern correspondent, Financial Times 📍Manchester
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jenwilliamsft.bsky.social
Lovely thankyou. I’ve still not forgiven selfridges for replacing its mad food bit full of dried scorpions with makeup
jenwilliamsft.bsky.social
Anyone know if the food floor in the Manchester Harvey Nichols still exists? I’ve only been there once and that was 15 years ago so I’m not going to go to the effort of going upstairs again if it’s not there. Thanks in advance, this feels like a good use of social media #journorequest
jenwilliamsft.bsky.social
Alan Carr is going to be amazing on this #celebritytraitors
jenwilliamsft.bsky.social
There’s a place I came across over the summer but it was in Cumbria, I’m not sure about Manchester. Nothing is getting chucked yet, it’s an initial sifting process. There are a lot of
jenwilliamsft.bsky.social
This isn’t helping my attempts to be brutal
jenwilliamsft.bsky.social
Thats what they’re called. Demijohns. Couldn’t remember the word
jenwilliamsft.bsky.social
Or are these also going to turn out to be modern classics i’ve overlooked
jenwilliamsft.bsky.social
What about these. Are we all ok if I get rid of these?
jenwilliamsft.bsky.social
Ok ok everyone is saying this is great, I’ll take it back out of the charity shop bag
jenwilliamsft.bsky.social
And… guess you had to be there
jenwilliamsft.bsky.social
Maths entertainment (first printed 1917)
jenwilliamsft.bsky.social
Think it was because the product was undrinkable. iirc once it had been sampled the rest was abandoned
jenwilliamsft.bsky.social
Today’s task is to go through many dusty books I scooped up when clearing out my parents’ house, from a high shelf on the landing. Retro. I remember the winemaking phase, but only because the “wine” remained in the airing cupboard gathering dust through the 90s
jenwilliamsft.bsky.social
Final thought is that I think there will be a strong desire at national level - for obvious national electoral reasons - that Reform councils dont appear financially wild. So despite council tax/DOGE promises, needing to balance the books in a sober way has to ultimately win out.
jenwilliamsft.bsky.social
I don’t think Durham is the worst of them tbh. I reckon they can probably get through this ok for the timebeing with a bit of help from council tax, especially if fair funding goes as currently expected
jenwilliamsft.bsky.social
Right exactly. And I’m some way off predicting that whacking up council tax in the places they’ve already won will stop them winning Sunderland.
jenwilliamsft.bsky.social
There’s little to nothing to cut in most places. You can move some deckchairs about. in Durham, there’s a potential move to cut council tax relief. Many other places did this years ago (and blamed the tories) - but obviously Reform’s May election platform was what it was.
jenwilliamsft.bsky.social
Certainly there’s a lot of that yes. When I went to the last Lancs cabinet meeting (ex Tories) it seemed relatively indistinguishable from any other, apart from flag talk
jenwilliamsft.bsky.social
In practice therefore a lot of these councils are *heavily* reliant on the officers the national party began by slagging off in May - although the picture varies. Some political administrations are more experienced than others.
jenwilliamsft.bsky.social
We’re into budget setting now. Durham, for example, has asked officers to model on the basis of no CT rises. (NB we don’t know how fair funding flushes out yet.) but it will also be up to officers to say: this is or isn’t doable without eg closing things or taking reserves down to a dangerous low