Jonathan Hopkin
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jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin
@jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
7K followers 3.9K following 5.8K 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%
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jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 5h
Oh Lord
cinemashoebox.bsky.social Ben @cinemashoebox.bsky.social · 6h
are you fucking serious

Reposted by Jonathan Hopkin

isabellamweber.bsky.social
Isabella M. Weber @isabellamweber.bsky.social · 6h
"[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 · 6h
are you fucking serious

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 7h
A lot of young Muslim students, which he seemed very bothered about

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 7h
Yeah it’s an interesting reading of him for sure

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 7h
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 · 7h
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 · 7h
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 · 7h
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 · 7h
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 · 7h
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 · 7h
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 · 7h
Very good thread on Council Tax and mansion taxes
danneidle.bsky.social Dan Neidle @danneidle.bsky.social · 7h
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.

Reposted by Jonathan Hopkin

danneidle.bsky.social
Dan Neidle @danneidle.bsky.social · 7h
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.

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 7h
It’s not at all clear to me why he wouldn’t join Reform

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 8h
He rails against the party’s most reliable sources of support! Muslims disproportionately vote Labour (although less and less), and public sector employees too. Jewish voters tend Tory. I think he’s just in the wrong party

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 8h
If Glasman really does have influence in Number 10 Labour’s poll rating has further to fall

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 8h
No lanyards in the Russell Group

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 8h
He taught at London Met, whose catchment is mainly students from … London

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 8h
Happy to take the hit if it shields the banks, they’ve had it tough

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 17h
Want fewer foreign students? Ok. Just tell us who is going to fund the shortfall and what do you do about the economic hit to university towns that are not Oxford, Cambridge or Bath

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 17h
We can have a conversation about what would be a better funding model, but here the government is taxing university income when a lot of institutions are struggling to survive, good academics are losing their jobs and everyone on the right is lining up to give HE a kicking. It’s a hostile move

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 17h
Yeah but that’s not how Trump describes it. It has to be a tax on foreigners to be popular

Reposted by Steve Peers, Robert Black, Jonathan Hopkin , and 6 more

jakemgrumbach.bsky.social
Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 18h
One explanation for economic populism in the US is the recurring cycle of bubbles and bailouts that happens without any democratic input

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 23h
You can see how the whole tariff thing got going

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 23h
Taxes on foreigners are popular, of course

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 23h
YouGov: do you think the government should tax some foreigners?
Great British public: of course!
yougov.co.uk YouGov @yougov.co.uk · 1d
With Rachel Reeves reportedly set to apply a new tax on tuition fees paid by overseas students, most Britons support such a move at the previously mooted level of 6%

Support: 57%
Oppose: 18%

yougov.co.uk/topics/socie...

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 23h
They should ask if they agree with tariffs on other UK exports

Reposted by Leigh Sparks, Peter Holmes, Jonathan Hopkin , and 2 more

yougov.co.uk
YouGov @yougov.co.uk · 1d
With Rachel Reeves reportedly set to apply a new tax on tuition fees paid by overseas students, most Britons support such a move at the previously mooted level of 6%

Support: 57%
Oppose: 18%

yougov.co.uk/topics/socie...

jonathanhopkin.bsky.social
Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 1d
I must have missed the Harris coup