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Conor Sewell @ccsewell.bsky.social · 19h

The Financial Policy Committee on AI:

"Equity market valuations appear stretched, particularly for technology companies focused on AI. This, when combined with increasing concentration... leaves equity markets particularly exposed should expectations around the impact of AI become less optimistic."

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Conor Sewell @ccsewell.bsky.social · 21h

Also that - both are good!

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Conor Sewell @ccsewell.bsky.social · 22h

The India trip is an interesting test of whether Starmer’s number one priority really is growth, as he often claims.

If it is, an agreement on more visas for skilled workers and students would be a no-brainer.

(Although the government seems to enjoy pretending immigration is unrelated to growth…)

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Reposted by Conor Sewell

James Ball @jamesrball.com · 1d

Labour’s core voter is a Londoner. There’s no realistic route to staying in power in London. It’s the heartland.

And yet Labour has kicked London around rhetorically, through policy, and financially since taking office – and now it faces implosion. www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-l...

Labour’s London problem

The party cannot stay in power without dominating in the capital – party insiders are now worried the city is about to slip from the government’s grasp

www.thenewworld.co.uk

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Conor Sewell @ccsewell.bsky.social · 1d

I once went to a deeply nerdy two hour seminar on optimal auction design for central counterparties that was significantly better attended than this

Jim Pickard @pickardje.bsky.social · 2d

this photo is pretty brutal

www.ft.com/content/5a73...

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Conor Sewell @ccsewell.bsky.social · 1d

I’m now genuinely wondering how much police time is wasted each year because officers refuse to learn how to do things like this efficiently…

Paul Clarke @paulclarke.com · 1d

This is a @jamesrball.com point, but this lunatic on the radio is saying it takes ten hours of CCTV watching to find the point at which a crime happened. Could someone show him (the copper, not James) it's possible to move to different points, and what "binary search" means? #r4today

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Conor Sewell @ccsewell.bsky.social · 2d

This isn’t an opinion. There is no factual way to do it otherwise (those five departments make up over 2/3rds of the civil service).

Which of those do the Tories think are so over-staffed they can take massive staff cuts?

The justice system? The military? HMRC? Border control? Job centres?

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Conor Sewell @ccsewell.bsky.social · 2d

This is so fundamentally unserious in so many levels.

Apart from anything else, let’s take “cut the civil service back to 2016 levels”. That requires massive cuts to frontline staff in multiple of the following:

- HMRC
- MoJ
- MoD
- DWP
- Home Office

David Higham @oldtrotter.bsky.social · 2d

The Tory Party has gone mad..

He insisted the Conservatives had a plan to cut spending, including £8bn of annual savings from reducing the civil service, £6.9bn from cutting the aid budget and £23bn from slashing the welfare bill.

Stride told the BBC that to save money, only UK citizens would have access to the welfare system and that people with "low-level" mental health problems would also lose access to benefits.

Asked what would happen to people living legally in Britain who are not UK citizens if they fall into hardship, he said: "They've come from other parts of the world and they would have the option to return."

The Conservatives failed to back the Labour government's proposed £5bn of welfare savings this year. Stride claimed that the Labour plans were rushed and "not considered and principled".

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Conor Sewell @ccsewell.bsky.social · 2d

In the future everyone will be French PM for 15 minutes

Financial Times @financialtimes.com · 2d

French prime ministers resigns three weeks after appointment on.ft.com/4pXeLDS

French prime minister Sébastien Lecornu resigns

Macron ally was appointed just three weeks ago

on.ft.com

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Conor Sewell @ccsewell.bsky.social · 6d

I cannot imagine a single real world commercial use case for a spreadsheet where things going wrong more than two times in every five would be fine

Zoë “Baddie Proctor” Quinn @unburntwitch.com · 7d

Microsoft says its Agent Mode in Excel has an accuracy rate of 57.2 percent in SpreadsheetBench, a benchmark for evaluating an Al model's ability to edit real world spreadsheets. This result

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Conor Sewell @ccsewell.bsky.social · 7d

A fascinating and terrifying example of how quickly far-right influencers are radicalising themselves with the help of social media.

Matt Goodwin now disagrees with… the Matt Goodwin of seven months ago.

Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 7d

He had a different view in March 2025 - that Rishi Sunak and Ash Sarkar (and Shabana Mahmood, Sadiq Khan, Paul Ince, Marcus Rashford, Moeen Ali) COULD identify as English in terms of nationality, while not being part of the white English ethnic group as well.

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Conor Sewell @ccsewell.bsky.social · 7d

There is something uniquely cringey about those on the British right (see also Liz Truss) who try to leap on the US-style online grift machine and completely fail to stick the landing

James O'Malley @jamesomalley.co.uk · 7d

This is very petty to point out but I think The Abundance Agenda is probably doing better numbers than Harry Cole's big, expensive new show.

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Conor Sewell @ccsewell.bsky.social · 8d

This is a great piece.

I wish I could ram this image in the face of every single Labour strategist.

The way Labour gets back to 30+% of the vote and defeats Reform is by reassembling its shattered left of centre coalition - not by chasing Reform voters who will never vote for them.

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Reposted by Conor Sewell

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 8d

On the morning of Keir Starmer's conference speech here's a new post on an odd psychopathology in British politics - our main parties don't like the people who vote for them - the dreaded Professional Managerial Class. And so they are acting out like a divorced dad seeking cooler voters. 1/n

British Politics' Midlife Crisis

Why British Parties Can't Make Peace with Their Actual Voters

benansell.substack.com

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Reposted by Conor Sewell

Colm Murphy @colmpm.bsky.social · 10d

These are particularly critical points that should be much better understood, not just by the government but also by political commentators, journalists, and broadcast bookers.

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Conor Sewell @ccsewell.bsky.social · 11d

For god’s sake autocorrect, I am not talking about the property of a guy named Fabian

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Conor Sewell @ccsewell.bsky.social · 11d

Of all the Labour-related groups to be labelled as a “radical left cabal”, the Fabian’s have to be the funniest.

Anyone agreeing with this should be laughed out of public life.

David Higham @oldtrotter.bsky.social · 11d

In case, like me, you were wondering about the “Fabian thing”

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Conor Sewell @ccsewell.bsky.social · 11d

One thing that has struck me is, for all the boasting from Starmer’s team about how they were selecting hundreds of loyal “Starmtroopers”, they cannot overcome the age-old problem that people will pretend to be whatever they need to in order to get selected as a candidate…

Duncan Robinson @duncanrobinson.bsky.social · 13d

Male loneliness epidemic: Downing Street edition www.economist.com/britain/2025...

Reposted by Conor Sewell

Rob Ford @robfordmancs.bsky.social · 12d

Good to see this important research getting a wider audience. Hope Labour advisors listen and learn

Tarik Abou-Chadi @tabouchadi.bsky.social · 12d

For the Guardian, @turnbulldugarte.com and I discuss our research that clearly shows one thing: Labour's anti-immigration strategy will only strengthen Reform and weaken its own electoral prospects. It won't win voters back but ultimately normalizes the far right

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Our research makes it clear: by capitulating to the right, Labour is driving voters to Reform UK | Tarik Abou-Chadi and Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte

Mimicking Farage on immigration is senseless. Labour voters feel betrayed; anti-immigration voters see through the ruse, say academics Tarik Abou-Chadi and Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte

www.theguardian.com

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Conor Sewell @ccsewell.bsky.social · 12d

Actually, it’s a long way below - see:

bsky.app/profile/ccse...

Conor Sewell @ccsewell.bsky.social · 12d

There’s some significant divergence across pollsters, but they all show the same trend.

Taking the latest YouGov, Opinium and More In Common (all from September) and averaging:

Starmer: 20% favourable, 63% unfavourable, net -43%

Farage: 32% favourable, 48% unfavourable, net -16%

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Conor Sewell @ccsewell.bsky.social · 12d

There’s some significant divergence across pollsters, but they all show the same trend.

Taking the latest YouGov, Opinium and More In Common (all from September) and averaging:

Starmer: 20% favourable, 63% unfavourable, net -43%

Farage: 32% favourable, 48% unfavourable, net -16%

Conor Sewell @ccsewell.bsky.social · 12d

A supplementary point on this.

One thing a lot of apologists for Labour’s current strategy seem to be overlooking/not aware of is that Starmer is much, *much* more unpopular than Nigel Farage.

“Vote for me or he gets in” doesn’t really work if people hate you even more!

Conor Sewell @ccsewell.bsky.social · 12d

Meta point - for Labour’s polling to recover, one of three things needs to happen:

1. Starmer is replaced
2. His favourables recover in a way that no UK politician ever has from this low a starting point
3. Labour get an unprecedentedly high vote share for a leader with such low favourables

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Conor Sewell @ccsewell.bsky.social · 12d

In 2024, 69% of the vote went to Labour, Greens, and the British-Palestinian independent candidate.

That collapsing to 53%, with the remainder going to Reform/the Tories, seems… unlikely given the demographics of the area.

Conor Sewell @ccsewell.bsky.social · 12d

Beyond other issues, this MRP has a serious issue with specific seats where local independents are strong.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Labour lose Ilford North. But if they do, the numbers do not look like that.

And the number of seats where independents are important is only likely to rise.

YouGov @yougov.co.uk · 12d

YouGov's MRP projects that cabinet ministers including Yvette Cooper and Ed Miliband would lose their seats to Reform UK were an election held tomorrow, with close races for Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting

Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick are also in extremely close fights to keep their seats

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Conor Sewell @ccsewell.bsky.social · 12d

Or, if you’re feeling generous, one final option:

4. The Tories recover to the exact perfect level where they and Reform split the right wing vote with such precision as to allow Labour to win (the margin of error on this is basically zero with Labour’s current numbers)

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