Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Chaminda Jayanetti

@cjayanetti.bsky.social

39K followers 1.6K following 12K posts

Freelance journalist covering British politics and public services - NHS, education, care, housing, disability, benefits. Not a tribalist. I like good things and I don't like bad things.

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · 4d

Labour MPs who voted against welfare cuts this summer have warned that plans to change disability benefit assessments could trigger another mass rebellion

Others called for a vote to be delayed until a review into the assessments is complete

By me, for Big Issue: www.bigissue.com/news/social-...

Labour faces another mass rebellion over reforms to universal credit

Welfare secretary Pat McFadden plans further reforms to the benefits system, expected to include abolishing the work capability assessment.

www.bigissue.com

5 52 140

Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · 1m

stamp duty is progressively structured, hard to avoid, and raises a lot of money

it does make it more expensive to buy housing, but for first time buyers its impact is dwarfed by deposits and mortgage costs

tax theory hates it because tax theory loves looking through the wrong end of telescopes

Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · 5m

lol abolishing stamp duty is a policy that will prove hugely popular with the wonk set before absolutely blowing up the moment they announce what would replace it - or, alternatively, how they'd fund the lost revenue

2 22

Reposted by Chaminda Jayanetti

James Austin @jamesdaustin.bsky.social · 3h

This is my basic theory for a lot of what is going on with the centre right atm

The ideas failed utterly and now there is a total crisis of intellectual confidence

Indy @indy.bsky.social · 1d

It nags at me that people are dancing around the fact that one reason centre-right think-tanks are in an intellectual crisis moment is because we've spent over a decade where lots of their ideas were tried out and didn't pan out as advertised.

18 31 180

Reposted by Chaminda Jayanetti

Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · 1d

Some of London’s poorest areas could see their share of the children’s services funding formula halved under Labour’s plans to reform local government grants.

By me, for Politics Home: www.politicshome.com/news/article...

London Councils Face Losing Half Their Share Of Children's Services Funding

Some of London’s poorest areas could see their share of funding for children’s services halved under Labour’s plans to reform local government gran...

www.politicshome.com

7 93 140

Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · 2h

Diana Mosley, 1939:

Headlined pull-quote from Guardian comment article this morning:

"Unity is desperately needed, but the EU prefers turf wars to facing down Russia"

1 5 35

Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · 12h

who said I didn't...

1 3

Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · 13h

Osborne graves.

Reposted by Chaminda Jayanetti

Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 17h

I know statistics are poorly understood and are misused. But facts matter

Between 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

31 530 1.6K

Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · 14h

and he's always been a total cunt

3 1 43

Reposted by Chaminda Jayanetti

Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 14h

All these people really want is to pay no taxes and be treated with floor scraping deference. Everything else is just bullshit in pursuit of that goal.

Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 16h

Party donor Nick Candy says "I cherish the values we grew up with here in the West. But today you are more likely to find the values we grew up with in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.’

Via Sam Leith in the Spectator
www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-...

31 310 1.2K

Reposted by Chaminda Jayanetti

Times Higher Education (THE) @timeshighered.bsky.social · 14h

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch is expected to announce plans to cut the number of UK university places by about 100,000 annually by reintroducing student number controls, reports Patrick Jack #edusky
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/badenochs-number-caps-plan-would-cut-100000-university-places

10 7 6

Reposted by Chaminda Jayanetti

Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 17h

The UAE is an authoritarian autocracy, a petro-state with no income tax for citizens, to bribe them for the lack of democratic voice or free speech

It is 85% migrant, a segregated society with a ban on integration in principle and practice, few rights, equal opportunities, nor voice for incomers

72 400 1.3K

Reposted by Chaminda Jayanetti

Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 16h

The Bishop of Birmingham has written to the Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick about his comments about Handsworth

41 500 1.3K

Reposted by Chaminda Jayanetti

Rafael Behr @rafaelbehr.bsky.social · 15h

Not saying they look *exactly* alike but would definitely cast Robert Jenrick (shadow justice secretary) in biopic of Paul Reczeh (Gestapo agent, all-round sociopath)

12 35 180

Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · 15h

25% of the Inbetweeners are fucked off about it according to YouGov

Reposted by Chaminda Jayanetti

Sathnam Sanghera @sathnam.bsky.social · 21h

I've responded to Robert Jenrick's vile comments in @thetimes.com

www.thetimes.com/life-style/c...

I sang Jerusalem with Robert Jenrick at school — he’s wrong about race

The Conservative MP has complained that, visiting Handsworth in Birmingham, he didn’t see ‘another white face’. You can’t judge whether someone is integrated by skin colour, argues fellow Wulfrunian S...

www.thetimes.com

44 170 630

Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · 15h

If you are redistributing money from less deprived parts of the country to more deprived parts of the country, then more deprived parts of the country should be getting more money, not less.

These London boroughs are more deprived parts of the country.

If you still can't work it out, I don't care.

Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · 15h

I mean this is entirely pointless because you don't understand how local government funding works, you don't understand the IMD, you don't understand the maps you keep posting, you don't understand any of this but you keep pretending you do.

So, one last time, here goes:

Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · 15h

and what, exactly, has convinced you that London boroughs are among the least deprived in country? You are talking about local authorities that were already heavily hit by spending cuts under the Tories, in areas of relatively *high* poverty

Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · 18h

Your "key point" was that London had been getting more than its fair share of funding. You've brought no evidence of that because you've not even said what its previous share of funding was

Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · 18h

"there are significant areas of deprivation outside London"

Sorry is that your big reveal? Literally everyone on this site knows that

Reposted by Chaminda Jayanetti

Rachel Cunliffe @rmcunliffe.bsky.social · 18h

I wrote a personal piece last week about anti-semitism in Britain in the last two years and how it felt to be Jewish. It was repromoted today, on the anniversary of October 7, five days after an attack on a British synagogue in which two Jews were killed.

This is the immediate reply.

13 9 82

Reposted by Chaminda Jayanetti

Steve Randy Waldman @interfluidity.com · 18h

a way to understand Bari Weiss’ ascendance is that capital absolutely does not want to “turn down the temperature” on culture war, au contraire they understand culture war to be their most successful media project and want more more more.

29 170 780

Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · 18h

There'd be a transitional period

Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · 19h

Sorry, what's the point you're trying to make now, and is it the same point you were trying to make four hours ago, whatever that was