Mikey Brown
@meshuganater.bsky.social
PhD researcher in Political Science @ Birmingham. Researching effective industrial action in neoliberalised public services
Interested in: Strikes, unions, higher education, housing, co-ops, infrastructure, intergenerational fairness, The Labour Party
Interested in: Strikes, unions, higher education, housing, co-ops, infrastructure, intergenerational fairness, The Labour Party
Plan 2 loans rightly getting coverage for their flaws, but the obsession with the interest rates in the coverage hides the bigger issue - the freezing of the repayment threshold - makes the scheme much more expensive for borrowers and is fundamentally a bait and switch.
January 15, 2026 at 6:11 PM
Plan 2 loans rightly getting coverage for their flaws, but the obsession with the interest rates in the coverage hides the bigger issue - the freezing of the repayment threshold - makes the scheme much more expensive for borrowers and is fundamentally a bait and switch.
Reposted by Mikey Brown
Yeah so under weaknesses you’ve written “cares too much about solving crime if anything”
January 14, 2026 at 4:58 PM
Yeah so under weaknesses you’ve written “cares too much about solving crime if anything”
Reposted by Mikey Brown
Spoiler: They used the money just as wisely as anyone else would, and it's so frustrating that this still isn't a common sense assumption to make.
December 30, 2025 at 4:52 PM
Spoiler: They used the money just as wisely as anyone else would, and it's so frustrating that this still isn't a common sense assumption to make.
Reposted by Mikey Brown
We have so much good evidence for cash transfers but so many just refuse to accept that those in poverty can make good decisions.
Spoiler: They used the money just as wisely as anyone else would, and it's so frustrating that this still isn't a common sense assumption to make.
December 30, 2025 at 5:21 PM
We have so much good evidence for cash transfers but so many just refuse to accept that those in poverty can make good decisions.
Reposted by Mikey Brown
And the reasons for that are not hard to find - Starmer’s unpopularity among left-liberals is the logical, arguably even intended consequence of 18 months of comms and policy which alienates and angers left-liberals while winning over no one on right. This is the cake his team have baked themselves.
December 31, 2025 at 9:16 AM
And the reasons for that are not hard to find - Starmer’s unpopularity among left-liberals is the logical, arguably even intended consequence of 18 months of comms and policy which alienates and angers left-liberals while winning over no one on right. This is the cake his team have baked themselves.
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At least when Keith Joseph didn't believe in the railways he had the excuse that we had had 40 years of decline under British Rail. That Rishi Sunak basically didn't believe in them because he was doing 1980s cosplay is comfortably the worst thing he did as prime minister.
Canceling the northern leg of HS2 was an act of insane self-harm
Industry insiders are concerned that fewer, shorter non-tilting trains are on order for HS2 — and that journey times will return to those of the 1990s
December 20, 2025 at 12:28 PM
At least when Keith Joseph didn't believe in the railways he had the excuse that we had had 40 years of decline under British Rail. That Rishi Sunak basically didn't believe in them because he was doing 1980s cosplay is comfortably the worst thing he did as prime minister.
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Labour’s shift away from “immigration is good but it needs to be managed” to “it is bad” is a gift to essentially everyone they compete with, because it means that they don’t have the right position to be able to attack *anyone*.
I'm sorry, but these attacks are just not going to convince Green-curious voters, because Labour is so visibly out of step with those voters' core values
December 10, 2025 at 4:25 PM
Labour’s shift away from “immigration is good but it needs to be managed” to “it is bad” is a gift to essentially everyone they compete with, because it means that they don’t have the right position to be able to attack *anyone*.
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Reposted by Mikey Brown
Wish Halifax would drop the lip service to home owners' supposed disappointment in sluggish house prices. Just recognise that homes are for living in, not getting rich off, rising prices are bad, just like regular inflation, and better affordability for first time buyers is an unalloyed good thing
December 5, 2025 at 7:23 PM
Wish Halifax would drop the lip service to home owners' supposed disappointment in sluggish house prices. Just recognise that homes are for living in, not getting rich off, rising prices are bad, just like regular inflation, and better affordability for first time buyers is an unalloyed good thing
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The essence of Blue Labour thought is that somewhere in Downing Street there is a button marked “reindustrialise” that Tony Blair could have pressed, but instead he opted for the “more Woke Studies” button.
My brother in Christ, reindustrialization is based on international capital flows, not dumbass ideas to move down the value chain by turning colleges into vocational schools. You do realize that modern industry is almost always *high* skilled automation?
Read your Michael Pettis, you utter clown.
Read your Michael Pettis, you utter clown.
No reindustrialising? Our academic institutions are a part of the problem, overproducing elites and funnelling them into bullshit unproductive jobs. Half the universities need to close or become vocational colleges. You didn't even mention productivity.
Brexit is in the past. That ship has sailed.
Brexit is in the past. That ship has sailed.
December 5, 2025 at 8:58 PM
The essence of Blue Labour thought is that somewhere in Downing Street there is a button marked “reindustrialise” that Tony Blair could have pressed, but instead he opted for the “more Woke Studies” button.
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“it was the OBR’s job to stop my nefarious opponents from doing the unaffordable tax cut which I supported and pledged not to undo”
Does he also believe in the Tooth Fairy? That, and other questions raised by this excellent piece: www.ft.com/content/cc83...
December 2, 2025 at 10:11 AM
“it was the OBR’s job to stop my nefarious opponents from doing the unaffordable tax cut which I supported and pledged not to undo”
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It's such a bizarre framing. Labour MPs think taking 450k kids out of poverty is putting the country first! That's why they wanted it to happen! It's not because they personally benefit.
Headline on The World at One just now:
"Sir Keir Starmer has denied putting the Labour Party before the country by ending the two-child benefit cap".
Can we please go back to reporting the actual news, not someone's partisan take on it?
"Sir Keir Starmer has denied putting the Labour Party before the country by ending the two-child benefit cap".
Can we please go back to reporting the actual news, not someone's partisan take on it?
November 27, 2025 at 1:16 PM
It's such a bizarre framing. Labour MPs think taking 450k kids out of poverty is putting the country first! That's why they wanted it to happen! It's not because they personally benefit.
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Another way of looking at this, of course, is that if you took the triple lock out of the equation, the benefits bill would very likely roughly be increasing in line with projected inflation *if that*
November 26, 2025 at 10:04 PM
Another way of looking at this, of course, is that if you took the triple lock out of the equation, the benefits bill would very likely roughly be increasing in line with projected inflation *if that*
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Sorry, no, Motability was not about 'helping the most vulnerable' - it was about providing people who need modified vehicles modified vehicles!
November 26, 2025 at 1:12 PM
Sorry, no, Motability was not about 'helping the most vulnerable' - it was about providing people who need modified vehicles modified vehicles!
Reposted by Mikey Brown
The government can stick to this plan, or the government can get re-elected. Unlikely it can do both. Therefore either the government has a death wish or the 27-29 figures are yet another budgetary fairy tale. Remember when this government promised to be serious and not to duck the hard choices?
The government’s spending plans are “25-27: spending increases, 27-29: paaaain” which, uh…the election is 2028-9!
November 26, 2025 at 3:04 PM
The government can stick to this plan, or the government can get re-elected. Unlikely it can do both. Therefore either the government has a death wish or the 27-29 figures are yet another budgetary fairy tale. Remember when this government promised to be serious and not to duck the hard choices?
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Labour’s current strategy seems to be announcing a policy before shouting “psych!”
November 17, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Labour’s current strategy seems to be announcing a policy before shouting “psych!”
Reposted by Mikey Brown
Everything they do should be about what best sets up whichever fresh-faced MP becomes the leader in January 2029 to go 'I'm new! Inflation is down, interest rates are down, bin collections are weekly, GP appointments are up and the police catch criminals again!'
November 14, 2025 at 5:31 PM
Everything they do should be about what best sets up whichever fresh-faced MP becomes the leader in January 2029 to go 'I'm new! Inflation is down, interest rates are down, bin collections are weekly, GP appointments are up and the police catch criminals again!'
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Voters really don't like inflation, and frankly everything else is secondary to that.
October 27, 2025 at 10:05 PM
Voters really don't like inflation, and frankly everything else is secondary to that.
Reposted by Mikey Brown
It's absolutely correct - so much of it is just basically 'New Labour - too effeminate, too pro-globalisation, too middle class', and I hate to inform you lads, but actually, the British electorate is in fact majority middle class and majority female, and this is even more true of your coalition.
October 28, 2025 at 10:13 AM
It's absolutely correct - so much of it is just basically 'New Labour - too effeminate, too pro-globalisation, too middle class', and I hate to inform you lads, but actually, the British electorate is in fact majority middle class and majority female, and this is even more true of your coalition.
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It's just so bizarre that British politics continues to cling desperately to an image of a voter that, at best, disappeared before the vast majority of current practitioners hit adulthood.
It's absolutely correct - so much of it is just basically 'New Labour - too effeminate, too pro-globalisation, too middle class', and I hate to inform you lads, but actually, the British electorate is in fact majority middle class and majority female, and this is even more true of your coalition.
October 29, 2025 at 3:21 PM
It's just so bizarre that British politics continues to cling desperately to an image of a voter that, at best, disappeared before the vast majority of current practitioners hit adulthood.
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If Labour cannot denounce mass deportation of permanent residents, Idi Amin style, what is the point of them?
October 20, 2025 at 8:21 PM
If Labour cannot denounce mass deportation of permanent residents, Idi Amin style, what is the point of them?
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The key thing to understand why the BCR and the BSA are so bad is that they are primarily about finding a way to blame someone other than the government for failures of regulation. Hence: oh, a second staircase, because you can see whether a building has one just by eyeballing it.
The impact assessment for a second staircase is mental. Why is it recommends to spend £3bn to get £9mn of benefit? The low case BCR is 0.0002. What???
October 15, 2025 at 12:30 AM
The key thing to understand why the BCR and the BSA are so bad is that they are primarily about finding a way to blame someone other than the government for failures of regulation. Hence: oh, a second staircase, because you can see whether a building has one just by eyeballing it.
Reposted by Mikey Brown
You don’t actually have to both sides this. The Jewish community in the UK is not the Israeli government. You can just condemn the murder of two British Jews killed in their place of worship and you don’t have to say a single other thing.
October 2, 2025 at 11:36 AM
You don’t actually have to both sides this. The Jewish community in the UK is not the Israeli government. You can just condemn the murder of two British Jews killed in their place of worship and you don’t have to say a single other thing.
Reposted by Mikey Brown
A lot of pieces and people who visibly have forgotten that the quarter of people in England and Wales who are not white British or white English are also people, with electoral concerns and interests.
October 1, 2025 at 6:44 PM
A lot of pieces and people who visibly have forgotten that the quarter of people in England and Wales who are not white British or white English are also people, with electoral concerns and interests.