So - a lot of people are saying this, and it is to an extent true, but the only reason it is not true of Labour is that the public services think tanks are for the most part real think tanks which provide an intellectual life that isn’t coming from Labour itself.

Labour is also a lot more aware of their problem, which is why Re:State, a cross party think tank, can still have a big influence on aspects of government policy.

i'm sorry seb i simply see it as a public duty to fight people who use words like post modern or fiscal rules with no idea what the hell either of those things are

Is it stuck up to say that I had numerous conversations at party conference that reminded me lots of people are far more interested in sounding clever rather than actually being clever?

People talk about getting a "better" political class with little agreement on what that means. I suspect the best change would be getting more people who are seriously interested in policy and government. Surprisingly few MPs actually are.

The PM is announcing the government is setting up a virtual hospital

This is game changing - & a reform we exclusively called for in our paper paper out a few months ago: 'Hospital as a service, not a building'

Huge win for @rosiebeacon.bsky.social & @alicesemark.bsky.social

Real world impact 👏

oh i'm so sorry! yes it is - link here :) re-state.co.uk/review/revie...

hello! yes you can email me at [email protected]

New paper out today on automation in hospitals!

Loved researching this - needless to say the efficiency gains of automating pharmacy are enormous yet embarrassingly rare!

Giving Peter Mandelson a major diplomatic position was always going to end in disaster.

Mandelson is undoubtedly talented, but he has persistently shown extremely poor judgment and a magnetic attraction to wealth and power.

Making him Ambassador was another predictably bad appointment by Starmer.

I am hardly a natural Rayner cheerleader, but genuinely furious that she's gone. Laurie Magnus's verdict confirms she acted on advice, she just missed the disclaimer saying she should get extra advice. Not just an honest mistake - a mistake literally anyone could make. There but for the grace etc...

It is sad but I doubt it's the end of her political career. She's one of savviest politicians I've met and will be back. This resgination has been done in a way to maximise the chances of that.

This is an argument for falling population, falling GDP, and an employment crisis.

oh interesting which businesses/sectors are these?

I do agree on the PLC point deffo but do PLCs price gouge in the same way PE does/is doing with SEND schools or children's social care? I know there are also care home cowboys who randomly set up care homes and price gouge a bit too so clearly a regulatory problem irrespective of the business type

running of high levels of debt creates more pressure to cut costs rather than invest in longer term quality. this is particularly pernicious in human labour based public sector like social care where cutting costs = cutting labour = reducing quality to meet demand

There's a strong argument to suggest PE backing is almost always a net negative for public sector - people conflate it with generic private businesses but their model of high intensity short term returns to meet investor expectations, usually with an ambition to re sell or IPO, as well as ...

There are several ways to identify PE involvement and it's far more straightforward than identifying AI involvement - public announcements, press releases, investor details on website, regulatory filings, private trackers (responding to second question in next post)

How. Is. This. Legal?!

Private equity is fundamentally incompatible with public service delivery (and it should be distinguished from the general private sector market of public service providers). It's an egregious exploitation of the service users & the taxpayer & should be illegal IMO

After months of going back and forth in my head about the resident doctors’ strikes, I turned my internal debate into a written dialogue. I’m curious on where other people land. 🤔

Read here: re-state.co.uk/rethink/head...

What *is* a fair wage for a resident doctor? Research Manager and Head of Health, @rosiebeacon.bsky.social , blog imagines a clear-eyed conversation between two people on opposite sides of the strikes – and asks where the line between fairness and affordability really lies.

Essentially every core understanding a Labour leader needs to follow to succeed is contained within Tony Blair’s 2011 foreword to the Unfinished Revolution.

What are some interesting, well written politics or history books I should be reading while on holiday?

Excellent analysis from @rosiebeacon.bsky.social on the 10yr Plan … the really genuinely radical announcement & it’s up & running is Greater Manchester as a Prevention demonstrator .. this is proper neighbourhood health .. vision & leadership from @mayorofgm.bsky.social @evefrancisholt.bsky.social 👏