Stephen Bush
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stephenkb.bsky.social
Stephen Bush
@stephenkb.bsky.social
75K followers 4.6K following 62K posts
Associate editor and columnist @financialtimes.com. Post too often about culture, public policy, management, politics, nerd stuff, Arsenal, wosoc. Try my UK politics newsletter for free here: www.ft.com/tryinsidepolitics
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stephenkb.bsky.social
It so rarely happens that the people in my mentions who confuse “observation about British politics” with “endorsement” start to fight with each other, so always enjoyable when it does happen.
Two people, from opposite sides of an argument, united by a shared inability to understand the difference between “is” and “ought”, fall out in my mentions.
December 5, 2025 at 6:34 PM
stephenkb.bsky.social
Golden CANNOT win here! ONLY Tate McRae can win my Apple Replay for the Poptimists. Don't let 'Modern Classical' get in on a split vote!
Caroline Shaw's Taproot on 385 plays, Tate McRae's 'Just Keep Watching' on 364 plays, 'Golden' on 272.
December 2, 2025 at 4:35 PM
stephenkb.bsky.social
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 10:05 AM
stephenkb.bsky.social
This government's inability to go 'okay, but is that true?' even about rhetorical flourishes is really starting to depress me.
“For decades there was a broad consensus about Britain’s role in the world; a consensus that transcended party politics, and sometimes deep disagreements about specific issues. “We were of one mind – that Britain should be outward looking, engaged and active on the world stage, a powerful voice at the top table. That was taken as a given, part of who we are in line with the greatest traditions of this country. But then Brexit broke that consensus.
December 1, 2025 at 11:01 PM
stephenkb.bsky.social
46) Blue Moon. Absolutely terrific film about the fading of powers. Ethan Hawke is terrific.
To me, that’s cinema.
December 1, 2025 at 8:36 PM
stephenkb.bsky.social
This budget did not provide increased headroom in a serious way! If you look at the Budget documents for longer than ten minutes you go 'uh, there is a major hole here'.
She expressed a desire for more wriggle room in the spreadsheets against her self-imposed fiscal rules – so-called "headroom". She delivered on that too, as she did on maintaining long term, investment spending.
December 1, 2025 at 11:45 AM
stephenkb.bsky.social
Huh, what do you think [political redaction] refers to? Seriously, you need to live in the real world.
December 1, 2025 at 1:26 AM
stephenkb.bsky.social
Sunset from the Southbank. Perfect day. (Cue: Arsenal capitulation.)
Sun set over the London Eye.
November 30, 2025 at 4:20 PM
stephenkb.bsky.social
I mean, this is nuts - HS2 should be the lead developer and owner of the land around its stations, it should be the leaseholder for both commercial and residential property around the line. Why is Labour determined not to learn any of the lessons of why British rail was crap?
Alongside this, HS2 Ltd is undertaking a sprint project that aims to identify and unlock opportunities for early release of land currently held for HS2 between London and Birmingham, around its stations and depot hub. This work is part of the reset of the HS2 programme and will support both regeneration and economic growth.
November 30, 2025 at 11:51 AM
stephenkb.bsky.social
We have got to make politics intellectual again. It is the only way that societies thrive is when politicians have the capability to actually think and reflect deeply:
I confess that I always had difficulty with interpreting the Biblical precept to love our neighbours “as ourselves” until I read some of the words of C.S. Lewis. He pointed out that we don't exactly love ourselves when we fall below the standards and beliefs we have accepted. Indeed we might even hate ourselves for some unworthy deed. None of this, of course, tells us exactly what kind of political and social institutions we should have. On this point, Christians will very often genuinely disagree, though it is a mark of Christian manners that they will do so with courtesy and mutual respect. [Applause] What is certain, however, is that any set of social and economic arrangements which is not founded on the acceptance of individual responsibility will do nothing but harm.
November 28, 2025 at 12:15 PM
stephenkb.bsky.social
That's....not what's going on with this one.
Situated on a large corner plot, this property of ambassadorial proportions offers a rare opportunity to own a complete, stuccoed villa in need of renovation. Spanning 10,290 sq ft, the property comes with planning permission for substantial internal alterations, which would take the total internal area to around 15,000 sq ft. This property is one of the 88 Italianate villas built from 1860 by renowned brothers William and Francis Radford. The project, approved by Lord Holland, was executed to deliver “good, proper and substantial” residences. Lofty proportions, striking architectural features, and ample open spaces – all crowned by a rich provenance – offer an exceptional foundation for a restoration project.
November 27, 2025 at 10:12 PM
stephenkb.bsky.social
You have to laugh, really.
Measures with highly uncertain costings 3.55 We assign an uncertainty rating to all certified policy costings. The measures that we have given a ‘high’ or ‘very high’ uncertainty ratings are set out in Table 3.10. Table 3.10: Costings of measures with high degrees of uncertainty Head 2026-27 2027-28 2028-29 2029-30 2030-31 Uncertainty CGT relief on employee ownership trusts Tax -182 -763 -814 -893 -972 Very High Transactional risking for VAT and corporation tax Tax -5 -41 -140 -243 -210 Very high Mileage-based charge on electric cars Tax 10 16 -1,098 -1,437 -1,867 High Enterprise management incentives Tax 69 221 384 547 646 High HMRC use of third party data Tax 0 -1 -28 -333 -442 High High value council tax surcharge Tax 115 149 -398 -430 -435 High Increases to income tax rates on property Tax -1 -7 -548 -404 -413 High PIP award review changes Spend -77 -218 -331 -336 -157 High Defined benefit scheme surplus extraction Tax -28 -118 -124 -134 -140 High Non-doms: closure of post-departure trade profits loophole Tax 0 -118 -170 -160 -137 High Incorporation relief reform Tax 0 0 0 -109 -116 High Tackling construction industry scheme fraud Tax -189 -153 -130 -113 -100 High Loan charge review response Tax 86 26 -32 144 90 High £ million Note: A positive sign implies an increase in borrowing. See our online detailed scorecard for the full, measure-by-measure breakdown of every costing. Source: OBR
November 26, 2025 at 1:11 PM
stephenkb.bsky.social
Remember how in 2010 to 2015 there was this drumbeat of 'Ed Miliband's celebrity neighbours in Dartmouth Park whining about the mansion tax' stories? Well, get ready for Keir Starmer's celebrity neighbours in the Kentish Town area doing the same thing!
High value council tax surcharge 3.42 The Government has announced the introduction of a new high value council tax surcharge. From April 2028, owners of properties identified as being valued at over £2 million by the Valuation Office (in 2026 prices) will be liable for a recurring annual charge which will be additional to existing council tax liability. There will be four price bands with the surcharge rising from £2,500 for a property valued in the lowest £2 million to £2.5 million band, to £7,500 for a property valued in the highest band of £5 million or more, all uprated by CPI inflation each year. This measure is estimated to raise £0.4 billion in 2029-30. The revenues will flow to central government rather than remain with local government, as is the case for standard council tax.
November 26, 2025 at 1:07 PM
stephenkb.bsky.social
This continues to be nuts! Essentially putting up taxes on *anyone* putting in the suggested amount into their private pension via salary sacrifice in a convoluted way that will lead to lots of grumbling.
Charging NICs on salary-sacrificed pensions contributions 3.31 Salary-sacrificed pension contributions above an annual £2,000 threshold will no longer be exempt from NICs from April 2029. This means that salary-sacrificed pension contributions above £2,000 will be treated as ordinary employee pension contributions in the tax system and therefore be subject to both employer and employee NICs. Ordinary employer pension contributions will remain exempt from NICs. The policy results in an increase in NICs which is estimated to raise £4.7 billion in 2029-30 and £2.6 billion in 2030-31. 3.32 The costing assumes that in most cases employee pension contributions above £2,000 that were part of a salary-sacrifice scheme will become subject to employer and employee NICs, either because they move to a standard pension scheme or continue in a salary-sacrifice scheme under the new tax arrangements. The estimated yield from this measure is subject to uncertainties related to potential responses to the change by employers and employees: • Employers switching to ordinary contributions: Employers could look to replicate the tax benefits of salary-sacrifice by reducing future wage growth and instead providing employees with higher employer pension contributions. It would also be possible to formally replicate salary-sacrifice through an agreement to reduce wages and increase employer pensions contributions. However, this behaviour would be constrained by interactions with Operational Remuneration Agreement (OpRA) rules and employment
November 26, 2025 at 1:05 PM
stephenkb.bsky.social
This is good. Should have done it in the first budget, both for 'reducing poverty is good' reasons and for 'would have meant they wouldn't have had to waste money on some damn fool things that don't move the dial on poverty or that add friction to the labour market in order to manage not doing it'.
Removal of the two-child limit 3.19 The Government has removed the two-child limit within UC from April 2026. The limit restricted the UC child element, which is currently £3,500 per year for second and subsequent children, to two children per family apart from children born prior to 6 April 2017 and those who meet certain exemption criteria. Its removal costs £2.3 billion in 2026- 27 and £3.0 billion in 2029-30 (Table 3.2).9 This includes £300 million by 2029-30 for the cost of an estimated 25,000 additional entitled families making a UC claim as a result of the increase in benefit generosity. 3.20 In 2029-30, because of the policy, an estimated 560,000 families see an increase in UC award averaging £5,310 per year. The Government estimates that this measure will reduce child poverty by 450,000 by 2029-30, relative to the level had the two-child limit remained in place.
November 26, 2025 at 1:00 PM
stephenkb.bsky.social
Here be dragons.
With inflation now forecast to be higher than when Spending Review envelopes were set in March 2025, overall real departmental spending growth would have been 0.1 percentage points lower on a pre-measures basis. In addition, the Government has stated that the full cost of SEND provision will be absorbed within departmental budgets in 2028-29, but no savings have been identified to offset the estimated £6 billion pressure this will create. Other spending risks include: the impact on the NHS budget of further strikes and negotiations over NHS pharmaceutical spending; the assumption that the Home Office will reduce small boat arrivals and end the use of hotels for asylum seekers by mid-2028, and deliver savings on the asylum budget of £1.1 billion; the unfunded cost of digital ID cards at a provisional annual cost of £0.6 billion over the Spending Review period; and the commitment for defence spending to reach 3.5 per cent of GDP by 2035, which would cost an additional £32 billion in today’s money.
November 26, 2025 at 12:57 PM
stephenkb.bsky.social
Approach to replacing fuel duty revenue over the longterm is about right, I think: still have an incentive to switch from ICE to EVs, and will just be the new normal as drivers transition.
Other tax changes raise £11 billion by 2029-30. These include a new mileage-based charge on electric and plug-in hybrid cars from April 2028 at around half the fuel duty rate paid by drivers of petrol cars (raising £1.4 billion); a reduction to writing down allowances in corporation tax (£1.5 billion); reforms to gambling taxation (£1.1 billion); changes to capital gains tax reliefs on employee ownership trusts (£0.9 billion); and tax administration, compliance and debt collection measures (£2.3 billion). These tax rises are partially offset by a further freeze to fuel duty rates until September 2026, which costs £2.4 billion next year and £0.9 billion in the medium term.
November 26, 2025 at 12:47 PM
stephenkb.bsky.social
I think that far too much weight is being placed on 'can you rules-lawyer your way through an interview about how you've put people's taxes up' and 'what will people actually experience' - if you're raising my taxes (you are), just raise them by enough to get out of the v tight 27-9 spending rounds!
A set of personal tax rises with a combined yield of £15 billion in 2029-30. These include: freezing tax thresholds from 2028-29 onwards, which raises £8.0 billion in 2029-30 and contributes to around 780,000 more basic-rate, 920,000 more higherrate, and 4,000 more additional-rate taxpayers by 2029-30 than in the March forecast; charging National Insurance on salary-sacrificed pension contributions, which raises £4.7 billion; and increasing tax rates on dividends, property and savings income by 2 percentage points, raising £2.1 billion.
November 26, 2025 at 12:45 PM
stephenkb.bsky.social
Why the two-child limit has to go, in a chart.
A chart showing child poverty in the UK increasing sharply if the two child limit remains in place, and falling if it is scrapped.
November 25, 2025 at 4:28 PM
stephenkb.bsky.social
Getting prostate cancer to own the Conservatives
The Times posts: David Cameron: I had prostate cancer. That’s why I back screening The former PM’s wife urged him to have the tests that revealed he had cancer. Now he’s calling for a targeted screening programme From the idiot that gave us Brexit. R.I.P GDPR replies: Take no advice from the imbecile
November 23, 2025 at 10:06 PM
stephenkb.bsky.social
The one good thing about it is that somehow, BOTH @danielpjordan.bsky.social and @joezblair.bsky.social are right.
Daniel Jordon: Just terrible, has the vibe of an awful commissioned company song Joe Blair: It's mad because it paints North London as a shithole full of prostitutes and crack heads.
November 23, 2025 at 10:01 PM
stephenkb.bsky.social
A surprising number of people are overcomplicating “there is obviously a policy case that knocking down these first two buildings (on the same stretch of road) and replacing them with buildings the same height as the next two can be a win:win proposition!”
A two storey stretch of terraced housing with a nail salon and estate agents on the first floors A terrace house in three storeys in bad nick with a dry cleaners underneath it. Four storey housing in the same street. Five storey housing with a bar in the ground floor.
November 22, 2025 at 3:23 PM
stephenkb.bsky.social
Unnerving how much this government just convinces itself of things where you go “well, it would be lovely if that were true”.
“For the rest of the budgets in this parliament, people will start to see the benefits of what has been done.”
November 22, 2025 at 12:29 PM
stephenkb.bsky.social
Again: if you think that going “it’s a problem if you can’t see what is objectionable about this mural” is “silly”, you yourself are a racist and an appeaser of racists, just like the government we now have.
November 21, 2025 at 6:03 PM
stephenkb.bsky.social
The most “the Conservative party in 2025” press release - James Cleverley’s job is wrong and the implied policy is “IDK, try and fight the Opium War again mebbe”?
November 21, 2025 at 5:04 PM