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Given Tory cuts to National Insurance before the election, this is a pot shouting about the colour of the kettle...

Every parent can use this to create great stories their children will love. Wonderful.

Really striking how vaccine scepticism is linked to social disengagement and low political trust

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Yes: letting parents create stories about things that interest their children, for free, will make it harder to be a children's author. But I think that AI is a force for good here, getting more children to enjoy stories, and (I hope) read for themselves later.

Was the government right to extend free school meals to 500,000 more children? And if not, how could the money have been better spent? (£) timleunig.substack.com/p/is-extending…

Childrens lit on the NHS? Meaning you have to ring at 8am, stay on hold for ever, and get an appointment in 2 weeks time???? ;-)

To those hoping to make sense of this Spending Review: be careful with time periods. Most of the % numbers the Chancellor is using are for 2023/24 to 2028/29 (the full parliament), including the cash injections provided last year & this year, rather than starting in 2025/26.

Ben Zaranko And some (social housing) are "for the next decade". Some are nominal, some real (%-ages quoted). Some are totals, some incremental additions. Some are annual, some over a longer period. Some total DEL, some CDEL. Unhelpful! And most without any real context. So I created my own

Yes, I wrote a Onward report on this, they can post a link. Basically it only works if council tax in the south is top sliced by national government. In London even then some low income people would get clobbered.

Lots of tax rules have unfair consequences for particular individuals. The answer is to campaign to change the law. It would be quite wrong if courts could override Parliament. The law has always reflected that. So it’s no surprise the private school VAT challenge has failed.

At least you didn't jump off, Ed Davey !!!

Ministers have massive power if they are clear what they want to do. Look at, for example, all the things Michael Gove and Nick Gibb did in education. But many ministers are hopeless and therefore achieve little.

Be better to gather half as many stats, accurately. Or even outsource ONS functions to a country with a better record at doing it well.

Anyone can read up on a topic. And as a minister most people out there will take your call. Ineffective secretaries of state need to take responsibility for their failures to achieve change.

If you want to raise large amounts of tax, you inevitably raise a good chunk of it from normal people.

Whether or not you are interested in UK Green Party tax proposals, this from Dan Neidle is spot on. If you want better services, taxes have to rise for middle income people. If you want tax cuts, say what spending you want to cut. To govern is to choose.

Does this take into account the change in housebuilding costs?

V good by Tim Leunig open.substack.com/pub/timleunig/…

Something like 43,000 die yearly in car crashes in the US and 2.38 million are injured. At what point does it become unethical to not to speed up driverless car adoption as a policy choice? (Waymo's reported safety numbers align with what we have seen from independent audits)