New post just out: "The Efficiency Paradox" My explanation for why governments find it so hard to save money and how they could make big savings in the future. (ÂŁ/free trial) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/t...
Why are governments so bad at saving money?
There's alot to unpack here but the very high proportions on the liberal left that would vote against Reform suggests that if Reform grow throughout the parliament some of those voters lost to Greens might vote for Labour where they are challenged by Reform.
Flow of the vote, 2019-24, revised using @britishelectionstudy.com data. Only a few minor alterations, but the shifts are still striking - without even getting onto non voters and demographic churn, over 10m voters voted for a different party in 2024 than in 2019.
Via the newly released @britishelectionstudy.com data, one in eight voters really preferred another party at the general election. When adjusting for who they really favoured, we can create a 'sincere' vote share: Lab: 31% (-4, vs actual) Con: 23% (-1) Ref: 16% (+1) LD: 12% (-1) Grn: 11% (+4)
Thoughtful âmyth-bustingâ AI article. This is a useful and succinct summary of LLM output. Suspect I may end up quoting it.
File under 'people are complicated'. "...the demographic characteristics of people who are opposed to action on specific inequalities varies quite considerably." Another good read from the @fairness.bsky.socialopen.substack.com/pub/faircomm...
Our polling finds a fairly consistent 15% who are unconcerned about inequality and oppose action to tackle it. Who are these people, and are they always the same people or do they vary by issue?
More good stuff from the Darzi review being pre-briefed. He is absolutely right that the NHS is âundercapitalisedâ compared with other health systems Since 1970, there have only been 2 years when we've invested more than the OECD average www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcar...
The formulas that determine how much funding goes to different councils are largely based on data from the 2000s and early 2010s. They shouldn't be! Especially if we're going to devolve new responsibilities to local government. New from my colleague David Phillips: ifs.org.uk/articles/dev...
Any plans for devolution need to be accompanied by updates to English councilsâ hideously outdated funding allocations.
A values map of vote intention groups split by their political attention. High attention/Green intention stands out but I'm also intrigued that attention splits left parties on Lib-Auth lines and right parties of left-right lines. Just thinking out loud with this - more investigation needed
Do you think the world is becoming a more dangerous place? Your answer to this question - and the strength of it - says a lot about your politics⌠The first of my new weekly column, in todayâs @thetimes.com 1/2
