Notices by Emeritus Prof Christopher May (chrismayla6@zirk.us)

If you've been wondering about the claim put about by Nigel Farage & the Right that the majority in the UK receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes.... you will enjoy Emma Monk's detailed takedown of that claim... a claim which itself depends on you seeing your use of the NHS & state education as 'benefits', rather than (more accurately) the public service(s) we expect from a modern state.

(and if you're not subscribed why not do so today)

#benefits #politics

https://monkdebunks.substack.com/p/benefits-taxes-and-misleading-headlines

New Scottish Green Co-leader Ross Greer used his first two Q.s to the First Minister to focus on wealth taxes & inequalities.... suggesting that the Greens in Scotland (and likely also in England & Wales) are going to stake out an appeal to the disillusioned Laft, who are looking for a new political home

#politics

https://greens.scot/news/end-tax-breaks-for-super-rich-to-help-working-class-families

Hmmm.... so when Gary Lineker expressed political views that were seen as abhorrent to the Right, the UK's media (well the majority Right of it) swung into action, finally resulting in Lineker's departure from the BBC, but when Ryan Clark uses (not social media as Lineker did but his Radio 2 slot) to rant about immigrants in a way that aligns with the Right's agenda, the sanctions not only fail to appear, but he is celebrated by the Right wing press...

#politics
https://www.thenewworld.co.uk/rats-in-a-sack-rylan-clark-and-the-hypocrisy-of-the-right/

Not unexpectedly, the continued hostility from the US towards the World Trade Organisation & Trump's ratcheting up of trade interventions (tariffs), has prompted a coalition of the willing to emerge at the WTO & begin to organise a ad-hoc 'rules-based' trading group that would complement other free trade blocs outside the USA.

While there is a lot of work to do, the pivot away from the US market continues & once underway may prove (for the US) difficult to subsequently reverse!

#trade
h/t FT

More evidence (this time from the public sector in Scotland) that the four day week not only improves workers' wellbeing, it also improves productivity. Moreover, this is a proper four day week - rescued hours but no loss of pay - making it a powerful example, both for the Scottish government's management of its civil service & more widely.

The momentum is building for the four day week & its social benefits....

#workers #politics #FourDayWeek

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/aug/27/scottish-government-trial-of-four-day-week-improves-productivity-and-staff-wellbeing

Rafael Behr is right; by not making clear the damage Brexit has wrought, the Labour Govt. (and Kier Starmer specifically) have let Nigel Farage off the hook, and implicitly allowed him to profit from the implication of political success the referendum result (wrongly) implies.

Its long past the time to make the Brexiters pay the price for their 'leadership' in wrecking our economic prospects. Brexit was a major policy error & that needs to made clear!

#politics #brexit
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/27/nigel-farage-keir-starmer-brexit-truth

When 40% of the population won't report crime because they don't trust the police, how accurate can crime statistics be?

Might that explain why despite falling rates of reported crime, people believe crime is on the rise?

And, crime has shifted into a predominance of 'street crime' which is both experienced & witnessed more often.

In the end as Andy Haldene (FT) suggests the answer (which Labour have moved toward) is more community policing; if only the police could do it?

#crime #politics

Meanwhile in France it looks like another government will fall a confidence vote, leaving President Macron's attempts both to avoid having the Left in government & tighten the austerity screws across France don't seem to have the support he & his PM need.

At some point, Macron may have to recognise that the Left are more important than he wants them to be... although he's already failed to act on that proposition before.

#France #politics

h/t FT

Something from the European Movement... in light of Nigel Farage's recent policy statement on migration controls & (by extension) membership of the European Convention on Human Rights.

#ECHR #migration #Politics

John Naughton rightly notes that many people's over confidence in the answers that AI-ChatBots deliver is based on the common confusion of linguistic fluency with intelligence.

The wider point (that he doesn't explicitly make) is this is also a wider political problem in a society saturated by social & other media.

Many of our political problems lie with the tendency among much of the population to confuse linguistic fluency with intelligence!

#AI #politics #brexit
https://observer.co.uk/news/columnists/article/my-advice-to-gpt-5-read-derrida-and-youll-learn-words-are-not-the-same-as-intelligence

Either by direct ownership or via direct subsides the UK state now is responsible for four out of the six main still manufacturers in the country:

Sheffield Fogemasters - state owned (for four years)

British Steel - now under state control

Tata Steel - recipient of £500mn subsidy

Speciality Steel - now in state receivership.

If steel production is central to a continued manufacturing sector, then the state is certainly committed to that argument.

#steel #manufacturing #politics
h/t FT

Meanwhile in Norway.... the taxation of the wealthy has become a key election issue, with the major parties responding to the 'exodus' of the mega rich (upset at a 1% wealth tax) over the last decade.

Even if the centre Left wins, it looks like the tax will be 'reviewed' at the very least.

Which once again poses the Q. of why the ultra-rich who would hardly notice a 1% levy on their wealth get so vexed about its imposition? A Q. of relevance well beyond Oslo.

#tax #Norway #politics
h/t FT

There's an argument (not implausible in itself) that the UK's current economic travails were caused but the impact of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 impacting an already weakened (in a long-term sense) economy.

But, as @sjwrenlewis argues, while that was/is the immediate context for the UK's current economic problems, the ongoing relative decline (including the UK's productivity stagnation) is more about the policy response to the GFC which continues: #austerity

https://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2025/08/when-did-relative-uk-decline-begin.html

As David Mead (UEA) points our, the Terrorism Act does not require the police to arrest peaceful demonstrators even if they are expressing support for a proscribed group... the police could have chosen not to intervene in protests against the proscription of Palestine Action...

That they didn't refrain, may be Police over-reach, perhaps reflects pressure from the Home Office or maybe shows some Police forces do not understand the Terrorism Act.

#protest #politics

https://theconversation.com/palestine-action-arrests-what-happens-next-and-what-it-tells-us-about-the-breadth-of-britains-counter-terrorism-laws-263080

Here's a novel proposition;

Happy workers are more productive...

The very fact that this seems with reporting as an insight tells us all we need to know about the UK's dystopian & counter-productive management culture.

That one of the key issues behind the UK's 'productivity puzzle' is unhappy workers badly managed (alongside a dearth of investment) has been clear to many of us for years... but I suppose it can *always* be said again!

#workers #productivity
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/aug/16/right-to-be-happy-former-waitrose-boss-mark-price-uk-productivity

Is the roll-out of an expanded police capacity for live facial recognition a welcome move to catch criminals or the expansion of the surveillance state, which will be deployed not against criminals but against protestors? Or perhaps, both?

Do you trust the police to use the technology only in ways that enhance the safety of the public, rather than using it to further the growing attrition on protest we have seen across the country in the last few years?

#politics
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj4wy21dwkwo

The FT's summary of Trumponomics:

'The cost of Trump’s transactionalism is clear: trading an economy grounded in the rule of law for one ruled by arbitrary deals. Such a system rewards a powerful few, punishes the small & unconnected, and ultimately erodes the stable foundations on which America’s prosperity has long rested'!

There's a reason I refer to the current administration as 'The Court of Tangerine Tyrant'!...

#politics #RuleOfLaw

h/t FT

Can the English rely on foreigners speaking English?

It seems that most young people have reached that conclusion if A-level entries are a guide; only 3% of all A-level will be in modern languages this year.

This is not unconnected to a massive under-recruitment of language teachers for schools (reflecting earlier low levels of language learning).

This looks like a long term systemic failing in education & makes the prospect of a 'Global Britain' even dimmer....

#Languages #politics
h/t FT

To give a little context to the widespread among the English that there is no need to learn a foreign language because everyone (really) speaks English (usually as a second language), here's some data on the world's most spoken languages.... which perhaps is what lies behind the arrogance of the mono-lingual English speakers?

#languages #education #politics

Well that didn't take long;

Looks like Yvette Cooper's claims about 'intelligence' on the dangerous character of Palestine Action, leading to the need to proscribe the organisation as a Terrorist organisation have already been contradicted by Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre’s assessment, revealed the ongoing legal challenge to the proscription, which does conclude that PA are a terrorist organisation.

No doubt Yvette will claim its *not* that intelligence.

#politics
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/11/palestine-action-huda-ammori-ministers-claims