31, Physicist, Engineer, amateur economist. Constantly in a superposition of disappointment and pride with the world.

Hampshire, UK
Joined October 2011
Too much of our politics today dimminishes the costs of inaction and perpetuates fictions about not being able to afford action. I've written this to explore this false economy and why we really need to break away from such thinking. jgs952.substack.com/p/on-the…
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The cost of *not* decarbonising as fast as possible (the whole world) is actually far greater than the cost of doing so. I'm not sure why so many people genuinely can't seem to grasp how perilous our situation is over the next century. Rapid UK action is also anti-inflationary.
The green case that Burnham can make for new North Sea oil and gas production: – Domestic gas is 18% less carbon-emitting than imports from the US and the Gulf states. – Higher tax revenue can be used to support green energy, EVs and heat pumps. arguably.uk/p/is-net-zero-st…
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OPEN LETTER: Sally Rooney is a writer, not a terrorist. Her books must be available to the public. Their withdrawal from sale, on the basis of ill-conceived and draconian anti terror legislation, is an affront to basic principles of free speech and expression so long taken for granted in this country. We categorically reject censorship - whether direct or indirect - and urge the government to change course, amending the legislation which has led us to this point of repressive absurdity.
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A national home retrofit programme would deliver long term benefits and resilience. The @TheGreenParty's new economic policy and fiscal framework would assess the viability of such a programme very differently. It's far more responsible to understand the real factors at play.
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Jamie Smith retweeted
One can agree or disagree that Zionism is racism. I think the state of Israel is built, from the start, on ethnic cleansing & ideas of racial superiority. Regardless, it’s not antisemitic to maintain such a view. So, so tired of these people.
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Timely and important The @TheGreenParty is the only party now with an up-to-date economic policy framework (as of conference) aligned with this kind of thinking. Scrap narrow and arbitrary budget-based fiscal rules and replace with a much more holistic assessment of fiscal pol.
Fiscal responsibility matters. But defining it narrowly as meeting deficit and debt targets can be self-defeating. Cutting spending in a weak economy reduces growth and investment, potentially leaving debt higher relative to GDP. A better approach looks at whether fiscal policy strengthens the economy’s capacity to grow, withstand shocks and meet its obligations over time. This is the focus of our first policy brief, Fiscal Rules and Long-Term Inclusive Growth, from the Global Council on New Economics for the 21st Century, which I co-chair with Vice-President of Spain @Carlos_Cuerpo, published at the @IMFNews and @WorldBankGroup Annual Meetings in Bangkok. Links to new council website and policy brief in replies.
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Today's economics Nobel to Michael Woodford and Robert Hall rewards the intellectual foundations of modern central banking. The problem is that several of those foundations look increasingly shaky. A thread 🧵 1/15 theguardian.com/world/2026/o…
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(1/5) This week @TheGreenParty UK adopted a fiscal framework guided by real resources; not arbitrary debt targets. MMTUK welcomes this exciting new approach. #MMT #UKEconomics #UKGreenParty #UKPolitics
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Lambeth Green Party's statement on the "Zionism is Racism" motion.
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Jamie Smith retweeted
I explain here why I voted for the “Zionism is racism” motion at the Green Party conference. I now find myself, despite being Jewish, labelled “antisemitic” and “extremist” or sometimes worse. Obviously, I do not accept these labels Here is my thinking 1. The dominant Israeli and Western narrative is that Zionism means (a) the right for Jews to have a homeland in their biblical land and (b) the right to have a place of safety after persecution culminating in the horror of the Holocaust 2. ⁠This, on its face, is very reasonable, right & proper. This is the core of the UK political & media response to the Greens motion 3. ⁠Sadly, the early Zionist slogan that Palestine would be “a land without people, for a people without a land” was not true - the land DID have people, Palestinians 4. ⁠The great Palestinian-American intellectual, Edward Said, wrote a 1979 essay called “Zionism from the viewpoint of its victims” 5. ⁠That viewpoint is conspicuously absent from much discussion in the West 6. ⁠Zionism has meant decades of ethnic cleansing, oppression, apartheid & killing of millions of Palestinians BECAUSE they are Palestinians 7. ⁠This is why Zionism is racism 8. ⁠One of my (many) Jewish heroes is Marek Edelman, the last surviving commander of the resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto. He did not go to live in Israel. He was an anti-Zionist. He said, “To be a Jew means always being with the oppressed, never with the oppressors”
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Jamie Smith retweeted
Zack Polanski tells Green Party conference: "We need to stop governments using the blunt tool of interest rates to control inflation." He adds: "I meet mortgage holders who are constantly worried about renewing. They tell me they crave certainty about the future."
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Owen's thesis is exactly right. A rentier and fragile economic structure built on the increasing financialisation and commodification of the essentials of life colliding with geopolitical and climate-induced supply shocks is destined to collapse. We need a radical new paradigm.
Yes, we've been on the wrong path for four decades. Andy Burnham helpfully promoted one of the main arguments of my book the week it is published!
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Hi @jreynoldsMP, I’m an economist who's come round to rent controls! Here’s why 🧵: Markets only work well if: -buyers & sellers have roughly equal power -producers respond to price signals & expand supply in response to scarcity -buyers can walk away if prices get too high
.@AyoCaesar: "The one thing the govt could do to improve the lives of young people is introduce some rent controls" @jreynoldsMP: "No economist supports rent controls" There you have it. Are you a young person trapped paying exorbitant rent? The Labour govt says f**k you.
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The British public are perhaps entited to wonder why, when real (2023 prices) GDP per capita was £30k pa in 1997 and £40.5k pa in 2025, their Chancellor appears to claim we actually can't "afford" good public services They might reasonably conclude that they're being fleeced..
'The money New Labour had in the 90s is simply not there now' Chancellor John Healey says the Conservatives 'lost control of Britain's finances' and their 'reckless actions are still causing pain to people today'
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"Fiscal responsibility" is Orwellian doublespeak here. Healey, along with all his recent predecessors, asserts that fiscal rule compliance is the foundation of responsible and positive economic outcomes but fails to establish a satisfactory reason why. 🧵
John Healey says that Nigel Farage is 'Liz Truss with a Bitcoin account' 'That's not my politics, that's not our politics. Through the core of the Budget will be fiscal discipline' He says he wants to write 'a new chapter of hope for Britain's future'
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A responsible fiscal framework would instead assess employment, inflation, fx pressures, public services, resource distribution, climate and productive capacity together. It would scrutinise waste, tax where needed, address bottlenecks and adjust spending as conditions change.
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That is the functional finance principle: judge fiscal policy by its actual real world effects. When meeting a fiscal rule requires avoidable social and economic damage, calling that “responsibility” is doublespeak. The whole framework itself must be open to challenge.
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