@path_dependent

Fellow of things at @TeessideUni. Currently I'm a grand sounding @BritishAcademy_ innovation fellow *and* @TPIProductivity fellow with @NP_Partnership

 Newcastle upon Tyne
research.tees.ac.uk/en/persons/nicholas-gray
Joined February 2009
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Newcastle United FC have commissioned a recording of Blaydon Races and it’s predictably, cringingly awful. I’m going to have to find a way of keeping it from Dr Mitchell for a long as possible. When she discovers it, she will torment me.
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'Coming home Newcastle' by Busker still floors her. She's from Hampshire, we live up here and she finds the mawkish Geordie stuff hilarious. Has done since shortly after we got together and I was drunk and almost tearful watching the 1999 FA cup final in a London pub.
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Sunderland's population is smaller than it was thirty/forty years ago. That's true whatever anyone thinks about the fairness of where the home office houses people claiming asylum, or the state of public services.
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This would make it about the same as Middlesbrough. theguardian.com/society/2026…

London Labour council warns it may raise council tax by 150%

Hammersmith and Fulham says it faces ‘biggest financial challenge in living memory’ as government cuts bite

theguardian.com
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My family started the seventies in crap private rented, later bought the small house I was born in, got a regeneration grant to put a bathroom in, then by the end of the decade had moved into a nicer house on a nicer street along the road. All on one wage from the same job.
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The problems of the era are well documented, along with the arguments why it was unsustainable but - as it was lived and experienced - not everything about the seventies was bad for ordinary people. I don't think this is an unusual story BTW.
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But if the attack line is 'Burnham will take you back to the seventies', isn't it likely that younger people will consider it irrelevant ancient history and older people will think at least everyone had a decent job and the high street was busy?
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Ok, make the case for lower taxes and lower spending - it’s an honourable conservative position with some solid arguments behind it - but if we’re at the top of the Laffer curve then why haven’t the economies of countries with higher taxes than us collapsed decades ago?
Mark Wallace
@wallacemeSep 29
.@realartlaffer created the Laffer Curve - after a certain point, higher tax rates depress revenues. That’s where Britain is at. But there’s an extra effect on top: tax rates are so high that it’s driving up public spending, as the middle classes increasingly sign up for welfare
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FWIW, higher earners are already highly taxed in the UK... the middle classes (and median earners) not so much.
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What's the odds that a list of sensible policies runs to tax cuts, spending cuts, and deregulation?
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I'm middle aged and governments have been reforming welfare and having crackdowns for my entire adult life.
ConservativeHome
@ConHomeSep 29
Healey and McFadden indicate to Labour that welfare reform is coming conservativehome.com/2026/09…
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Nick Gray retweeted
Francis
@FrancisChippSep 25
EXCLUSIVE🚨: The Premier League is set to introduce a rule stopping fans from distracting penalty takers. This comes after a record number of missed penalties this season. The darts style rule will see fans who whistle or distract the taker be removed from the stadium and the penalty retaken. The rule will come into play in early 2027.
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I'm firmly middle aged now, and we've been reforming 'welfare' and cracking down on benefits for my entire adult life. You'd think we'd twig something by now.
GB News
@GBNEWSSep 24
'Why should the state decide what an adult can spend their money on?' 'It's not their money, it's taxpayer money!' Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch defends her party's new plan to block long-term benefits claimants spending their benefits on alcohol and cigarettes.
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Someone floats a vaguely populist idea about allowing alcohol at football matches and X responds despairingly as if this is Burnham's primary focus in government.
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For all the bowling brilliance, I was at Headingley on the Sunday in 2023 and it's Wood's swashbuckling six at the death that sticks in my mind (and some blokes near us in Newcastle shirts singing 'Howay the lads' in response)
Test Match Special
@bbctmsSep 22
Replying to @bbctms
bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/arti…

Mark Wood: England fast bowler announces international retirement

England fast bowler Mark Wood announces his retirement from international cricket with immediate effect.

bbc.co.uk
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Seeing Conservative MPs raging at cuts to local government funding is melting my brain.
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Let them go. With no recourse to public funds in the UK, obviously. Fafo
Sky News
@SkyNewsSep 16
The Oxfordshire village of Piddington has voted in favour of independence from the UK in a symbolic protest against plans to house male asylum seekers at a nearby former military base.
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Sneering at the stout labouring folk of Piddington. Typical behaviour from the metropolitan elite of Gateshead.
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It has become fashionable to write articles about how people living in social housing don't deserve it. This one is particularly misinformed. Here's why... 🧵
Tom Calver
@TomHCalverSep 13
In Britain, the income gap between private and social housing residents has been closing. In fact the poorest quartile of social housing residents is now better off, after taxes and housing costs, than the poorest quartile of private renters 1/3
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A quiet shit angle on English devolution from the UK's self styled leading progressive voice. theguardian.com/business/202…

Ministers face backlash from hospitality industry over ‘tourist tax’ plans

Many mayors welcome power to impose tourist tax but industry warns of ‘irreparable harm’ and job losses

theguardian.com
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