The latest research from the Resolution Foundation concludes (perhaps not unexpectedly) that if you wanted to raise the birth rate in the UK, you need to resolve the housing crisis as it effects those who are of an age where decisions about parenthood are being made, and need also to ensure they have a more stable work life.

Yes, the costs of housing & people's precarious employment are dissuading them from having children....

#BirthRate #politics #housing #workers

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/01/uk-birthrate-fix-housing-crisis-research

As a Govt. the Labour Party have proved to be politically cackhanded:

Once again (this time on the proposed 'crackdown' on migrants, including making the leave to remain more difficult to secure), the Govt. has announced draconian measures - crafted most often to appeal to potential ReformUK Ltd voters - then in light of either pressure from, or actual rebellions by MPs has seen it prudent to scale back such promised measures.

Thus, generating contempt both to its left & its right

#politics

It says a lot about the state of British politics that many people do not think that Morgan McSweeney's phone was actually stolen but rather has been magicked aways to hide messages he may have had (on that phone) to & from Peter Mandelson....

Of course, it may well have been stolen but the fact that people (and the media) are speculated on how convenient it was that the phone has 'disappeared' suggests trust in politicians is not particularly high (as we already know).

#politics
h/t BBC

The political class is obsessed with the level of public debt (as a proportion of GDP), but if we are really concerned about debt then we really should be looking at it in the round - public debt, corporate debt *and* private (household) debt - then the UK is no outlier!

(debt in itself is not necessarily an issue, its the ability to fund repayments that matters; debt has always been a useful way of utilising the future to fund the present!)

#debt #politics

h/t Economics Observatory/LinkenIn

This Tuesday Denmark goes tp the polls & while Mette Frederiksen’s Social Democrats may just scrape through with weakened support, its not a foregone conclusion.

If Frederiksen does manage to retain power many may conclude that even when things are not looking great, standing up to the Tangerine Tyrant can pay (electoral) dividends. Which would be handy....

Of course, if the SDs los we can expect Trump to claim its all on him.

#Greenland #Denmark #politics

h/t FT

Little Englanders foaming at the mouth about Islam in Britain, you sound like a 75 year old pished guy in a bowler hat and orange sash ranting in the pub about the looming threat of the papacy.

Ordinary Muslims you'd encounter in the UK are no more sinister and alien than ordinary Catholics. One day a week they maybe (or not) go to a fancy building to talk about God in a way that you don't connect with. Please try to be normal about that rather than let it eat your whole identity.