Benjamin Lauderdale
@benlauderdale.bsky.social
Professor of Political Science at University College London
There is a fun revisionist argument to be made that when George Washington declined to be a monarch, that was bad actually. And this derived from the original mistake of focusing the Declaration of Independence on George III, who was not really the driver of the things the colonists objected to.
November 7, 2025 at 7:40 PM
There is a fun revisionist argument to be made that when George Washington declined to be a monarch, that was bad actually. And this derived from the original mistake of focusing the Declaration of Independence on George III, who was not really the driver of the things the colonists objected to.
If you are losing money on every student, fewer students is good, right? All those Home students are crowding out the overseas students! 😉
November 6, 2025 at 12:14 PM
If you are losing money on every student, fewer students is good, right? All those Home students are crowding out the overseas students! 😉
It isn’t arbitrary if they are using more land. Now, one can certainly debate whether that is the right criteria for taxation or not, whether there would be bad effects from such a shift, and also how the valuation would work (eg does it take into account planning permissions? it probably should)
October 10, 2025 at 8:16 AM
It isn’t arbitrary if they are using more land. Now, one can certainly debate whether that is the right criteria for taxation or not, whether there would be bad effects from such a shift, and also how the valuation would work (eg does it take into account planning permissions? it probably should)
There is a transition fairness problem for people who have just paid high SDLT and would be paying high annual LVT, but some partial crediting of recent SDLT against the initial years of the LVT would be a fair transition.
October 9, 2025 at 8:06 PM
There is a transition fairness problem for people who have just paid high SDLT and would be paying high annual LVT, but some partial crediting of recent SDLT against the initial years of the LVT would be a fair transition.
I realise that nothing is ever simple, but wouldn’t replacing Council Tax, Business Rates, and SDLT with a Land Value Tax at a rate that raises similar revenue be a massive improvement on many dimensions?
October 9, 2025 at 8:04 PM
I realise that nothing is ever simple, but wouldn’t replacing Council Tax, Business Rates, and SDLT with a Land Value Tax at a rate that raises similar revenue be a massive improvement on many dimensions?
Greater love hath no man than to ask for an R function to check a matrix for rows with identical elements, however permuted.
October 3, 2025 at 8:31 AM
Greater love hath no man than to ask for an R function to check a matrix for rows with identical elements, however permuted.
My understanding is that HMRC will not let an employer do this.
September 22, 2025 at 11:24 AM
My understanding is that HMRC will not let an employer do this.
That said, there is still the timing problem: you can’t pay people until they have secured right to work.
September 22, 2025 at 10:38 AM
That said, there is still the timing problem: you can’t pay people until they have secured right to work.
These fees are not eligible to be reimbursed as expenses, they have to be paid (post-tax) by the applicant. UCL gives people relocating from abroad a taxable relocation supplement to cover this: www.ucl.ac.uk/human-resour...
Relocation Scheme
Support and benefits for staff relocating.
www.ucl.ac.uk
September 22, 2025 at 10:32 AM
These fees are not eligible to be reimbursed as expenses, they have to be paid (post-tax) by the applicant. UCL gives people relocating from abroad a taxable relocation supplement to cover this: www.ucl.ac.uk/human-resour...
Vive La France!
September 5, 2025 at 7:28 AM
Vive La France!
Analogously, if you want research assistants to code some data for you from some texts that purports to measure some feature of the texts, you don’t get to cite that someone once successfully used RAs to code data for them, you have to validate it for your application.
August 9, 2025 at 5:12 PM
Analogously, if you want research assistants to code some data for you from some texts that purports to measure some feature of the texts, you don’t get to cite that someone once successfully used RAs to code data for them, you have to validate it for your application.
This issue goes way back, I wrote a blog post in 2018 about this with respect to Brexit, referencing TARP in 2008. Markets are not suited to provide informative political signals about the merits of policy: benjaminlauderdale.net/blog/archive...
You cannot trick financial markets into solving your political problem if you tell the markets that this is the plan. : benjaminlauderdale.net
benjaminlauderdale.net
July 15, 2025 at 9:01 PM
This issue goes way back, I wrote a blog post in 2018 about this with respect to Brexit, referencing TARP in 2008. Markets are not suited to provide informative political signals about the merits of policy: benjaminlauderdale.net/blog/archive...
Is it the year of Linux on the desktop yet?
June 12, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Is it the year of Linux on the desktop yet?
When we had this visit many years ago they asked us “isn’t this a great form?” and it is a miracle that neither of us said anything impolite. Maybe you are supposed to frame it?
June 6, 2025 at 9:38 AM
When we had this visit many years ago they asked us “isn’t this a great form?” and it is a miracle that neither of us said anything impolite. Maybe you are supposed to frame it?
Well, not the whole show, the Dambusters Dog Prize section will also be pretty substantial.
May 10, 2025 at 9:09 AM
Well, not the whole show, the Dambusters Dog Prize section will also be pretty substantial.
I will once again suggest en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operati... (if you want to have that segment of the show become the entire show).
Operation Petticoat - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
May 10, 2025 at 9:07 AM
I will once again suggest en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operati... (if you want to have that segment of the show become the entire show).
Had just tapped through to make this joke when I saw Andy’s reply.
May 4, 2025 at 6:42 PM
Had just tapped through to make this joke when I saw Andy’s reply.
My solution to this constrained optimisation problem is to focus on generating lots of true and novel trivialities. Maybe some day they will add up to something? Maybe not. Other strategies are available.
March 27, 2025 at 9:20 PM
My solution to this constrained optimisation problem is to focus on generating lots of true and novel trivialities. Maybe some day they will add up to something? Maybe not. Other strategies are available.
My hot take is that saying things that are simultaneously true, novel, and also non-trivial is incredibly difficult, regardless of whether you are a social scientist or a journalist.
March 27, 2025 at 9:17 PM
My hot take is that saying things that are simultaneously true, novel, and also non-trivial is incredibly difficult, regardless of whether you are a social scientist or a journalist.
I would recommend this cookbook, for the Okonomiyaki as well as much else
March 24, 2025 at 9:26 PM
I would recommend this cookbook, for the Okonomiyaki as well as much else
An almost surely fictitious anecdote about the 1952 US presidential election has a supporter saying “Every thinking person in America will be voting for you.”, to which Adlai Stevenson replied, “I’m afraid that won’t do—I need a majority.” Apply mutatis mutandis.
March 20, 2025 at 8:33 PM
An almost surely fictitious anecdote about the 1952 US presidential election has a supporter saying “Every thinking person in America will be voting for you.”, to which Adlai Stevenson replied, “I’m afraid that won’t do—I need a majority.” Apply mutatis mutandis.
I am sure that in a few hundred years it will read as darkly funny that what finally brought down the Trump administration was that there were no turkeys for Thanksgiving.
March 18, 2025 at 8:54 PM
I am sure that in a few hundred years it will read as darkly funny that what finally brought down the Trump administration was that there were no turkeys for Thanksgiving.
You can pick up some Manischewitz after you land.
March 13, 2025 at 1:44 PM
You can pick up some Manischewitz after you land.