Mark Norbury
markjnorbury.bsky.social
Mark Norbury
@markjnorbury.bsky.social
@unltd @acevo - purpose, impact, entrepreneurship, democracy, equity, progress
Reposted by Mark Norbury
Look we've all had a rough year. We deserve this.
I think I speak for the entire world of outside observers when I say: please please please please please vote for Option B
Here are the options for how the leadership of Your Party will work, being voted on by members shortly (results tomorrow)

In short:

Option A = single leader (Corbyn v Sultana, most likely)
Option B = A 'collective' leadership, effectively of three non-MP members from the central committee
November 30, 2025 at 12:43 PM
Reposted by Mark Norbury
Here's this week's column. Please - please - can we stop talking about migration in a way that's completely detached from the facts? www.theguardian.com/business/202...
Net migration is plummeting. Why can’t Labour say so? | Heather Stewart
An honest debate is needed on this polarising topic as sectors such as social care struggle with recruitment
www.theguardian.com
November 30, 2025 at 12:35 PM
Reposted by Mark Norbury
I was going to say, is it weird to love your product? But QR is not our product. It's our baby. So, of course we love it. And we love you for continuing to make it real.

@pimlicat.bsky.social
@mrkennycampbell.bsky.social
@alexrees.bsky.social
Not only did we discuss the budget with a primary focus *on the actual budget*, rather than trivial leaks, silly gossip, or ministers' career prospects, but it ended up being a truly superb discussion about budgets generally, short-termism, and the stupidity of not using the best lever - income tax.
🆕 SPOILER ALERT - Unpicking the Budget 📈

The good stuff
The less good stuff
The economic rationale
The political consequences

Balance, humour, @pimlicat.bsky.social , @sturdyalex.bsky.social & top economist Vicky Pryce.

🍊 open.spotify.com/episode/05mP...

🍏 podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/q...
November 27, 2025 at 5:31 PM
Reposted by Mark Norbury
Today's migration stats illustrate the migration doom loop in action...

(from my presentation at the IMF last week)
November 27, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Reposted by Mark Norbury
UKTBC Chair Andrew Lewin MP:

"The Brexit deal put up barriers with our closest and largest trading partners. We have 16,000 fewer businesses in the UK exporting to the EU."

"A surge in food prices, bureaucracy at the border and a hit to our economy of at least £100 billion."
November 27, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Reposted by Mark Norbury
Abysmal, mindless, utterly zombified. You can't even call it policymaking because that implies a degree of thought which simply isn't present. Pretty soon they might actually hit Cameron's 'tens of thousands' target and then they'll shit themselves with horror at the consequences.
PM describes net migration of 205k as "a step in the right direction". His govt has no public position on a sustainable level of immigration is, nor any known process to decide what, why & how. Starmer is now implying he wants it significantly lower
www.standard.co.uk/news/politic...
Net migration drop ‘step in the right direction’ – Starmer
Net migration peaked at a record 944,000 in the year to March 2023 but has fallen sharply since then.
www.standard.co.uk
November 27, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Reposted by Mark Norbury
U.K 30 YEAR GILT YIELD DOWN 9.8 BPS TO 5.23%, IN BIGGEST ONE DAY FALL SINCE APRIL
November 26, 2025 at 3:53 PM
Reposted by Mark Norbury
Also who cares why they did it? What matters is it's done. (In any case reducing poverty is one reason people vote for Labour MPs so mollifying is kind of the point of elected them).
I'm hearing criticisms of the end to the two child limit, because it was done just to mollify Labour backbenchers, at a cost of £billions.

I remember another govt delivering a referendum on EU membership, just to mollify restive backbenchers. That's costing way, way more... A little perspective?
November 26, 2025 at 6:57 PM
Reposted by Mark Norbury
All the supposed ‘big brains’ in the Labour Party/government have been plotting a grim course that isn’t even based on the feeling in the country. Politicians selling their souls for absolutely zip.
Why do people think England flags have been raised on lampposts?

White adults
National pride: 26%
Anti-migrant/minority sentiment: 49%
Both: 19%

Ethnic minority adults
National pride: 15%
Anti-migrant/minority sentiment: 55%
Both: 20%

yougov.co.uk/society/arti...
November 22, 2025 at 8:08 PM
Reposted by Mark Norbury
On the plus side, Nick Clegg's house in California looked terrific.
Meta was aware that millions of adult strangers were contacting minors on its sites; that its products exacerbated mental health issues in teens; and that content related to eating disorders, suicide, and child sexual abuse was frequently detected, yet rarely removed.

time.com/7336204/meta...
7 Allegations Against Meta in Newly Unsealed Filings
Court filings allege Meta tolerated sex trafficking, hid harms to teens, and prioritized growth over user safety for years.
time.com
November 22, 2025 at 8:14 PM
Reposted by Mark Norbury
November 20, 2025 at 6:39 PM
Superb, poignant, eloquent as always @rafaelbehr.bsky.social - such a shame we are where we are, but we so desperately need some bold new progressive leadership and vision
November 19, 2025 at 9:18 PM
Reposted by Mark Norbury
The Danish Social Democrats are currently on course for their worst election result since at least the Second World War, despite their brand of far-right accommodationism being touted as a blueprint for other centre-left parties.
November 18, 2025 at 11:58 AM
Reposted by Mark Norbury
It's real, and it's mind-blowing.

A complete lack of awareness and a national embarrassment.
Just some British patriots in Benidorm, taking over a street in Spain to shout in their own language about unwanted foreigners. It’s a blessing that they are too thick to understand irony.
November 15, 2025 at 11:34 AM
Reposted by Mark Norbury
Meanwhile… the grifting liar and Brexiter in chief, Farage… rakes it in from jobs *other than* being a constituency MP… and his constituency rots. Made poorer and angrier by his Brexit.

When they say everything is broken, this is what they mean.
(Private Eye)
November 14, 2025 at 6:18 PM
Reposted by Mark Norbury
The other fact that people are ignoring is that Prescott is not some random chap plucked out of obscurity to do an 'independent' report. He's part of the campaign from the start.
The fact that the BBC has made serious culpable errors does not negate the point that there is a real and concerted right-wing media campaign to destroy it. Both points can be true at the same time and the campaign would not end even if the errors did.
November 10, 2025 at 1:36 PM
Reposted by Mark Norbury
only in the small print of this article do they make clear that the pensioners paying an extra £2,500 of tax would have to have
“earnings over £125,140”

I know many pensioners are asset rich but how many have income at that level?
November 7, 2025 at 5:28 PM
Reposted by Mark Norbury
New York millionaires: threatening to flee the city since 2009
November 7, 2025 at 9:36 PM
Reposted by Mark Norbury
I helped make a film, out this week, called “Rovina’s Choice,” about the deaths this man without conscience or accountability has caused — already 600,000, ⅔ of them children.
November 6, 2025 at 10:34 PM
Reposted by Mark Norbury
"There is simply no sign of a fiscal catastrophe from the 'Boriswave'. Recent migrants are very likely to be employed, paying tax and seem to be contributing to British society..it will help, rather than hurt, Britain’s fiscal position."

Analysis by @lgilbert.co

ukandeu.ac.uk/lower-migrat...
Lower migration is bad news for the UK economy - UK in a changing Europe
Lauren Gilbert argues that migrants to the UK are net fiscal contributors, adding much more to the economy than they take out, and that the recent collapse in immigration will harm the UK's economic p...
ukandeu.ac.uk
November 6, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Reposted by Mark Norbury
Bidenomics: Truly Transitory Inflation, Remarkably Successful on Employment & Growth—But Unable to Break Through the Media Misinformation Machine
My attempt to set forth a balance sheet: Bidenomics was an extraordinary success. The economy healed fast; the…
braddelong.substack.com/p/bidenomics...
Bidenomics: Truly Transitory Inflation, Remarkably Successful on Employment & Growth—But Unable to Break Through the Media Misinformation Machine
My attempt to set forth a balance sheet: Bidenomics was an extraordinary success. The economy healed fast; the story never did. A brief moderate transitory inflation. A long and strong jobs and...
braddelong.substack.com
November 6, 2025 at 7:31 PM
"The bitterness of insanely privileged men with empty souls knows no bounds." The key driver of British and US decline over the last 10 years for sure (especially if include "white" before men.
Is there a prominent Brexiter left who hasn’t torn off their mask to reveal the rancid racism beneath? Boris Johnson’s chief fluffer accusing anyone else of being over-promoted is peak process. The bitterness of insanely privileged men with empty souls knows no bounds.
For anyone still tempted to take Dominic Cummings at all seriously, he's now an advocate of Donald Trump-style open racism.
November 6, 2025 at 6:49 PM
Reposted by Mark Norbury
Suella Braverman has every right to make her own choice for herself about her own identity

If her argument is to refuse to accept that Ian Wright & Michelle Agyemang, Rishi Sunak, David Lammy and Priti Patel are English - their identity & birthright - on grounds of race, she should lose the whip
November 5, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Reposted by Mark Norbury
You can make a case that, in government terms, Lammy had a worse time of it, overseeing a Justice department in chaos. But in parliamentary terms, there's simply nothing worse than accidentally failing to ask the question you've come along to ask.

thecritic.co.uk/out-...
November 5, 2025 at 6:02 PM
Reposted by Mark Norbury
It’s been a while since I last went to bed with a big smile on my face.

Good night, y’all!
November 5, 2025 at 5:02 AM