Tim Blackwell
@timblackwell.bsky.social
Full abolition would be a half measure if the actual benefit cap remains in situ.
November 10, 2025 at 2:21 PM
Full abolition would be a half measure if the actual benefit cap remains in situ.
About 13. The rest is silence.
November 6, 2025 at 9:57 AM
About 13. The rest is silence.
A chia seed sat in a gap is how I got mine. Now I grind my seeds, sometimes my oats too.
October 2, 2025 at 11:21 PM
A chia seed sat in a gap is how I got mine. Now I grind my seeds, sometimes my oats too.
You'd think the ICE raids would be offset by the prison building programmes.
October 1, 2025 at 1:06 PM
You'd think the ICE raids would be offset by the prison building programmes.
Did you go inside?
September 28, 2025 at 10:27 PM
Did you go inside?
Looks like triple lock will mean main state pension going up about 1% in real terms, or about £120 for post 2016 pensions, suggesting a break even point closer to £18,500. (I assume by state pension age you just mean state pension). But I would still support this.
September 27, 2025 at 1:50 PM
Looks like triple lock will mean main state pension going up about 1% in real terms, or about £120 for post 2016 pensions, suggesting a break even point closer to £18,500. (I assume by state pension age you just mean state pension). But I would still support this.
Ordinary decent regulatory capture?
Or Peter "Credulous" Kyle?
Or Peter "Credulous" Kyle?
September 17, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Ordinary decent regulatory capture?
Or Peter "Credulous" Kyle?
Or Peter "Credulous" Kyle?
Weary, stale, flat and profitable. I might end up buying one.
September 10, 2025 at 7:07 AM
Weary, stale, flat and profitable. I might end up buying one.
Rising minimum wage is popular with HMT because so much of the resulting increases in employer costs (often 75-80%) accrue to it via tax NI, and reduced benefit payments. (Stupidly, MW also sets the minimum income floor in universal credit, making small-scale self-employment less and less viable).
July 17, 2025 at 11:26 AM
Rising minimum wage is popular with HMT because so much of the resulting increases in employer costs (often 75-80%) accrue to it via tax NI, and reduced benefit payments. (Stupidly, MW also sets the minimum income floor in universal credit, making small-scale self-employment less and less viable).
327% is just the central estimate - they mean 327% by July 2nd 2027+- 182 days.
July 17, 2025 at 10:45 AM
327% is just the central estimate - they mean 327% by July 2nd 2027+- 182 days.
Reform is the only party committed to awarding teenagers the big jobs.
July 17, 2025 at 9:56 AM
Reform is the only party committed to awarding teenagers the big jobs.
Perhaps, but I think in terms of misery inflicted per pound ‘saved’, council tax localisation runs it pretty close.
July 10, 2025 at 10:21 AM
Perhaps, but I think in terms of misery inflicted per pound ‘saved’, council tax localisation runs it pretty close.
In the 80s Casio calculators were programmable in Fortran too.
July 6, 2025 at 10:43 PM
In the 80s Casio calculators were programmable in Fortran too.
the immanentisation of Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
June 24, 2025 at 8:06 AM
the immanentisation of Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
Thinking about this, the content designers of early GDS could be pretty DOGEy at times. A Brahmin like caste who frequently appeared indifferent to facts and uninterested in understanding the needs of people who didn’t fit their pre-conceived notions of what a user should be.
June 17, 2025 at 12:16 PM
Thinking about this, the content designers of early GDS could be pretty DOGEy at times. A Brahmin like caste who frequently appeared indifferent to facts and uninterested in understanding the needs of people who didn’t fit their pre-conceived notions of what a user should be.
The day the MCHLG website was dumped into .gov.co.uk I opened a bookmark to some arcane council tax support matter and was rewarded with a photo of Eric Pickles and a giant picture of a FUCKING house.
June 17, 2025 at 12:07 PM
The day the MCHLG website was dumped into .gov.co.uk I opened a bookmark to some arcane council tax support matter and was rewarded with a photo of Eric Pickles and a giant picture of a FUCKING house.
I guess structural annihilation might be a better term. Early GDS did the things it cared about well: infrastructure and smart answers come to mind. But the things it didn’t care about it did atrociously: fact checking, context, continuity - the sad joke of ‘no link left behind’.
June 17, 2025 at 11:56 AM
I guess structural annihilation might be a better term. Early GDS did the things it cared about well: infrastructure and smart answers come to mind. But the things it didn’t care about it did atrociously: fact checking, context, continuity - the sad joke of ‘no link left behind’.
My own council requires so much data to be entered that it already has (to pay council tax you have to copy and paste an ID number from one part of the site to the 'shopping basket' in the payments system) that you start to think you've been phished. Not helped by this astonishing typo:
June 14, 2025 at 11:21 AM
My own council requires so much data to be entered that it already has (to pay council tax you have to copy and paste an ID number from one part of the site to the 'shopping basket' in the payments system) that you start to think you've been phished. Not helped by this astonishing typo:
If I wanted to issue a cheese-themed anthology, I would simply travel back in time a few decades and secure sponsorship from the Milk Marketing Board. My careers teacher had an MTB recruitment poster, a poem in itself.
KEEN ON MILK?
<image: cow>
JOIN THE MILK MARKETING BOARD!
KEEN ON MILK?
<image: cow>
JOIN THE MILK MARKETING BOARD!
May 31, 2025 at 7:31 AM
If I wanted to issue a cheese-themed anthology, I would simply travel back in time a few decades and secure sponsorship from the Milk Marketing Board. My careers teacher had an MTB recruitment poster, a poem in itself.
KEEN ON MILK?
<image: cow>
JOIN THE MILK MARKETING BOARD!
KEEN ON MILK?
<image: cow>
JOIN THE MILK MARKETING BOARD!
You don’t need a fancy new system. You could just increase the tax rate, creating roughly zero new taxpayers.
May 25, 2025 at 11:28 AM
You don’t need a fancy new system. You could just increase the tax rate, creating roughly zero new taxpayers.
Guessing high poverty rate due to standard PC amounts being below the poverty threshold applied - and the 100% income taper in non-savings credit cases. PC heating addition could be withdrawn from a higher threshold and with a lower taper as originally done for child tax credit family element.
May 23, 2025 at 7:04 PM
Guessing high poverty rate due to standard PC amounts being below the poverty threshold applied - and the 100% income taper in non-savings credit cases. PC heating addition could be withdrawn from a higher threshold and with a lower taper as originally done for child tax credit family element.
Given about 1.5 million older people in households getting PC and c800k eligible but not claiming, that implies very roughly 11.5 million pension age people in poverty, which seems…high? I may have misconstrued this.
May 23, 2025 at 6:50 PM
Given about 1.5 million older people in households getting PC and c800k eligible but not claiming, that implies very roughly 11.5 million pension age people in poverty, which seems…high? I may have misconstrued this.