John O'Connell

Because of Labour plans this week, every single company in the country with more than 20 employees will be forced to give access to trade unions. The backbone of British business will be cracked open like an Easter egg and feasted on by Labour’s Union paymasters. Disgusting.

Labour’s "Fair" Work Agency launched this week. It might look like just another quango, but don’t be fooled. I’ve been through the documents. This is an anti-jobs regulator with Stasi-like powers of search, arrest, and surveillance. Here's Labour's next job killer... 🧵

1. Many of these aren't 'private companies' - Kew Gardens, for example, is an arm's-length body of Defra. 2. Even for those that are private, in many cases these pricing concessions are encouraged/coerced by Arts Council Funding, LA licensing or planning rules and similar.

Maybe the available discounts should be added up and treated as taxable Benefits in Kind. Make all claimants declare all their discounts quarterly, in a programme called Making Benefits Digital.

Is this fair?

Remember Wife Swap? We need a TV spin-off: ‘Life Swap’. A week on the shop floor at Tesco - dealing with shoplifting, abuse and impossible targets - while a retail worker gets parachuted into a world of “reconstructed brunches” oat milk lattes and panel discussions about inequality. I’d watch that.

A brilliant innings. @ElliotKeck is TPA to his bones - he cares deeply about the cause, is happier on the road talking to real people and works 100x harder than the behemoths we take on every day. Very sad to see him go - personally and professionally - but onwards and upwards🫡👏

Quick reminder on the actual evidence on rent controls: @iealondon did a comprehensive analysis of the evidence (196 studies from around the world). The conclusion is clear: rent controls do far more damage than good, and hurt those they try to help. 🧵 (1/9)

Affordability checks are not going to work.

Starmer has immediately flown to the Middle East to emphasise his crucial role in the US-Iran ceasefire, which he didn’t broker, didn’t know was coming, didn’t participate in shaping and had absolutely no part in whatsoever

Any foreign government caught trying to propagate this scam should face serious consequences from HM Government. It’s incredibly hostile banditry and there should be zero tolerance for it

That would be a decent start. But we should be tougher. Eg we should refuse to participate in any meeting where this issue will be raised & to walk out & return home, without re-commencing, if it is.

Honoured to be featured on @FraserNelson's substack frasernelson.substack.com/p/a-dashboard-…

The welfare bill is set to be £406bn by the end of this decade. For some context, £406 billion is equivalent to the lifetime taxes of about 317,800 households. Total government expenditure is projected to hit over £1.5trillion, meaning 25.1% of all public spending will be swallowed by welfare by the end of this Parliament. Debt meanwhile is projected to stand at approximately £3.5 trillion by the end of the decade with hundreds of billions to be spent on debt interest alone. Meanwhile, the tax burden is projected to exceed 37% of GDP or reach 38% of national income by the end of the decade breaking the post-war record. I challenge anyone to explain to me how any of this is sustainable.

This is an astonishing fact from today’s Sunday Times. At least 224 out of 257 new Labour MPs elected in July 2024 came from either charities or communications/lobbying agencies, or were formerly “political employees”. It explains so much about Labour backbenchers’ priorities.

Britain is rapidly becoming a two-tier society, where politicians and benefit claimants are protected from economic struggles while a shrinking class of working, productive taxpayers shoulder an increasingly heavy burden. @yarwoodwilliam explains

🚨NEW: In the middle of an energy supply crisis, Ed Miliband has just stalled the Jackdaw North Sea gas field project AGAIN. Jackdaw could be up and running in time for winter, producing enough gas to heat 1.6 million British homes. However, Ed’s priority is whether it fits into Net Zero and our international climate treaties. Never mind that we would be using higher emission imports of foreign gas if we don’t use Jackdaw. Imports don’t count in our emissions targets, so it’s a sneaky get around for Ed which will make us colder, poorer and less secure. Bad for the environment and for our economy.

A quite appalling question from Ed Balls. His own? Or in a brief prepared for him by some intern? Either way a terrible question.

This isn’t an abstract financial markets ‘thing’. It indirectly impacts your taxes, food prices, mortgage, pensions, how much we can spend on defence, the cost of student loans and much more. And nothing about this chart is good.

A new piece on last night's awful vote to allow abortions up to birth neilobrien.co.uk/p/killing-babi…