Benjamin Davis-Rice 🇬🇧 retweeted
BREAKING
The Treasury’s entrepreneurship adviser has announced she is quitting.
Alex Depledge tells my colleague @hannahprevett start-ups are treated as a “sideshow” and a “nice to have”.
“Entrepreneurship can’t be seen as a good news bonus on the margins of economic policy. That mentality is really dangerous for British business as a whole…”
Depledge due to leave her role on Thursday, the day after the Budget.
Read her full comments here👇
thetimes.com/article/b28ab86…
Benjamin Davis-Rice 🇬🇧 retweeted
🚨 NEW: The Government’s entrepreneurship adviser has quit ahead of the Budget
“We treat [innovation and entrepreneurship] as a bit of a sideshow... that mentality is really dangerous for British business as a whole”
Benjamin Davis-Rice 🇬🇧 retweeted
💡Essential Budget pre-reading for every MP and journalist from @OBR_UK while they await the EFO
📣TL;DR: age related spending is making the welfare state chronically unaffordable.
assets.publishing.service.go…
Our next Economic and fiscal outlook will be published on 28 October 2026.
It will be published on gov.uk/government/organisati… after the Chancellor has presented the Budget to Parliament.
Supporting material, supplementary documents and detailed forecast tables will be published on obr.uk/ on the afternoon of 28 October
Benjamin Davis-Rice 🇬🇧 retweeted
Sigh.
Some chatter on social media would have you believe that crime is out of control.
The facts tell a different story.
As @frasernelson has shown in his Substack today:
Violence is at its lowest level since the crime survey began in 1981.
Robbery is at a record low.
Crime, excluding fraud, is 78% down on its peak in 1995.
And the stats show this Government is delivering on its promises too:
Knife crime is down 11%.
Knife murders are at their lowest level in 35 years.
Thefts including phone snatching have fallen by 20% in the last year alone.
But I know there is more that we must do, and we will:
We’ve put more than 3,800 extra neighbourhood officers into roles, with named, contactable officers for every neighbourhood.
We’re introducing the most significant reforms to policing in a generation.
We are tackling rising rates of violence against women and girls through our landmark strategy.
And we are tackling crimes like fraud, more prevalent in our increasingly online world, with £250 million directed to this challenge in our Fraud Strategy published this year.
Benjamin Davis-Rice 🇬🇧 retweeted
The Europoors are at it again.
I can't believe that this government looks at the slowest growing continent on planet earth and thinks 'yes, let's be more like them'.
Europe is a chronic disaster zone and we should largely be doing precisely the opposite of what it decrees - especially on energy and tech policy.
Complete own goal by Labour. Strangling the hand that feeds them.
This is what you get when 90% of new MP’s come from charities, NGO’s or the public sector. No grasp on reality, driven by ideology.
Benjamin Davis-Rice 🇬🇧 retweeted
EXCLUSIVE: Former Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane tells me the Bank 'hasn’t learned its lesson' on inflation – and says five years of missed targets 'does beg the question in markets’ mind: are they serious?'
Watch the full Reality Check interview 👇
Let’s not forget these are NET figures.
Over 18.5 million immigrants came into the UK between 1997 and 2024 while 10.4 million left according to ONS data.
🌍 European countries that added the most migrants (2000–2024)
1. 🇬🇧 United Kingdom: +7.1M
2. 🇪🇸 Spain: +6.8M
3. 🇩🇪 Germany: +6.4M
4. 🇹🇷 Türkiye: +5.8M
5. 🇮🇹 Italy: +4.4M
6. 🇫🇷 France: +3.0M
7. 🇦🇹 Austria: +1.4M
8. 🇳🇱 Netherlands: +1.4M
9. 🇨🇭 Switzerland: +1.3M
10. 🇧🇪 Belgium: +1.3M
11. 🇸🇪 Sweden: +1.3M
12. 🇵🇱 Poland: +917K
13. 🇮🇪 Ireland: +840K
14. 🇳🇴 Norway: +720K
15. 🇷🇴 Romania: +521K
16. 🇵🇹 Portugal: +476K
17. 🇩🇰 Denmark: +475K
18. 🇭🇺 Hungary: +393K
19. 🇨🇿 Czechia: +386K
20. 🇫🇮 Finland: +378K
Europe's migrant population grew by 40.8 million between 2000 and 2024, up 67%. The UK, Spain and Germany together account for almost half of that increase.
Source: UN DESA
Benjamin Davis-Rice 🇬🇧 retweeted
🚨Sneaked out by OFGEM this morning, a warning for the first time EVER they cannot guarantee that demand will be met on a peak day in winter.
Let’s be clear what that means. They cannot guarantee that homes will be warm, lights come on or industry function on a peak day this winter.
And why? Because of an accelerated decline in domestic gas supply from the North Sea.
So what is the solution? For British bill payers to pay more, to IMPORT more from Europe (specifically Belgium) to keep the lights on in Britain.
Britain. A country with vast supplies of gas, untapped, deliberately due to Labour policy now going cap in hand to Europe and paying vast sums to import foreign gas.
It is utterly outrageous. You couldn’t make it up.
ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/f…
Benjamin Davis-Rice 🇬🇧 retweeted
Every barrel of oil the UK exports to Europe is one less barrel they would buy from Russia.
Revenue. Security. Common sense. Approve Rosebank now.
Benjamin Davis-Rice 🇬🇧 retweeted
£214bn: all the North Sea tax Britain has ever collected, 1968 to 2025 (HMRC). A trillion-pound fund only works if every pound was saved, with borrowed money at 10 to 15%, and never touched in a crisis. Save only in surplus years, as Norway did, and it is about £60bn.
‘We'd have a British sovereign wealth fund now that will be worth probably a trillion pounds’
Chancellor @JohnHealey_MP suggests what Britain could have gained if it had set up an energy wealth fund like Norway’s back in the 1980s
#Peston
Benjamin Davis-Rice 🇬🇧 retweeted
If your argument is: we should consume less gas, I do have respect for it. If instead it is: I rather buy gas overseas I know we need so I can virtue signal we're reducing local output, I have no respect for it.
For more, my @Opinion column from April ⤵️ bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
A rare good intervention from the government. It does make you wonder how bad the international picture is to force their hand into approving this though.
What’s the point in contractualising anything if a week later some activist judge can bang a gavel like a toddler and undermine/remove any meaningful agreement between two parties or the concept of personal responsibility?
Benjamin Davis-Rice 🇬🇧 retweeted
🚨 LEAKED: Burnham budget proposals
- Fines for leaving your bin out after 6pm on bin day
- Double VAT on chips without gravy
- Tolls for southbound sections of motorways
- Double employer National Insurance if you wear a quarter-zip at work
- Maximum prices for vending machines





























