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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Comparing the daily average in 2025 and September 2026 exports from Russia are down around 670k barrels a day compared with a fall of around 810k a day from the Middle East...4/7

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Diesel exports from Russia (orange bars) and Russia (red bars) have both fallen sharply over the past year contributing to that overall fall (even as US exports have risen)...3/7

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Here's the data. In 2025, around 6.8m barrels of diesel per day were being exported to the global market In September 2026 exports had fallen to 5.8 million barrels per day - a decline of around 1m barrels per day...2/7

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Which conflict is having a bigger impact on diesel prices? ⛽📈💥 US-Iran or Ukraine-Russia? Donald Trump is blaming Ukraine-Russia and downplaying the US-Iran war... 1/7

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

ANOTHER ADD (for completeness) There were 3 years in the last 15 where inflation and earnings growth were below 2.5% so the triple lock kicked in, meaning the state pension grew by 2.5% when otherwise it would have increased by less

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

ADD @theifs.bsky.social have actually modelled what would have happened since 2010 if the new proposed system had been in place - as you can see, growth in the state pension would have been closer to growth in earnings over that time ifs.org.uk/articles/how...

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

...How would the Andy Burham proposal change this? It's complicated because the annual uprating formula would keep an arbitrary 2.5% floor. But probably the simplest way to think about it is that - over the longer term - growth in the state pension would be closer to growth in average earnings 5/5

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

...Put those together and the result is that over 15 years the triple lock has pushed up the state pension in cash terms by more than growth in average earnings and more than the increase in prices...4/5

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

...Second, think about how the state pension has grown relative to inflation. In 10 of the past 15 years it's gone up by more than inflation because of the triple lock...3/5

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

...First think about how the state pension has grown relative to earnings. In 7 of the past 15 years it's gone up by more than earnings because of the triple lock...2/5

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Which - all together - suggests that in September the oil coming out of the region was around 85% of pre-war flows, up from less than 50% in March...6/8

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

And Saudi Arabia has been pumping a lot more through its East West pipeline since the war began, which takes oil to the Red Sea rather than Hormuz/Gulf of Oman, reaching 2m barrels a day in September...5/8

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

And the flow of oil through pipelines that go *around* the Strait of Hormuz with terminals in the Gulf of Oman has increased, reaching 3.5m barrels a day in September...4/8

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

But ship trackers reckon a growing amount of crude is getting out through the Strait on secretive passages and via ship to ship transfers of oil in the Gulf of Oman - around an extra 2m barrels a day in September...3/8

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The flows through the Strait of Hormuz collapsed from around 16m barrels a day in February to less than 2m in March. They've since risen to around 7m according to conventional ship tracking techniques...2/8

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

So: here's the context for what we've now been told is the Government's council housebuilding target i.e "the biggest council housebuilding programme since the post-war boom ended in the early 1980s"

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

And put it together with the actual housing construction figures for councils & this is the picture:

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

...It also includes the delivery of homes by local authorities at "affordable rent", which is more expensive than the social rents available in traditional council housing. If you use only the new social rent delivery figures (the gold line) the picture looks like this...

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Ministers have also recently been referencing this different data set to argue the delivery of homes by local authorities in England in 2025 was already the highest since the early 1990s - but this, strictly speaking, is not a measure of house *building* by councils... www.gov.uk/government/s...

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Bringing annual council house building up to the 20k/year of the mid 1980s will, of course, be much more realistic than the 200k a year of the 1950s... www.gov.uk/government/s...

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Burnham's original pledge on 29th June..."the biggest council house building programme since the post-war period"...with "post-war period" left undefined... andyburnham.org.uk/2026/07/20/a...

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Seems Andy Burnham’s original pledge to deliver the biggest council house building programme “since the post war period” actually means since the early 1980s…. www.gov.uk/government/p...

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Talking about Burnham’s economic policies on Newsnight 1030pm on BBC2 & iplayer

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

As the Defence Investment Plan finally sees the light of day, are you confused by all the UK defence spending figures being thrown around by politicians? If so, read our Verify explainer on the BBC website here ✍️👇 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

ADD Here's those £ increase figures in a chart

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Also bear in mind that last year the UK agreed to spend 3.5% of GDP on "core defence requirements" by 2035. Which in today's money implies an extra £27bn relative to the currently planned spending in 2027. ENDS

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

But in his resignation letter Healey said the Defence Investment Plan only outlined funding to take military spending to 2.68% by 2030. So short of the 3% he thought necessary...5/7

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

The Government also has an "ambition" to increase defence spending to 3% of GDP "in the next Parliament", so by 2034/35 John Healey in his resignation letter as defence secretary said this target should be hit earlier - by 2030...4/7

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

The Government has committed to increase this to 2.5% of GDP by 2027-28 - or 2.6% of GDP when including spending on the intelligence services...3/7

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Nato-qualifying defence spending as a share of GDP in 2025-26 was 2.4% of GDP...2/7

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

They clarified that this Youth Guarantee spending had not kicked in 2024/25 & that, when it does (presumably from 2025/26), the ratio between youth benefit spending and youth employment support will fall from 25:1 to 10:1.

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

But there are no cash figures provided in the annex in relation to this claim, only ratios. I contacted the DWP press office who said the figure used for benefit spending on young people in 2024/25 was £8.1bn versus £300m for employment support for this age group (giving the 3.7% figure)...

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

As the source, the Milburn report refers to its analytical annex, which says this... www.gov.uk/government/p...

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Although the government - and Energy UK - argue that by reducing our national reliance on volatile wholesale international gas prices, this clean power policy will keep down these wholesale costs and thus ultimately benefit households relative to otherwise...8/10 www.energy-uk.org.uk/news/energy-...

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

However, it is also true those network and policy costs have pushed up bills in recent years - as this comparison with the typical bill breakdown in the winter of 2019 shows. Network costs then put around £250 onto bills - now it’s £463...6/10

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

This supports the government's claim that this increase is being driven by the fallout of the Iran war, which has pushed up wholesale UK (left) and European (right) gas prices...5/10 tradingeconomics.com/commodity/uk... tradingeconomics.com/commodity/eu...

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Network (green) and policy (gold) costs - which includes subsidies to renewable energy generators and the costs of expanding the electricity grid to accommodate new wind and solar farms - are actually flat over the two periods...4/10

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

The main driver of the change is clearly wholesale costs (shown in red) - the costs of buying the gas to heat homes and create electricity - the increase of £185 in wholesale costs accounts for 84% of the increase in the overall price cap...3/10

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Here's Ofgem's latest breakdown of a typical household bill - showing a 13% increase in the price cap now from £1,641 to £1,862 from July - an increase of £221...2/10 www.ofgem.gov.uk/news-and-ins...

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Latest (provisional) estimate of UK net migration is 171k in the 12 months to December 2025 👇 www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

It was all worth it! Thanks very much to all those on the island who came and for the great questions - and to the Guernsey Literary Festival's organisers! 🙏

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Getting ready for the Guernsey Literary Festival business breakfast tomorrow 50 copies of my book Exile Economics signed - around 60 to go! 😂

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

...and this is the biggest oil shock in history in terms of lost barrels - bigger than the Iranian revolution of 1978/29 and the Arab oil embargo of 1973/74...

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

...because the facts on the ground - little movement of shipping/oil through the Strait - have been stubborn...

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Trump's repeated claims of the imminent opening of the Strait of Hormuz HAVE moved the oil price down - but only TEMPORARILY...

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

The UAE produced 3.2 million barrels per day of crude oil in Q1 2026. So OPEC will be losing around 12% of its production capacity with the UAE's departure from the cartel....

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

....and she ultimately accessed the UKSV documents on Mandelson herself - believing that these were relevant to the terms of the Humble Address from Parliament for the release of "all papers relating to Lord Mandelson’s appointment". assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69b131...

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

Also adding this for completeness: total detected small boat crossings by calendar year

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

ADD % channel decline in crossings in 2026 so far is similar to what's been seen in crossings in the Eastern and Central Mediterranean (though not the Western Med) according to the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, Frontex www.frontex.europa.eu/media-centre...

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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

And 2026 is tracking broadly in line with 2022, 2023 and 2024 at the same stage in the year...4/5

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