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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

The most obvious taxes that do that are property and consumption. In an ideal world you'd have a proper council tax (or land value why not), a big, broad consumption tax and cut taxes on work and investment...

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 17/08/2025

Not very popular though. (Also distorting of behaviour, hence eg Sweden getting rid of them. Though I’m personally more of a fan than others on the right are.)

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 17/08/2025

It’s an interesting question - you’d definitely assume so. Also inflation erodes the tax free allowance…

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 17/08/2025

'It is a childish fantasy to pretend that you can raise serious money only from the few rather than the many.' Me for @thetimes.com on the many reasons why a wealth tax won't work www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

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Reposted by Robert Colvile

Anna Clarke @annaclarke.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

The London collapse in new housebuilding shown here is stark. The reason is largely the disaster that is the building safety regulator - which has processed about 20% of the applications it's been given in the last year.

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Reposted by Robert Colvile

Anna Clarke @annaclarke.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

@rcolvile.bsky.social sums up the issue nicely here. He's definitely right about housing not coming forward at all - I regularly hear about housebuilders and housing associations moving activity away from London. Or keeping buildings below 6 storeys, even when there's potential to go much higher.

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

Last year we started just 3,990 (vs target of 88,000). The affordable homes figures for Q1 2025-6, out this week, show just 347 homes started, including 64 bought back from the private sector. This is an emergency. See me here www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

thetimes.com

We haven’t only made it too difficult to build, but too risky

Dick Whittington would find nowhere to live were he to turn up in London today, given the shortage of affordable housing and new homes under construction

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

In the part of the country that most needs homes, we are building by far the least.

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 10/08/2025

Pretty much anything like that is just moving the timescale for the crunch back or forwards a few years. It’s demographics, not Brexit. (Just look at Germany or France…)

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 10/08/2025

The big problem isn't that Reeves is raising taxes. It's that the fiscal crunch means we'll have to do it again and again and again - and the endless scrabbling around for cash is making things even worse. Me, depressingly, for @thetimes.com www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 03/08/2025

'It is a lot easier to list the excitable articles about prime ministerial relaunches, revamps and resets than examples of such resets actually working.' Me for @thetimes.com on a year of Starmer - and why the real problem is never the advisers, and always the king.

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 06/07/2025

The like for like is really hard to do properly, for exactly this reason. But what it boils down to is that the tax wedge stats for most countries include pension contributions, but not ours. So it’s not a fair comparison.

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 06/07/2025

It’s really tricky! All kinds of other things you could throw in. But healthcare is obviously a big chunk of the reason why US taxes are so much lower.

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 05/07/2025

So the NS is probably still right that taxes will rise, but predictably wrong to dress it up as some natural act of fairness on a lightly taxed workforce www.newstatesman.com/politics/eco...

newstatesman.com

Just raise tax

Rachel Reeves cannot tweak her way out of this crisis. The system must be torn down.

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 05/07/2025

This is also, as I've pointed out before, why the argument that state pension is lower than the European average despite the triple lock is such bollocks - because it doesn't include all the money saved via work.

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 05/07/2025

On average across the OECD, private/workplace pensions make up only approx 7% of retirement income. In the UK, it's 5x that. Like Netherlands and Switzerland, we do pension saving largely via private pots (eg auto-enrolment, taking 8% of salary), not compulsory taxation.

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 05/07/2025

This via @taxfoundation.bsky.social shows the tax wedge across OECD countries. But crucially, it includes only compulsory social security contributions, not those which are opt-in/opt-out. taxfoundation.org/data/all/glo...

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 05/07/2025

Bit late to this, but the @newstatesman.com cover story arguing for tax rises on the middle classes makes a pretty big error, which completely invalidates its argument that they are under-taxed - it ignores pension contributions.

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 04/07/2025

Yeah there's a whole series. This is the NHS one www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/1337.... (Annoyingly they made a series of really crap public information films in the 1970s with a cat called Charley, which pollute Google)

screenonline.org.uk

BFI Screenonline: Your Very Good Health (1948)

The animated Charley learns the benefits of the new NHS

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

Glad that I could draw more people's attention (via @jonnelledge.bsky.social) to the public information films of the Attlee government. Honestly, it's fascinating, esp if you're into housing policy www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta_n...

youtube.com

Halas & Batchelor: Charley in New Town (1948) | BFI National Archive

YouTube video by BFI

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

They talk about us not building enough houses, not the specific and awful collapse in London housebuilding in the last year or two.

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

Well, I trust MHCLG more than Google. That said the London Assembly has its own figures, but I went with MHCLG. Historically the starts data hasn't been entirely accurate (the numbers end up slightly higher once figures are revised), but it's almost certainly in the right ballpark.

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

I don't know about AirBnB, but the number that are long-term vacant is much smaller (250k or so) and we actually have many fewer empty homes than most other countries our size, precisely because housing pressures are so severe.

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 29/06/2025

Interest rates is certainly a factor, but can’t really explain why only one area of the country is building less…

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 29/06/2025

The Government says London needs to build 88,000 homes a year. Last year, it started 3,990. My column today is on the urgent national crisis no one is talking about - the collapse of housebuilding in London www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 29/06/2025

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Fun fact: before becoming a well-known historian, Edward Gibbon was part of a successful double act with Griff Rhys Jones

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

(Most striking fact: during the core HS2 period, we had 20 rail ministers in 16 years. No wonder no one got a grip on it.)

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Politicians treated HS2 as a symbol of their virility. No wonder it's been such a flop. Me for @thetimes.com on how high-speed rail went so wrong. www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

Much as it pains me to admit it, @jdportes.bsky.social is right. I got it wrong. Posts deleted. Will amend article.

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

This isn't perfect for all sorts of reasons (it's a few years old, it's not individuals but 'households where more than half of the income is not generated by individuals who are either retired or sick/injured and over the State Pension age'), but I don't think it's wrong either.

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

But as far as I am aware there are no errors in the article. If you see one, please do point it out.

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

Actually, I write for the Sunday Times. And the claim is still (I think) accurate, despite Jonathan being a massive dick about it. I deleted the posts because I wasn't as clear as I could have been, which is on me.

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

Not ‘impossible’ at all! I couldn’t find the data on the day so did a rough calculation from a few different angles, and checked with others. But have asked ONS if they have it.

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

I think going back to Tony Blair levels of tax and spend would be just fine

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

So you accept that the research is accurate? Great.

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

No, it's from the ONS, OBR and HMRC. We've divided one publicly available stat by another. Facts are facts, even if you don't like the people pointing them out.

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

A tax on people's work is a tax on working people.

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Main conclusion from Spending Review: an absolutely massive squeeze on spending (both capital and day-to-day) pencilled in for second half of Parliament. Absolutely no way those numbers don’t go higher (and take taxes with them).

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

Lib Dems. Greens. Handful of Labour.

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

Depressing and disgraceful that the Tory Party voted en masse for Amendment 69 to the Planning Bill, which handed Natural England a pre-emptive veto on housing and infra development. Thankfully it was killed, but Opposition does not mean mindlessly supporting awful ideas.

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

That story is mostly an excuse to write the column if I’m honest.

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Anand Menon @anandmenon.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

So 31% of 2024 Lib Dem voters and 29% of Greens now trust Farage more than Starmer to run the economy 😳 H/T Caroline Wheeler and @moreincommonuk.bsky.social

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

Labour thinks votes at 16 will help it clean up. But the politics of young people is much more interesting - and much alarming - than its strategists think. Me for @thetimes.com on the polarisation within our youth, and the 'relationship recession' www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

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