Sign in

SamScram

@samscram.bsky.social
150 followers 381 following 91 posts

Rambling

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by SamScram
Guy Shrubsole @guyshrubsole.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Farmland bird populations in England have now declined by a staggering 66% since 1970, according to the latest official figures. What's going to turn this around? Not piecemeal grants or trusting in the 'custodians of the countryside', but Landscape Recovery & regulation www.gov.uk/government/s...
Graph from DEFRA's report 'Wild bird populations in the UK and England, 1970 to 2025', published 13th October 2026, showing a two-thirds decline in farmland birds in England and the UK from 1970 to 2025.
1117883
Reposted by SamScram
Rachel Fairbank @sweetsciencewriter.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
“The children who are randomly selected not to receive the birth dose of the vaccine, those who “lost the lottery”, face in their earliest days the risk of contracting hepatitis B, which can cause irreversible lifelong damage.” No words. I am speechless. This violates all ethical boundaries.
theguardian.com
Controversial vaccine trial touted by RFK Jr gets go-ahead in Guinea-Bissau
Recommended dose of hepatitis B vaccine will be withheld from thousands of newborns by Danish researchers
12623791031
Reposted by SamScram
Peter Whitewood @pwhitewood.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
A shadowy network of hedgehogs and owls, operating at the highest levels of the British establishment.
1531151271
Reposted by SamScram
Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
75760247
Reposted by SamScram
Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
New working paper: the Norwegian wealth tax was a huge success. The "exodus" of wealthy people never happened (less than 100 individuals left). Tax revenue increased by 71.5%. No changes in business activity or investment. www.nber.org/papers/w35854
Taxing Entrepreneurial Wealth: Evidence from
Norway, 2021-2025
Marius A. K. Ring
WORKING PAPER 35854|
DOl 10.3386/w35854
ISSUE DATE October 2026
Whether imposing higher taxes on business owners adversely affects business activity by constraining investment and inducing capitalist flight is a central question in the ongoing debate on how to tax the ultra wealthy. To shed new light, I exploit a series of related Norwegian reforms during 2021-2024 that increased dividend tax rates, removed migration-related capital gains tax loopholes, and nearly doubled the effective marginal tax rate on business wealth. These reforms spurred international debate and, allegedly, an "exodus" of Norwegian billionaires (Financial Times,
2023). While I document clear effects on migration, these responses are concentrated among the top 0.1% of the wealth distribution and mostly confined to 2022 and 2023. My results indicate that at most 100 individuals left due to the reforms. I find no evidence of significant outmigration or reduced inflows of startup founders or inventors. I estimate that absent any outmigration, wealth tax revenues would have increased by 75% from 2021 to 2024. Reform-driven outmigration lowers the revenue gain to 71.5%. My findings further show that outmigrating owners' firms remain economically active and do not reduce investment. In a broader set of analyses, I examine whether business outcomes are affected, regardless of whether owners outmigrate, since firms may reduce investment both due to liquidity constraints or distortions to owners' savings decisions. I compare firms owned by Norwegian individuals subject to the wealth tax with firms owned by foreigners and other tax-exempt entities. By merging historical ownership data from Orbis with the Norwegian shareholder register, I perform these analyses on both Norwegian and foreign-domiciled firms.
Across settings, I find no evidence that Norwegian-owned firms pay out more dividends or invest less after the reforms,…
151150886498
Reposted by SamScram
Our World in Data @ourworldindata.org · 08/10/2026
📝 New article on Our World in Data: A 73% average decline in wildlife populations: an overview of the 2026 Living Planet Index report. The 2026 Living Planet Index report is published today. As with previous additions, it can make for a depressing read.
36229
Reposted by SamScram
Gianmarco Soresi @gianmarcosoresi.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Man who won’t give his employees piss breaks claims many piss breaks on the horizon
810207344627
Reposted by SamScram
Anna Clarke @annaclarke.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
The more I think about it, the more I realise how many problems you'd create by the combination of abolishing stamp duty and allowing unlimited exemption from inheritance tax for housing. You'd get a massive demand for "upsizing", putting all your wealth into housing, to avoid inheritance tax.
4297
Reposted by SamScram
Dan Neidle @danneidle.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Kemi Badenoch wants to exempt the family home from inheritance tax. But that creates a perverse incentive for elderly people to *upsize* to save IHT. That could double the cost of the policy, and push £100bn+ from savings into housing. A 🧵 on bad tax cuts.
44867368
Reposted by SamScram
Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 06/10/2026
This is a good illustration of how so much of AI theft isn't indirect (ie, data sucked into a model to train the chatbot) - it's actually **direct** copying, but *enabled* by GenAI. Of course it is: chatbots absolutely suck at creating good, new stuff.
251059456
Reposted by SamScram
Miaganga @miaganga.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
17274382269
Reposted by SamScram
Guy Shrubsole @guyshrubsole.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Revealed: Government quietly dropped plan to prepare England for wildfires I discovered via an FOI request that DEFRA’s commitment in the National Adaptation Programme to run a “wildfire risk programme” since 2023 “was not brought into effect”. #ClimateCrisis www.theguardian.com/world/2026/o...
theguardian.com
Revealed: Government quietly dropped plan to prepare England for wildfires
FOI request shows wildfire risk scheme scrapped, as data highlights many fire services lack proper protective gear
18348191
Reposted by SamScram
Phil M 🦻🏼💚 🍉 🏳️‍⚧️ 🇵🇸 @phillm.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
When they talk about reducing red tape, remember this image.
Grenfell Tower, a black smouldering carcass of the building shorty after the fire, in 2017.
5428481093
Reposted by SamScram
David Henig @davidheniguk.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Well, there we go again with the limits on UK trade policy imposed by the need to be nice to major partners. Reports that the UK will impose tariffs on Chinese Electric Vehicles, which will please both EU and US but not the UK consumer... www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...
thetimes.com
Britain expected to impose tariffs on Chinese electric cars
Ministers are ready to match the EU’s 45 per cent levy to avoid pain of Made in Europe proposals
97930
Reposted by SamScram
Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Americans are relearning the lesson we learned during the Gilded Age of the late 1890s, when robber barons ran the government and the economy for their own benefit: Oligarchy is incompatible with the common good. I'm hopeful we'll respond with a new progressive movement.
378121123494
Reposted by SamScram
Javier Garcia @javiergarcia.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Overheard a well-heeled man in Sainsbury's earlier telling his wife "I can't believe he got 15 years for that and what did the Rochdale Grooming gangs get?" Wish I had this to hand... (turns out he had weapons too) Casual legal experts. The worst kind.
2274
Reposted by SamScram
Karen Attiah @karenattiah.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Today, 8 years ago, my friend, Saudi Journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered.
239102243245
Reposted by SamScram
Mike D London @mikedlondon.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
BBC re-running their headlines from 3 years ago when Sunak released 10,000 prisoners early over 6 months....oh wait, no, that went off without a media fuss. Labour are releasing up to 5,000 early over a year - due to Tory failure to build prison capacity. They only built 36 net new places a year.
23559240
Reposted by SamScram
Russ Jones @russincheshire.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Avg GDP growth 1945-79: 2.8% Since then: 1.6% And this apparently "broken, economically stagnant" basket case kept its AAA status right through the Winter of Discontent We lost it under Cameron, and it fell again under May, then Johnson, and then Truss: i.e. the whole time Clarke was in govt
52637211
Reposted by SamScram
Guy Shrubsole @guyshrubsole.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Time to join the Pheasants’ Revolt… DEFRA have launched a Call for Evidence on the environmental & animal welfare impacts of the gamebird industry. If you care about this, PLEASE submit evidence - this @wildjustice.bsky.social blog tells you how: wildjustice.org.uk/defras-call-...
wildjustice.org.uk
Defra’s Call for Evidence on gamebird releases; what exactly is it asking for? – Wild Justice
47859
Reposted by SamScram
Rachel Cunliffe @rmcunliffe.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
This is your semi-regular reminder that pensioner poverty: a) is real b) is significantly less prevalent than working-age poverty and half the rate of child poverty, and c) is such that a pensioner is statistically more likely to live in a household worth over £1 million than to live in poverty
917142
SamScram @samscram.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
🙄
000
Reposted by SamScram
Nacho Fernández @frikidelcine.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
And still there are those cold blooded enough to deny there's a genocide going on?
21332
Reposted by SamScram
Duncan Jones (aka Merrion) (he/him) @duncanjonesmerrion.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Unfortunately it is only possible for a peron to ride two horses - in this case representing the needs of the unions and the public - until they diverge. Re-industrialisation is an example of a point of divergence.
1111
Reposted by SamScram
JWexTheSpa @jwsidders.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
The drought has not gone away in much of England. In fact, it's getting worse. September has been pretty dry, October won't start much better. If things don't change, we are heading towards a below average winter of rainfall. That would be a catastrophe dwarfing all others. Enjoy your weekend 😬
2152
Reposted by SamScram
Abilu Tangwa. @abilutangwa.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
When farms stop yielding, hunger does not knock — it breaks the door. Across the Horn of Africa, soils that once fed nations are turning barren. This is not “bad weather.” This is climate change rewriting our food systems in real time.
5920581031
Reposted by SamScram
Josiah Mortimer @josiahmortimer.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Enormous drop in oil demand this year due to Trump's war in Iran. As predicted, he has accidentally accelerated the green transition (with, of course, a very heavy and deadly cost in how it's happened) www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-glo...
carbonbrief.org
Analysis: Global fossil-fuel emissions set to fall in 2026 amid Hormuz crisis - Carbon Brief
Global fossil-fuel emissions are set to fall by in 2026 amid the fallout from the Hormuz crisis, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
516655
Reposted by SamScram
Spookably UnAwake @lamentablyawake.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
It's all on you, members of the British public, to solve the climate crisis, and I'm giving you 43p each to do so.
Headline: British people understand the climate crisis threat. Today I’m empowering them to tackle it - Andy Burnham

[Photo of Andy Burnham, a middle aged white man with brown hair wearing a black shirt]

Subhead: With nearly £30m of funding, I’m giving communities power over local energy. They know the gravity of global heating, and they want to be part of the solution
830296
Reposted by SamScram
Luke Turner @luketurner.com · 12/09/2026
As Ben Delo's record £36m Reform donation is headline news, I can't emphasise enough that the media ought to be reporting on Delo's heinous funding of antisemitic conspiracy theorists in the High Court – anonymous contributors to the horrifying neo-Nazi account shown below. bsky.app/profile/luke...
A sample of neo-Nazi posts by the @ParallaxOptics account, displaying grotesque antisemitic caricatures and violent Jew hate.The @ParallaxOptics account's banner image depicting Adolf Hitler.Post by @ParallaxOptics of an article anonymously written by Nina Power and Daniel Miller: ON CULTS II "If we're proposing the the Left is a cult, the first question is what do cults want in general?"
12620396
Reposted by SamScram
honeywallbeer.bsky.social @honeywallbeer.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I'm not sure we can blame the pensioners for the cost of housing / education / living when their pension is one of the lowest in the OECD (at just under £12,000 per annum). The triple lock helps increase the pension progressively. There are some comparisons here... www.lovemoney.com/news/530757/...
lovemoney.com
How our State Pension compares to other major countries
Just how generous is our State Pension?
082
Reposted by SamScram
Helen Day @lbflyawayhome.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
On this day 12th September 1940 four teenagers, following their dog, discovered the Lascaux cave paintings. Artist: John Kenney
The illustration shows a scene from the book Stone Age Man in Britain. Two cavemen are putting the finishing touches to the beautiful, elaborate hunting scenes. 
927539
Reposted by SamScram
Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
I wonder if there is a single person still at the Telegraph who feels even a smidgeon of shame, that in just over a decade it has gone from newspaper-of-record to fluffers-for-rent. It is revolting. Farage, apparently, "lands" a record crypto bung.
Gabriel Pogrund
@Gabriel_Pogrund
The Sunday Times approached Nigel Farage and Reform about this story this morning.
A confidential source told us that Delo, a crypto billionaire criminal pardoned by Trump, had given £35m to Reform.
...
Now, as with other stories on Reform finances, it has been given elsewhere.
Gordon Rayner @gordonrayner.
1h
Farage lands record £36m donation
telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/...
9:37 PM
Sep 11, 2026
73.4K Views
1224263
Reposted by SamScram
Stella Creasy MP @stellacreasy.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
It’s not too late to stop this madness - the government has said the uk mega donors are a problem. The lords can bring in a cap on UK donors to stop any attempt to buy the next election. Share this and ask your MP to join us protecting British democracy.
114956510
Reposted by SamScram
Henry Mance @henrymance.ft.com · 11/09/2026
How it started / How it's going
31777325
Reposted by SamScram
Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
This scoop by my colleagues is really alarming, it reflects a troubling shift in how some AI researchers are operating. Ultimately very hard for Aisi do its work in a world of heightened geopolitical tension and competition:
ft.com
Anthropic withheld latest AI model from UK testing agency
Decision to exclude Aisi has prompted fears inside British government of protectionist shift among tech groups
110521
Reposted by SamScram
Immigration Bot @immigrationbot.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
"Volunteers told to consider not wearing branded clothing and to shut lifeboat stations if they feel in dangerPolice working to protect RNLI in Dorset amid opposition to small boat rescuesThe RNLI is stepping up security after a backlash from far-right agitators over the lifeboat…" — The Guardian
theguardian.com
RNLI steps up security after attacks by far-right agitators over small boat rescues
Volunteers told to consider not wearing branded clothing and to shut lifeboat stations if they feel in danger
366
Reposted by SamScram
flyingrodent @flyingrodent.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Times columnist here making it very clear she thinks the street fascists are right, and presumably so do her editors and bosses, and the paper’s owners www.thetimes.com/article/f1a4...
thetimes.com
Protests at small boats reflect a broken system
After the claim that just 1% of asylum cases are genuine, an immigration overhaul is vital to placate growing public anger
3536191
Reposted by SamScram
Josiah Mortimer @josiahmortimer.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
🔴 Voter ID Has Damaged Trust in UK Elections, Study Finds Young people, low-income and trans voters were among the groups hardest hit by the policy imposed by the last Conservative Government, academics found bylinetimes.com/2026/09/10/v...
bylinetimes.com
Voter ID Has Damaged Trust in UK Elections, Study Finds
Young people, low-income and trans voters were among the groups hardest hit by the policy imposed by the last Conservative Government, academics found
44728
Reposted by SamScram
Tom Wilson @feedthedrummer.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
This does suggest Britain is a) very good at integration b) actively attracts the world's smart and ambitious people who want to get on and do well for themselves Both of these are very good, competitive qualities to have and should be celebrated.
936298
Reposted by SamScram
David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
All the plastic humanity has ever produced is ~10 billion tonnes. Humans emitted ~10 billion tonnes of CO₂ into the atmosphere in the first three months of 2026. When we appreciate orders of magnitude, we see how intractable the CO₂ problem becomes once we dump it into the atmosphere.
524484
Reposted by SamScram
Ed Hawkins @edhawkins.org · 07/09/2026
We haven’t just changed our weather. We’ve changed the climate in which our weather happens. climatelabbook.substack.com/p/learning-f...
climatelabbook.substack.com
Learning from the summers of 1976 and 2026
We have changed the climate in which our weather happens
1262125
Reposted by SamScram
Laura Gordon @lauragordon.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
This government reminds me of Joe Biden. Biden didn't want to be the prosecute Trump president, he wanted to pass an infrastructure bill. Burnham doesn't want to be the take on the hard right PM, he wants to do social care reform and devo. But you have to do the task you're set or face disaster.
1430488
Reposted by SamScram
Rachel Cunliffe @rmcunliffe.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
"If you want to skip the big wedding, a no-frills ceremony at a registry office will set you back £62, plus £46.50 per person to give notice – akin to renewing a passport. Crucially, though, this requires a decision to bind your lives together." www.newstatesman.com/politics/fut...
newstatesman.com
Treating cohabiting couples like they're married is a mad idea
A new government initiative wants to "modernise" relationships by considering couples as de facto married - whether or not they've tied the knot
8635
Reposted by SamScram
Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Ryan Bridge - Founder of "Raise the Colours" flag protests - charged with 14 offences including common assault. Danny Thomas - ringleader of Dover/Portsmouth thuggery - an ex-con jailed for attempted kidnap at knifepoint. Almost like they're not "ordinary people with concerns" but criminals.
391642616
Reposted by SamScram
Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
This BBC claim that Mr Thomas "drummed up support for 'mass resistance' but without violence" seems like an editorialisation of the news that lacks context/accuracy Firstly, Mr Thomas was clearly very pro-violence in summer 2024 + 2026 Secondly, Mr Thomas calls for disruption + threat
32574266
Reposted by SamScram
Mic Wright @brokenbottleboy.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
The Times’ splash today is about a ‘Home Office whistleblower’ claiming only “one in 100 asylum claims are real”. In it, Danny Tommo’s crowd of thugs are described as protestors and it’s illustrated with pictures from ‘protests’. They know exactly what they’re doing.
15411127
Reposted by SamScram
George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
80 year-olds with pro-Palestine signs: arrested as terrorists. Greens planning to block a road, to highlight an existential crisis: sent down for years. Masked far-right thugs blocking roads and ports, using intimidation, obstruction & threatening behaviour: no arrests. The real two-tier policing.
9533571382
Reposted by SamScram
Memorial Device @memorialdevice.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
The Home Office response? “We appreciate the frustration of those who have been impacted today. Access to the port is now restored and traffic is flowing"
4438
Reposted by SamScram
Dan Waterfield @danwaterfield.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
When push comes to shove, can the government, media, and police accurately describe the problem? This is a pre requisite to tackling it. If they can’t describe and condemn the presence of blackshirt thugs threatening infrastructure then they won’t be able to prevent them going further.
29819