British Prosperity | @prosperity_inst | 🦁 🇬🇧 🏹 | Views own, naturally
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Fred de Fossard retweeted
Monica Grenfell joins a team of mercenaries holed up in Paris. One asks her "what colour is the boathouse at Hereford?" Monica reports him to HR, cries and leaves.
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In light of last night's discussion around welfare policy from @afneil on @bbcquestiontime, read my colleagues Matthew's excellent piece on the latest welfare idea from the Tories.
While cutting waste and abuse is essential, he doesn't think welfare cards are the way to do it. They didn't make much difference in Australia, and in America a fraudulent industry worth billions of dollars has emerged where people sell their foodstamps.
We fix welfare abuse by cutting eligibility, time-limiting benefits, imposing stricter work search conditions, and deregulating the labour market so people can get back into work.
The recent Conservative benefit crackdown announcement offers some promising policies.
Reducing benefits for those capable of working after six months, whilst rewarding those with a stronger contribution record, could help change the incentives.
But banning claimants from buying alcohol, cigarettes or placing a bet with a pre-paid card looks unlikely to achieve the desired effects.
Australia tried a similar approach - the evidence suggests it was a damp squib.
Me for the @spectator👇
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Fred de Fossard retweeted
The direct cost of accommodating asylum seekers is now more than £4 billion a year. Add healthcare, education, legal aid and welfare, and the figure approaches £8.5 billion.
In this month's Critic essay, @defossardf asks what can be done about our broken asylum system.
thecritic.co.uk/issues/octob…
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Fred de Fossard retweeted
Woke 1 was crazy
Tonight we play on Gurambilbarra Country and Thul Garrie Waja Country.
We respectfully acknowledge the the Bindal and Wulgurukaba peoples as the first Custodians of the land, air and water where Queensland Country Bank Stadium is situated today, and we pay our respect to their Elders past, present and emerging.
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Here's a good one. We're waiving citizenship fees for families of children eligible for British citizenship who can't afford it. Why is this any obligation for the British people to fund? I thought citizenship fees were meant to be a source of revenue.
legit.ng/people/1732726-uk-m…
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This really is the only thing which matters when it comes to economic policy today. It's funny to see the Government flirt with rejoining the EU as if it would make a blind bit of difference while the world is transformed this way. The future is not in Brussels.
AI is getting cheaper more quickly than any other transformative tech in history. At a given level of performance, cost has fallen ~47%/quarter since 2023.
That’s 4× faster than DNA sequencing, 6× faster than compute, 18× faster than lithium batteries, and (up to 1973) 54× faster than electricity.
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So British taxpayers are now on the hook for Mauritius' own budget deficit.
Exclusive: The UK is exploring strengthening ties with Mauritius including helping it access more aid money, in a bid to manage relations after Trump vetoed the Chagos deal for the foreseeable
In a meeting at the UN this week, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband told Mauritius’ Foreign Minister Dhananjau Ramful that Britain could support it in a range of areas, from trade to accessing climate financing and backing economic and development projects, sources say
Ramful says Miliband pledged “total collaboration” in identifying areas where Britain could provide support to Mauritius
Officials confirm they want to strengthen bilateral ties with Mauritius but stress they are not reopening negotiations over the deal nor offering it new British taxpayer money
One official says it’s essential to keep Mauritius onside given the Chagos deal now won’t proceed until Trump leaves the White House
UK officials are very concerned that in the longer-term, Mauritius could sue Britain or move closer to China, increasing the risk of Beijing interfering with the Diego Garcia base. They still think the sovereignty deal is the best option to secure the base post-Trump
In the meantime the UK needs to keep relations with Mauritius going. The island nation faces a budget deficit and needed the £165 million a year it would have got from Britain over the next three years if the deal had gone through
Even if the UK does not directly offer Mauritius more money, there are ways it could help it access financing such as through British International Investment, a development finance institution controlled by the government, and other international climate financing schemes
With @KB2803 @EllenAMilligan: bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
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Fred de Fossard retweeted
Convincing people in Britain who are worried about AI that the best thing to do is build data centres here seems akin to convincing environmentalists to support nuclear power because it's so safe and green. Necessary, but not easy!
AI is upending the world. The paradox is that to make it safe we - here in the UK - need more of it. More compute and more security. That’s the contribution Britain can make to the Western tech stack, and to the safety and prosperity of our people. dannykruger.substack.com/p/b…
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Fred de Fossard retweeted
“If Andy Burnham wants to stop this crisis he would close the asylum system and automatically detain every illegal entrant to the country before deporting them to their country of origin or a third country, like Rwanda. Nothing else will do.”
✍️ |🦊 |@defossardf
thecritic.co.uk/britains-bor…
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Fred de Fossard retweeted
Magisterial stuff from @defossardf on the need for Immigration reform in @TheCriticMag.
This is a subject that everyone has opinions from, but it is a beautifully structured bit of work and is peppered with 'Oh! Really?!' revelations that you cannot believe you havent heard before.
You'll need to sub to read the full thing, but for a taster (link below)
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Fred de Fossard retweeted
“Far from successfully policing the country’s borders the British state instead appears complicit in the large-scale illegal entry of the country.”
@defossardf on the crisis of legitimacy at the souther border.
thecritic.co.uk/britains-bor…
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This misses the point. Yes, there is a rightward shift in the national capitals of Europe but the EU itself is at its core a progressive, liberal project designed to squash national democracy in the interests of multilateralism. That is why the left will always support rejoining.
The British Left is in a time warp when it comes to Europe. Do they have no idea what’s happening there? Don’t they read the papers? Meloni is PM of Italy. AfD is outpolling CDU and SPD combined in Germany. Le Pen is favourite to be the next president of France. Socialist Sanchez in Spain is finished.
They seem to think the EU we left (for good or ill) in 2016 is the Europe of today. Delusional.
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Fred de Fossard retweeted
This is a truly ridiculous argument for the Ministry of Justice to be making.
If this argument was applied Government wide, no statistic would ever be published.
Let's hope the MoJ lose and are forced to release these statistics.
Labour argues migrant criminals' rights outweigh public interest amid claims of data 'cover-up'
gbnews.com/news/migrant-crim…
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Very good breakdown of the Government's new censorship unit by David Rose from the FSU
‘The academic research shows that these claims…are invariably overblown and exaggerated and used to create arguments for censorship.’
Director of Policy and Research at the Free Speech Union David Rose slams the PM for saying that Russian bots are fighting an ‘information war’.
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Fred de Fossard retweeted
Our vulnerability is compounded by a shortage of middle distillate refining capacity across Europe. From the early 1990s onwards, European & British regulators encouraged a shift toward diesel cars, while disincentivising investment in refining capacity to produce more diesel.
The Prax Lindsey refinery in Lincolnshire closed last August (capacity: 10% of UK diesel market). Grangemouth closed last April (provided 70% of Scotland's fuel). The Government still hasn't made a decision on the Rosebank oil field.
Labour has left Britain vulnerable.
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