Torsten Bell @TorstenBell Twitter profile

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

3 months

You want a manifesto for a better Britain? Phew. This one is out in June

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

3 years

Tomorrow 4.4 million households, with 5.1m adults and 3.5m children, will see their incomes fall by £1,000 overnight. For 1 million households that will mean an immediate loss of over 10% of their income as we take the basic rate of benefits to its lowest level since 1990

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

Any of you earn £1m? You're getting a £55k tax cut next year - twice what a typical earner brings home a year

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

3 years

Out of interest is anyone actually defending the principle of a National Insurance rise that means: - the landlord with hundreds of properties pays exactly zero pence, while workers foot the bill - the 66 year old on £50k pays nothing, the 25 year old on £20k coughs up £100

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

This is by far the worst unforced economic policy error of my lifetime

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

For anyone still thinking we just need to "tough out" this winter because that's what used to happen in the olden times, I have a chart for you

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

4 months

As a young adult in 1997, the most common living arrangement was being in a couple with children. Today the most common is... living with your parents

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

6 months

Gentle reminder you can currently inherit almost 4 average priced homes tax free (£1m value). That’s worth more than an entire lifetime of full-time work on the minimum wage (£917k) which (obviously) we very much do tax

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

You know what's a bigger deal than today's political chaos? The mortgage bill surge that's coming 🧵

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

Currently in Washington so I’m behind the curve on UK news… but if the ‘answers’ being proposed to a massive and immediate energy driven cost of living crisis are long term regulatory reforms of childcare and MOTs then we have lost the plot

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

3 years

We have basically just wasted the summer in Covid policy terms haven’t we?

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

1 year

Sigh. No-one thinks there’s an epidemic of young single professionals going to food banks. There are these things called children which you probably don’t want to bring up in a single room. And obviously lots of people earning far less than £30k

Lee Anderson MP

@LeeAndersonMP_

1 year

Katy works for me. She is single & earns less than 30k, rents a room for £775pcm in Central London, has student debt, £120 a month on travelling to work saves money every month, goes on foreign holidays & does not need to use a foodbank. Katy makes my point really well.

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

We've crunched the numbers on what the new energy price cap in October (average £3,549) and new projections for it to rise to £5,386 in January mean for households overall this winter. It's a total catastrophe.

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

3 months

I really don't understand the level of denialism on the hole the UK finds itself it. GDP is a huge 24% below its pre-fin crisis trend - that's £23,000 per household.

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

1 year

Still staggering that we’ve gone from “it’s time for biggest tax cuts in 50 years” to “inevitably time for the biggest fiscal tightening since 2010”in just a few weeks

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

I really can’t believe this package does next to nothing for those getting hardest hit by rising prices - those who are disabled and not working just got told they are on their own (after losing £1000 income in the Autumn)

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

3 years

A typical 25-year-old will pay an extra £12,600 over their working lives from today's tax rise (and that's just the employee part of it). A retired pensioner (unless they have lots of shares) will pay precisely nothing

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

1 year

Does anyone have any idea what on earth the levelling up cash Rutland and Melton got is actually for? Here's the official spiel on it which is performance art level gibberish

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

6 months

This is absolutely staggering: wages are now set to remain below their 2008 level until 2028. That's a totally unprecedented TWO lost decades of pay growth

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

5 months

I’m sadder than words can say. Alistair Darling was a great man, but never expected to be treated as one. A man who always felt the weight of the huge decisions that public service involves, but was still able to take them - even in the darkest of economic times

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

4 years

This should be front page of every paper tomorrow: almost a million (950,000) new Universal Credit claims between 16th-31st March - we’ve never seen anything like this.

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

The scale of the destruction it is bringing is hard to comprehend: - higher import prices - surging mortgage bills - higher deficits risking big spending cuts to come - pension funds taking big losses on forced asset sales - likely lasting risk premiums for UK firms and govt

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

The world has changed on energy bills so policy will have to too. We can wake up to that reality now or later, but either way we’ll be in a very different phase of this crisis policy wise by Christmas. A thread.

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

This IMF chart is (rightly) getting a lot of attention given the UK figures are truly awful. But why are they so bad? Because this is what happens when you add an energy price surge onto a country with our combination of low growth and high inequality

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

4 years

In the past hundred years no opposition has lost seats after 9 years in opposition. None.

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

6 years

Classic line from a impressively perky Brexit-focused civil servant: "we have at least now reached the kinetic phase of the car crash"

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

3 years

There is no question to which George Galloway is the answer, no community that is strengthened by his presence and no excusing the politics of division

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

3 years

Similar countries can be VERY different. Typical incomes in France and UK are identical BUT top incomes in the UK are 17% higher than in France while incomes at the bottom are 20% lower than in France

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

3 years

Whatever this is, it’s not building back better.

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

Who are these too many people? Where are they? The case load challenges for the benefits system are on the disability side these days. Very few households without someone with a health condition are workless

ITV News Politics

@ITVNewsPolitics

2 years

'There are too many people in this country who are of working age, who are of good health, and who are choosing to rely on benefits' Tory leadership contender Suella Braverman tells ITV News Political Correspondent @carldinnen that the UK spends 'too much on welfare'

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

If we seriously end up cutting benefits to fund tax cuts for the top in the most unequal large country in Europe then we've lost the plot

Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

Increasingly likely benefits won't be keeping pace with prices in April (pensions will be) - pros (for HMT): earnings uprating could save £5bn - cons (for people): costs couple with 2 kids around £500 - cons (for politics): poor suffer for top tax cuts

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

You believing in markets doesn’t mean they believe in you

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

3 years

It's almost like a public service broadcaster is a massive national asset

Scott Bryan

@scottygb

3 years

BREAKING BBC: "The BBC is to deliver the biggest education offer in its history across more of its platforms." From Monday January 11th, CBBC channel will feature three-hours of primary school shows to ensure that all kids can watch programming if they don't have the internet.

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

4 months

Men absolutely love being teenagers. And everyone likes being retired.

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

4 years

It's almost unbelievable how bad today's incomes data is - slightly worried it's going to be lost under the (understandable) virus focus. Poorer families lost 7% of their incomes over the last 2 years - hugely important and hugely grim.

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

3 months

Not one new large reservoir has been built in Britain since 1992, despite the population growing by 10 million people since then. Latest shocking fact courtesy of book writing.

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

Since this row - and arguments like this - are going to dominate the next month, a few facts:

Steven Swinford

@Steven_Swinford

2 years

@MattChorley Truss ally: 'How can it be right that someone who gets up at 6am & works hard all day is seeing their pay go up by 5% or so and someone who is not working and is on benefits gets a 10% rise?' They claim that it will increase incentives for people to get jobs and fill vacancies

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

6 months

The chart I'd be most worried about as a Tory MP? The disaster of what's happened to household incomes: 3.5% fall between the last election and the coming one is the largest reduction in real living standards since ONS records began in the 1950s

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

You know what successful nations do? Build up, rather than run down, the institutions that bind them together

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

3 months

Seriously people - look at what's happening in terms of GDP/capita (which is what ultimately matters for our living standards). This is a proper recession just being hidden by having more people - GDP/capita declined 0.7 per cent in 2023 with falls in every single quarter

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

11 months

Britain underinvests in almost everything. Year after year after year.

Nick Davies

@NJ_Davies

11 months

We have a new report out today by @Samfr & @racheljanetwolf on the hospital productivity puzzle. We identify 3 key reasons: 1) longstanding underinvestment in capital (beds, scanners, buildings) 2) the loss of senior staff 3) chronic undermanagement

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

Stand out feature of Tory leadership race: - all the candidates now say the lack of economic growth over the last 15 years has been a catastrophe (they're right) - no-one yet has said anything about fixing that apart from "cut taxes" (which will have little growth impact)

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

3 months

If we want net zero to happen, and to happen without higher costs, then things are going to have to be built. Things that not everyone loves.

BBC Politics

@BBCPolitics

3 months

“The implementation [of wind farm substations] is destructive” Actor Ralph Fiennes discusses his campaign against plans to install renewable energy substations on greenfield sites #BBCLauraK

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

Two things are pretty clear: -Government wants to cut benefits to help fill big fiscal hole -They can’t win any votes to do so🧵

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

4 months

The idea that Britain’s problem is its economic forecasts, rather than its stagnating economic reality, is bonkers.

The Telegraph

@Telegraph

4 months

💷 Senior Tories warn Hunt that OBR errors may hamper UK’s economic recovery

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

3 years

I didn’t think the government would press ahead with the biggest overnight cut to benefits in history. I was wrong.

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

People need to stop saying “it isn’t that bad, rates went to 15% when I was a lad/lass”. House prices/mortgages were far far lower then - 6% today is going to hurt a lot more than 6% in the 1990s

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

4 years

Current situation: phasing back in restrictions while phasing out the economic support. Not going to fly.

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

This is really not right. The VAST majority of spending cuts required to have debt on a falling trajectory are the result of huge tax cuts being announced, either: - directly (ie they cost £43bn) - indirectly (ie they scared markets who are charging us more to borrow)

(((Dan Hodges)))

@DPJHodges

2 years

The reality is that whoever is in No.10 - Truss, her replacement from the Tory benches, Starmer - is going to have to find significant public spending cuts. And politicians on all sides are going to have to start to acknowledge that.

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

Treasury have for the first time in ages not published a distributional analysis of their policies, which amount to a simply staggering huge tax cut for richer households. Obviously we'll have one out shortly.

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

I think she’s saying we had to have the last month of chaos because Leeds was rubbish in the 80s - but I may have missed something

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

1 month

NEW: Lots of countries have housing challenges so how exceptional is the UK's housing crisis? Very. We pay higher prices to live in smaller, older and poorer-quality homes

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

terrified by how swiftly we’ve gone from “we reluctantly have to cut benefits to pay for our essential tax cuts” to “we actively want to cut benefits to punish the work-shy”

Haggis_UK 🇬🇧 🇪🇺

@Haggis_UK

2 years

Suella Braverman on benefits. " I want to cut welfare spending. We have far too many people in this country who are fit to work, who are able to work... & they choose to top up their salaries with tax credits & the benefit street culture is a feature of modern Britain"

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

Friday's mini-Budget will not be remotely mini - big tax cuts, big tax reforms and big increases in borrowing are coming. @OBR_UK aren't being allowed to publish their forecasts of what that means for the public finances. So we will - keep an eye out on Friday afternoon

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

3 years

BREAKING: Older people are keener to date young people than vice versa

Matt Goodwin

@GoodwinMJ

3 years

💥🇬🇧 New. 👫only 33% Remainers wd date Leaver but 47% Leavers wd date Remainer 👫only 35% of Labour voters wd date a Conservative but 49% of Conservatives would date Labour voter I'm noticing a theme ...🤓🤔 YouGov data, released today

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

You know what Britain needs? Higher growth AND lower inequality. It’s the toxic combination of our growth stagnation and high inequality that makes middle/low income Britain so poor vs equivalents in what we think of as similar countries - time to wake up to how bad it’s got

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

3 years

This is 1) predictable 2) a terrible idea

Harry Cole

@MrHarryCole

3 years

EXCLUSIVE: PM and Chancellor "almost there" on manifesto-busting hike to National Insurance Contributions - of at least 1% - to pay for Social Care blackhole.

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

Yesterday was a very big deal. The UK has taken a sharp turn on economic policy - you’d politely call it unorthodox. But it’s not just Treasury orthodoxy that’s been ripped up, so has Boris Johnson’s conservatism. Here’s where we are 🧵

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

3 months

Are we actually going to end up having gone a full decade with no increase in onshore wind generation in England? Truly, impressively, useless

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

9 months

Pensioner poverty has more than halved from 40 per cent in 1990. Child poverty over that time has doubled.

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

What's the scale of the impact? Those 5m+ mortgagors hit by higher interest rates by Christmas 2024 will pay on average £5,100 more a year. That's over £26 billion overall - an income hit equivalent to a 5p rise in the basic rate of income tax

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

What does an economic disaster look like? This light blue line. In 8 out of the 14 years since 2009 real wages have actually fallen. Next year will almost certainly join that list. This used to basically never happen. Now it's the norm

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

Totally right for @trussliz to say interest rates have been ticking up across advanced economies. That’s a key part of the context that got ignored by those planning the mini-Budget and why it wasn’t the time for just rolling the dice on huge unfunded tax cuts

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

7 months

What's wrong with public investment in the UK? Much more than HS2... There are 4 big problems to understand 🧵

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

1 month

Brexit has mullered UK goods trade: - both imports and exports hit - down not just with the EU but also rest of the world But bigger/wider effects than I'd have expected.

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

People often don't get quite how bad the UK's relative performance has been since the mid-2000s... We think of ourselves as having similar incomes to France/Germany. Because we used to. But German/French typical incomes were 19 and 10 per cent higher respectively by 2018

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

5 months

The problem: our Stagnation Nation in 10 key facts

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

1 year

Economic outlook is better than previously feared - but it's still very bad. What does that mean for humans? This is on course to be the worst parliament on record for living standards. By a country mile.

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

British politics is out of ideas

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

9 months

Gentle reminder that banks can only refuse to let you open a basic bank account if 1) you fail an identity/immigration check or 2) they have reason suspect you of financial crime

Kate Ferguson

@kateferguson4

9 months

EXCL - The law could be changed to give every Brit a legal right to a bank account. Tory big beast David Davis is drafting a Private Members Bill to stop the debanking scourge He writes for The Sun on Sunday about his mission

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

You know what's not a good idea before an energy price crisis? Wasting ten crucial years when we should have been insulating the UK's disastrously energy inefficient housing stock. Not sure a referendum on net zero will sort that

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

1 year

AHHH - the middle class do not have pension pots of £1m... this view is weirdly common amongst very highly paid professionals who spend too much time with other highly paid professionals

Jonathan Purle

@jpurle

1 year

@TorstenBell Well, clobber the middle classes by all means whilst the very rich can continue to afford to “give” away their surplus wealth to private interest foundations based in sunny & warm jurisdictions.

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 months

This is bonkers. New Yorkers, famously pitied by other Americans for their cramped flats, have more floor space than Brits as a whole. The 43m²/capita in NY isn't just way above London's 33m² but exceeds the 40m² UK average. This is what failure looks like

Great Britain?

www.penguin.co.uk

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

1 year

The problem is we speak the same language and watch the same TV. So people often just assume we’re similar to Americans. But we’re not these days. Why? Because they are absolutely minted (technical term for 60% richer than us)

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

The bluntness of the @IMFNews criticism of UK economic policy is nearly as unorthodox as the policy itself - don’t do large untargeted fiscal splurges - don’t increase inequality (calls on govt to reverse the 45p cut) Never read anything like it

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

If the UK had the average income and inequality levels of Australia/Canada/France/Germany/Netherlands typical household incomes would be a THIRD higher - that’s a massive £8,800 per household. Economic failure has a high price

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

Planning on breaking the silence with a major report out tomorrow covering - new analysis of what’s actually happened so far - the first full modelling of the final Brexit deal (TCA) itself in terms of it’s lasting structural effects on the economy

roula khalaf

@khalafroula

2 years

We need to talk about Brexit The deafening silence over Brexit’s economic fallout ⁦ @GeorgeWParker ⁩ And ⁦ @ChrisGiles_ ⁩

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

1 year

Hope everyone enjoyed the recovery. Managing to enter this recession with our economy still smaller than it was pre-pandemic is quite an achievement

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

6 years

The stamp duty cut costs over £900,000 for each additional first time buyer... It would be much cheaper to literally build them a house each.

Sam Coates Sky

@SamCoatesSky

6 years

OBR assumes just 3,500 extra sales as result of Stamp Duty exemption for First Time buyers

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

4 months

The gap between women and men going to university really is huge

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

4 months

In the mid-1960s 12% of what Brits spent (excluding housing) went on alcohol and tobacco. These days it's just 3 per cent.

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

5 years

What Brighton is really lacking is a symbol for the current state of UK politics

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

22 days

Some of the Liz Truss 'discourse' over the last few days is criminally indulgent. Governing isn't a game/political show. A key reason democracies have tended to have faster economic growth is economic accountability; leaders that do a bad economic job pay the (political) price

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

I’ve seen a lot of big fiscal announcements over the years. I’ve never seen one with NO details of paying for it

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

5 months

Britain has seen no wage growth for 15 years - while remaining the most unequal large economy in Europe. This is what stagnation looks like. We need to end it

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

3 months

I see Liz Truss is blaming "the establishment" again. Here's a reminder of how much different people would have gained from her establishment friendly tax cuts: - earning £20k? A grand total of £157/yr for you - bringing home £200k? You'd have got £5,220 - on £1m/yr? £55,220

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

Basically right but list of errors also includes: - no OBR forecast - no attempt to show how it was fiscally sustainable - ignoring context of rates already rising + huge current account deficit - sacking 'orthodox' top official - allowing fiscal 'radicalism' briefing all summer

Andrew Neil

@afneil

2 years

If Truss-Kwarteng had stuck to energy price cap, reversing National Insurance rise + stopping planned rise in corporate tax, adverse market reaction would have been avoided. All widely expected. It was unnecessary cuts in income tax that did it + loose talk of more to come.

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

6 months

Hot take: inflation falls! The human take: prices are up 16% over the past 2 years. Make that 49% for energy and 28% for food.

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

3 months

It’s not ‘Labour’ facing grim choices or being hemmed in - it’s Britain. It’s an important distinction because it’s the substance not the political positioning that is difficult

Jim Pickard 🐋

@PickardJE

3 months

the grim choices facing a Labour government: experts said that if Labour won the general election it have to raise some taxes, boost borrowing, or else embrace the current trajectory of brutal spending cuts pencilled in by chancellor Jeremy Hunt

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

8 months

Quite a lot of this ‘Liz Truss was unlucky rather than wrong’ history rewriting going on - claiming no-one warned a massive fiscal splurge was risky. But they very much were warned - this is from Treasury Select Cmte BEFORE mini-budget

Fraser Nelson

@FraserNelson

8 months

If regulators had seen the Sep22 pensions crisis coming - and Truss had been warned - she would have cancelled the mini-Budget. But no one did see it coming, so it suited a great many people to blame Truss for the whole debacle.

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

19 days

Reforming sick notes is sensible BUT it’s got almost nothing to do with rise in people who are on disability benefits or out of the labour market entirely due to ill health. Remember a sick note signs you off temporarily when you HAVE a job - it doesn’t sign you on to benefits

Natasha Clark

@NatashaC

19 days

DWP boss Mel Stride says 11 million sick notes are issued every year to sign people off work The increased costs going forward are "for these to be skyrocketing in time... we must address it, enough is enough... we will be taking measures to make sure welfare spend is under…

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

4 months

What's changed of course is how long you have to save for

BBC Radio 4 Today

@BBCr4today

4 months

"It's not that difficult to get on the properly ladder." NatWest chair Sir Howard Davies tells @amolrajan people 'have to save and that's the way it always used to be'. Watch the full exchange ⬇️ #R4Today

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

Right - the news here is that u-turn is limited to corporation tax. So over half of tax cuts are still going ahead. What does this mean? £20-40bn of spending cuts still to come

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

Those worried about incentives should also pay attention to some history ie the long term erosion of basic benefit support. In early 80s basic rate of benefits was 25% of average earnings. Now it’s less than 15%. The life of riley is not being lived.

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

6 months

Here's the key "have taxes been cut" chart. Even after today's tax cuts, the tax burden reaches its highest level for 70 years - up by well over £4,000 per household since on pre-pandemic levels

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

Benefit cuts are also on the cards: we should be clear what this means: permanently cutting benefits to fund tax cuts for the top earners in the most unequal large country in Europe.

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

On the “fair to those going out to work” arguments, as ever this ignores the fact that 40% of this on Universal Credit are working

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

Our problem: - Some MPs wont support action until they see hospitals overflowing on TV - the speed of cases growth means if we wait for hospitals to almost hit crisis point before we act it'll be far too late

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

2 years

If you're telling people to avoid hospitality, it doesn't matter if you're not banning them from doing so: restaurants, pubs, bars are going to get stuffed. They'll lose customers and workers will lose their jobs

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

3 months

The IMF have noted the UK’s fiscal fiction. Which tells you how blindingly obvious it is

Robert Peston

@Peston

3 months

This from an IMF spokesperson on Sunak/Hunt plans to cut taxes in the March budget is not helpful to them: “preserving high-quality public services, and undertaking critical public investments to boost growth and achieve the net zero targets, will imply higher spending needs over…

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Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

10 months

Everyone does know that Sadiq Khan isn't going to roll-out ULEZ to the entire country just before a 2024 election right? Just checking for those drawing some rather general lessons from Uxbridge

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