Head of Policy @e_nation | Helping UK small businesses get heard in Whitehall | Former @CBItweets & @LondonAssembly | *Reposts do not = endorsement*
Joined August 2019
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Daniel Woolf retweeted
NEW headline voting intention from Ipsos
📊Labour on 32% with a lead of +8 – the largest Labour lead Ipsos have recorded this parliament
📊Conservatives take second place the first time since June 2025
📊Reform UK down 3 points and Greens down 5
Daniel Woolf retweeted
Meet Dessa, our speech model trained from scratch on human conversation.
Hear it for yourself: block.xyz/dessa
Daniel Woolf retweeted
We believe voice is the most natural way to interact with intelligence, so we created Dessa, the most authentic full-duplex speech model ever built. Talking with it feels like talking with a person…full of emotion, nuance, pauses, and a natural cadence.
block.xyz/dessa
Daniel Woolf retweeted
EXCLUSIVE:
Andy Burnham must “take the knife” to public spending in the budget or risk a Liz Truss-style crisis that will “crater” the economy and the government’s popularity, an ally of the prime minister has warned
Andy Haldane, a former chief economist at the Bank of England, said he feared the government would deliver a “mañana budget” that deferred the difficult decisions on public spending and “doesn’t speak to the urgency of now”
In an interview with The Times, he said that Britain was “close to being taxed out and maxed out in terms of borrowing”. He spoke of concerns that the government was failing to grasp how “precarious” the fiscal position was
He said that the government needs to cut the size of the state and reduce taxes if it were to “unleash the animal spirits and generate growth”
Haldane warned Burnham that he cannot “vibe-code” his way to growth, and raised concerns about the gap between the government’s rhetoric and the reality. He said that the government was effectively deferring the “day of reckoning”
He also said that the decision to increase taxes on banks could show that the government lacked the courage to cut public spending. He said the move was “penny wise, pound foolish” and sent a broader economic message that if businesses make profits “the taxman cometh”
Haldane said that while Burnham had the potential to be a “great prime minister” who could serve two terms, the economy was his “blind spot”. He said that the fiscal situation facing Britain was “precarious”
“The penny has not yet fully dropped, including in Downing Street,” he said. “You see that in us having the highest borrowing costs in the G7, despite not having the highest debts and deficits.
“It’s the old Hemingway [Ernest Hemingway, the author] thing, isn’t it? How do you go bankrupt? First slowly, then very quickly. The biggest risk to Andy not transforming Britain, to not serving two terms, to not being seen in the history books as a great prime minister, is not political risk.
“It’s not those who sit behind him. It’s probably not even those who sit opposite him in Westminster. Keir [Starmer] lost the dressing room. Andy’s biggest risk is that he loses the dealing room. And then that’s an even more painful way to go, as Liz Truss would tell you.”
Andy Haldane: PM risks Truss-style crisis if he dodges tough choices
thetimes.com/article/9b12c00…
Daniel Woolf retweeted
🚨 BREAKING: John Healey will announce at the Budget that HMRC will be given powers to seize money directly from the bank accounts of people who fail to pay their tax
Daniel Woolf retweeted
Exclusive:
Benefit claimants will be given advice on how to set up their own businesses, turning side hustles into full-time work.
A pilot scheme starting next year will give young entrepreneurs advice on setting up a business bank account, registering for VAT and putting together a business plan
Pat McFadden tells @Telegraph that young people want to “do their own thing” and that new businesses are one way of tackling the NEETs crisis.
telegraph.co.uk/politics/202…
Daniel Woolf retweeted
If you need to see how far the left has fallen into a sewer of antisemitism, just look how they react towards a report written on the antisemitism Jewish schoolchildren experience in British schools.
An appalling disgrace that no other community would be expected to tolerate.
Daniel Woolf retweeted
GOLDMAN SACHS: AI COULD TEMPORARILY DISPLACE 9% OF WORKERS
Goldman Sachs estimates that a 15% productivity boost from AI could temporarily displace around 9% of workers during the transition.
Historical research shows every 1% productivity gain from technology raises unemployment by 0.3–0.4 percentage points, with effects typically fading within two years.
Occupations heavily disrupted by technology have historically lost 25% of jobs within five years.
Goldman warns AI-related layoffs could accelerate during economic downturns, amplifying labor-market weakness.
Daniel Woolf retweeted
NEW
Britain’s missing sovereign wealth fund… Treasury officials have modelled that had the UK done what Norway did with North Sea revenues, there would be a £1 trillion fund…
As Chancellor sets up Energy Wealth Fund, a look at the long historical argument about where the oil windfall went, including from interviews with those who have run Norways $2.4 trillion fund, now the biggest in the world, filled from the proceeds of the same North Sea.
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm4g…
Daniel Woolf retweeted
🚨 NEW: The Government has accepted all 27 recommendations from the report to end antisemitism in schools and colleges
1. Recognise antisemitism as a distinct form of hatred, not just general racism
2. Strengthen political impartiality guidance, including limits on teachers wearing pro-Palestine badges
3. Establish a national hotline for school leaders dealing with antisemitism
4. Improve teaching about contemporary antisemitism and modern Jewish life
5. Teach pupils to recognise and challenge antisemitic conspiracy theories
6. Include antisemitism explicitly in school safeguarding policies
7. Train teachers to recognise and tackle antisemitism
8. Work with the Home Office and the Prevent programme to help schools identify when antisemitism may be linked to radicalisation
9. Encourage schools to adopt the IHRA working definition of antisemitism
10. Improve procedures for reporting antisemitic incidents, including signposting
11. Ensure antisemitic bullying and complaints are investigated and acted on consistently
12. Make clear in staff conduct policies that antisemitism is unacceptable
13. Strengthen Holocaust education, including antisemitism's role in the Holocaust, and encourage schools to mark Holocaust Memorial Day
14. Create more opportunities for pupils to engage with Jewish communities, including visits to synagogues
15. Make sure Judaism and modern Jewish life are properly represented in religious education
16. Improve media literacy so pupils can also identify online antisemitism
17. Provide better resources for teaching the Israel-Palestine conflict fairly and sensitively
18. Ensure schools have clear policies for dealing with antisemitism involving external speakers
19. Ensure education unions have clear antisemitism policies
20. Establish a dedicated support service to help schools, colleges and councils deal with antisemitism
21. Use some of the Government's security funding to help Jewish schools and colleges undertake educational visits safely
22. Run a campaign to tackle antisemitic behaviour at transport hubs near Jewish schools and colleges
23. Provide Jewish school and college leaders with mentoring and more security advice
24. Strengthen accountability for schools that fail to deal properly with antisemitism
25. Enable Ofsted and the Independent Schools Inspectorate to assess how schools tackle antisemitism
26. Make local councils identify local patterns of antisemitism and help schools respond
27. Share effective practice and guidance between schools and colleges
Daniel Woolf retweeted
Energy Secretary @Miatsf has agreed that the regulator can grant consent for gas to be produced at the licensed Jackdaw field.
Gas from Jackdaw is expected to start reaching British homes and businesses as early as the end of this month.
ALT Jackdaw gas field gets green light to begin production
Daniel Woolf retweeted
🚨BREAKING: The Labour government has officially approved the Jackdaw gasfield in the North Sea
Daniel Woolf retweeted
BREAKING: A landmark government report is set to reveal the vast scale of antisemitism in English schools and colleges, Sky News can exclusively reveal.
The report, written by former schools inspector Sir David Bell, will on Wednesday set out 27 recommendations to create change.
Daniel Woolf retweeted
So much of our electricity supply is now based on fixed price assets: wind, nuclear and solar electricity that have low running costs but high set-up costs, and the electricity grid itself.
This means that new demand can lower prices by spreading these costs out among more buyers, and data centres can lower electricity costs (and, empirically, are lowering them). I've even had conversations with eminent economists who find this counterintuitive, so it is not surprising that policymakers and the public may also feel sceptical.
How building data centres could cut Britain's sky-high electricity bills by billions:
- Failing electricity use has made electricity more expensive as a fixed costs of supplying power (grid, policy, balancing, etc.) are concentrated on a small share of demand.
- New demand from data centres helps dilute those fixed costs. This could save £2bn a year (£69 per year) if the Government's compute target is hit.
- Data centres are extremely profitable, even at high power prices. They care about speed, but the grid queue can create decade-long delays. Letting companies pay to jump the queue could raise billions.
- Britain could replicate the success of spectrum auctions and sell-off faster grid connections. Accelerating 3GW by 3 years is potentially worth £12bn to data centre builders!
- In the US, tech companies are making large investments in new generation (SMRs, gas, renewables) as states adopt 'bring your own power' policies. Doing the same here could accelerate clean power buildout and fund necessary gas plant renewals.
samdumitriu.com/p/build-the-…
Daniel Woolf retweeted
UK wage inflation (quarter to Aug '26):
Regular pay +3.7% y-o-y (previous 3.5%); +0.8% in real terms (using CPI)
Pay w bonuses +3.7% y-o-y (previous 3.9%); +0.9% real
Public sector 6.3% (6.3%); private 3.0% (2.9%) (both ex-bonus; 6.3% vs 3.1% inc bonus)
Daniel Woolf retweeted
🚨 NEW: John Healey has ruled out raising capital gains tax in the Budget over fears that rich people will leave the UK
[@thetimes]
Daniel Woolf retweeted
Billions of pounds lost on a single project because we can’t connect it to the grid for half a decade and have destroyed our capacity to generate reliable electricity.
Exclusive: Microsoft cancels UK data centre deal with Nscale. Comes just as Nscale hopes to pull off a $35 billion IPO telegraph.co.uk/business/202…
Daniel Woolf retweeted
EXCL: John Healey poised to tax Britain’s banks in his 28 October budget to help offset the damage inflicted on the public finances by war in the Middle East, the Guardian understands.
The chancellor is in Bangkok, where the IMF has praised the UK’s progress towards balancing the books, urging him to “stay the course”.
To keep the Treasury’s deficit reduction plans on track in the face of rising government borrowing costs, Healey is understood to have decided to tap the financial sector for additional revenue.
One option understood to be under discussion – reversing cuts to the bank surcharge made by Jeremy Hunt – would raise upwards of £2bn a year.
Lenders have logged strong earnings on back of rising interest rates, with UK’s four largest lenders – HSBC, NatWest, Barclays and Lloyds Banking Group – alone having generated £200bn in pre-tax profits over past five years.
More from economics editor Heather Stewart, @jessicaelgot & Kayleena Markoff 👇
theguardian.com/uk-news/2026…
Daniel Woolf retweeted
The latest IMF summary of the UK outlook moves GDP growth around between 2026 and 2027 after impressive resilience in H1. For me two things stood out - both related - on the fiscal side.
Firstly, and widely under-appreciated by the commentariat, is how the UK has the most aggressive deficit reduction plan of any G7 economy. Whilst there are plenty of examples of inefficient public spending, the overall profile is more disciplined than developed economy peers.
Secondly, the warning to “stay the course” is code for doubts over the credibility of some of the govt spending restraint pencilled in (but not allocated) at the end of the Parliament given increased defence spending demands. Those decisions tee up a very tough spending review in 2027 particularly for public sector pay - and the potential for backsliding - at next year’s SR.
The govt will hope something turns up over the next six months in the Gulf, and/or global credit markets to make these allocative jobs easier. But Hope is not a (great) strategy.
Overall govt will be happy with how the IMF framed the update but fiscal storm clouds loom for next year.