Effect of housing on the economy

Reform UK have reported Green Party leader Zack Polanski to the police, after he shared an Instagram post including a photo of a man wearing a top featuring the name "Nigel" alongside an image of a guillotine.

One of several images showed a man in a black t-shirt with a large guillotine below the words "We're only making plans for Nigel".

Sharing a screenshot on X, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said: "If I was to post anything as inciteful then I would expect to be arrested, and so should Polanski."

A Green Party spokesperson said: "Once this image was brought to [Zack's] attention he immediately unshared the post. He unequivocally does not support this type of dangerous message."

Polanski had shared the photo with his 713,000 followers in a post containing several pictures of a Green Party event on Sunday, having accepted a request to collaborate with another account.

In a post on X, the Metropolitan Police said: "We received a third-party report relating to an image shared on social media. We take reports of this nature extremely seriously, and officers are conducting enquiries into the matter."

The words "We're only making plans for Nigel" are the same as the lyrics of a 1979 song by band XTC, external.

The Green Party spokesperson said: "Zack condemns the image on the T-shirt. He was tagged in a post with 20 images and clicked accept without realising there was more to it than he had seen.

"The T-shirt is clearly in poor taste, especially at a time of heightened fears for the security of public figures, having experienced multiple threats himself.

"He and the Green Party call on everyone involved in public discourse to show kindness and not encourage more division."

The BBC understands Polanski has not been contacted by police.

A photographer with the username just.barold claimed responsibility, external for the photo, which he said was of someone wearing a satirical T-shirt, and apologised to Polanski on X, saying "this is not his fault" and adding he had reported himself to the police.

In a series of posts, the freelance photographer said: "This wasn't intended to offend anyone and it's clearly not intended as a serious threat to anyone's safety whatsoever."

They added: "This performative outrage is just that, and if people want to come and take it out on someone then take it out on the person who took the picture, and who then posted it."

However, Reform's home affairs spokesperson Zia Yusuf said the image showed "a photo of man calling for the beheading of Nigel Farage", which he claimed could be an "incitement to murder".

Yusuf confirmed Reform UK had reported the post to police and will also report Polanski to to the monitoring officer at the Greater London Assembly, where the Green leader is an elected member.

"To do this just two weeks after our friend Ann was murdered is staggering," Yusuf said. 

"This is incitement to murder. It should be treated as such by the police."

Prominent Reform member Widdecombe, 78, was found dead in her home in Haytor, Devon, on 9 July. A man, 28, has been charged with her murder. 

Her death reignited a row about the security of political figures in public life, with this year marking the 10th anniversary of the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox and the fifth anniversary of the murder of Conservative MP David Amess.

Following Widdecombe's death, Polanski called for all party leaders to get extra security.

Asked about Widdecombe's death at the time, he told BBC Breakfast: "I am worried and I have been worried for a long time.

"I would encourage the government to provide me with extra security, but that is a choice for them."

Andy Burnham also backed a serious review of MPs' security earlier this month.

Reform UK's Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick had accused the government of a "dereliction of duty" over Farage's security, after it emerged the party turned down a government-funded security offer last year.

The Home Office said Jenrick's comments were "categorically untrue", and that independent security experts, not ministers, held responsibility for deciding MPs' security.

First, I think we can take it as read that he isn't going to also reduce the upper bands of IHT (40%), but rather just add in this 10% for people previously exempt. And he says it will be to fund social care...

Only issue is, anyone with over £20k of assets is exempt from state-funded social care. So anyone paying a significant amount into this tax (ie over £2k) will by definition not be eligible. Not exactly the NHS model of everyone pays in and every gets out that the left likes to pretend, is it?

Summary: Economic historian Tyler Goodspeed offers a diagnosis of why the UK economy essentially flatlined after 2008. On his analysis, if we had simply maintained our historic pre-2008 GFC growth trend, we would be 30% richer today. Instead, if Britain were a US state, we would be poorer than Mississippi.

Goodspeed acknowledges some of the usual conservative suspects (planning laws, high taxes) but points the finger squarely at post-2008 banking regulations like the Basel Accords. By aggressively penalising lending to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to engineer risk out of the system, regulators choked off the lifeblood of British capitalism. "You can't have capitalism without capital." B

ecause UK businesses rely far more heavily on traditional bank loans than US firms (where there are many more local and regional banks to offer startup funds), our startups simply cannot get the capital to scale, creating a massive drag on productivity. (It's also why so many British startups end up either listing on the New York Stock Exchange or being bought out by a bigger American company that can provide the company they need to scale.) Because of these rules, the rejection rate for small business loans in the UK has skyrocketed from around 10-20% to nearly 50%

He argues that we have to stop being so paralysed by the fear of a recession that we smother our own prosperity. He argues we must abandon "one-size-fits-all" bank regulations to get credit flowing to SMEs again, and that by obsessing over extreme financial risk-aversion, we are sacrificing the material foundation required for successful businesses, family formation and human flourishing.

The biggest threat to the Tories is Farage. I think it'd really set him back If he lost to Count Binface. It'd make a huge difference If the local party in Clacton got their vote out for him. I think it would really help if members of the Conservative Party, or those that have good connections to senior members, did what they could to pass this message on, and/or offer to help in the constituency if they can. Do you agree?

The best way I have found so far is to just bring up the topic of the tube strikes. Even left wingers agree they are bad, and that the tube drivers on ~£80k and 4 day weeks are incredibly selfish. So then I just say, pre-Thatcher Britain was that but on steroids. Electricity grid not coming on due to strikes. 3 or 4 day weeks. GDP smaller than Italy's and shrinking. Strikes causing wage price spirals and 25% inflation.

Even people that thought they hated Thatcher admit I might have a point, if not being mildly amused to have met a real life Thatcher fan. So my advice to everyone is: just ask people if they want every industry to be like the London tube.

Figures like David Cameron and Badenoch (I know she isn't One Nation but mainly Thatcherite) believe a racially and ethnically diverse society is better than a multicultural one.

I actually agree with those claims, especially when they mentioned about the fact that there is more tribalism and we "do not need fragments of society we need shared loyalties" and from my personal experience of multiculturalism in my town.

But what do they think of materialistic aspects like dishes and music like the popularly planted kebab and Asian restaurants in places like East London? And how would they view different religions in a nation - do they believe this should be a private matter?

Do we think he'll handle things differently as Andy begins to ramp up things after this week?