Jim Pickard 🐋 Profile picture
Deputy Political Editor, Financial Times: Political Journalism team award 2019 (Corbyn’s Labour) & 2021 (Greensill Capital)
Birger Leth Profile picture 1 subscribed
Oct 5, 2018 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
this is pleasingly nuts ft.com/content/1c748f… some of you won’t remember the time pop group The KLF burned a million quid as “art” and then regretted it somewhat scotsman.com/lifestyle/cult…
Sep 23, 2018 • 15 tweets • 4 min read
Big Labour policy announcement coming up any second now, hold on tight..... Every large British company would be forced to hand over 10 per cent of its equity to workers within a decade under Labour plans branded “draconian” by one business group.....
Sep 22, 2018 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Breaking: A total of 86% of Labour members support a People’s Vote on the outcome of the Brexit negotiations with just 8% remaining opposed, according to a YouGov poll published at the start of the party conference in Liverpool. Poll of 1,054 Labour members found:

78 to 3% thought Brexit will make it harder rather than easier to end austerity.

88 to 1% thought Brexit will weaken rather than strengthen workers’ rights.

87 to 2% thought Brexit will weaken rather than strengthen environmental protection.
Aug 26, 2018 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
the sunny uplands sound great Lav.EU
Aug 23, 2018 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
goodbye European red tape, hello British red tape technically what’s happening is that we are keeping the red tape that business hates (employment, environmental regulations) and bringing in a load of fresh red tape to deal with our former EU partners
Aug 23, 2018 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
sticking journalists in a room with about 150 pages of technical Brexit jargon with only an hour to read and file it..it’s almost as if Dexeu doesn’t want much scrutiny of its no-deal plans here's how it worked: reporters were let in at 9.30 and given papers around 9.35, then told that they had to leave the room at 10.30 to go watch Raab speech, leaving papers behind: officials have relented and let journalists take the documents with them, but even so...
Aug 22, 2018 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
buried in the Electoral Commission figures is fact that Tory party's income from membership has slumped from ÂŁ1.46m to ÂŁ835,000 in a year, for some reason.....compares to Labour getting ÂŁ16m from membership subscriptions, up from ÂŁ14m the previous year so has Tory party membership fallen by 43 per cent in 12 months? "I can't give you an answer to that right now," says press office.
Aug 19, 2018 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
this will secure the elusive youth vote
Jul 24, 2018 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Raab has just confirmed that there will have to be food stockpiling for a hard Brexit, although he emphasises it would mainly be done by industry rather than government this is a hitherto not well-understood element of no-deal contingency planning - the onus would be to a large degree on pharma companies, petrol distributors and food suppliers to keep goods flowing
Jul 17, 2018 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
A reminder of some of the senior establishment figures who sat on the campaign committee of Vote Leave, which has just been fined by the Electoral Commission:

Liam Fox
Iain Duncan Smith
Dominic Raab
Michael Gove
Boris Johnson
Steve Baker
Chris Grayling
Priti Patel
Lord Lawson The Electoral Commission has asked the government for the ability to issue much more onerous fines...let’s see if they get it....
Jul 15, 2018 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
this is up there with Frost/Nixon it’s not clear that the current US president knows the difference between England and the United Kingdom
Jul 13, 2018 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
one day I’ll explain the geographical reasons why the UK sells more stuff to Ireland and Belgium than Outer Mongolia or New Zealand regardless of British Sea Power
Jul 10, 2018 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Max Hastings, former boss of Boris, writes that it is a “common mistake to suppose Johnson a nice man” “Blackadder in a blond wig” is going to stick
Jul 8, 2018 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
chucking out the PM and holding a three-month leadership contest during final crucial negotiations with Brussels would certainly cap the carnival of chaos it’s like some weird performance art where no one knows what’s going on including the actors
Jul 8, 2018 • 17 tweets • 4 min read
am told cabinet ministers at Chequers were presented with three alternatives to May’s favoured “turd way”, all toxic:

1) EEA-plus: intolerable for Eurosceptics

2) No deal: intolerable for Hammond, Clark etc

3) Barnier proposal with border in Irish Sea: DUP would explode analogy: displaying three alternative political dog turds before serving up political dog food
Jul 6, 2018 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Chequers latest:

Am told that Andrea Leadsom and Esther McVey grumbled about the Brexit offering....but Boris was very quiet and Gove enthusiastic while Fox and Grayling (who’s doing Today tomorrow) were on good behaviour: some Tory Eurosceptics annoyed that no one resigned.... Indeed apparently Boris gave a mini speech at dinner supporting the deal, some colleagues found it “moving” apparently, that bit may or may not be sarcastic
Jul 5, 2018 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
shooting Abraham Lincoln in the head was quite insulting back in 1865, tbf and who could forget the *disrespectful* assassination of William McKinley in 1901
Jul 5, 2018 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Breaking in the @ft: 46 Tory MPs including 11 former cabinet ministers have written to Theresa May urging her to listen to business ahead of the Chequers meeting ft.com/content/07cfc4… here I can reveal the letter
Jul 4, 2018 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Breaking: Corbyn calling for a one-off bank holiday for entire UK if England wins the World Cup... our 17-year old work experience girl asked Labour's spokesman if the same would apply if England wins the women's world cup (next year), the answer is less clear on that front
Jul 3, 2018 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
continued regulatory alignment phytosanitary border controls
Jun 30, 2018 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
this is getting interesting: petition for 2nd referendum is getting closer to the 4,000-ish signatures needed to spark a vote of entire @PeoplesMomentum membership here’s the petition, don’t bother signing it if you don’t belong to Momentum as they have verification procedures in place actionnetwork.org/petitions/stop…