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Robert Colvile

@rcolvile65k followers

Former boss of @CPSThinkTank and @CapX, Sunday columnist for @thetimes, author of 'The Great Acceleration'. Politics, policy and parenting.

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Oct 17
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Posts 96 posts
#DatePost↓ OutlierViewsLikesRepostsBookmarks
1Dec 31, '23Absolutely peak Telegraph content, no notes61.4×1.1M9.4k568277
2Oct 4, '24I'm sorry, £200k to run the entire Civil Service?60.1×1.1M4.1k110275
3Sep 16, '25GDP up: 1.2% Triple lock up: 4.7% Someone help me budget this my public finances are dying.38.2×715k6.2k572308
4Jun 17, '25That he has basic manners?31.8×596k16k370102
5Jul 5, '24US: Stop the steal! March on the capitol! UK: Thank you to all my fellow candidates for the civilised fashion in which we fought the election, and to everyone here at Borsetshire L29.9×560k13k763378
6Jan 19, '25The triple lock is a wasteful, unfair and outdated policy. So why the hysteria when politicians even gesture towards questioning it? Thread, with charts and data and stuff. (1/?)24.4×458k1.6k181434
7Oct 24, '23Another classic from the Civil Service job board. Would you like to lead trade negotiations between Switzerland and the UK? Do you have an expert knowledge of global trade and dipl24.4×457k1.5k13187
8Dec 12, '23Others have made this point but QALYs (which the QC gets wrong) are literally how you measure the merit of all public health interventions, whether to approve certain drugs etc. Th23.1×432k1.4k25883
9Aug 10, '25The problem isn’t that the Chancellor is going to raise taxes. It’s that unless something drastic changes, she and her successors are going to have to do it again, and again, and a22.6×423k2.8k443428
10Jan 27, '25I know this is not a new point but the distribution of bank holidays in this country is insane.19.6×367k5.3k13575
11Jun 7, '24It's easy for the SNP to be incredibly pro-migration because migrants don't really want to go to Scotland.19.3×362k1.4k9150
12Mar 13, '25It's very weird watching Labour just actually do so many of the things Tories whined privately that they couldn't.17.6×329k4.4k279171
13Sep 5, '24As the GB Energy Bill passes second reading, a quick reminder of how incredibly dodgy the maths behind Labour's energy policies is. (1/?)14.5×271k2.1k586265
14Jul 29, '24The Winter Fuel Payment is a classic example of the public spending ratchet. A Gordon Brown bung to *all pensioners* that became seen as a god-given right, even as pensioners stead14.2×267k2.8k18577
15Jan 18, '25Hey remember how only 0.3% of non-doms were going to leave and it was going to raise loads of money?12.3×230k3.3k588113
16Jul 8, '25The @OBR_UK's new fiscal risks report, published today, is the most polite, spreadsheet-filled horror story you will ever read. It is the bureaucratic, non-partisan equivalent of g11.5×216k1.7k501395
17Apr 4, '25Why is the BBC using 'reverts' rather than 'converts' here? I know the theological concept involved is that everyone is born Muslim, but they wouldn't use 'apostates' or 'heretics'11.3×212k6k359247
18Mar 19, '25We did a whole paper on this. The govt’s definition of ‘welfare fraud’ is people actively defrauding the state by making false claims. The public’s definition is ‘people claiming b11.3×212k2.6k236212
19Dec 2, '23Decided to look up which sinister multinational actually owns Yorkshire Tea. Turns out, Taylors of Harrogate was bought up back in 1962. By, er, the company that runs Bettys tea ro11.3×211k1.3k11168
20Aug 18, '24A reader gets in touch to point out that the £2.6 trillion liability for public sector pensions, cited in my column, comes to almost £40k for every man, woman and child in the coun11.1×209k1.4k260120
21Sep 20, '19Today is climate strike day. Millions of people across the world, according to the organisers, will be marching to save the planet. But having dug into what they're actually marchi11×06.9k3.4k948
22Sep 27, '25This really is jaw-dropping (via @NeilDotObrien)10.0×187k5k992478
23Mar 29, '25Being anti-Heathrow but pro-Mirpur is quite the flex.9.3×174k7.4k388109
24Jul 26, '25I see that while I’ve been on holiday everyone has realised the Online Safety Act is an absolute shitshow.9.1×171k2.7k16567
25May 2, '24This is going to sound colossally nerdy, but the act of voting in the UK is really rather wonderful. Polite, civic, slightly shabby. Pencils and paper, a few student volunteers, th8.9×167k1.5k9344
26Dec 4, '19I have now been sent the Labour dossier on their claim to save the average household £6,700. Even by the standards of modern politics, it is impossible to stress how bloody shoddy 8.8×06.2k3.3k202
27Nov 28, '24Am not the first to say it but the Passport Office has become just incredibly efficient. The Amazon of government.8.8×164k1.7k4980
28Mar 4, '22Still early stages but I think I know who Time’s Person of the Year is going to be. Just a hunch.8.6×013k45640
29Mar 8, '24‘This Budget is very unfair to pensioners, who will merely get an 8.5% rise in the state pension on top of the 10.1% rise last year’ - an actual argument that actual people actuall8.0×150k1.5k15656
30Oct 30, '24Average growth rate over next few years, according to OBR: 1.58%. We are absolutely fucked.7.9×148k1.6k20246
31May 26, '24‘This National Service thing does sound like a good idea,’ says my mum, 85, living up to every demographic cliche.7.6×143k2.4k2824
32Feb 5, '25I hadn't realised this until @johnredwood pointed it out - the UK literally does not recognise the jurisdiction of the ICJ when it comes to Commonwealth countries, ie Mauritius. So7.6×142k2.1k554112
33Mar 26, '25A really easy way for Reeves to save approx £20bn a year would be to politely ask the Bank of England to stop selling the QE bonds at a loss7.6×142k1.6k214144
34Nov 13, '25Never in the history of British politics was so much political capital burned up to so little effect7.3×136k1.8k13055
35Aug 19, '25We looked into this once. We couldn’t find a single country that imposed full CGT on the sale of the family home. Not once. Because everyone, everywhere, bloody hated the idea.7.0×131k1.7k28280
36Aug 20, '25Whatever you think of the Tories, Hunt and Sunak really did make inflation their number one priority and refused to do a lot of stuff that would have made life easier for that reas6.9×128k1.7k204110
37Oct 16, '25It remains an astonishing example of state overreach that Britain has literally outlawed the idea of a landlord and a tenant privately agreeing a rental tenancy of a specific and f6.0×112k1.9k19887
38May 6, '25God, the trouble we cause ourselves by pretending National Insurance is anything other than income tax with a false moustache.5.1×95k2.7k20745
39Nov 10, '24Turns out the whole system needs purging.5.0×93k1.8k8845
40Nov 4, '25Thought this was really interesting from WWF. Can’t remember a charity using a message that things are getting better, thanks to your efforts, vs it’s all going to hell.4.9×91k2.3k16094
41Aug 15, '24This is like that NHS ranking that found it was world-leading except at treating people.4.5×84k1.7k12570
42Jul 31, '25I’m not sure so many politicians have clowned themselves so impressively as over the Online Safety Act, both during the drafting stages and the current row. So many who just very o4.5×83k1.7k20373
43May 30, '24First the Garrick, now the MCC. Poor Stephen seems to have an unfortunate habit of only noticing these institutions are utterly awful after decades of membership4.3×81k1.7k21325
44Jul 19, '25Average of eight 'family members'. One as high as 22. No need to actually be family. Tell me again that the judiciary are simply interpreting existing law, in a way that the people4.2×79k1.6k327122
45Nov 3, '24‘No business can survive Reeves’s 20 per cent tax grab. It will be the death of entrepreneurship.’ James Dyson on how the Budget will kill family businesses.4.2×79k1.6k44330
46Feb 9, '25Britain's recent wave of migration was unprecedented, unplanned and hugely unpopular. But it's not too late to fix at least some of the damage - by reforming rules on leave to rema4.2×78k1.6k175166
47Aug 19, '22I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's4.1×04.7k91160
48Jul 10, '24Yeah but if you look at the Netherlands' vote share4.0×74k1.3k6012
49Dec 23, '20If Bill Gates doesn’t win the Nobel, then there’s no bloody point to it. The work he has funded and co-funded on vaccine prep and deployment alone is going to save millions of live3.7×03.8k31121
50Feb 27, '25I think this may be the weirdest 'like' in the history of this platform.3.7×69k3k104135
51Dec 11, '18Dear London taxi drivers, if you want to win your war with the 21st century, maybe stop using the phrase ‘Oh, you’re paying by card, are you?’ as though you’re being presented with3.6×04.6k6527
52Feb 15, '18THREAD: To put @TheSun front page re Corbyn and the Commies in context, here's a list of things Corbyn has said, done or written re foreign policy (will update as suggestions come 3.5×01.9k1.4k49
53Feb 20, '25Getting rid of the obligation to take a scientific age test on demand was one of the madder things Labour has done, and incredibly hard to explain given their ‘tough on migration’ 3.4×64k1.4k17067
54Jan 23, '25Still can't get over Burnham warning that third runway is a model for 'an ever overheating UK economy'. I'd be absolutely delighted if the economy came even remotely close to overh3.2×60k1.8k12337
55May 16, '25So it wasn't utterly necessary for national security after all?2.9×53k1.8k27144
56Jun 23, '20Maybe the reason why they're still not letting us play cricket is because the disease started in bats.2.8×03.8k4147
57Mar 23, '22The latest housing affordability statistics are out and it is impossible to overstate what a horrifying, generationally traumatising shitshow they are. Here is the situation in 1992.7×02.1k776222
58Feb 16, '21The vaccine passports debate is a perfect illustration of my new working theory: that the most important part of modern government, and its most important limitation, is database m2.7×02.1k596300
59May 6, '22RIP Wandsworth Council, champion of low taxes and ruthless efficiency, 1978-2022. You will be sorely missed, especially when my next council tax bill arrives.2.6×03.3k40514
60Jul 14, '20Find it hard to buy the personal liberty argument re refusing to wear a facemask given that the liberty being infringed is your liberty to infect other people with a potentially fa2.6×03k61417
61Jan 16, '22This will be overshadowed by other events but still important - Bercow to be found guilty of 21 counts of bullying by a parliamentary inquiry. Shame on all those who defended him p2.5×02.6k75022
62Aug 28, '25From the people who brought you ‘a tax on work isn’t a tax on workers’ comes ‘a tax on rent isn’t a tax on renters’2.5×47k1.4k23124
63Nov 18, '21What gives life meaning? Everyone says 'family'. The British are almost the only ones to add 'hobbies'...2.4×01.7k395251
64Feb 6, '25Just seen the Bank of England has halved growth forecast. Who knew massive taxes on business could have negative effects?2.4×45k1.9k30312
65May 4, '20I'm going to go with 'because he sat on the official commission on how we teach and remember the Holocaust, as one of Britain's most eloquent critics of antisemitism'2.4×03k44718
66Nov 18, '18At this time of turmoil for our nation, what a relief to have the magnificent clarity offered by Jeremy Corbyn. Hasn't read the withdrawal agreement, not sure how he'd vote in anot2.3×02.3k7634
67Jun 10, '20I can’t believe this has to be said, but here we go. In 2013, @jk_rowling published her first book as Robert Galbraith. In 2016, I published this on Robert Galbraith Heath, a US ps2.3×01.8k404464
68Jul 7, '22Whatever else you think of him, Boris is a historic figure. Changed the course of the nation in both 2016 and 2019. (And the memory of that election night and the destruction of Co2.2×02.6k2886
69Nov 17, '22£300 extra for pensioner households - why? Many pensioners are extremely wealthy. Why not means-test it? (Why not means-test all pensioner benefits?)2.2×01.7k14716
70Jan 12, '22Even by the @nytimes's standards, this is extraordinary. Basically accusing Johnson of being Putin/Erdogan, on the front page of its international edition.2.1×01.6k547145
71Feb 3, '20A point Boris keeps hammering away at. The EU wouldn’t accept having to follow our standards in order to trade with us, so why should we accept the reverse?2.1×01.9k3535
72Jan 20, '18The NHS is 70 years old. The Tories have been running the country for 43 of those years. If they've got a secret plan to privatise it, it's not a very good one.1.9×01.6k7401
73Sep 7, '22I've said again and again that solar and onshore wind are massively popular, and it's baffling that the govt thinks there's a great Nimby backlash waiting. Now, new polling from @S1.9×01.7k59040
74Mar 9, '20Things that don’t get you expelled from the Labour Party: hosting IRA, Hamas, Hezbollah in parliament; sharing platforms with antisemites; picketing trial of Brighton Bomber; etc e1.9×02k5618
75Feb 21, '22It's been eight years since Putin last decided he could just grab bits of Ukraine at will. Utterly bizarre that Germany in particular was perfectly happy to increase its energy dep1.8×02.3k3567
76Nov 4, '19I bloody love BBC Parliament. 'If a new Speaker is chosen and then doesn't get elected, would they be the shortest-serving ever?' 'Well there was a guy who was chosen and then the 1.8×02.1k47622
77Oct 27, '22This is just very weird. There hasn’t been a racist backlash against Sunak. And if the Brits were worried about women being in a position of power they got it out of their system a1.8×02.3k22864
78Nov 23, '19Some non-election news. In July, I lost my wife Andrea to liver disease. She was the kindest, cleverest, most brilliant person I ever knew. Today would have been her 41st birthday.1.7×02.4k19111
80Jun 26, '21Whatever else you say about @MattHancock, he was one of the key voices pushing vaccines as the way out of this at a time when that was very far from the consensus. He can be extrem1.7×01.4k1165
81Aug 23, '21From a friend flying in from the US: ‘If I get COVID, it's going to be from this mess of an immigration line in Heathrow I've been in over an hour now. Everyone packed together. Lo1.6×01.5k48310
82Apr 29, '17I failed to headline my tweet about this 'Orange is the New Blackmail' and therefore I hereby resign from journalism1.6×01.9k4300
83Dec 4, '19Labour says it will save every family £6,700 a year by giving them free stuff. There are 19.1 million families in Britain. That's £128 billion of free stuff. Labour are promising t1.6×01.4k5657
85Jul 11, '17Ouch. @Peston asks May whether her own recent experiences have made her more sympathetic to those in insecure employment.1.4×01.3k5040
86Mar 16, '20Demand one: listen to medical and epidemiological experts not online activists. Demands two-five: see demand one.1.4×01.8k2640
87Jan 3, '21Question for the conspiracy theorists: what in anything the government has said or done has given you the impression that it has the capability, let alone the desire, to pull off y1.4×01.3k19427
88Aug 25, '20Think it’s time for all of us - even those like me who muttered about deadweight cost - to accept that Eat Out to Help Out was a great idea from @RishiSunak. Stimulated hospitality1.3×01.8k16811
91Jul 13, '22This part, Nadine.1.2×01.5k26415
92Mar 23, '20Counterintuitive tweet which will get no numbers at all: I went to Tesco. They had a wide range of produce in stock bar a few obvious essentials. (Loo roll, eggs, hand gel etc.) Ev1.2×01.6k1717
93Dec 24, '20Hearing the breakthrough in the talks came at 3.36am when David Frost threw up his hands and said: ‘You know what? It’s only fucking mackerel.’1.2×01.7k13712
94Jan 6, '21Fox News saying this is the first time anything like this has happened since the British burned down the Capitol in 1814. Nice to get a mention I guess.1.0×01.5k1455
95Aug 30, '22Getting a tiny, tiny fraction in my mentions of what @jk_rowling goes through (after she replied to an old tweet of mine defending her choice of soubriquet) and my god how is she s1.0×01.5k958
96Mar 24, '20Wow! Just got an email from the govt. Apparently I’ve been selected for isolation at an exclusive five-star spa-bunker, since my superior genetic stock will be needed to repopulate1.0×01.4k1542
97Nov 23, '21Today would have been my wife's birthday, which made it all more surprising/utterly unexpected for this to happen last night during what I thought would be a speech to @CPSThinkTan1.0×01.3k14815
98May 6, '21Voted and vaccinated within half an hour. Not such a bad country, this.1.0×01.4k904
99May 30, '22Congratulations to @BootstrapCook on getting her own @ONS index - food inflation on the lowest-cost items in supermarkets...1.0×01.2k21524
100Sep 10, '22Sorry kids, you’ll have to fend for yourselves today, Daddy’s just sitting on Twitter watching Putin have the worst day of his life.0.9×01.4k696

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