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Andy Cowper

@hpiandycowper.bsky.social

Freelance journalist: writes about health policy and politics of the English NHS in weekly column (£) ‘Cowper’s Cut’ on www.healthpolicyinsight.com.

2077 Posts4636 Follower1507 Folgt
Christian Odendahl@codendahl.bsky.social · 3w ago

My mother -- otherwise very polite and cultured, a Green-voting Christian -- never called the man Schröder. She always said "Schröder that political whore". I was puzzled back then, he was the centre-left, modern, reformist hero of the late 1990s. I was 18. Mothers. Always right.

Yuriy Gorodnichenko@ygorodnichenko.bsky.social · 3w ago

Today, a Russian strike on Pryluky 🇺🇦 killed at least 19 people, incl. 5 children. Same day, in Moscow, ex-🇩🇪 Chancellor Gerhard Schröder told staff of the Russian hypermarket chain whose board he just joined: "I'm very happy to be here... and to meet you, my wonderful colleagues." Moral bankruptcy

Dan Neidle@danneidle.bsky.social · last mo.

Luxury retailers want taxpayers to fund a 20% tax break for foreign tourists. They paid consultancy Cebr to claim this will raise £2.6bn for the UK. That convinced Sadiq Khan and Kemi Badenoch. But it's false: a free lunch. Four basic errors mask a £600m loss. Thread:

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Dan Davies@dsquareddigest.bsky.social · last mo.

Memecoin scam victims are so funny. "I was hoping to profit at someone else's expense - but it seems that someone else has profited at my expense!". Bro, from the point of view of me you are both someone else, this is just "someone else made money out of someone else"

Chris Cook@chriscook.news · last mo.

I think some of the stuff about cryptoassets being used for political donations is a bit muddled: a) there’s no reason a payment in crypto is hard to handle. You can easily make systems that only accept payments *after* a KYC process.

Chris Grey@chrisgrey.bsky.social · last mo.

Very good piece by @josiahmortimer.bsky.social. A couple of things I'd add. One, on the point below, one reason Harborne gave for his £36M donation was "competitive spirit" to match Delo. That aspect of it is pathetic willy-waving: www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/politic... 1/4

Yorkshire-born billionaire Christopher Harborne donates £36m to Reform

Reform UK has received a second £36 million donation from a cryptocurrency billionaire.

yorkshirepost.co.uk

Josiah Mortimer@josiahmortimer.bsky.social · last mo.

It is quite odd that Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne each made £36 million donations to Reform over the weekend. Reform and the mega-donors almost certainly knew this law was coming (they would have to have been studiously ignoring legislation that clearly affected them to have not)

Robert Saunders@robertsaunders.bsky.social · 2mo ago

A serious democratic society simply cannot allow this. That's £72 million from just two men. (Both, until lately, based overseas). The average UK earner (full-time) would have to work for over 1,800 years to raise that much. It's a nuclear strike on any pretence at the equality of political power

Sunder Katwala (sundersays)@sundersays.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Harborne has given Reform £36 million to match Delo's £36 million. The Telegraph describes it as a "show of force" from Reform's donors. The two men's £72 million is greater than all of the spending by all political parties on the 2024 GE www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/202...