IMHO, an under-discussed electoral factor: plenty of voters think “governments could solve the big problems but don’t want to.” People who don’t feel particularly strongly about immigration believe others DO, & that governments arrogantly ignore them. See Remain voters voting to ‘get Brexit done.’

The view that elected politicians are “all in it for themselves“ and generally untrustworthy has done more harm to the liberal left than almost any other argument. It’s also one that is happily amplified by the liberal left.

Difficult to state too highly how dumb this kind of free lunch populism is. From Reform, this suggested subsidising of burning fossil fuels would be shameful pandering. From the Greens?

The campaign to degrade, demotivate and demoralise MPs while allowing every rival of theirs every latitude continues apace.

There are no pro-Representative Democracy arguments that don’t make you look out of touch, and yet the quality and legitimacy of Representative Democracy falls every time MPs lose another prerogative. And high quality high legitimacy Representative Democracy is enormously valuable.

A superb early summertime blast: youtu.be/Ro8K8qDsYTs?...

“The EU’s biggest failing is that it didn’t develop its own distinct approach to monopolies: discuss.”

I'm in @theobserveruk.bsky.social today looking at why so many unis are in financial trouble and what the government needs to do to save HE. observer.co.uk/news/columni...

A teacher with an ‘obvious enthusiasm’ for any subject is a very under-rated thing, isn’t it?

If last week’s Rochdale / York saga wasn’t bizarrely exciting, today’s ’York promoted due to a 103rd minute equaliser’ story tops it.

You could have funded USAID and given $30bn of firepower to Ukraine, and not be on the verge of tanking the global economy.

Wondering if there is a better way of signaling a negotiating weakness than this?

Forward guidance www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

If a party talked about "educating the public" today, they'd be monstered as "elitist" and "patronising". The language of education has been replaced with that of consumerism, in which "the customer is always right". The "focus group" has replaced the "pulpit". It's not been a positive change. 2/2

I'm almost never nationalistic or chauvinistic about anything (my ancestry is mostly Irish and a bit Welsh anyway), but if there's one thing I think the English do better than anyone, it's making cheese. And specifically, Cheddar. Everything else is a poor substitute. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Politicians just seem to have given up trying to explain the world as it is to people. It's a huge problem.

Things really aren’t going well for the Russians. If you’re in the market for good news, this is worth a go. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/u...

While I am firm in my belief Starmer should go, and soon, isn’t it weird we’ve got sucked into a side argument over the process for a security clearance for Mandelson, the turning down of which had nothing to do with Epstein? It’s the British political class at its worst, I think.

Organisations need to take their share of responsibility, too.

Ultimately this is a story with a simple cause: the prime minister outsourced his judgement to someone he *really* shouldn’t have, and now he owns the fallout from that, and hard to see how his government gets out from under that one:

Even given what we now know, it’s difficult not to believe that someone with an ounce of political cop-on would have handled it better.

Another ...er... 'outlier' opinion: The devt of Bebop may not be the most far-reaching triumph of the human intellect, but that there is no more intense, impressive combination of human intelligence + education. Particularly because it was largely informal education. www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUpR...

One of my many unpopular views: Party members should have no say in the choice of parliamentary leader. MPs only.

I hope the government are keeping their hands on any of those small boats that they're impounding? We may need them if Brits fancy a holiday abroad this summer.

UK: Urban Swear Map Update! preply.com/en/blog/uk-c... #language #research #swearing #edchat #English #linguistics

This is, indeed, a huge gift from the gods of football. And the underdogs are playing the final game at home 👌

Trump is reported close to a "deal" with himself under which US taxpayers would pay him $10 billion. I served in multiple communist and authoritarian dictatorships, but I never witnessed corruption on this scale or this blatant.

Well that didn't take long.

OK so when I said the Strait of Hormuz was open, I did of course mean it was open for target practice. Surprised that this wasn't obvious, but apparently some of you didn't get it

If I were a government minister and I had a magic wand, I think 'make people more aware of pensions and how they work' is the thing that solves so many political problems.

Reposting AND quote-posting this with an added 👏👏👏

Please, Starmer is nothing like a Bond villain. They always have a very clear plan which they enjoy explaining at length.

Disgraceful. Nobody should travel to the USA.

Like a good muscular liberal I try very hard to give clerical autocrats less credence than even the shittest democracy, but the Iranians had a point when they said they had no faith in Trump’s willingness to stick to what he had agreed.

Negotiations are a challenge when it's not clear whose speaking for either side and when everyone involved is an unreliable narrator.

I am somewhat confused by Ciarran Martin's interview on #BBCWATO earlier. This may be down to my misunderstanding. Is it the case that Robbins was sacked for not disclosing something he shouldn’t have disclosed anyway? If so....

This covers a *lot* of ground 👇👇👇- essential reading as always

Trying to explain St Augustine to the pope, the former head of the Augustinian order, who wrote his doctoral thesis on Augustine, on his way back from celebrating mass at the Basilica of St Augustine in Annaba, Algeria, overlooking the site where Augustine lived is peak Adult Catholic Convert.

Spoilsport.

This is almost impossible to believe.

The ‘Orban’s defeat marks a turn of the tide’ view is *very* optimistic imho. Specific crude-populists are a symptom, not the illness itself.

Last July I had to write to HMRC for some info that *should* be easily available to me (I wanted to know how much personal pension they *think* I've paid into). The reply arrived today. Three trimesters later.

Pitch: a version of BBCQT where you get buzzed out of the room if you argue for… a) cutting public expenditure by ‘finding efficiency savings’ instead of cutting actual services b) increasing taxes by closing loopholes and not by getting everyone to pay a bit more.

I’d bet decent money that the cost of 30 minutes of a contractor’s time and some materials was materially lower than the total cost of the staff time at 7 organisations over five years saying this was not their problem.

The point made by @samfr.bsky.social need to campaign around it, doesn’t it? Our problem isn’t that the supply side the government is broken – it’s the nature of demand. We need to campaign against the electorate.

Was very excited to find this in the secondhand racks about a year after it came out. Was less excited to find that, when I got it home, the sleeve contained a recent re-pressing of Twist and Shout by The Beatles.

It’s somewhat surprising and rather irritating how few decent comprehensive studies of income inequality over time in the UK there are. We are all arguing on the basis of really not very substantial evidence.

I… er……

You are probably spelling the prime minister's name wrong. Let AI correct you:

Watching Budapest fall in 2026 is for national conservatives what watching Budapest fall in 1956 was for reform communists.