hey man, am i good to bring my buddy Senior Labour Source to the pub later? he's a total sociopath and he will 100% brief against you in The Times but he's actually pretty sound once you get to know him

hello darkness my old friend

think often of how david mamet said there were 4 perfect films and one of them is galaxy quest

I didn't come to the UK until I was 19 so lots of things to do with childhood (which is, I think, where a lot of mass culture happens) pass me by. But the other day in the park I saw a gore covered seagull eat a pigeon's entire head and it made me feel proud to live in Sadiq Khan's London.

So I wrote about it again lads. See what you think. It's just my view of the Britain I think exists. Would love to know yours, and what you think our v specific silly British things are – because there were simply too many good ones to list www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

developing views

this is why i affirmatively believe it is dangerous to indulge it even one iota. someone who has moved to a city five seconds ago now enjoys the same total right of access everyone in it always did

🧵 Progressives need to think much more ambitiously about citizenship: it can't only be a debate about the "who" - the boundaries of citizenship. Our new @ippr.org report today makes the case for a new politics of "democratic citizenship": www.ippr.org/articles/the...

when an ageing former triphop musician is elected mayor of bristol, he is confronted by the perils of the council committee system, hauntology of bansky and is pushed into a faustian pact of a market led urban regeneration scheme

they should make it so if you try to use these glasses your head explodes like in that one movie

Last month, @persuasionuk.bsky.social's work on what messages have cut through against Reform featured in @samfr.bsky.social's substack. The td;lr is that being seen as personally enriching, or generally not on the side of ordinary people, hurts the brand.

Why should the Burnham government prioritise targeted grid upgrades in its first 100 days? How would this save consumers money, revitalise our industries and lead to new and innovative growth? And what are constraint costs anyhow? 👇

Man got Chotiner’d without even agreeing to an interview. Astounding

god save the king is a dirge. amhran na bhfiann is mid. ultimately all cower and pale before the marseilles

Think we have the verdict on whether the party being run by its organiser class is good now tbh. labourlist.org/2024/10/gove...

I do think this piece is vindicated as a political strategy. That said it also covers the dangers of an approach that optimises only for partisanship. Partisanship can help you shift the distribution in your favour. But policy as fan service will blow up if you’re not strategic on where to use it

What might a ‘cost of living populism’ look like & how would it do electorally for Labour/Burnham? Some new research via @persuasionuk.bsky.social TL;DR such a platform boosts Lab’s vote share by 15ppt (!) to 34% in our MRP experiment. This & anti-Reform squeeze is prob their best hope 🧵

I can’t come in today. Yeah it’s baumols cost disease again

Maybe 4 years ago I wrote an article about conspiracy theories on dating apps, why people use them, which are popular, etc. I thought it was good but iD no longer exists so sadly I cannot share it here.

GB News pundit charged with fraud during time as Labour adviser

GB News gives its take on climate change. This is what a propaganda campaign looks like. Who'd have guessed that the GB News co-owner runs a hedge fund with massive investments in oil and gas? www.theguardian.com/media/2026/m...

🚨The warning signs were there for El Fasher. Up to 60,000 people were slaughtered, as the world looked on. 🚨 The warning signs are there for El Obeid. We can’t fail the civilians of Sudan again.

'Climate action can be one of our strongest electoral assets, helping unite the broad coalition required to win a second term. But only if we get the messaging right' - @lukemurphy.bsky.social for @newstatesman1913.bsky.social www.newstatesman.com/spotlight/20...

ken livingstone was both right and brave to declare in 1981 that everyone is bisexual

Keir Starmer has just resigned - to the tune of Ode to Joy, blasted by Steve Bray. As I write in @newstatesman1913.bsky.social today, there is always a People’s Vote angle: www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

📣 On the eve of the 10th anniversary of the Brexit vote, listen to this excellent BBC R4 programme by James Tilley @politicsoxford.bsky.social on how Brexit created two new political tribes: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

As we approach a possible seventh prime minister in ten years, I try to explain the UK's instability in @politicshome.bsky.social. The volatility is partly structural, but Labour's historical hangups and the Tories' unmoored powerseeking are also culprits. www.politicshome.com/opinion/arti...

What happened in Makerfield? Some new constituency polling between @persuasionuk.bsky.social & Convergent (most accurate pollster in the race!), covering among other things: - Burnham assembling a coalition Lab needs nationally - 'Get Starmer out' + 'public ownership' at the centre of it. 🧵👇

luka modric looks like a painting of an old testament saint whose martyrdom (trampled by goats at behest of pagan lord after refusing to stop devoutly yodelling) was ruled apocryphal some time around vatican 2

how it feels to put out of office on

Free to read: @kirstymcneill.bsky.social on the "crisis of connection and solidarity", and why social democrats need to rebuild a democratic associational life: renewal.org.uk/articles/all...

Really pleased that @persuasionuk.bsky.social's work on the strengths and weaknesses of the Reform brand features in @samfr.bsky.social's substack today.

Really pleased to have written this piece in the latest edition of Renewal! As a proud Bristolian, I have often been less proud of how its politics play out. Looking jealously at Manchesterism, I took a deep (& opinionated) dive into the (non)workings of devolution in the West of England…

New post out: "How to beat Reform" Using exclusive polling I look at what attack lines work best on Reform, which of their voters are most likely to defect, and the potential for tactical voting. (£/free trial) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/h...

I have a provocatively titled piece in the latest issue of @renewaljournal.bsky.social, in which I propose that among the lessons of the “Epstein files” revelations is the value of a properly directly, healthy paranoia suited to an age of opaque networks, dark money, and unaccountable elites. (1/2)

Obsessed with this 1735 illustration of hammerhead sharks from Japan

come get your RENEWAL

Is your child up at 9pm arguing about tram networks with the entire staff of the FT and some tedious Americans who are not familiar with the concept of a joke? This report make shock you.

not to bang on about disclosure day being crap but if i wanted to watch a woman in a blazer face the camera and tell me about the importance of listening id rewatch all those ppc selection videos

i can’t believe Stephen Spielberg tricked me into seeing 2 hours of film when I could have just looked at this image on my phone for a bit

have come to the view that the banknotes should have neither animals nor eminences on them but instead a range of great British weirdos. the Somerset gimp. The Glasgow catman. A Whitby goth

Absolutely agree. The problem with X doesn’t stop at nudification tools, child porn and AI slop, it’s the deliberate destruction of democracy and security in our country.

been reading "silence" by shusaku endo. very good but all the descriptions of how the peasants never get any rice making me feel shifty and guilty as i have what i consider to be not very luxurious (rice, batch cooked dahl) meals while wfh

Found these articles – particularly one and two – really excellent in summing up a lot of things I've been thinking about in the last few years.