Ageing societies are simultaneously safer and more scared societies.

Abundance update

Me one year ago: "I'm going to write a short research note. I can do it in two weeks, and send it out. Quick and easy." Me now: "in section E.4 of the appendix (page 78), the reviewer will now find alternative model specifications..."

Big week for me and the team as "The British General Election of 2024" has now gone into production. The definitive book of last year's landmark election will be hitting stores later this autumn, and is available to pre-order right now! Here's the Amazon page: www.amazon.co.uk/British-Gene...

After a democracy turns illiberal, can it return to democracy again? Here are the reasons why democracy after illiberalism is hard to maintain.

Radical-right parties are often linked to the “left-behind”. But supporting them when stigma is strong is costly. So who is willing to pay that cost early on, before it’s normalized? In my new WP, I argue that breaking political norms is socially stratified. 🧵👇

“I too came from a poorish family,” says the 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, eldest son of Major-General Gilbert Monckton, 2nd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley and Marianna Letitia, Viscountess Monckton of Brenchley.

"Sweeteners can harm cognitive health equivalent to 1.6 years of ageing, study finds" Or does it? Let's take a look at this "study"... www.theguardian.com/food/2025/se...

IN NEW ISSUE: British attitudes to ‘Europe’ have been long characterised as ‘reluctant’. @jamesrdennison.bsky.social explores the exception between 1988–1992 - Britain’s Pro-European Moment: buff.ly/3D41PIx (OPEN ACCESS) @polstudiesassoc.bsky.social @uoypolitics.bsky.social #ECRs @sagepub.com

Returning from vacation and looking for a late summer read? @ivobantel.bsky.social and I got you covered! In our new @wepsocial.bsky.social paper, we assess how mainstream parties rhetorically create an affect-based "common front" against the radical right. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

(The EU keeps failing on its own stated terms. It is no regulatory superpower internationally and struggles to enforce its rules internally, it caves on trade like a medium-sized nation state, it doesn't behave as normative power in its neighbourhood or with the member states.)

As we enter September, you may see posts with news of jobs, promotions, grants, fellowships, and the like. That’s great! We should celebrate with colleagues, especially in an industry where rejection is the modal outcome. 1/n

🏛️ @markuskollberg.bsky.social: The challenger advantage – how challenger parties disrupt mainstream party dominance in the European Parliament 🧷 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The war on empathy youtu.be/QwpanShgOp4?...

We have a decades of scholarship on how pro-democracy forces win in competitive authoritarian systems: they form a united opposition that brings together people with otherwise profound political disagreements.

Me on why Labour jeed to fight back www.independent.co.uk/voices/farag...

Dreams are just artisanal AI slop.

There was a phase of the internet in the mid-to-late 2000s when conspiracy theorists were obsessed with seigniorage - is this still a thing?

I don't like everything the New York Times prints either but the way people now pick apart individual story-placement decisions like it's some sort of talismanic path to understanding why the world sucks is bordering on lunacy

Bingo. Westminster majoritarianism makes democratic backsliding not only easier to carry out but also harder to warn against, as I argued here. bsky.app/profile/leon...

Imagine having to explain a headline that says “Taliban ‘ready and willing’ to work with Nigel Farage” to a time-traveller from, say, 2011.

Profoundly important from @davidallengreen.bsky.social. The lack of meaningful restraints against executing power in our system leaves us utterly exposed in the face of a Reform government. They could do whatever they want. open.substack.com/pub/emptycit...

Some pills for when you feel dangerously left-wing

Two points worth noting on the Farage stuff today. 1. The Tories have completely ceded the August opportunity to get publicity when govt slows down to Reform. Nothing to suggest they're not headed fast towards oblivion. 2. Labour look even more lost than before. Paralysed with indecision and fear.

SCOTUS thought they could ride the tiger and get what they wanted ideologically. In exchange, they would give him everything he wanted except the Fed. Just leave the Fed alone and you can ignore all federal law. But it ended the same way it has for everyone who tried to ride the tiger since 2016.

🧵 I have a new paper online @apsa-preprints.bsky.social where I try to answer a deceptively simple question: 𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦’𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 '𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵' 𝘪𝘯 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵-𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘵-𝘵𝘩𝘦-𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘴𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘴? Summary below 👇 preprints.apsanet.org/engage/apsa/...

Just got round to watching Mario Draghi's speech in Rimini in the original Italian. It is easily the most important speech on Europe so far this year and I hope someone (@grandcontinent.bsky.social?‬) publishes it in English and other EU languages soon. www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMME...

✨Very happy to see my paper "Attitudinal ambivalence toward multiculturalism" out on @jeppjournal.bsky.social ! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... 1/8 🧵

Very fond of the wordiness of this message

A key point that often gets lost in discussions on immigration and diversity: people's view are more nuanced and contingent than crude two-camps distinctions allow.

Another step in the unconditional surrender of the British establishment to Reform, to intimidation and to mob rule.

(The reflex to monster Democrats or Dem-adjacent media for Trump's authoritarianism is an unhealthy by-product of the social media attention economy, is deeply unhelpful and at some point people should start to call it out. Pick-me girls and pick-me boys are no use during a democratic collapse.)

The current UK government is disappointing on many levels, but it’s still the case that the day Labour won the election, a significant chunk of legacy media, GB News, the Conservatives, and Reform decided that it was time to have race riots. They’re cheering for race riots. They’re gagging for them.

reverse heist movie where a single snake has to chase all the priests back into ireland

The story that GB News has overtaken BBC and Sky in July 2025 is overblown. But it's true that the channel has captured a relatively large, loyal segment of a shrinking pool of viewers. This is, in my view, one of the worst developments for UK politics this decade. pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/b...

New paper out @wepsocial.bsky.social! 🥡 Key Take-Away: Opposition parties seek more conflict with the government when performing poorly in the polls – especially when falling below their previous election result. Read full 🧵 below:

One by one, the EU is surrendering all the arguments for its continued existence. Economic leverage? Made a mockery by Trump's trade war. Free movement? Currently suspended in 11 countries. Normative power? We fund lagers in Libya. Single market? Effectively an illusion. Rule of law? See: Hungary.

Bluesky is clearly much better than other social media, but oh my god you guys should give it a rest with the 🤓books😍 aesthetics.

The Trump era has killed democratic capitalism as a political model. He upends trade rules every other week, and growth is still 3%; he bans vaccines, and big pharma just takes it; he undermines universities, law firms and the media, and they do deals with him; he attacks the Fed, and markets shrug.

been monitoring the hbo max situation; consistently hearing reports that big bird has a fully articulated cloaca that they never show on tv

Grate cheddar on paella simple as

As a proud Englishman and long-standing football fan, I am now very tempted to engage in some light anti-Spanish hate speech again.

(This is further evidence that it’s “it’s coming home” that’s jinxing it for England.)

Helsinki (pop 657,000) has not had a single traffic death during the last twelve months. poliisi.fi/-/helsingin-...

Mass compensation of WASPI women is truly one of the least deserving causes for billions of public spending in the modern era. This is classic grab bag stuff – 2019 manifesto+++.

Israel is intentionally starving Gaza’s children. It’s a war crime and a crime against humanity, for which there is no reasonable denial or justification. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

Less than three years apart...

I really want to believe otherwise, but I’m afraid the Epstein files “story” is just another instalment in Trump’s opponents long-running fantasy of deliverance - “this one thing will break the Trump fever, that’s it this time”. We need to move away from this “one quick trick to fix Trump” mindset.

We are so close to the Tory party accusing the Bayeux Tapestry of glorifying small boats crossing the Channel.