"We" when used by commentators in this form is actually a special and exclusively second-person pronoun.

‘History breeds discomfort. Foucault’s basic question is still of great interest: what is it about sex that makes people believe it expresses fundamental truths about the self, and when did that belief arise?’ @piercepenniless.bsky.social on gay history and its uses. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

More seriously: the new issue of the @lrb.co.uk has a long piece by me on early modern sodomy, gay history and its uses, and the importance of always bringing your basket with you: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

On the podcast: @sarahsteinlubrano.bsky.social and @piercepenniless.bsky.social explore the things that do and don’t change people’s minds, and why real change is better achieved through means other than argument, such as social ties and collective action. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

QTWTAI...Y

Issue 48.06 is now online, featuring: @tricialockwood.bsky.social on Willa Cather @piercepenniless.bsky.social on historical sex between men Tom Crewe on Gustave Caillebotte’s gaze Amjad Iraqi on Israel’s wars and Vadim Nikitin on the Steele dossier. Read online now at www.lrb.co.uk

‘Figures like Trump are frequently characterised as reflecting a Thucydidean “might makes right” worldview, but they don’t mention him. Explicit engagement with Thucydides is something for their shadowy advisers’ @nevillemorley.eurosky.social on Thucydides today. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ma...

Honestly is there a funnier historical moment to claim as devoid of introspection than the early seventeenth century? And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

Habermas dead. Arguably outlived the public sphere. apnews.com/article/juer...

I'm not a 'one chart to explain everything about British politics' guy, but if I were this would be the chart. You will notice the Chancellor's pre-election strategy, 'I would simply Do A Growth', has not had an effect.

I would like someone - a journalist, a backbencher, an opposition leader - to ask the prime minister to defend this, explicitly.

A Die Zeit reporter goes to an Alpine hotel with Curtis Yarvin, apparently in an attempt to answer the question 'What if The Magic Mountain, but shit?' www.zeit.de/feuilleton/2...

On the podcast: @siennarodgers.bsky.social, deputy editor at the House magazine, and @jemgilbert.bsky.social, professor of cultural and political theory at the University of East London, join @piercepenniless.bsky.social to consider Keir Starmer’s mess. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

I'm a bit of a curmudgeon in that, although I sincerely love English nature, I think the country's history is primarily a matter of human beings & thus human beings should be on its currency. There is also the faint scent of institutional cowardice wanting to head off tiresome controversy.

"maximum dignity", "expect to be treated as such": a man used to his expectations being met. Unafflicted by any penitential strain. Wheedling and ingratiating to those above him, imperious to those below. It's a type. That'll be half a mil, please.

Good day to catch up on this “Only familiarity dulls the outrage that [he] sat for so long in the House of Lords for the party of labour”

Because many people attracted to 'Blue Labour' are racists, and even more think the majority of the country are racists and want to appeal to them. Incidentally, the Chevening scholarships were rightly understood as British diplomatic soft power, so it's also a needless injury to *us*.

‘There’s a sense that comes through in Caravaggio’s paintings of this sort of underworld of Rome that was chaotic, and quite violent.’ @erinmaglaque.bsky.social joins @moonjets.bsky.social on the podcast to explore why Caravaggio is so unsettling. Listen here: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

‘Peter Mandelson tended his own mythology and influence over the party, of course. But many were attracted to the politics of pure means that he represented, irrespective of ends.’ @piercepenniless.bsky.social on Mandelson and Epstein. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Well I hate to imagine what a *worse* political strategist would do to the polling.

Plus ça change: Bush, attempting to convince Chirac to join his coalition in Iraq, attempted to speak to him as a Christian - arguing that they were engaged in a joint war against Gog and Magog. (Chirac, a Catholic, had to ring up the French Protestants to discover wtf Bush was talking about.)

‘The Islamic Republic is likely to emerge transformed or weakened in ways not yet visible. But the notion that it would simply dissolve under pressure was always fanciful.’ Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi on the US’s war on Iran, new on the blog. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ma...

Obviously British citizens should not forgo protection just because they've holed up in a zero-tax slave state. But we should also make it much, *much* harder for people to shrug off their social obligations like that. Special exception: Richard Tice and Isobel Oakeshott can swim home.

People who believe in nothing are willing to say anything.

When you've got to tour a migrant camp at 11 but clock in for your volunteer shift on the Death Star at 12.

‘“I don’t think it’s extreme or radical to think that working hard should get you a nice life,” Hannah Spencer said. The speech could once easily have been delivered by a centre-left Labour politician.’ @piercepenniless.bsky.social on the Gorton and Denton by-election. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...

What's happening in Dubai bolsters the argument taxes should be based on people's nationality, not just their country of residence (ie the US model). If Brits living abroad can expect to be airlifted out by virtue of being British, they should pay some tax towards that. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Massive accountability gap in British politics -- Simons can go around saying he was "cleared" of breaking the ministerial code, but the investigation can't concern itself with the smearing he commissioned before becoming a minister.

I don't dispute the Home Secretary's power to change terms through regulation, but if it's really as significant and 'existential' a shift as she claims she ought to have the courage to defend it in debate in parliament. She won't, because it's indefensible.

I'm enjoying all the finger-wagging geopolitical instaboffin posts about the difference between Khomeini and Khamenei which nonetheless manage to misspell the latter.

'Josh'.

‘It is still common to hear people in Westminster talk of the government’s seriousness and focus on delivery. It is hard to square this with its apparent willingness to embroil itself in scandal.’ James Butler (@piercepenniless.bsky.social) on Peter Mandelson’s fall. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

I know I keep pointing this out but: if you want immigrants to contribute to British society, integrate across community lines, become engaged civic actors, you actually *want* them to get citizenship, and as soon as possible in fact!

‘The hair’s breadth that appeared to separate the two progressive options – a split vote that might have enabled a Reform victory – turned out to be a chasm.’ @piercepenniless.bsky.social on the Greens’ by-election victory. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...

On the podcast: Sam Jones, European security correspondent at the Financial Times, and Anna Stavrianakis, professor of international relations at the University of Sussex, join @piercepenniless.bsky.social to explore ‘hard power’ and Europe's militarisation: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

It's certainly an interesting choice for a party polling around 18% to decide it wants to *shed* support.

My experience of the upper echelons of the Labour Party involved being condescended to by the incredibly thick & unpleasant, & thinking that in any other walk of life you would get punched in the mouth for treating people like that. Impossible to overstate how high on their own fumes they are.

A good overview. Also includes sound advice for Labour should it wish to revive its fortunes. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...

Cool and clear from @piercepenniless.bsky.social www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...

‘All traditional parties were beaten by two insurgents taking 70 per cent of the vote. A wide field of plausible competitors under first past the post will make the next general election difficult to predict. ’ @piercepenniless.bsky.social on the Greens’ victory. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...

Wrote up the by-election, the Green victory and the conferences for Labour at the @lrb.co.uk www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...

This is a startlingly mad missive. Like a total failure to grasp what's gone wrong. Above all, it's a series of completely implausible and self-flattering excuses. I was convinced they'd leave him to carry the can in May, but on the back of this I'm not so sure.

I don't think calling the people who voted for the nice woman who thinks working hard should grant you a decent life unhinged extremists is going to work out brilliantly for Labour.

For my entire adult life the Greens have continually drawn links between poverty, exploitation and ecological destruction. Every time they're explicit about it, and critical of the government, Labour (and political journalists trained on the duopoly) react like a scalded cat.

After the uprising of the 26 February The Leader of the Labour Party had leaflets distributed in the lobby corridor which stated that the people had squandered the confidence of the government ...

'my discourse [is] intended only in defence of nominal Christianity, the other having been for some time wholly laid aside by general consent, as utterly inconsistent with all our present schemes of wealth and power' Jonathan Swift anticipating (1708) what Reform means by a 'Christian country'.

A number of political correspondents should be reflecting on having been so easily led by the nose by Labour in the last few days.

Have to believe this was a factor around the edges. 💚

Este podcast de @piercepenniless.bsky.social @lrb.co.uk reflexionaba sobre la necesidad de invertir estos papeles. La izquierda suele apelar a conceptos: Estado del bienestar, DDHH, justicia, etc. La derecha, anécdotas, ejemplos. Hay que arrinconarles e inundar la zona con historias comprensibles.

‘Peter Mandelson may be gone, but Mandelsonism remains the default mode of British politics.’ James Butler (@piercepenniless.bsky.social) on Mandelson’s fall. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...