Europe needs to invest in AirCon manufacturing on a massive scale. Crazy that we rely on Japanese, Taiwanese, and Chinese companies for such a basic appliance.

Me (and lovely others) for @theconversation.com on how much things have changed in the last decade Spoiler: not much in EU policy theconversation.com/what-brexit-... @oupolitics.bsky.social @ou-gcsj.bsky.social @openuniversity.bsky.social

Q. for you folks: who was the last UK PM to win an election after becoming a party leader in opposition and then be replaced as party leader after losing an election as PM?

Little known fact: the UK is about to have its first Catholic prime minister. Unthinkable only 30 years ago, when Blair waited until he left office before converting (even though he’d been practicing for some time) Back then the PM nominated the Arch Bishop of Canterbury, head of the CofE

Super thrilled and deeply grateful that Making a Career in Dictatorship has received the 2026 Best Book Award of @epssnet.bsky.social! #EPSS2026 😮🤩🎉 Many thanks to the award committee. Christian was in Belfast to receive it; I sadly couldn’t attend but would have loved to be there.

And now, on to @epssnet.bsky.social Copenhagen 24-26 June 2027! #EPSS2027 is going to be amazing Many thanks to the University of Copenhagen, and to @sarahagemann.bsky.social @fghjorth.bsky.social & Kasper Møller Hansen for making next year’s conference happen I hope to see you all there!

Thank you Sara for being an amazing President. You’ve set the bar very high! Thank you all for coming and for the great papers, discussions, and roundtables. And thank you to our wonderful and dedicated Council team and to our brilliant local organisers. See you next year in Copenhagen!

What a wonderful few days in Belfast for #EPSS2026 and what a fantastic community! Thank you to everyone who joined the conference with such enthusiasm A special thanks to @simonhix.bsky.social @kenbenoit.bsky.social @macartan.bsky.social & the rest of the EPSS Council for making it all possible

“The EU referendum gave us an opportunity to improve people’s lives and we failed.” @anandmenon.bsky.social reflected on the night of the Brexit referendum results and what has come of it in the past decade in an interview with @lseeuroppblog.bsky.social

WELCOME to #EPSS2026 from the EPSS Council!

A heartfelt thank you to our amazing outgoing #EPSS president @sarahobolt.bsky.social, who was not only instrumental to creating EPSS, but also sheparded it so successfully through its first year. And equally huge thanks to incoming EPSS president @simonhix.bsky.social for his fabulous leadership!

Far-right hatred in the UK, like Brexit a decade ago, is fanned and funded by those - US far-right, tech oligarchs, the Kremlin - with an agenda to fragment and weaken European democracies, and to undermine our ability to hold the powerful to account. bylinetimes.com/2026/06/10/r... (2/2)

🎉🎉🎉 The inaugural EPSS Conference in Belfast is just around the corner! Join us in Belfast from 18th to 20th of June, 2026 🎉🎉 🎉

This week I spent 2 hours getting though passport control at JFK and then 1 hour at passport control at the Schengen Border (back in Florence). Feeling very unloved as a Brit!

Interesting list of classic World Cup shirts by the BBC. But can’t believe they’ve not listed Italy 1982, which was a legend! www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...

Great piece by @tabouchadi.bsky.social. There’s a large pool of progressive voters (economically left and socially liberal) in many democracies that the mainstream centre-left are abandoning. Greens and other progressive parties can capture these voters. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

😢 so sad www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Labour imposes ban on working with Greens, forces Labour councillors to partner with Tories.

This is a bad survey question. It’s very difficult for people to distinguish recent changes in “flow” (eg. inflation or net migration) from historical changes in “stock” (eg. cost of living or number of migrants). www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

I am very excited to be returning to LSE and joining @lsepublicpolicy.bsky.social. Eager to help develop this already fantastic policy school, co-teach with @alicirone.bsky.social, and launch a new course on "Designing Democracy”.

BLOG POST: why I think the measurement of disproportionality in mixed member systems is wrong, and what to do about it www.chrishanretty.co.uk/posts/mixed_...

Exactly! Two votes under MMP -> split ticket voting -> more fragmentation than there would be with just 1 vote

I think STV in English Council elections is a great idea

On 7 May 2026, Britain ran a PR experiment: Scottish Parliament: a Mixed-Member Proportional system Welsh Senedd: a (new) Low-Magnitude Party List system Same day, same political context, different outcomes. Which version of PR would be better for Westminster? 🧵

@robertshrimsley.bsky.social (who I am a fan of) is stuck on Duverger, but needs to read Cox FPTP => 2 parties if it’s the same parties in all seats. Geographic heterogeneity + FPTP => highly fragmented politics ie. UK now more like India than Canada! giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

Marina Hyde is bang on, of course. The problem, though, is that the Labour plane doesn’t have a co-pilot the rest of the crew trusts to fly the plane! … so, a crash looks inevitable www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Fascinating piece in the FT about how Spain is bucking the European trend on immigration, and how a liberal immigration policy is helping to boost the Spanish economy giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

Your best bet for British Rejoin parties at the upcoming elections ... SNP in Scotland. Plaid in Wales. Greens in England. LibDems in England where the Greens have no game. #RejoinEU 🇬🇧🇪🇺

A reminder that applications for this 3-year fully funded PhD position close at the end of next week (May 17). This is a great opportunity to work on climate politics comparative politics in a vibrant environment, with loads of freedom to develop your own project. www.sciencespo.fr/centre-etude...

We're hiring a Post-Doc (3 years) at the @hertieschool.bsky.social for a @scripts-berlin.eu project on authoritarian influence in the video games industry (I am soooo excited about this project)! More details here (deadline 31 May): hertie-school.dvinci-easy.com/en/p/en/jobs...

4/ Will this become law? Not in this Congress. But it’s the kind of politics Dems should be playing: populist, clear, impossible to argue against with a straight face. As electoral strategy goes, squeezing the guys with the jets is better than courting them.

We’re in the worst energy crisis since the 70s. Jet fuel prices are spiking. Flights are getting cut. Here’s a modest proposal: Emergency luxury fuel surcharge $1,000/gal for private jets. Buy fuel abroad? Pay by the mile to land. You want to burn through an energy crisis in style, pay for it.🧵

This looks like a great opportunity

Intrigued to think what would be in a “UK trade bazooka”, eg. no US students at Oxbridge? More like a “UK trade peashooter”! www.theguardian.com/business/202...

It's just men's football that Italy aren't very good. Improving in almost all other sports, e.g. www.bbc.com/sport/rugby-...

We are delighted to announce Dr Anne-Marie Slaughter as the new Dean of the School of Public Policy Dr Slaughter will join in January 2027 and take on full responsibilities in February Read more: www.lse.ac.uk/news/anne-ma... #LSEPublicPolicy

No previous American president, in any era, of any party, would have tolerated a drunken, erratic, absent FBI chief www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

And here are the data as a bar chart pooled across the 10 years. So, Italy, looks to be doing better than Germany and France. But one year (2022-23) contributed one third (5) of all slots for Italy.

Has Italian football declined? I asked Claude to make a figure of the number of semi-finalists in the 3 European competitions over past 10 years: Eng: dominant (4 in most years) Ita: 22-23 peak an outlier Spa: never below 1, but rarely above 2-3 Ger: volatile (0 to 3) Fra: steady 1-2 (usually PSG)

Has Italian football declined? I asked Claude to make a figure of the number of semi-finalists in the 3 European competitions over past 10 years: Eng: dominant (4 in most years) Ita: 22-23 peak an outlier Spa: never below 1, but rarely above 2-3 Ger: volatile (0 to 3) Fra: steady 1-2 (usually PSG)

Countries’ teams in semis of European football championships: Eng 4 Fra 2 Ger 2 Spa 2 Por 1 Ukr 1 Ita 0 Italian football in crisis. Needs root and branch reform.

“King and Queen will not meet Epstein survivors during US state visit.” Just the perpetrators… www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

The contrast between Sanchez's PSOE government in Spain and some other social democratic (led) governments in Europe (e.g. Labour in the UK, SD in Denmark) is really striking on migration issues www.bbc.com/news/article...

"Democracy is a system in which parties lose elections" Again, I'll note how incredibly extreme the GOP is, not only in absolute terms, but relative to other far right parties in rich democracies, which quickly concede elections <all the time> w/o a fraction of the post-election nonsense we endure.

Was it only four days ago The Telegraph comment pages were gazing into their tea leaves ?

I don’t think I have ever been so happy to be wrong!!!!

If Orbán loses election but challenges results in the kangaroo courts he has packed with party loyalists, the EU will have a dilemma on its hands. The EU has long accepted unfair elections in Hungary but what would it do if an autocrat blatantly stole an election? www.politico.eu/article/frau...

Election interference. In plain sight.

Excellent thread for those who want to understand the (deliberately) complex and pro-Fidesz electoral system in Hungary.