Had a very thought-provoking discussion last night about the Trump-Peron comparison with our Argentine dinner guests, who argued convincingly that it's of very limited value and applies mainly to the charismatic populist style of politics they share.

Lie-Distract-Attack Piece from me on how Trump and Farage follow the propaganda strategies of Vladimir Putin. It’s a grim piece because the propaganda works. open.substack.com/pub/nickcohe...

Fascinating and hugely depressing stuff by @patrickmaguire.bsky.social There’s a void at the heart of Labour: it needs a battle of ideas www.thetimes.com/article/7177...

That is how to write a headline in the Trump era

Lie-Distract-Attack Piece from me on how Trump and Farage follow the propaganda strategies of Vladimir Putin. It’s a grim piece because the propaganda works. open.substack.com/pub/nickcohe...

Why Ukraine is winning the war on.ft.com/4gJicd2 | opinion

Ben Habib is committing Advance UK to repeal all laws against racist abuse and harassment. It sounds like he would legalise all current hate crimes against all protected categories [short of incitement to violence]. That is enormously unpopular once the examples are given as to what it legalises

“Propaganda ... serves more to justify ourselves than to convince others; and the more reason we have to feel guilty, the more fervent our propaganda.” ―Eric Hoffer

Comey's statement is remarkably cool, calm and composed, and not really focused on himself. The strength it projects makes a very powerful statement in contrast with the agitated, angry, vengeful and, apparently, weakly evidenced attack.

“He prefers to be elected on our ideas, rather than fight for his own. In general, people prefer the original to the copy."* *Jean-Marie Le Pen, 1990 re. former French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.

Nathan Gill, Reform's leader in Wales at the last Welsh parliament election, has pled guilty to 8 bribery charges, taking Russian cash while he was one of Nigel Farage’s MEPs to speak in favour of Putin's Russia in that parliament www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Labour down to third in this by election in Manchester, which isn’t traditionally seen as their unsafest of territories

Surprising that UK journalists didn't pay more attention to how Farage mentioned Dubai as his ideal model for handling migrants. A caste-like structure in which Emiratis oversee a system where even wealthy ex-pats face state impunity and the lowest helot class of migrants face constant repression.

Not even changed jobs, I can't even take on one-off external examiner roles at other universities (to the value of £150 a pop) without detailed right-to-work ID checks. This is a new process which will do nothing to impact the "grey economy" jobs ministers are obsessing about...

Everything detailed in this is so awful, so stupid, and so likely to have had (and continue to have) such long-term effects on the full spectrum of people's lives that it's actually mind-bending

To paraphrase Trotsky, Andy Burnham May not be interested in the bond market, but the bond market is interested in him Andy Burnham’s borrowing plans would spook gilt market, investors warn - on.ft.com/4nPaVuP via @FT

This resonates for me - both my kids have been following the Charlie Kirk and Jimmy Kimmel stories blow by blow, while knowing next to nothing about what is happening in British politics. TikTok is the reason.

Quite. So many Labour people on this website visibly have no idea of just how bad things have got for ethnic minorities since they came on, and how their visible indifference lands.

Inspired by Trump, Farage has become a dangerous extremist, and he doesn’t even bother to hide it. Piece from me on how the dystopian lesson Trump is teaching the global right is that you don’t win in spite of the lies; you win because of the lies open.substack.com/pub/nickcohe...

"To bridge him to the election"--dude, you're not supposed to say that part out loud.

Inspired by Trump, Farage has become a dangerous extremist, and he doesn’t even bother to hide it. Piece from me on how the dystopian lesson Trump is teaching the global right is that you don’t win in spite of the lies; you win because of the lies open.substack.com/pub/nickcohe...

The UK will make it easier to attract global talent at a time when the US is making it harder, the chancellor has said, in a direct reference to a recent overhaul of American visa policy www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Ed Davey made a confident speech: there is a great deal of strategic logic in a liberal challenge to Nigel Farage is offering Britain the chaos and cruelty of Donald Trump's America, and in taking a strong stand that Elon Musk should not be above the rule of law www.libdems.org.uk/news/article...

I can't disagree with Dan here...

Is Keir Starmer a luxury the centre-left can’t afford? With the radical right on the rise and Labour’s poll ratings collapsing, I put a blunt question to Starmer’s biographer Tom Baldwin: If Starmer doesn’t look like a winner soon, will he have to go? open.substack.com/pub/nickcohe...

It is possible to cherish the BBC as an institution while also saying that BBC News is failing very badly, day after day, in its duty to inform and that it always fails in a right-wing direction. It desperately needs to recover its integrity

A pretty big slapdown for Donald Trump from Wes Streeting. Rare these days to hear a Labour minister actually criticise the US president. www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/wes-st...

If you, like me, are the parent of a neuro-atypical child dreading this autism press conference, please remember: These are the people hurting our kids. Not us. They are the ones stigmatizing and pathologizing them. They are the ones peddling untested science. And we should be very, very angry.

Wait what the fuck am I reading did American liberals just win a battle

Poland's statement to Russia at the UN. "If another missile or aircraft enters our space without permission, deliberately or 'by mistake', and gets shot down, please don't come here to whine about it. You have been warned." ~AA

I was walking down a street in New York and I thought how lovely it was, with the trees and the light. Tried to take a photo and this came out. It’s incredible how blind we become to the ugliness of cars. They really do mess things up. Yet somehow we manage to filter them out.

I hate to admit it but I suspect McSweeney is right that the 2029 election will be a ‘republican front’ vs Farage. Farage veering further right makes that easier to do. Whether McSweeney’s own advice over the past year has made this situation more likely is another question…

It's obviously true unless something unexpected happens, but a) the incumbent government needs to actually have *delivered for its coalition* to lead a republican front b) the leader needs to be a plausible leader of it and c) they do need to actually be able to say 'Vichy was bad'.

The US is imposing sanctions on Brazil for trying to protect its democracy, and throwing a lifeline to Milei to prop up his administration.

It’s worth asking the question why British politics is trying so hard to copy American politics when the same policies aren’t even popular there, let alone here.

For 56 minutes Sky News and BBC News interrupted everything else and carried a Reform UK feed live, uninterrupted, unchallenged. The stream spluttered, froze, pixelated - dozens of times - still they stuck with it. FOR ONE HOUR. This is an editorial choice. No other party gets this coverage. ~AA

Over on Twitter people are screaming because a BBC journalist called Kirk "far right" . He refused to accept the results of a free election and sent bus loads of supporters to storm Congress. If we can't call that behaviour "far right," what are we meant to call it, "classical liberal"?

This is more like it

What he is saying quite clearly is that Pam Bondi must indict several of his long-time political enemies immediately or she will be fired and replaced by someone who will.

Everything Trump does is intended to enrich himself and his wealthy cronies while incrementally seizing power from Congress in a variety of areas to wield himself as an authoritarian while Republicans in Congress acquiesce.

Boiue makes good points, but it is David French who goes on to nail the central question surrounding the future of the US that means the midterms may be a crucial turning point. If this was any other country there would already be discussion of severe potential risks of civil conflict.

I’m only surprised this headline didn’t finish with ‘and why this is all good for Nigel Farage’

“Last week showcased another, equally important side of Kennedy’s management: the way he is eliminating the people and dispensing with the procedures that allow agencies like the CDC to carry out their basic functions in a transparent, scientifically sound way.” open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...

Idle thought: If the American experiment is to be finished off — by Americans, of course; no one else — it will be by rationalization. Not hostility or aggression so much as rationalization. It is all around us.

By claiming that legitimate arguments for a Palestinian state and against the destruction of Gaza are driven by hatred of Jews, Netanyahu and Trump are destroying the fight against antisemitism. Long read from me (£ but free trial) open.substack.com/pub/nickcohe...

Imagine someone suggesting back in the 1970s that, in the future, the phones would rise up and take over our daily/hourly/minutely beliefs and thinking patterns to the point that the country/world goes nuts and becomes infested with hate.

Finding myself cheering on Ted Cruz and Karl Rove is disconcerting but there we go I guess

The sino-Tory two child cap on meanstested benefits may be about to be scrapped as education secretary and deputy leader candidate speaks out bit.ly/4pu4wqs and gives details of her own experience of childhood poverty

Labour needs to read this and to help Starmer to understand what @nickcohen.bsky.social is saying open.substack.com/pub/nickcohe...