The ida that the "moral fabric of society" is currently in good nick is liberal cant, but the bigger blind-spot in this is that what's being constructed is not justification for mass deportations but a tiered citizenship to justify domestic discrimination. observer.co.uk/news/columni...

Not sure about "increasingly" here. Both 1970 and 1978 were held under military dictatorships, both of which were supported by the US at the time.

Seems like an appropriate moment to revive this recent post ... fromarsetoelbow.blogspot.com/2025/12/nati...

Phil Burton-Cartledge on the origins of the "stakeholder state". averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/2026/01/what...

Hard to avoid the suspicion that Maduro was sold out, or that he may even have been a willing party to his ouster. Either way, it suggests the Venezuelan establishment, across the board, doesn't have the will to fight the US.

Branko Milanovic on the 1990s: "It was ideologically a barren period where clichés were regarded as ultimate accomplishments of human thought." branko2f7.substack.com/p/was-the-wo...

The interests of British citizens abroad have loomed large in govt calculations since the days of Don Pacifico. To suggest they are a distraction and a "running joke" is to reveal a profound ignorance of diplomatic history. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Once you recall that Ovenden was the only Labour insider who paid a penalty for the shenanigans (he was binned in Sep when old messages abusing Diane Abbot resurfaced), then his bitterness at the "stakeholder state" makes a lot more sense. web.archive.org/web/20260102...

"This is, above all else, an ugly political culture that reflects an ugly class reality: the dominance of wealth in public policy and the media, the toleration of public squalor, and the hypocrisy of our foreign relations." More ... fromarsetoelbow.blogspot.com/2025/12/hate...

This omits the intro to the quote, which claims that Clark "made the case for moderation and centrism", when he was actually emulating the famous quote by Michael Oakeshott defining what it means to be a conservative.

Is Thornberry suggesting greater diligence would have led to a different outcome? That Abd el-Fatteh might have been refused citizenship? The govt has already said his tweets "do not meet the legal bar for such a sanction". Does she want a lower bar? www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

New blogpost: Hate and (Class) War - The commentariat's bafflement at Starmer's unpopularity is an attempt to create some distance between themselves and a doomed individual, to deny all knowledge of his origins and elevation. fromarsetoelbow.blogspot.com/2025/12/hate...

One thing this performance of bafflement highlights is that while political journalists have excised the very idea of collective action, and thus collective responsibility and shared interests, from their thinking, it remains natural among the wider population. Class (or caste) is very much alive.

What's offensive about this is not simply the promotion of another Labour nepo baby, but the fact that the Fabians themselves advocated a wealth levy on the top 0.1% this very year, a policy they now dismiss as a "unicorn" when advocated by the Greens. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Starmer has always been unpopular and Labour could only muster 34% at the election. The commentariat ignored the first point and finessed the second. The loathing people feel for Starmer is actually explained by that first point. He is a proxy for the commentariat and the politcial class as a whole.

You can divide people into two groups: those that think an ideology is a set of mutually-reinforcing beliefs, and those that regard the very idea as a heinous assault on our very way of life. The second group are blood-thirsty reactionaries. Moore understands her audience.

"You were only meant to blow the bloody doors off the Labour Party; not get elected as the government, you fool!"

It's that time of the year when you're never sure if a name is trending because they've been given a gong or because they've kicked the bucket.

It has been a feature of this govt that they cave under pressure and immediately offer up concessions far in excess of any that have been demanded of them. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Wall to wall Rentoul.

Watership Dune

Once more The Guardian admits that its progressivism is little more than political quietism: "let no new thing arise". www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

This is a truly bizarre story. You would imagine that NHS planners have been using easily-available, structured data on flu rates, the weather and school holidays to predict bed demand since 1948. Probably starting with graph paper and slide rules. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Every accusation is a confession. Journalists decrying social tech cannot help but describe the solipsism, atomisation and ersatz "companionship" that have always been central to newspapers (advice columns, ventriloquising editorials etc). www.ft.com/content/f365...

The claim that Zionism is ambiguous doesn't square with the history, in particular the fact that it was passionately opposed by many Jews from the off precisely because they understood what it meant, namely the rejection of integration & class solidarity. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Starmer had a cause: to extirpate the left from the Labour Party. He succeeded, hence the likes of Philip Collins can assure us that Obama and Biden "led from the left". As far as governing goes, Starmer is an accidental PM. observer.co.uk/news/opinion...

As a simple description of our times this is fine, but Beckett seems loath to question why both Labour and the Tories have imploded simultaneously, while citing Andrew Marr seems an unnecessary insult to the reader's intrelligence. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The fact that families argue at Xmas is actually proof that filter bubbles don't exist, but I guess it is obligatory to write this column every year. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

"Today’s political class is in a very similar position to Britain’s inter-war establishment. They cannot imagine themselves or the British people actually standing up to fight against potentially overwhelming opposition and they have no intention of trying." www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

"it is easier to imagine the end of apartheid than it is to imagine the end of settler colonialism." www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...

The standout in this is the determination of the PO to continue with their belief that sub-postmasters were on the fiddle, which to date has been ascribed to a combination of high-handed incompetence and sheer malevolence. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

"The right has always recuperated progressive ideas and rhetoric for reactionary ends. ... The 'language is violence' trope is just the latest example of this process." More ... fromarsetoelbow.blogspot.com/2025/12/doin...

A distinguishing feature of these "fault on both sides" takes is that there is never a plausible equivalence in the evidence offered. observer.co.uk/news/columni...

The focus here is on Streeting the (tiresome) personality and his smirking denial of ambition, but key for me are his claims that the UK is over-taxed and should align more with the EU. Tax as a % of UK GDP is 35% vs the EU's 39%. He's such a fraud. observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

I always find it amusing that in political profiles (here Patrick Maguire on Wes Streeting) the spiciest bits are when the author ventiloquises the subject's critics. The spitefulness can't help seeping through.

New blogpost: Doing Violence to Language - If language is violence, and if the common herd has a propensity to violence, shouldn't we censor public speech? That, in essence, is where liberals have ended up after the Bondi Beach murders. fromarsetoelbow.blogspot.com/2025/12/doin...

This is utter drivel as political analysis, not least in its belief that the Labour Party can thrive through particularism, when its entire history suggests the opposite. This is the end result of preferring communitarianism to class. www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

Obviously the jokes about the govt write themselves, but what bemuses me here is that you can state that going on hunger strike is not what people on remand typically do and yet not concede that this is evidence that they see themselves as political prisoners.

I was at the wedding some years ago of a trade union official and intersected with a group of 30-something Blairites, all of whom appeared to have been Erasmus students and quite a few of whom had had placements with the EU Commission. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

This is risible. The Blairites are the only coherent group here, but that's because they're entryists with external loyalties. The soft left is little more than a rumour, Blue Labour is 3 eccentrics in a trenchcoat, while the "old right" has been supplanted by careerists.

Strong "Hitler was a vegetarian" vibe.

You'd have hoped a journalist would ask "Why is the minimum wage going up a problem for you?", but this is the Guardian where small business owners, the more artisan the better, are indulged. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

The idea that "western publics have been encouraged to believe they are trapped in a zero-sum game, forced to compete for ever-diminishing resources" clearly predates 2008, and even neoliberalism. This was the original premise of imperialism, after all. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Atlanticism is a hard drug to kick: "the new US national security strategy is seen by some influential figures in Downing Street as a reason for Britain to keep its distance from the EU." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The right has always recuperated progressive ideas and rhetoric for reactionary ends. The "language is violence" trope is just the latest example.

The trouble with theories of social norms when applied in the political field is that they all too often ignore the sociology. Here SWL relays the idea that the rise of racist politics is due to their expression becoming less socially unacceptable. mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2025/12/unde...

Many are pointing out the absurdity of this - sans nukes, Russia is militarily weak and an attrack on the UK would mean war with NATO - but I think this misses the point. What yer man is rolling the pitch for is British boots on the ground in Ukraine. news.sky.com/story/uks-so...

Who could possibly have predicted ... etc, etc. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

What's fascinating about this study is that every one of its findings could have been predicted by anyone with a passing interest in politics ahead of the election, with the possible exception of the Tories running out of cash. theconversation.com/the-ten-most...

This is mostly an excuse to accuse Stephen Miller of hypocrisy, but it incidentally highlights the persistence of the concepts of "civilization", "social degeneracy" and "national extinction" in American political discourse. newrepublic.com/article/2041...