Magnificent lecture by @patporter76.bsky.social at the @mileendinstitute.bsky.social last night, on the 80th anniversary of Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech. It would have warmed Churchill's heart to see a speaker holding an audience rapt without notes or slides - just sheer rhetorical power!

With all the talk of "what would Churchill have done in Iran" or "who is & isn't like Churchill", it's worth noting how many different roles Churchill himself played over his life. I discussed The Nine Lives of Winston Churchill with David Runciman in this live pod. www.ppfideas.com/episodes/ppf...

Quietly, calmly and forensically, BBC just dismantled the Trump communications shitshow on Iran. No hyperbole, just laying out an unprecedented military, diplomatic and reputational shambles. Worth a watch. (🎥 BBC News/BBC Verify)

Roger Bannister - the first man to run the four-minute mile - once misheard something I'd said and tried to find me a seat in Parliament.

"Churchill observed that war, once unleashed, rarely follows the tidy paths imagined by those who start it. That warning may be as relevant as any of his more famous phrases." Good piece by @richardtoye.bsky.social on Churchill analogies and Trump's war on Iran.

"If a major burden shift is likely, Britain & its neighbours can try to negotiate a Fulton-in-reverse, receiving back the baton but in an orderly, stable & gradual way, creating a less American not a post-American Europe" Key reading from @patporter76.bsky.social www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2026/0...

My excellent @qmulsse.bsky.social colleague Leslie James finds a glimmer of hope in the ashes of the AI revolution... www.qmul.ac.uk/society-and-...

This will be brilliant

Donald Trump says of Starmer:"This is not Winston Churchill we're dealing with". So what happened when Churchill travelled to Fulton, Missouri in 1946 to chart a new course for the UK-US relationship? What can we learn from that today? Join us tomorrow for an event that could hardly be more timely

On 26 March, the @mileendinstitute.bsky.social and @politicalquarterly.bsky.social will be holding a special event on "Inequality & the Future of London". Join @rupahuq.bsky.social @mikebrewerecon.bsky.social @sachahilhorst.bsky.social and Joe Fyans. All welcome! www.eventbrite.com/e/inequality...

Why did the People's Vote campaign fail? Could Brexit have been stopped? What lessons can be learned? Join us on 19 March to launch @morganj0nes.bsky.social's new book: "No Second Chances: The Inside Story of the Campaign for a Second Referendum". All welcome! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/no-second-...

Listening to Darren Jones floundering on Today, I think the govt needs to talk more candidly about its differences with the US. That can still be respectful - this isn't "Love Actually" - but when a US President is phoning the UK press to attack the PM, there's no point rolling out the usual script

This is very good news - a really important win for the independence of the Electoral Commission.

You cannot talk like this about any other minority in America. And if it was any other president’s adviser who said something like this about any other minority, it’d be the instant end of their presidency.

One of Kemi Badenoch's worst attributes is her assumption that there is an easy answer to every question - her own - and that those who do not support it are either weak, corrupt or malign.

"In war much is uncertain, unknown and volatile, a simple point that is still easily neglected. We argue about this in the dark". Excellent piece by @patporter76.bsky.social, making the realist case against war in Iran. thecritic.co.uk/the-case-aga...

This looks like a good initiative from the government. There’s lots of public land available where well sited renewables projects make a lot of sense. www.businessgreen.com/news/4526286...

I've also been struck by this. The Trump regime is normalising the decapitation of governments it dislikes by assassinating or abducting their leaders. There are good reasons why states have tended not to make this a norm.

This Thursday! The great @patporter76.bsky.social & @sophgaston.bsky.social will mark 80 years since Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech, with its call for a "special relationship", & ask how we might rethink that relationship now. 5 March 6:30: free tickets here! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/beyond-the...

"First-past-the-post system is creaking at the seams" and "Westminster is dangerously underprepared for a multi-party future". Excellent piece by @drhannahmcd.bsky.social: the Gorton & Denton by-election raises much bigger questions about our democracy than whether Starmer survives as Labour leader

"This result shows Keir Starmer's premiership is finished. ... If he had any integrity he would go" (Kemi Badenoch). Quite the claim from a leader whose party came fourth, with 706 votes - 8,658 fewer than Labour in third. (The rest of the statement is a disgrace).

It's rather depressing that, in a three-way by-election with potentially seismic consequences - in which voters had a genuine range of options - less than half the electorate showed up. By-election turnout is never great, but I don't think we should just shrug over this.

Quite. If parties want to hold onto a broad coalition of voters, they need to be home to a broad range of opinions.

It's sad to see people who had never heard of Democracy Volunteers yesterday all over social media trashing them. They've been around for a decade & are partly funded by the (left-leaning) Joseph Rowntree Foundation. We protest when the right trashes these groups. The left shouldn't do it either.

Attention (rightly) is on the Greens, Labour and Reform, but it's a mark of how bad things are for the Conservatives that we're not even talking about their *706* votes. Contrast the notional result in 2019 (before the current seat existed) or Andrew Gwynne's old Denton seat.

Will democracy survive as a 21st-century form of government, or are we watching it slide towards bankruptcy? On 11 March, David Runciman (@ppfideas.bsky.social), Lyse Doucet, Thant Myint-U and Christopher Clark will discuss the slow death of democracy. Tickets: www.tickettailor.com/events/londo...

Next Thursday, we will welcome @patporter76.bsky.social and @sophgaston.bsky.social to @qmulsse.bsky.social to mark 80 years since Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech. All of our events are free-to-attend and tickets are still available so do join us if you can! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/beyond-the...

Today's by-election is another illustration of the problems with FPTP. The result may tell us less about what voters want to happen than whether they can game the system effectively to stop a result most *don't* want. The electoral system should not be an obstacle that voters have to work around.

Niche academic complaint, but universities' lunatic "ethical approval processes" for interviews are killing whole areas of academic research. No, you can't "anonymise" what a politician said "on the record": it matters who said it. No, they will not sign 50 consent forms. This is not "high risk"...

I feel Thursday could be a test of Cowley's Law of By-Election Analysis: that too much attention is paid to who wins. Also, Cowley's rarely used Supplementary Law of By-Election Analysis: too much attention can be paid to who comes third.

An American newspaper called Churchill a "great but blinded aristocrat". More than 100 MPs signed a protest in the House of Commons. Why was Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech so contentious, and what are its lessons today? Join us on 5 March to find out! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/beyond-the...

"An iron curtain has descended across the Continent..." On 5 March we'll mark 80 years of Churchill's "Sinews of Peace" speech at Fulton Missouri. Join @patporter76.bsky.social & @sophgaston.bsky.social at the @mileendinstitute.bsky.social to explore its history & the lessons for today. Book here!

My choir sang two settings of the same text this morning ("Timor et Tremor"), written 400 years apart: one by Lassus in the C16th, the other by Poulenc in the 20th. Both fab examples of how great composers can find different colours in the same words. Here's Poulenc: www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUHX...

This clip is all over the other place and has made its way onto GB News and Talk TV so I’ll do a bit of an explainer here too! The clip doing the rounds is of a fantastic police officer telling a group of Muslim men that a Christian preacher nearby is entitled to freedom of expression. 🧵 1/19

This felt like an important test for the Supreme Court. Trump's tariffs were manifestly unconstitutional. That there was any doubt how the Court would rule was a mark of how badly it's been corroded. But the defences held,& that's a rare bit of constitutional good news www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c0...

Actual good news from the Amazon. www.businessgreen.com/news-analysi...

At QMUL on Monday, the wonderful Kate Adie was asked what she would like to have been taught in a journalism degree, had such things existed in her day. She replied instantly: "History". It was the best antidote to the assumption everything was new, unprecedented & of world-historical importance.

Our webinar on "Reforming the Jury System: Speeding up Justice or Ending 800 Years of Liberty?" is now available online. With thanks to @kaycrosby.bsky.social, @rebeccakhelm.bsky.social and Hannah Quirk for a really enjoyable and informative discussion. www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiep...

A shocking indictment of the intimidation and danger MPs now routinely experience. The hostility routinely whipped up against "Westminster" and "politicians" has a real human cost.

One of the more hopeful signs in UK politics is that Reform consistently struggles to poll above the mid-to-high 20s - despite a deteriorating economy, the simultaneous implosion of both the traditional parties and a pet TV station. Reform is not some unstoppable force. It's eminently beatable.

It was an absolute joy to host Kate Adie - one of the greatest reporters of modern times - at the @mileendinstitute.bsky.social for this evening’s Hennessy Lecture. She was compelling, funny, incisive and inspirational. If you ever get the chance to hear her speak, take it!

I understand the case for postponing some elections while local govt is reorganised,but the bar for suspending elections should be extremely high. It's crucial not to set a precedent that elections can be easily cancelled. Pandemics & wars meet the threshold; administrative convenience & cost don't

Very excited to be hosting one of the great legends of news reporting at the @mileendinstitute.bsky.social this evening: the wonderful Kate Adie. Tickets have all been snapped up, so we're looking forward to a warm welcome from a full house. www.qmul.ac.uk/mei/events/m...

I don't think Starmer has any conception of the "teaching" role of the premiership: the responsibility (& opportunity) to talk to the public, to shape how they understand the world & the choices before them. All the most impactful PMs have been teachers. Starmer seems actively to repudiate the role

I was very pleased to sign this letter, alongside an extremely impressive range of vastly more distinguished people

"The collision of a multiparty electorate with a voting system designed for two parties is creating new risks for Britain". I signed this letter. It's not about blocking Reform;it's about the danger to democracy of a system that can't cope with multiparty voting www.politicshome.com/news/article...

The Representation of the People Bill contains lots to be happy about. Measures to boost participation & stop foreign interference are very welcome. But there's more still to do to give the public confidence that the rules are enforced independently & political power cannot be bought. 🧵

Well said. Not a great day to be a United fan.

Oh great. The World at One has begun its coverage of Jim Ratcliffe's remarks with two "vox pops" - one for, and one against. Just such an awful, cop-out model of reporting.