Very weird to watch "o And Behold: Reveries of the Connected World (2016) in 2026. There is a tech optimist worldview in the film that is both extremely strange for a Werner Herzog doc, and belongs to a world that died within a year of this doc's release. Also Elon Musk is there 1/5

brain baked on X, by an increasingly isolated and poisonous Labour leadership culture, and of course by Belphegor, the demon who lives in the basement of Home Office headquarters and possesses every new minister.

Thing is if this Cordon Sanitare goes back up against racism, it does have to go up against transphobia too!

🔴 Keir Starmer promised to crackdown on "Slapps" - abusive libel cases to silence journalists and critics Then Labour quietly dropped it We can reveal why: a three-year lobbying blitz by libel lawyers who've acted for Russian oligarchs, Epstein + more democracyforsale.substack.com/p/how-lawyer...

As for London, we, the most productive part of the country, and the heart of Labour Britain, should be forced to hang our heads in shame for existing at all, let along being multicultural

reminding myself of why I hate Burnham From 15 Dec 2016 - Labour Party is too London Centric - Immigration bad for the North - "System of Government" too London Centric - Immigrants drive down wages in the North

We should start calling a parachuted candidate in a seat that has a high risk of blowing up in their face a Market Garden

When someone asked to find a seat Andy Burnham wouldn't lose to the Greens in and you turn up this one? In the borough that just did this?!

SORRY THE LABOUR TOGETHER, PUT PEOPLE SMUGGLERS IN BOATS OFF THE SCOTTISH COAST FOR ALL I CARE, I AM DOING SMEAR CAMPAIGNING ON JOURNOS MP IS THE ONE STANDING DOWN FOR BURNHAM?!

Imo it's not. We shouldn't pretend like we have a presidential system when we do not. Whether MPs or members choose party leaders is up for debate but it's unequivocally not "democratically indefensible"

congratulations to Angela Rayner on her well timed exoneration but she still hasn’t said anything that makes me think she has a plan to do much differently from Starmer

the thing that I don't get is... if you're a Labour MP, don't you just find that sort of shit utterly fucking galling lmao "don't worry gang, there's 400 of you but if we can just all wait for a bit, I'll definitely swing in to save the party!" they're calling it the Labour cuck bench

I'm sorry but can we stop acting as if there's some great barrier to switching between tiers of government in the UK? Being a prominent figure in local government is literally the surest route to getting selected as a Labour parliamentary candidate.

He's the only one that makes sense: Burnham's a non-starter, Streeting is [redacted] and may lose to Starmer amongst the membership; Rayner's tax issues matter. It's finally time for chaos with Ed Miliband, and it depresses me that I'm actually enthusiastic about it, but Starmer will do that to you.

It is almost impossible to stress how utterly pathetic it is to say that the prime minister has failed and lost all authority and must be given a few more months because you miscalculated the timing on how you could personally benefit?? Fuck off with this

All the "is Miliband popular/competent/acceptable after losing 11 years ago" is missing the most crucial point: that the most dramatically satisfying ending is that the guy who lost the election after which everything went wrong comes back and fixes it all. Ask Chekov. Ask Aristotle

you’re running against the minister for women and equalities who is pushing through changes to trans rights that party members hate do you (a) make it a campaign issue (b) half heartedly talk about everyone being a bit nicer to each other and let your opponent completely avoid scrutiny

I don't know how many different ways I can say this but I'm not stepping aside for Andy Burnham, and it's both very tedious for me and very demoralising for my staff to keep seeing it reported that I might be about to go when there's never even been so much as a conversation with Andy about doing so

The real, damning indictment of this government, the true evidence of failure of leadership, is that the Treasury is still making decisions and projections using forecasts that assume the Home Office changes will not happen for them to work. That is why Starmer must go.

I think this is basically wrong? Even if we accept the patronising understanding of voters as requiring immediate gratification, it requires you to agree that, given time Starmer's policies would have succeeded in addressing our malaise and...I don't think you can assume that?

And frankly parliamentary sovereignty in general tbh. Much of the SC ruling exemplifies essentially a refusal to accept parliament's power to determine the meaning of "sex" in law at all.

Hard to say which approach I prefer.

“Psychodrama” has always obscured more than it resolved- right from the start it was the way that BBC Politics in that era babbled its way around the conviction that couldn’t cover Brexit in detail without being biased and that the public needed to be talked down to.

The idea that Burnham would be this great force lurking in the shadows to threaten any other potential Labour PM is honestly pathetic. He’s shit! He’s not even very popular! Get a fucking grip, Labour

FUCK FUCK FUCK NOT A DRILL DO IT WES, FORCE ED TO DO IT!

Most medium-sized English cities are going to be left devastated by the HE crisis if government doesn’t do something soon.

Think some of you are starting to do the Corbyn thing again with Polanski (making an individual the sole paragon for progressive politics despite flaws and dismissing or getting defensive over repeated instances of questionable character or judgement that you wouldn't accept from other politicians)

pleased to say this made me go "no." out loud

Fun fact: the magical child safety solution which Jess Philips cited in her resignation letter is a vendor-specific offering, which benefited from an intense PR and lobbying campaign, and was previously praised by ... Prince Andrew. I always keep the receipts. heatherburns.tech/2026/02/20/t...

Haigh’s essay here is well worth reading. This is not some MMT-adjacent treatise - it genuinely engages with the constraint.

As @duncanweldon.bsky.social says, this is much better and more thoughtful than the scare quotes some were sharing would suggest.

The most obvious indication that no Starmer relaunch will ever work is that he's had several opportunities to use normally unprecedented global events as a platform to reframe the government's agenda and has refused to do so.

Someone in the cabinet is going to do the "In the name of God, go" thing at him and Keir won't get it because he has no interest or understanding of politics or history and he'll just say "the proper process needs to be followed 🤓"

He can't even make a political decision about his own future

Tomorrow's cabinet meeting in full

Labour MPs calling for an orderly transition but unfortunately their government needs to be at least 18 years old with four doctors to sign off first

the Ed Miliband campaign cranks into gear

It's funny how political designations named after a particular individual take on a life of their own. Like how 'Thatcherites' gets used for hard right types who despise the society she made, or how the group of MPs fanatically dedicated to ensuring Keir Starmer stays in place are 'Burnhamites'

It's time to rip up the red lines.

The most annoying thing is Burnham himself knows this. He could have chosen not to stand for a second mayoral term in May 2024 so he could go back as an MP. He didn't. He chose Manchester. Now he's got the popularity boost from not being in Westminster, he's changed his mind. Funny that

the chiefest reason to crown ed miliband and not literally anyone else by the way is quite simply that he is the only person in labour who has demonstrated any actual ability to put together a policy wishlist

an unstated problem that western Politics Knowers for some reason just don't like facing is that you should not put people who like power but not for any particular reason in charge of anything

Getting Rid of Keir Starmer: A Guide for Labour MPs So you've decided that Keir Starmer is no longer fit to govern (took you long enough! haha no I mean it's good you've finally decided to join the rest of us), and now you need to determine what comes next... 1/7

No, it is actually in fact a huge policy issue that the prime minister does not adjudicate between departments, does not command the support of his MPs and does not grip whether policies are actually being delivered!

September?! Bad enough with the Conservatives, let alone after two years of summer riots.

I suppose she should have tried to appoint herself “anonymous snarky Labour MP not actually doing anything about the fact that the country doesn’t have a leader”

Deliverism is dead Did you deliver anything No. Nevertheless,

It's very striking to me that we can find Parliamentary time to nationalise steel, but we're yet to find time to actually respond to the fact what was our 6th largest export industry is imploding day by day.

PM Keir Starmer 2024-6