This is my new favourite analogy for mainstream parties' problem with the radical right! If you're a mainstream party, you can talk about other things! If you're the government, you can talk about *and do* other things *and* you get to set the agenda, at least to some extent, much of the time!

It's funny how Heathrow's third runway is treated as this massively important big deal, generating endless noise on its impact/cost etc, dominating Parliament and discourse. Yet Gatwick getting a second runway approved is a one-day, second-or-third-in-the-running-order story.

I mean he knows a lot more about sprinting than me, but I'm fairly sure the answer to this one is 'forwards, really fast, staying between the lines'

If you've ever wanted to know what Jacob Rees-Mogg's house looks like, then I have just the video for you...

PITCH: a dating show based on supermarket baskets 12 singles are asked to do their weekly shop then pick a partner based only on what the person bought

i’m trying to remember which writer told me that, when their sitcom was being remade in america, they were told “the trouble is the main character’s a loser; we’re going to make them more of a winner” and the writer thought “what’s funny about that?” i guess the point is it could have been anyone

If you've ever wanted to know what Jacob Rees-Mogg's house looks like, then I have just the video for you...

Roland Barthes is having problems talking about the nice weather:

My mum has never stopped going on about how he ruined her Christmas Day by killing Matthew off in the Xmas special. Woe betide Lord F if she ever bumps into him down the Co-op.

If his TheyWorkForYou page is anything to go on, he doesn’t seem to be doing a great deal of legislating anyway.

Nothing to stop Parliament passing a bill purely for this purpose

PSA: the new Downton Abbey film is possibly the worst film I have seen in my entire life. It is almost impossible to put into words how lazy the writing is.

Very happy to be back on the Parliament Matters podcast, discussing the latest developments on the assisted dying bill with @ruthfox.bsky.social & @matthewengland.bsky.social. Thank you for having me! Listen to the episode here: pod.link/1714627828/e...

Um...

"This deception still feels relevant now. The impulse to falsify or exaggerate a backstory to gain credibility or social standing has not entirely disappeared." 🔎 @zoecrowther.bsky.social explores the hidden story behind her family's link to Jeremy Thorpe

You can keep up to date with which senior ministers and Labour-affiliated unions have announced their endorsement for either Bridget Phillipson or Lucy Powell as the next deputy leader of the Labour Party on @politicshome.bsky.social 👇 www.politicshome.com/news/article...

Along with those whose own kids are all going to go to university but who complain that not enough of other people's kids do apprenticeships...

"I would recommend The Smallest Room in the House to anyone interested in politics", said Jacob Rees-Mogg, before adding "and I would also recommend Psmith, Journalist". Paired with Wodehouse once again. Oh well. I can live with that.

Flattering the Beast: my SKETCH of the all-out effort to save Britain by sucking up to Trump.

Big week for me and the team as "The British General Election of 2024" has now gone into production. The definitive book of last year's landmark election will be hitting stores later this autumn, and is available to pre-order right now! Here's the Amazon page: www.amazon.co.uk/British-Gene...

Latest piece for the @thehousemag.bsky.social, beginning with this: "One electoral change has been unrelenting: the growing – in fact accelerating – refusal of the electorate to cast a ballot for either of the two governing parties". When was that sentence first published? 1977...

"Voters may no longer swim in schools, but the parties fish in different ponds."

Another @philipjcowley.bsky.social banger: “One electoral change has been unrelenting: the growing – in fact accelerating – refusal of the electorate to cast a ballot for either of the two governing parties.” www.politicshome.com/opinion/arti...

I would vote for him.

Latest piece for the @thehousemag.bsky.social, beginning with this: "One electoral change has been unrelenting: the growing – in fact accelerating – refusal of the electorate to cast a ballot for either of the two governing parties". When was that sentence first published? 1977...

Just out at JOP (www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10....) : Why do so few working-class people hold office? It's not lack of interest. Noam Lupu and I ran 10 surveys in 8 countries and found no evidence of a social class gap in how often qualified people consider running.

Agree with Ian on everything he says in this thread. Nothing makes me feel more sympathetic to Labour’s choices at the election than the sheer number of “just raise the top rate!” style bits of nonsense you see on here.

Very useful piece.

An excellent pop culture reference, only spoiled by the incorrect spelling of the band, Prof……

I wrote this, and someone's now been in touch to say they are convinced they once heard Macmillan say it on TV. By that I mean, "events, dear boy, events", not "shit happens".

The whips office has been so reshuffled it's the Sugarbabes of the government.

The lack of urgency shown by the Paw Patrol when alerted to a situation will lead to loss of life. I hate to say it but Ryder is not right for the leadership role and should be stripped of his duties

I think it was @philipjcowley.bsky.social chairing at an academic conference who went to Q&A with a rule of "your first sentence will end with a question mark and there will be no second sentence"

Interview on The Westminster Hour about You Know What - featuring riots, bear, chip shops, leaflets, and our dismal failure at political predictions. From 48:53.

There’s a real generational divide between Labour MPs leaking to the Guardian and Labour MPs leaking to the Huffington Post

You could avoid a lot of mistakes in politics if you just hired someone who didn't actually listen in meetings but whose covering remark was 'A show of strength? I don't think that's wise, prime minister' whenever they were called upon.

Agree. Shameless plug to my newsletter on that topic:

The whips office regeneration has received less notice than it deserves.

roll up, roll up, get your unfunded hobbyist research here, before it all goes... www.politicshome.com/opinion/arti...

We want robust, enormous research that is SUCH good research, you already know how important and right and insightful it is before you even start it. We want research so predeterminedly world-changing that there is hardly any point actually doing the research at all.

ANYWAY, Research Professional, the canny lot, have learnt from THE that the way to get your clicks is to post a provocative headline on a Friday morning when academics just want to get angry and ruin their weekends. Onwards with trying to write a paper!

the original point I thought I was going to make was: they seem to want more of a shift to competitive grants. This seems to ignore ALL the evidence in economics and public admin of the enormous sunk costs of this approach. It is incredibly inefficient!

Hmmm, my argument against this was going to be something different, but now I've read it, my question is: what's the evidence research IS NOT specialised in institutions?! 50 years of the joint funding model means it looks pretty specialised to me 🤷

5 parties on more than 12%, winner gains seat with under 30%. Results like this used to be rare, freak outliers. Now they are routine (there was a second just like this yesterday). Electoral chaos.

Why is it always a children's book? When do we get a celebrity who decides to edit a Festschrift or prepare an annotated edition of a primary source text?

NO ONE COULD HAVE FORESEEN THIS. thecritic.co.uk/oh-mandy/

Is it rational to expect to win elections? @mbarnfield.bsky.social argues so-called "wishful thinking" about election outcomes is part of how voters make rational sense of their role in democracies. Read OPEN ACCESS: buff.ly/g5aHeG0 @polstudiesassoc.bsky.social @uoypolitics.bsky.social @sagepub.com

this is ridiculous

I don't think anyone who's salivating at the prospect of mass political violence or civil war has the foggiest idea of how bad these things are in real life. It's beyond their memory and their imagination.

The latest edition of @thehousemag.bsky.social is out in Parliament now – and I had a not-so-quiet summer recess writing three *very different* pieces for it Including a very personal one… which I will share the link to when it goes up online 👀