Massive political science reply-all-gate in progress.

Not sure that this is quite what Popper had in mind. Refutation through shooting the shit doesn’t really cut it.

Exactly this.

Why the humanities *really* matter: a case study. Excellent thread.

Like inviting King Herod on to talk about developments in paediatric care.

Emma Monk is very good at this. Another magnificent demolition job on malevolent non-story designed to whip up Islamophobia.

Plus (a) the political context is completely different (PR and the soc dems govern in coalition with the centre-right) & (b) the 'success' of the soc dems has seen a progressive erosion of their voter base (not just in terms of who the residual voters are, but also in terms of how many there are).

Looking forward to hearing Matt Goodwin's reaction to this.

Of course, it makes most sense to talk about bloc politics within proportional systems where governing coalitions are an inevitability. Equally, to identify potential governing blocs based upon clear polling trends is indicative of the urgent need for the UK to reform its electoral system.

From the FT's morning email update. The answer to the question posed at the end is so obvious: because people who take a job stacking shelves are unlikely to end up as the kind of rent-a-quote CEOs who sounds off to the FT when the government seeks to raise the minimum wage in line with inflation.

A film you’ve seen more than seven times with a gif

So much for the sanctity of ‘the will of the people’.

Well, some proper investigative journalists looked into the men (all men) behind the flag protests. You’ll never guess what they found out …

Saturday afternoon in the record shop. A couple of teenagers (13-14 tops) dressed in scouts uniform flicking through the vinyl racks, earnestly discussing their favourites: ‘All I’ll say is that this is the best album ever made’ - What’s that? ‘Abbey Road’ - I prefer Pulp. I blame the parents.

Outstanding thread that completely debunks this hysterical, inflammatory and deeply misleading Daily Mail headline.

👀 JFC. Who are ‘they’? To which ‘you’ is he referring?

Looks a lot like tactical voting took place here.

🎯 💯👇

This thread should be compulsory reading.

No idea which office lackey gets to pen these captions, but they could certainly use some unconscious bias training. Shaheen's LSE profile does use the word 'activist' (among others), but to not describe Goodwin as an 'activist' is highly misleading. And he is categorically no longer an 'academic'.

Quote post with favourite reaction gif of all time.

Tonight on Peston: King Herod - genocidal maniac or visionary pioneer of birth control?

Part of the problem here is that HE policy is run (and mostly commented on) by people who went to university, but have no conception of either advanced learning or the broader purpose of universities beyond their direct experience. From this vantage point university is self-evidently ‘big school’.

Words have consequences www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Pochin was spouting racist nonsense, obvs. But it's also worth saying that advertising agencies work for clients who want to sell stuff. Maybe some non-white faces appear in adverts because images of a diverse society actually sell - they appeal to consumers, the majority of whom are not racist.

An interesting result and one that suggests - as Sunder notes here - the capacity of tactical voting under first-past-the-post to organise the very significant anti-Reform majority in Wales and across the UK.

In stark contrast to the Tories ludicrous mass deportation proposals where support sits at around 3%.

In their desperate efforts to outflank Reform from the (even further) right, the Tories are proposing a policy that accords with the preferences of roughly 3% of the electorate.

I mean, who knew?

Terrific thread. More evidence, alas, that Labour values the votes of racists more than it values those of the people who actually voted for them. A staggeringly small proportion of Britons actually support what Lam is proposing, so why in the name of holy hell aren't Labour loudly opposing it?

These people need to get their story straight. Were the protests antisemitic or should we deploy antisemitic tropes to criticise them?

That noise you can hear is Hannah Arendt spinning in her grave.

Indeed. Perhaps we are moving away from a phase when climate change-sceptics could rally without scrutiny against some sort of leftist-expert consensus to one where their opponent is the brute financial logic of the insurance industry abandoning large swathes of the country.

Comment rather than question.

The citation being read out is rife with barely concealed criticism of those that undermine democratic and constitutional freedoms - the likes of you-know-who.

ABR is not (yet) on this platform (working on it), but she makes a good point here.

Behold the tired old media theory of public opinion: We only reflect public sentiment; we have nothing to do with constructing it in the first place.

TLDR: Not enough gags, no show tunes. On the other hand, this is an almost perfect internalisation of many of the play's central themes.

I mean …

Another day, more Kemi-kaze haplessness.

Duverger's law on life support here.

She has a cross on conspicuous display. What she is saying stands in direct violation of the message of Luke 10:25–29 - the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Proper investigative journalism right here 👇. No court tittle-tattle or bigging up Reform. Just some cold facts that require attention and a response from the party leadership.

A huge formative influence. I met him once, in Sydney in 2002. We ended up in an Indian restaurant where the conversation was rather better than the food. A stellar scholar.

Outstanding thread and Substack post on the widespread, yet weirdly irrational, assumption that the voters who actually form the base of the Labour coalition aren't really authentic voters.

This is unpopular with business, economically illiterate and contrary to the scientific consensus. But it apes Reform and that’s all that seems to matter. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Just to note that - by no measure - is the the median voter racist. The median X user might be these days, but they are different things.

This is very harsh … on 7th graders.

Visuals matter, often doing much more than mere words to frame stories. In this case, the image also builds on the persistently willful mis-presentation of racialised asylum seekers as ‘illegals’.