I'm sorry but having a 'primary-style selection' for who you put on your **NPF slate** might be the most ridiculous and lame idea I've ever come across in internal Labour politicking

Why though

Jo White implying that Burnham should be allowed to stand is really random ngl

Well this is quite the change in tone from Starmer

genuinely think the funniest traitors twist would be a series with no traitors. murders at random, let the faithful make up their own theories, watch them go slowly go mad as every banishment is a faithful

Been working on an interesting bit of my literature review today looking at OV/VO word order in the different stages of Latin and how preference for VO over OV or vice versa was strongly linked to register and medium

Maybe there is hope yet for British Methodism after all

Like, I know you want to blame the unions, but the labour market being this fucked is down to the implementation being done by Fabian statists; it's not the inevitable outcome of trade union influence on the party

Quite left-wing trade unionist member of my CLP last night went on a long rant about how the government's tax policy was wrecking local businesses and making it impossible for her son to get a part-time job. Sort of wish I'd given her a round of applause.

Afraid to report that Polanski's latest campaign video might be the most cringe one yet www.instagram.com/reel/DT0u6Uu...

Watching the Traitors on 1.5x speed in advance of the final, because 3 hours of episodes on weekdays is too much to keep up with

Shabana Mahmood gets a lot of criticism, and plenty of that is deserved, but to some extent she's just following the Home Office position, which is always in favour of less immigration. The person who should get more of the criticism IMO is Rachel Reeves.

It's a tad more complex than this, I think. In the US it's upper Gen X/lower boomers who are most right-wing, in France it's lower Gen X/upper millennials (18-30s in France are the most *left-wing* group). Only in the UK does there seem to be that linear relationship between age and RW views.

And this is bad because...?

Agreed, although this is possibly a bit too harsh on John Smith, who had more about him than your typical Old Right leader (e.g. setting up the Commission on Social Justice)

I guess the case *for* Burnham here is that blocking his candidacy would cause left-wing voters to look elsewhere. It would be like Chingford and Woodford Green on steroids.

Yeah, "Does number 10 have the authority to block this" is the real leadership election.

I think 1) if Starmer doesn’t have the authority to block this he’ll be out the day that becomes clear 2) it’s possible he doesn’t and this is actually the precipitating event

This 👇

And so it begins

Listened to Speak and Spell today for the first time in years. Had forgotten just how good it was. open.spotify.com/album/1XLkKN...

The Labour MP that I think would be most able to rise to the current moment is Hilary Benn, but the chances of him becoming PM are not much above zero (alas)

Good grief

Mark Carney's speech really is terrific: full text is here and very much worth your time.

Frankly this is the kind of post that shows someone has been reading too much of UK Twitter's mad China hawkism for too long. The Sunak-Starmer China policy remains the only real world China policy the UK can have.

Harvard referencing is bloody annoying as it is, so why does Leeds insist on its own 'modified' version of it in which the order of the elements in the reference list is different and all forenames must be initialised?

And it's not an insurmountable problem, especially if we deepen our cooperation with France

Pre-COVID vibes

Really unbecoming response from Newsom here. Instead of standing in solidarity, he thinks Europe's role is to do the Democrats' job for them.

Ok but Peter, do you have complex solutions

I'm also struck by how liberal Mamdani and AOC often are. They are of course anti-oligarchy and anti-billionaire, but they display an openness to regular businesses and markets that has no parallel on the British left.

Is it really too much to ask for at least one major party in this country that is social democratic on the economy, unapologetically socially liberal, internationalist, and strong on defence? And before you say anything: none of the parties in the Commons are all four

You have to be able to grasp, I think, that Blair and those around him felt it was their moral duty to remove Saddam Hussein from power, and that the perceived 'betrayal' by left-liberals over Iraq was radicalising for them

Funny thing is that I've ended up hanging around with a lot of soft left (and even hard left) people for radical social liberalism purposes – I just have to keep quiet about my economic views

Indeed. I, too, wish that we were led by an out-and-out economic and social liberal with a clear sense of what he wants to achieve. But sadly we are not.

Help, which leadership candidate do I need to support in order to get McFadden as Chancellor

Thinking about who among the potential candidates to replace Keir Starmer has the courage to rise to the current moment, I think it is between Rayner and Streeting. Can't see Miliband, Burnham or Mahmood having the guts to level with the electorate and do what has to be done.

It really is a remarkable transformation in such a short space of time. There are areas of Leeds which are similarly unrecognisable, even just in the 5 years I've been here. www.instagram.com/p/DTLAlBMDpt...

This is probably the best quick explanation of glottalisation that I've seen youtube.com/shorts/baTNo...

I'm sorry but why is this MP (you'll be able to work out who) searching his name on Bluesky at 3.51am

misreading “brassica modelling” in the email from your agent

imagine being a model and getting cast FOR ACTUAL VOGUE and then realising it's to be the face of a Year Of Cabbage

Still reticent to go full-blown Rejoin because I'm not convinced the EU would have been able to scale up in this way without Brexit. Partly because Brexit killed off viable anti-EU campaigns in other states, partly because the UK would have blocked the development of this proto-state apparatus.

I would say this of course, but I just think it would be far easier to get Labour into the position Stephen describes than it would the Tories. What constitutes the right of UK politics is just too far gone, and as long as immigration remains a defining issue for them that will be the case.

Numbers Go Up+Socialism+Woke CIA.

This is a typo, but for a brief moment I thought it was just a lovely turn of phrase about how the flavours change. Anyway I’m going to use it from now one, like my favourite malapropism, “we’ll burn that bridge when we come to it”.

[1/6] A reminder: Europe has cards to use against the US. Lots of them. To cite some examples: - Tighten screws on US digital giants (taxes, fines, even bans) - Export taxes disrupting US supply chains eg pharma - Exclude US firms from European procurement, inc defence ecfr.eu/publication/...

Seems to be a pretty divisive film! I think it's one of those where it's great if you're able to go along with it and its various cinematic conceits, but terrible if you find yourself too conscious of what it's doing.

Was worried I'd find Chloé Zhao's Hamnet overly melodramatic but I actually loved it

i think all policy demands should be framed like this actuall. Point 1 lower the nomination threshold for the leaders ballot, point 2 comprehensive reform of UK VAT.