Colour me sceptical

there's a credible argument that Jeremy Corbyn's single greatest impact on British politics has been mainstreaming open antisemitism on the British left, and he is determined to continue his hard work even post-leadership

Just want this bloody election to be over now

If you ask a French person about the region they come from, 9 times out of 10 the first thing they mention will be the local dish/cheese/wine

Yeah Labour domination of Wales was bound to end sooner or later. If anything it's incredible we managed to cling on so long post-devolution.

I think recent developments may be turning me into an out-and-out anti-populist

The fuck?

ABBA – Lay All Your Love On Me Alison Moyet – Should I Feel That It's Over Carole King – Up On The Roof Everything But The Girl – I Don't Want To Talk About It Glen Campbell – Wichita Lineman 1/2

I am into completely unprocessed food. I just go up and bite a cow.

Doesn't have time to comment on the steady stream of horrific antisemitic candidates from his party. Does have time to make the Jewish community's tragedy about him specifically, before trying to pour cold water on actions that the mainstream Jewish community are crying out for.

polanski reduces calling out antisemitism and the incitement of violence to baseless "political attacks". when a green party - or any party - candidate reduces the worth and dignity of jewish life that should be up for political scrutiny. it is the bare minimum that we all recognise life is sacred

You cannot talk about immigration as a purely political thing, not without mentioning that Mahmood's policies will damage the economy, undermine core services, including the NHS and education, particularly higher education, and further stokes division in communities rather than resolving it. 2/

Just as a quick back of envelope calculation extrapolating from current trends (so caveats apply), there may well be 1 million British Jews by 2080. We urgently need to forge better civil society movements to defend the UK's growing Jewish population against antisemitism.

I have nothing particularly useful to contribute except this: this is the direct consequence of Polanski's uncritical embrace of the idea that the Labour antisemitism scandal was basically fake. He opened the door to those people and lo and behold

Oh this? Just the Met Commissioner pleading for Britain's organised, self-avowed, anti-racist movement to show any interest in the epidemic of antisemitic violence. My newsletter, out now.

An odd phenomenon which merits further examination is why the people in the current PLP from international development and human rights backgrounds seem to be among the most vulnerable to reactionary nonsense

I think it's really underappreciated that a large chunk of people across the world are everyday being served images of the world's worst atrocities, essentially live as they happen, in ways previously only experienced by people on the frontline, who have historically had years of trauma as a result.

I maintain that the problem with Reeves's approach is not using Employer NICs as the main revenue raiser per se, but rather the fact the increases are so heavily concentrated on the bottom end of the labour market (and the consequences of that for job creation and retail/hospitality inflation)

And also, it remains incredibly popular with most voters of all ages, for really obvious reasons: most people like their older relatives!

Extraordinary charts. British state pensions are not expensive and the triple lock isn't cranking them up at an absurd rate. In fact the triple lock might even be *saving* money compared to the old formula. H/t @benansell.bsky.social @hetanshah.bsky.social @jezmrogers.bsky.social

Most of the histrionic people aren't even poor

Oh wow people are normal about this post huh

This is the coming battle inside Labour IMO, in the next leadership contest and beyond: making the case for nothing less than a full return to the European economic institutions

This is far more widespread than many people assume, especially in diverse cities where precarious immigrant families see becoming a landlord as their only route to security (with plenty of justification, I'd add; it's a pretty logical move when you are literally shut out of several labour markets)

Because we don't have an economically serious Labour Party (or Tory Party) at the moment, no one is making the most compelling case here: that a vote for the Greens is a vote to put people out of work, to create a black market in illegal sublets, and to put rocket boosters under inflation

It's difficult to overstate how much of a game-changer AV would be IMO. You'd almost certainly have a Labour MP in Central Devon, for instance. And maybe even one in Windsor.

A really negative consequence of the 2024 landslide was that it gave us representation in places with huge right-wing majorities and allowed reactionaries within Labour to claim credit for seats that were handed to us entirely due to dynamics internal to the right-wing bloc.

This morning I am mostly furious with the British establishment (yet again) for consistently treating Reform UK as if they were a legitimate political force, and not as the fascists that ought to be scorned and shunned that they are

In Co Durham I’ve heard people who haven’t voted for us since Blair described as “our people”, and told that we should be winning pit villages by the margins of 40 years ago. Parts of the party can’t accept our electorate isn’t what it once was, and this government’s policies are a result of that

Yep, and I think this is why Polanski fans on here get so wound up when socially progressive people from other political traditions criticise him

In hindsight it seems terribly decadent that we spent a good portion of the 2010s litigating whether things like Live Aid and Comic Relief were problematic, all while public support for international aid was faltering, and now in 2026 we've reached the point where it's completely collapsed

For the love of all that is good and holy, can we please bring back muscular fiscal conservatism in the UK

I know it won't be popular on here but I am actually pretty...attached?...to having local council elections in thirds

I understand the anger at the toxicity in Parliament but this getting ludicrous. For hopefully the final time: no, going through a division lobby in a parliamentary system with strong party discipline is not life or death, even if the piece of legislation in question is.

Pope Leo in audience with the Archbishop of Canterbury: “As my beloved predecessor, Pope Francis, said to the Primates of the Anglican Communion in 2024, ‘it would be a scandal if, due to our divisions, we did not fulfil our common vocation to make Christ known.’

Genuinely, local politics has a lot of stuff that would serve as great fodder for lobby journalists if they ever run out of Westminster gossip

I am very much press F to doubt on this, in that 'being interested in, or even willing' to do the scrutiny piece is a fantastic way to make the whips like you.

Some people are shortlisted on the basis of being successful in another field, others (like Hannah Spencer) made a name for themselves in local government without ever having interacted with national politics.

I feel that increasing the powers of local councillors 3 or 4 fold would probably result in happier MPs with weaker links to their constituency simply through sorting effects.

But then they gradually realise politics is and should be about alliances, winning people over to your views and ideas and that includes your own colleagues. And this happens during the moments when you have time to bond - eg waiting around to vote, sometimes with a pint.

I think it’s part and parcel of running an individual campaign, where it is highly oppositional in nature - and when MPs arrive at westminster, they instinctively balk at how chummy it all is.

I spend a lot of time in pubs despite not drinking alcohol at all, and it is entirely the fault of the Labour Party

Yep – and politics is akin to PR in many ways, in that it's utterly dependent on networking and interpersonal relationships

Obviously not the main point here, but how did there come to be an LGBT club on the outskirts of Milton Keynes of all places?

This seems doubtful until you go to French hypermarchés and they are basically the only examples of a giant Wal-Mart in Europe

Maybe it does with some MPs, but I'm pretty sure the cause in this particular case is thoroughly ideological rather than structural

Oh dear

Yeah I can totally see many of the young Polanskiites in the GPEW ending up as corporate lobbyists and when that happens it will be very, very funny

Can we talk about how annoying CrossCountry trains are? It's the fact you have to do battle with people with massive suitcases who are going all the way down to Bristol or Plymouth and insist on sitting in their reserved seat, whereas you're just going to Sheffield and booked at the last minute.