On the other hand the political reporting of Chris Mason is generally misleading in specific and general ways. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

American Nobel Prize-winners have a lot to learn about ideologies. What Acemoglu is writing about is not so much liberalism but social democracy.

Two days after the budget and very privileged journalists, paid by the public, are still rehearsing arguments about how lifting the two-child benefit cap is unfair on most families. These journalists should be ashamed of themselves as this is not scrutiny.

Very happy to finally get hold of this volume on the GE2024 for which I contributed a chapter on Labour’s electoral performance.

On the topic of the ‘mansion tax’ somebody with a £2m house will pay £2500 which is substantially less property tax in ABSOLUTE TERMS than I paid on a house assessed at $300k in Minneapolis a dozen years ago. I imagine they will live.

Signs that a rules-based order exists. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

You know a government is in trouble when it tries the old, tired, depressing “crack-down on welfare fraud”. If only Labour was that vigorous at cracking-down on corporate welfare and fraud, PFI and consultancy contracts www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

If this is true it becomes clear that Labour wants to destroy the HE sector and all the local economies that rely on it: higher visas for international students and now higher fees.

The political genius that is Morgan McSweeney is again preparing to take Labour supporters and members for granted. There is no way that he will convince Labour members that Mahmood is nothing other than a social authoritarian. www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

Well..

If these morally repugnant Plans are true Labour will be no different from Reform and deserves to loose the next election.

🌍 42.5m refugees Over 70% of them are hosted by low- and middle-income countries. 🇬🇧 548k refugees = 0.78% of the UK population. It is not refugees who tear our country apart, it is the mainstreaming of far right policies. And that’s a risk to all of us. My letter to my MP. #asylum #Mahmood 🧵

Shocking stuff. 👇🏼 As per usual, the allegedly non-ideological nature of the Starmer project means that it follows the most batshxx and fascist trends in vogue around the world.

Beautiful collaboration between Rosalía and Carminho. Such delicate song. youtu.be/2LrRw6AZEts

Madness! A new tax on electric vehicles so that the government showcases in technicolour its green washing agenda. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

After almost two decades of Conservative politics which did not ‘add up’ (more debt and more poverty), conservative commentators shamelessly lecture us on progressive politics.

Evidence 3561 that Morgan McSweeney is not very good at politics. It’s utter madness to manufacture a leadership crisis at this time in the political cycle www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

For a change it would be nice if train companies like Thameslink and EMR would be committed to transport passengers from place to place.

The Heritage Foundation, the intellectual engine behind the 922-page blueprint that has become the key policy manual for Donald Trump’s second term, is partnering with a constellation of European nationalist far-right movements to export its playbook.

Great piece by @colmpm.bsky.social and Patrick Diamond on Labour’s need to make a strong and cogent social democratic case for tax rises. renewal.org.uk/blog/if-labo...

Really interesting reflection on the politics of Mamdani’s smile. the.ink/p/essay-zohr...

The Danish Social Democrats whose immigration policy the Labour Party wants to copy are the red line that starts at 35% in 2019 and ends at 21% in 2025

Aside from the crucial voting system difference, the Social Democrats over this period have haemorrhaged votes to progressive parties and are currently on course for their worst result in 110yrs, while the Green Left are set for their best ever. The Danish People's Party are currently gaining.

"I'm making billions, and, if it fails, taxpayers will bail me out"

Seen in Vilnius.

Interesting that the office of the Prime Minister of Lithuania proudly and prominently displays NATO flags (I’ve counted 3 flags in one floor), something rarely seen in other European countries

Fabulous Soviet architectural features in Lithuania’s Parliament (minus the red flags with horses with their tails pointing upwards).

Today's crazy world, data point #473: My mom helps out in a food pantry in rural Germany. And they now got contacted by American soldiers and civil servants from a nearby US-army base, because people have not received salaries for months because of the government shutdown...

Thomas Piketty is absolutely spot-on (great interview in the FT btw) about how the ill-defined concept of populism is being instrumentalised. As he put it, this Is “too often a strategy of the very privileged, self-proclaimed pro-business centre to disqualify everybody that is not like them”

The New York Times quickly sending out Douthat to argue that Mamdani’s victory doesn’t really matter is so predictable it borders on self-parody. Remember, folks: Every time the Right wins an election, it’s an undeniable expression of the will of the people. If a lefty wins, it’s just a blip.

Grok and Google AI falsely claim fake images of UK train attack are real - via @fullfact.org fullfact.org/crime/grok-g...

There were 115 prisoners mistakenly released in the final year of the last Conservative Government alone. Interesting that it only becomes a major national scandal the second these releases can be blamed on a Labour government

Another one?!

As the FT notes, Mamdani’s victory in New York is very significant. It signals ‘a radical shift in policy in the city that sits at the heart of global capitalism’. I would say that’s more than a shift in policy: it’s a shift in worldviews,

Such amazing news! Mandani’s hopeful and radical message triumphed over the dirty tricks of a tired l, out-of-touch and corrupt political establishment. www.theguardian.com/us-news/live...

Larry Diamond sounding the alarm about the threat to free and fair elections in 2026 www.persuasion.community/p/taking-sto...

Superb production of Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty at the Almeida Theatre. It does not fully capture the elegance of Hollinghurst’s prose but it captures really well its themes of class, privilege in the midst of an AIDS’s crisis and get-rich-quicky (via asset-stripping) culture.

NEW: An Aberdeen-based oil firm has been condemned for working with Israel to extract gas from Palestinian waters. www.thenational.scot/news/2558734...

‘Take on the unions’ is such a lazy framing, designed to please the right-wing press who will never support Labour. And yes, children in England and Wales do not need more tests. No other education system in Europe tests children like the E&W and the results are not excellent.

Amazon is helping fund a $300 million build of a ballroom for the White House. Independent bookstores are donating to food banks and organizations that help with food insecurity. They are not the same.

This is what happens when two incompetent and inefficient agencies of the state start to share information in a too clever by half way. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

When people learn with ChatGPT instead of following their own searches, they end up knowing less, caring less, and producing worse advice, even when the facts are the same. Friction is an essential ingredient for learning! Convenience makes us shallow. academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

A quick look at my Bluesky account and I notice is that is overwhelmingly dominated by posts about US politics. MAGA is a virus that absorbs all the air from the atmosphere. Other countries have politics too (sigh).

The UK Greens are currently the highest polling Green party in Europe. Despite the disadvantage created by FPTP and the poor state of the economy, which makes Green parties' core issues less popular. Clearly a result of frustration of progressives with Labour and appeal of @zackpolanski.bsky.social

Putin apologists always come up with disingenuous lines. Some parts of the radical left have a bizarre and sinister attachment to Russia.

Some great stuff at the V&A’s new cabinet of curiosities based in Hackney.

Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt is such a terribly contrived, confused and annoying film. Its politics are all over the place and are so dated. It was clearly written by someone who learned about academic life through news articles in the Atlantic and New York Times 1/3

Now out in Party Politics 🎉 Our study (@jbpilet.bsky.social)suggests that when a mainstream right-wing party signals willingness to rule with the radical right, support for the radical right rises — while the mainstream gains nothing. 👉 A legitimisation effect. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Germany receives the most asylum seekers in Europe, with over 1/3 of all applications in 2023 & a 1/4 in 2024.The next highest are Spain, France, & Italy, which together with Germany receive the majority of applications.The UK has fifth largest applications but intake is 17th per head of population.

'And some academics are angry that universities are allowing or even encouraging the use of AI tools — many of which are controlled by companies, have unknown cognitive impacts and are dogged by ethical and environmental concerns.'