It's a bit of a shitty attitude to hold but I'm have some measure of relief, for the sake of my intended pipeline of publications, that a key archive is temporarily closed, and thus should limit the risk of my getting gazumped for a future paper while prioritising current work.

I've seen a lot of incorrect commentary on the recent happenings with Your Party. As someone who has a fair amount of experience researching the formation of new political parties that went on to persist and be successful (the German CDU and European EPP): 1) it is not a distinctively leftist

We know that most asylum applicants are ultimately successful so a government dedicated to clearing the backlog could just choose to approve all current applications and clear the backlog, no new centres necessary. That this isn't on the table reflects that 'the backlog' isn't really the issue here.

Check out this excellent article from Joe Merton on the Guardian Angels and popular neoliberalism. Really great at bringing together Fear City, grassroots neoliberalisation, crime and policing, responsibilisation, and race. Timely given the current visibility of Curtis Sliwa. doi.org/10.1093/jsh/...

I would imagine that this newspaper article was probably the first (and only?) to read Margaret Thatcher alongside Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul and Jusos.

Really dispiriting reading this article about Reeves' comments about regulators to a venture capital and private equity summit. The implied subservience from regulators and government to business, and the finance behind it, is telling. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

I'm chuffed that the edited volume 'Conservatism, Christian Democracy and the dynamics of transformation' is now out, including my chapter 'Britain's social market moment', which includes the most interesting finding from my PhD thesis, the transnational influence of West Germany on Thatcherism.

I'm chuffed that the edited volume 'Conservatism, Christian Democracy and the dynamics of transformation' is now out, including my chapter 'Britain's social market moment', which includes the most interesting finding from my PhD thesis, the transnational influence of West Germany on Thatcherism.

What's the oddest thing to see in UK politics this morning? My contribution would be the new Leader of the Green Party, leading a choral rendition of "Lib Dem fightback", at Lib Dem conference 10 years ago.

One point: central bank independence was the core tenet of neoliberalism, but it was the rise of market-based finance and the deflationary bias in fiscal policy, key features of the neoliberal era, that forced central banks into a position that made political backlash inevitable.

Not a personal comment to Evan, but this is how I get a complex. Most of my publications are for history journals, my PhD, with historical cases, was examined by historians, and colleagues from my history postdoc encourage me to more confidently identify as a historian (in addition to other labels)

This job posting at The Guardian is worth a second look. Ostensibly focussed on pitching stories from the newsroom as TV and film dramas (The Guardian is partnered with Sony Pictures), there's interesting language about working early with editors to ensure stories are well presented for adaptation.

A question about the Palestine Action stuff. What does it legally mean to 'support' a proscribed group? I've had a quick look at some official sources and it seems extremely unclear to me (probably because legislation is deliberately vague) and so I imagine the answer is established in case law.

1/ My article is out in HOPE and I am excited. In writing the first concept history of WTP I show how early neoclassical econs understood that the amount someone is willing to pay for something often does not reflect how much they value it because rich people have way more money!

I came across this video the other day from the BFI. It's most directly a discussion of genre and the video essay as a format but I also found it both interesting and insightful as discussion of categorisation and archiving. www.youtube.com/watch?v=--Gz...

There are clearly a lot of pathologies at play, but it seemed like a key to this is the near total collapse of the US legislative branch as an effective body of majority rule as the result of the universal filibuster and far right intransigence.

Scrolling through online archives as you do (thanks to @evansmithhist.bsky.social) and came across this document from 1934: a song sheet for meetings of the Conservative Party. jpsearch.go.jp/item/dignl-1...

My article, “‘They Attend Strictly to Their Own Business’: Disability and the Construction of the Worker-Citizen” is now up on APSR FirstView!

Happy to share the publication of my new article, ‘Universalizing the social market economy c.1978: stepping away from institutions and towards discourse’ in European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... Thread⌄

Happy to share the publication of my new article, ‘Universalizing the social market economy c.1978: stepping away from institutions and towards discourse’ in European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... Thread⌄

My next article is in final proofs so I thought I'd tease it by sharing the vignette that the article opens on. Jean-Claude Juncker in Bottrop, 2018. I remember visiting my aunt and uncle for the holidays, running out of easy conversation topics, and watching this on the news.

Really interesting piece and it's worth looking at an article mentioned within it, from Starmer in 1995, about human rights (which does have that annoying lawyerly thing of mentioning the views of others but less clearly establishing its own). www.jstor.org/stable/42950147

There seems to be a lot of US tech money in UK think tanks at the moment. Feel a bit 👀👀 about the fact that the Social Markets Foundation, not exactly known for their deep tech engagement, have created an Open Source Readiness Index, with backing from Meta www.smf.co.uk/open-source-...

A lot of the behaviour of the CDU/CSU makes sense not from a political logic of appealing to voters, but of containing its internal tensions, particularly the bloc within the parties that thinks the conservative right has been unjustly marginalized for decades and is now owed the right to rule.

I agree with this but - as Giles' post effectively goes on to say - there *is* a way out of this fiscal corner, it's called raising taxes, and I don't think it's as politically impossible as people make out Hard (by Labour's own doing) but not impossible First, welfare revolts tells us nothing...

If you've been to the Bronte Parsonage and Haworth, as I have many times, and done their main walk nearby (to the Bronte waterfall, Top Withens and on to the Pennine Way - as mentioned in a recent Guardian column) you will know that as you crest the hill, you descend to the Walshaw Dean Reservoirs.

Glad to share my latest piece, published in Political Theory, "'The Reading Nation'": Sieyès's Theory of Public Opinion." journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

A few thoughts on Norman Tebbit, who I interviewed for my PhD thesis. In our interview, one of the interesting details that recurred was the role of class. One detail, that I mention in my article on the New Right, arose when I asked Tebbit about the influences on his thinking about economics.

A few preliminary thoughts from me on the New Left party, its very real threat to Labour, and the various obstacles along the way. Many thanks to our social democratic friends at @renewaljournal.bsky.social for the commission!

A really useful piece on what a progressive agenda within constraints might look like. The housing policy is especially strategic - moving beyond sloganeering to outline overlapping levels of intervention. This bit on public service delivery seems like one that should be read more widely.

If you're looking for something to read, I recommend @lisbethmatzer.bsky.social's recent article on wine appellations in the EC and global governance. Really interesting on European and global institutions as fora for the contestation of product designations. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

I appreciate that in the history of Rupert Lowe this is a minor detail, but it seems somehow indicative that while chairman of Southampton FC he hired his mate, who had before only ever managed in rugby and no experience in professional football, as Performance Director then as Director of Football.

An interest monument and contextual plaque from the main building of LMU Munich. It memorialises the war dead of the 'three wars' - WWI, WWII and the Franco-Prussian War. A useful reminder of how historical actors - even within living memory - can operate within alien conceptual and temporal worlds.

People talk about 1848, 1867 and 1917 but the Marxist year par excellence must be 1900 - MCM'.

Sometimes it's really obvious who was struggling to come up with a title for their proposed paper at submission and needed more archive time to figure out the line. The circulated paper has a much more specific title and topic. I might go with 'A Pop Song Constantly Re-recorded' for the next draft.

As a break from an article I'm revising, I wrote up some thoughts on AI, linked through the concepts of magic and enchantment. www.benjaminjthomas.net/musings/AI-a...

While the OfS argues for the importance of university shocking and offending students, note that a key figure in this far right group featured at Kaufman and Goodwin's Heterodox Conference - part of a research centre directly supported by Uni of Buckingham leadership. This isn't a hypothetical.

When I was teaching during my PhD, the department had an internal weekly session for PGRs who teach. This was delivered by the deputy head of teaching, which changed almost yearly, so the content of the session changed a lot. It was at its best when it was either an unstructured session to share

It's foolhardy to over-generalise from very small sample sizes, but Zohran Mamdani is a very different politician of East African Asian heritage than we have seen recently on this side of the Atlantic. Personal family histories may play a part, but I wonder if there are any structural factors?

One of the best parts of academia (I say as I still have a foot in through publishing) is having someone share some new work with you and it clicking and making your own research suddenly make much more sense. Like getting a new prescription for your glasses.

Was Andrew Gamble too optimistic in 1984?

It might be just me, but if I were to advocate for Labour to look to Catholic social thought to inform their approach to economics I wouldn't do it by contrasting it with Thatcher who found her 'roots in Judaism' - which I think is a reference to Keith Joseph.

I tend to associate the terminology of 'Fortress Europe' with a criticism of the racism of the European border regime. So I was surprised to see that in Parliament in the late 80s, early 90s, the term was used primarily to discuss trade barriers and by Tory economic (neo)liberals.

I've never really understood what comments/analysis about Thatcher like these are actually referring to. What are feminine wiles and how does one use them in a 'Stalinist' way? It certainly has the impression of misogynist criticism - which the author may just be transcribing.

I hadn't realised how many SDP people ended up in health policy/governance. Nick Bosanquet, Tom Hayhoe, Alex de Mont. At some point it's a trend.

My article on the history of the term ‘neoliberalism’ in the Nordic countries has been published in Scandinavian Journal of History (open access)! I argue that this case illustrates how local contexts play a key role in the transfer and translation of concepts and intellectual traditions. 1/3

Oof. Jo Grimond, 1960

@histparl.bsky.social What's the established way to quote Hansard when it includes typographical errors on proper names or punctuation (20th century) when the error does not remarking on? Include the error and add a sic or just clean it up for readability?

It's a battle to avoid falling into conspiratorial madness when you're writing an article and trying to explain the link between Hall and Soskice's Varieties of Capitalism and the origins of WWOOF network.