Hard agree - there are very vivid examples of why the disappearance of a functioning centre right option in a system which props up the two largest parties every single day, when the news reports on the Trump administration.

Freezing income tax thresholds really is a no brainer for the budget next month. It has to be done.

I finished reading this last night and feel like I’ve got a very good understanding now of why there’s so much chaos and inconsistency at the heart of the government’s operation.

Immediate reaction: That was a pretty damn good speech.

It started with international students cross-subsidising research as govt won’t fully fund it. Then teaching as tuition fees frozen. Now Lab wants cross-subsidy of maintenance grants. The international student market’s being pushed to breaking point. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-p...

I think it’s revealing of the current trajectory of the UK political economy that universities are told they will be allowed to go bust despite employing significantly more people than JLR, and being the engine of many local economies.

Would love to know why these type of messages never seem to make it to the (ever-shrinking) Starmer court?

This is good. I noticed this about 9 months ago when I had friends parroting the exact same lines about the 2024 riots that I had seen elsewhere. The long read in the Financial Times this weekend referred to our online space as a digital Somalia – lawless! www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...

Brilliant. And terrifying. on.ft.com/4gNnIvB How tech lords and populists changed the rules of power

The only economy we have sits in nature: thelogic.co/comment/kevi...

We worry about Very Online Kids much more than their Very Online Parents, and I'm not sure that's wise

I bought Abundance today because it’s been on my reading list for a long time. However, I’ve seen a lot of people on here, over the past few weeks, slating Ezra Klein. I guess you should approach every book you read sceptically anyway…

Fascinating and hugely depressing stuff by @patrickmaguire.bsky.social There’s a void at the heart of Labour: it needs a battle of ideas www.thetimes.com/article/7177...

find it baffling that the entire conversation on digital ID cards, from both sides, is just ignoring the internet

For the Guardian, @turnbulldugarte.com and I discuss our research that clearly shows one thing: Labour's anti-immigration strategy will only strengthen Reform and weaken its own electoral prospects. It won't win voters back but ultimately normalizes the far right www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Good to see this important research getting a wider audience. Hope Labour advisors listen and learn

“A Blairite, a Brownite, a Corbynite and a Trussite walk into a bar, the barman says what can I get you Andy? [Burnham]” Not bad from a Downing St insider.

There’s some typical British insularity when it comes to the debate about ID cards. Many European countries have them & are astounded how difficult it is here to do simple things like open a bank account or get a phone contract. We have no problem being one of the most surveilled countries by CCTV.

Yup. Labour would have been in a much stronger position with a slightly smaller majority and no manifesto commitment on taxes on ‘working people’.

The vacuum at highest levels in talking about this dark turn in British life over the last few months HAS to end.

Tanking in the polls. Your rival is the mayor of Greater Manchester. Your party conference is in Liverpool. Yet a few days before you brief a long-delayed & much needed high-speed railway line between Liverpool & Manchester is delayed once again w.ft.com/content/e6236087-e6d5-45d3-8d29-fe9a6d7484bc

Hi, I’m Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor-in-chief at @economist.com. I’ll be sharing insights into our coverage and products here, and on X, LinkedIn and Instagram. To experience the best of our written, audio and video journalism, download our app: www.economist.com/get-the-app

"Until there are consequences for the platform protecting and even amplifying its most incessantly racist users, this government will be turning a blind eye to the de facto legalisation of racial hatred in our country".

I think we're actually all sleeping on the fact that the Lib Dems 'only' polling at their GE level is a very good result for them, they usually collapse in midterm because they don't get much attention.

Having pondered it all morning, I'm still incredulous that all that Today programme coverage of migrant hotels at no point (unless I missed it) mentioned why people were here, what they might be fleeing from etc.

Truly facile, awful analysis by Nick Robinson normalising hate speech by 'ordinary people' and equating it with free speech. The boiling point is too many of Britain's commentators unthinkingly wading in the toxic swamp of X and believing it is what passes as normal.

Fucksake, this #discourse AGAIN? Yes this platform is smaller, very observant. But I don't spend all day being force fed Nazi slop or getting harassed by Nazis on a Nazi platform specifically engineered to amplify Nazis. It's not a hard decision, let's all just move on.

Right message pretty much but far too late. Also an outdated medium. The government needs to get much better at communicating on TikTok, which is increasingly where people are consuming news and forming political opinions.

Maybe - just a crazy idea, but bear with me for a moment! - the reason why the Lib Dems should not “get serious“ is that the UK’s most important media organisation covers politics in babytalk so much of the time?

🚨 New article out in @wepsocial.bsky.social ! 📄 From nations to regions: electoral volatility in European multi-level politics Open access👉 doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2025.2557768 National politics in Europe is growing more electorally unstable - does this volatility also reach the regions? Thread 🧵

This is incredibly sharp on TikTok, distraction and politics. Current UK government is communicating on terms that no longer exist

Meanwhile the government department supposedly overseeing that website continues to give it its stamp of approval by using it for pointless comms like this.

Right-wing attacks on free speech are nothing new. I wrote this five years ago. Yes, the left sometimes over-reached, but it's wrong to claim that the right's attacks are solely in response to that. www.ft.com/content/c966...

My most centrist dad take is that most governing politicians deserve sympathy because almost every policy that's actually any good for the country is unpopular, and almost every popular policy is probably bad. Johnson's Brexit approach was far worse than Chequers IMHO but 20ppts more popular 1/

Stephen is correct as usual but also i'm glad he's called out the utter bullshit about eCoNoMiC aNxIeTy

Excellent from @stephenkb.bsky.social! www.ft.com/content/fbbd...

My initial reaction is Trump is right about this. on.ft.com/3K5lUBG Donald Trump calls on US companies to ditch quarterly reporting

I’m shocked 😂

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He speaks

What sort of messaging is this?!

Just because he’s the mayor of Greater Manchester doesn’t mean Andy Burnham can only run for Parliament in a GM seat. He would comfortably win in any urban by-election across the north. #FeelTheBurn

Shot, chaser Young men more likely to vote Green than Reform. Young men second most progressive group of any demographic. Combined right-wing vote barely bigger than Green vote alone for young men

My colleague @thejohnsimpson.bsky.social has done a terrific deep dive into the financial links between US tech billionaires and Tommy Robinson Well worth a read observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Is no one in Downing Street even bothering to brief journalists anymore? Like what the hell is happening inside there today? I can’t see any reporting on it anywhere.

Churchill’s empty taxi joke about Clement Atlee was about eight decades before its time because it describes Starmer perfectly. Where the hell is he?

Spot on.

Colleges and universities are going way too soft on policing AI, Tyler Austin Harper argues. “Institutions of higher learning can abandon their centuries-long educational project,” he writes. “Or they can fight.” https://theatln.tc/C2g5ZCSZ

on.ft.com/3I6b7GR Stop talking about wealth taxes — make these reforms instead (this is by the excellent Dan Neidle - but I reckon there’s only a slim chance of sensible decisions like these)

Wow this is bad! news.sky.com/story/why-sa...