Such reports are always an exercise in avoiding structural problems and blaming spurious secondary causes.

"At first contact with re-entry into national politics, the great hope of the soft left has capitulated across the board"

"At first contact with re-entry into national politics, the great hope of the soft left has capitulated across the board"

I must protest that this show did not feature Bullet in the Gun. #totp

But props to our Jen's defiance of the ageing process. #totp

Waiting for Tonight - still JLo's best tune. #totp

So tldr, the mayoral electoral system will revert to supplementary vote the day after the Makerfield by election. Unusually effective movement for this government.

After the local elections, @philbc3.bsky.social reads the rites on the Conservatives and examines Reform in this Long Reads podcast from @jacobinmag.bsky.social Radio

Re: Britney's Crazy, I much, much prefer this version. #totp

Thanks goodness R Kelly didn't get to number one. #totp

Never got Ricky Martin. Not then, not now. #totp

At this point, all of Mariah's tunes sounded like free style warbling. #totp

Surprised more people haven't picked up on this important detail in today's GfK survey, but few bother to read past the headlines...

All of Ian Brown's solo efforts can be filed under forgettable. #totp

The main issue with this up tempo comeback tune from Diana Ross is that, unlike Believe, it's awfully average. #totp

Everyone trying to pull off a Cher Believe moment,. Even Sheena Easton had a go. #totp

Anyone remember the Tarzan Disney movie? Not me. #totp

Latest in the saying-the-quiet-part-out-loud news

Phil Collins on #totp in 1999???

So a trans woman I know, almost 70, now has to use male toilets? Why? She had gender reassignment surgery in the 1980s and has been using women's toilets for 40 years. She has never been a threat to anyone. Will she be safe in men's toilets? Where's the law to protect her?

"April 2026 marked the first time globally that electricity generation from solar and wind exceeded that from gas. The two renewable sources accounted for 22% of global electricity generation, while gas-fired power plants supplied 20%" www.pv-magazine.com/2026/05/22/s...

First Brexit, then immigration and now this. What, if anything, does Andy Burnham actually disagree with Keir Starmer about?

Sharing antisemitic conspiracy theories is really bad and grounds for withdrawal as a candidate. But being mates with the leader of the British Union of Fascists is also really bad and I can’t help noticing a) what we’ve heard more about and b) who’s still running.

Over 40 years of vocationally-oriented education in this country and you still get business people moaning about young people not being work ready.

Ohio’s state sales tax exemption for data centers cost $1.6 BILLION in 2025 — 11x more than its original estimate. That’s $1.6 billion that could have gone to public schools and healthcare instead of Big Tech CEOs’ pockets. Is it any wonder communities are organizing against data centers?

Dream review here from a Guardian bookshop reader. With this book, more than any I've written before, I was trying to think: "what would readers actually find useful right now?" guardianbookshop.com/if-we-tolera...

Very useful guide to Oxford's bookshops, including my go-to choices The Last Bookshop and Curio (pictured), where I launched my own book in March.

There's no "study," this is based on a crank manifesto with only four footnotes written by a bunch of health grifters. Why is the Guardian covering this like it has any academic credibility?

At long last, The Prophet is back. Isaac Deutscher's classic three-part biography of Leon Trotsky is available again in both the US and UK. To celebrate, we've made all of Isaac Deutscher's books 30% off until Tuesday, May 26th.

IN NEW ISSUE: How do different forms of state capacity protect democracy? D Andersen, @chknutsen.bsky.social & @skaaning.bsky.social argue coercive & administrative capacity affect stability in distinct ways depending on threat: buff.ly/XP4pinB @polstudiesassoc.bsky.social #polsci #polsky

'Robert Kenyon is friends with Gary Raikes on Facebook. Raikes, a former BNP and Britain First member, leads the New British Union – the modern successor to Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists. This is who represents Reform in Makerfield.' Apparently he is furiously wiping his social media.

Google creating a gap in the market for someone else to charge in.

The Pensions Commission has identified 15 million people saving inadequately for retirement. It has not identified why.

Because the Greens ran a plumber in Gorton and Denton and won, can you guess the profession of Reform's Makerfield candidate?

A short video on the Sociology of Talcott Parsons. Focus is mainly on the AGIL model but it provides an overview of the main themes from Parsons work. I hope you and your students enjoy! youtu.be/cj16mv5M0Bc

I love me some internal Labour Party democracy.

This has been an absolute farce from start to its eventual finish

🚨 PANEL EVENT The New Laws of Capitalism: @katharinapistor.bsky.social & @hettieobrien.bsky.social in conversation with @mathewlawrence.bsky.social 📍 October Gallery, London, WC1N 3AL 🗓️ 2 June ⏰ 7-8PM Register to attend 🔗👇 luma.com/cqhnrkr2

I'm so pleased to see that this chapter has been published. It's in a wonderful open access collection, Sexual Violence in Medicine and Psychiatry: Addressing Harms Through Interdisciplinarity which emerged from the SHaME project at Birkbeck. Link here: link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

The Greens are the party of working age people.

a more innocent age

"According to Velloso, less than 3% of paying users actively use Copilot, even though Microsoft has pre-deployed it directly into the Windows 11 taskbar and across the Office suite." lol, lmfao

FPTP is like The One Ring of politics in the UK. They know they need to destroy it, but once it's in their hands they think "Why shouldn't we keep it? We can use it for good!" and then everything goes dead-Boromir-shaped

Edge-Lit is back this year to make it a neat dozen, with loads of exciting writing talent joining us here in Derby on the 19th September! www.derbyquad.co.uk/events/edgel... #derby #derbyshire #eastmids #eastmidlands #convention #conventions #conference #conferences

Perhaps naively, I am STUNNED by the lack of media coverage given to the anti-Muslim hate speech platformed on the central stage of Stephen YL’s event on Saturday. If it were literally any other minority (apart from trans people) we’d be calling this what it was - a genuine hate march.

So first he told us the £5 million he secretly took from a crypto billionaire was for "security", then he said it was a "reward" for Brexit instead, then he said it definitely wasn't for buying himself a big house, now it looks like it probably was

Lots of post-industrial towns across England are currently Labour-held but lean Reform. Starmer's Blue Labour-ish strategy to hold on to them has been both bad and ineffective. So what to do instead? For my money: radical on economics, tough on corruption. www.common-wealth.org/interactive/...

🇨🇳🇺🇸 NEW EPISODE 🇨🇳🇺🇸 - @tobitac.bsky.social and @jwdwerner.bsky.social on where US-China relations stand after the Beijing summit. We talked tariffs, Taiwan, and potential future crises that might worsen relations between the two most powerful states in the global system:

On 3 June we are hosting an event in parliament to mark 15 years of the High Pay Centre with @nataliegreenpeer.bsky.social, @premnsikka.bsky.social, @catherine-sa.bsky.social discussing where next in the fight against excessive pay and pay inequality. Sign up below! highpaycentre.org/high-pay-cen...

More public service work by @markpackuk.bsky.social: "How many councillors has Reform UK lost since the May 2026 elections?" (Source: www.markpack.org.uk/176783/how-m...)