Paging @orbooks.bsky.social

Britain's university system, built in large part after WW2, was one of most important elements in a state project to modernise the UK economy. From Thatcher onwards successive governments have tried out various kinds of market-mimicking governance and now the sector seems to be in full-blown crisis.

Et tu, Bab

They will be as loudly and confidently wrong in future as they have been in the past: they have no incentive to change, and I am afraid their foolish fans will love them for it. Because the message is always, you're OK, the world is as it should be, and what you feel is true, is true.

Sathnam Sanghera and Jim Pickard are both professional opinion-formers working for the most influential newspapers in the country.

A group of very rich people have realised that they can mobilise non-voters through targeted ads, platform influencer subsidies, and a paid-for ground game: the hope is relatively modest investments can be turned into massive payouts via preferential access to policy-making after the 2029 election.

Mainstream discourse about the right-wing media refuses to explain this to audiences in plain terms, because that would be to admit that the media aren't simply in the business of making money or serving the public: they also aspire to wield power through their influence over voters.

This is by far the most interesting post-mortem of the local elections. 1. The panellists don't find time to discuss the Green Party's showing. 2. Finkelstein suggests that Labour and the Conservatives should give up trying to win outright in FPTP www.podbean.com/media/share/... …

Or if you have journalistic ambitions.

It bears repeating, but: the idea that the Green Party or the left in general is a kind of Islamic/Bolshevik conspiracy to undermine and destroy the Reich has a very specific historic pedigree, and it’s not one that anyone should be politely accepting as a suitable point for debate.

We can look forward to some extraordinary contortions by the liberal centrist wing of the Thatcherite uni-party, as they explain at the next election why they cannot in good conscience support the Green Party, and must, reluctantly, recommend voting for Reform. observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

I had a fun conversation with @alanrenwick.bsky.social of the UCL Constitution Unit about the horizon of constitutional reform in the UK, which explored the subject from the perspective of Hobbes' account of sovereignty and its implications for popular rule ... 1/2 www.podbean.com/media/share/...

It's very welcome that the leading body promoting cooperative values is calling for "mutual features" to be introduced at the BBC, including a randomly selected Members' Council, which will be empowered to create bodies to oversee other aspects of its operations and governance.

Stop saying a new party is impossible, and build a new party. In the UK we have the same godawful voting system and, sure, maybe the federal level is shut off, but don't tell me you can't take over a single state and use it to tell the rest of the country exactly how they're being scammed.

Feels like this is something that the Green Party should go in on hard: elements of the ancestral constitution are good and worth preserving, and the Green Party should embrace and defend them.

It's amazing the contortions that the supposedly progressive and sensible sections of the mainstream media will put themselves through, in order to exonerate and excuse the reactionary, racist and duplicitous sections of the same industry. www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-...

Getting a lot of replies from Americans today about how Labour’s woes portend doom for the Democratic Party, if they don’t mend their ways. I think that’s right, in one specific way: both wanted so badly, for so long, to claim the centre ground as the party of mean-as-fuck Business Win authority…

Vote Green, whenever you can.

This is a very serious blow to the Charter renewal process. It isn't too late for the Department of Culture Media and Sport to work with the BBC on a consultation that is public, both in the sense of having adequate publicity, and of being open to us all.

Feels quite urgent that (at a minimum) we look at individuals and institutions with significant influence over politics and public opinion and ask if they (1) democratic (2) anti-democratic or (3) trying to pretend that everything is fine, actually. Keep (1) and drop (2) and (3) immediately.

The major media won't move decisively against Farage et al. The urgent questions become: 1. How do we build an information infrastructure that can reach large audiences, with a post-Thatcherite, anti-fascist programme? 2. What does it look like, what institutional actors can and will create it?

As it happens I wrote a commentary on this in 2016 - pointing out that Corbyn's Labour Party had to make the choice Tawney set out. Now it's for the Greens to decide: administrators of the system, or creators of Tawney's (long delayed) socialist commonwealth? www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemoc...

I've written something on Lisa Nandy's rhetoric of popular empowerment and her record in office. It speaks to a broader problem on the contemporary centre left: politicians seem to think they can say whatever they like, and act completely differently. modernmediatheory.wordpress.com/2026/02/18/r...

This by @martinoneill.bsky.social is a damning indictment of Labour's degeneration at the hands of the Labour Together clique. tribunemag.co.uk/2026/02/smea...

If Labour Together had limited their intelligence gathering to anti-corruption campaigners and independent journalists the major media wouldn't have batted an eyelid. But they went after People Who Matter, when it's already open season on the Labour Together crew, and well, here we are.

Now would be a really good time for the “real Keir” that some are claiming exists, to stand up and say yes we’ve had quite enough of this authoritarian Blue Labour tripe, thanks Shabana you can pipe down now, no we won’t be appealing.

Stirring stuff from Nandy here. But as Culture Secretary she has dropped her commitment to mutualise the BBC, which would have empowered ordinary people in the way she claims to want. In 2020 BBC mutualisation was a central plank of her leadership campaign. www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

The confusion and drift in Labour in 2018 and 2019 makes more sense if the leadership were trying desperately to prevent a big chunk of their appalling MPs from running for the exits to a new party, a British En Marche, no less. (On Marsh in the AI transcription, which is probably accurate.)

This is true: Starmer was going to go, regardless. But as usual the political journalists are doing everything in their power to obscure the politics of the situation by focussing relentlessly on tragic flaws, surprise resignations, dramatic interventions, all of SW1's moth-eaten stagecraft.

Worth reading in full. www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemoc...

Interesting centre left response to the far right's critique of the bureaucratic state. IMHO it's much too reliant on the idea that an empowered patriciate can do the work necessary: 50 years of market-mimicking governance have reduced that idea to rubble. www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

If Reform-inclined voters in Gorton and Denton discover that the best way to punish Starmer's Labour Party is to vote Green, I can well believe that many of them will do just that, political spectrum be damned.

It's well worth comparing the depth and seriousness of Burnham's proposals for reform in the UK with the utter frivolity and short-sightedness of response from SW1's media-political establishment.

Just caught up with this. Very interesting reflections on the role of the intellectual, and our current predicament.

New post on Modern Media Theory. modernmediatheory.wordpress.com/2026/01/24/o...

The Starmer administration's economic policy (deregulation of planning and credit -> another asset price boom) and foreign policy (grovel to the Americans -> special treatment) are both in ruins. Labour backbenchers still have time to change course before the party is swept away for good.

Here it is, my first peer-reviewed article, in Political Quarterly @politicalquarterly.bsky.social, no less. It's paywalled, but I'll come to your house and give a garbled précis in person, if you like. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Britain has never been well run from the point of view of the majority. But, partly because it was so good at exporting violence, it finds itself in a world in which many other ruling classes are much more competent and serious-minded. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Moments in pre-revolutionary Britain: the former political editor of the Spectator talking about 'the media-political system'. youtu.be/k5m-qp8alBU?...

This isn't the all-seeing, all-knowing god of the market at work. It is a bunch of sleep-deprived freaks betting on what people like them think the abduction of a head of state means for oil company profits.

Dominic Cummings, the architect of the 2016 EU referendum and 2019 General Election victories has given a 2-part interview to the Spectator. It's well worth engaging with his reform proposals in part 2. DC is arguing for a revival of capitalist aristocracy ... www.podbean.com/media/share/...

The standout article in this collection recommends that citizens' assemblies be used 'to consider strategic, operational, and governance challenges and decisions facing the BBC.' It is vital that the opponents of such a reform explain why they object to the public having a say in public media.

Sorry to hear that Robin Ince feels that he has to quit the BBC radio show he co-created. I was once mean to him on Twitter - quite unfairly - and I think about that sometimes. I hope he will flourish in podcasting, or whatever else he feels like taking up next.

The rich are telling anyone who will listen that Starmer must stay until 2029, when Reform can be installed. Obviously they haven't thought about the economic consequences of Mr Farage. And why should they? They'll be fine, and can always leave if it's a disaster. (It will be a disaster.)

A broken BBC reflects a broken Britain. To rebuild trust, this dialogue argues that the BBC must shed its defensiveness, resist fear-driven conformity, and recommit to bold, unflinching public journalism. With @lewisgoodall.com & @dannyhinduk.bsky.social on @lrb.co.uk buff.ly/Q5lrZdc

I will be presenting new research on 'hegemonic defeatism' soon as part of the DemLab seminar series 📄Title: Hegemonic defeatism: How the liberal elite paved the way for the reactionary resurgence 🕛When: 18/12/2025 💻Where: Zoom More info and registration: www.polsci.auth.gr/en/polsci_ne...

Last Week in Media, a new post at Modern Media Theory. modernmediatheory.wordpress.com/2025/11/29/l...

The BBC is in crisis, again. In the latest episode of On Politics, @lewisgoodall.com and @dannyhinduk.bsky.social join @piercepenniless.bsky.social to discuss whether the BBC is capable of surviving in the digital era. Listen here: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/o...