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...

How can we reconstitute the BBC as a public service mutual? There's a summary of the proposals from @tommills.bsky.social, Tom Chivers and me at the @cmmonwealth.bsky.social website. It will only happen if we insist, so let me know what you think. www.common-wealth.org/publications...

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/t...

It will have taken enormous personal courage on Ettedgui's part to revisit this childhood trauma, lay bare his vulnerabilities to the whole country, and in the expectation of a vicious backlash from Farage's many allies. I hope people appreciate this. And contrast it with Labour's appeasement policy

If competent people can do something and they don't do it, it's because they don't want to. That's why wrestlers usually walk away from bouts in one piece, and why you should assume politics is wrestling until you have good reason to believe otherwise.

I joined @piercepenniless.bsky.social and @lewisgoodall.com to talk about the past, present and future of UK public media. You have to drink every time I find another way to say that the public should be actively and directly involved in the governance of the BBC. www.podbean.com/media/share/...

Young people, like the rest of us, need a chance to make a valued contribution to a Great Endeavour. Given that we are in the early years of an ecological crisis, we already know what that looks like. Private sector is in decline, and wealth is pooling into ever fewer hands ...

I've just signed a contract with @orbooks.bsky.social to write a book about the future of the BBC with @tommills.bsky.social and Thomas Chivers of @mediareformuk.bsky.social. The book, which will be published in the second half of 2026 will coincide with charter renewal.

It sounds wildly, recklessly optimistic to say so, but British public life would be much improved if the media-communications system put a tolerably accurate picture of the world in people's timelines and TV bulletins.

On Saturday BBC Radio 4 hosted a debate about the BBC. Its structure was all-too familiar: a Conservative complained that it was too liberal, a Liberal said it wasn't. But another debate is possible. modernmediatheory.wordpress.com/2025/11/16/s...

“The BBC remains structurally bound to a concept of the political that is becoming intensely unpopular” This is great by Dan Hind. Tragic he clings to the Nazi X open.substack.com/pub/abolishw...

Look at the quotes defending Starmer here. They have no positive case to make *even to their own MPs*. Just the same grim menu of blackmail and intimidation they serve up to the rest of us. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Understanding what the private media sector is, and what it does, is a crucial function of public media in a democracy, and it's something the BBC goes through spectacular contortions of mind to avoid doing. (See also "navel-gazing")

What do we think will happen if the next election hinges on the press being forced to choose whether to boost the Green Party, or Reform? Are we going to see the now-standard all-channels terrifying hate campaign aimed at Farage? I am going to say: No.

📜 From the Archives Alert 📜 The BBC? To shreds, you say? Perhaps it needs reform? A while back we talked with @dannyhinduk.bsky.social about his report for @cmmonwealth.bsky.social about turning the BBC into a cooperative. www.podbean.com/ea/pb-48nut-...

The "why do you care so much about the NY mayoral election" takes strike me as pretty obtuse. The world's sole superpower is being taken over by fascists, and this was part of the struggle to define what the opposition to that will look like. That obviously has major implications for all of us?

It's because the BBC takes its cues from the newspapers, which it uses as a proxy for public opinion as such. The alternative would be public media in which the public are actively and directly involved. This would require a few institutional changes. www.common-wealth.org/publications...

Notice the collapse of Reform as the Greens surge. It would be a big mistake to think that Reform vote is rock solid, or can only be won over by Reform-lite pandering. Voters want to hear how their lives will improve, from politicians who don't look scared.

Should we actually keep the BBC? We talked about this "balance" and much more with @dannyhinduk.bsky.social and the @cmmonwealth.bsky.social report he co-wrote www.podbean.com/ea/pb-48nut-...

I was talking to my co-authors @tommills.bsky.social and Tom Chivers of the @mediareformuk.bsky.social about this last week. Clearing away the misconceptions deliberately or carelessly promoted by the media won't make our political controversies disappear, but it will transform them.

This is what got us e.g. austerity and the Iraq War, amongst others. Even mild skepticism might have averted either but that isn’t what this royal court-style system does: it instead accepts whatever the monarch decides, then steamrollers the fuck out of anyone who objects, regardless of who’s right

🚨 Mutualised Episode Alert 🚨 Dan Hind joins us to discuss if we should we simply destroy the BBC, or can it be reformed into a more mutualised into an actual democratic organ that holds power to account? Your answer in one podcast or less. www.podbean.com/ea/pb-48nut-...

Well worth reading. It's not at all clear who or what the Labour Party is for, if it is driving away people like Martin.

The BBC is in the early stages of a terminal crisis of legitimacy. It's not too late to save. But its defenders and admirers need to acknowledge the need for radically democratic reform. Friends don't let friends discredit themselves by pandering to the far right. tribunemag.co.uk/2025/07/resc...

Land, labour and materials that will be deployed to create environmentally ruinous, car-dependent and vastly expensive sprawl could be redirected towards high quality public housing and resilient infrastructure. Zombie Thatcherism is not inevitable: we can make different choices.

On Wednesday the Guardian published two articles. The first, from the Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, argued for a "housing first" approach to addressing public health and welfare. He also stressed the need for public ownership of housing stock. 🧵 www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The billionaire is an increasingly absurd figure these days. The left can certainly come up with a more plausible model of human flourishing for the next generation than these gurning, babbling freaks who combine vast wealth with bottomless resentment, self-pity and psychedelic muddle.