In complex systems theory, a strange attractor describes a stable pattern toward which behaviour repeatedly converges, even when individual actions appear variable or chaotic.

“Culture” in the UK most often refers to fish and chips, the Royal Family, music, art, and fashion. It can also refer to diversity through what is commonly understood as multiculturalism: curry houses, the Notting Hill Carnival, drill music, exotic clothes, song, and dance.

“Culture” is one of the most abused words in modern politics. Used constantly. Understood rarely. This confusion has real consequences.

This map isn’t political at all. It’s cultural. The light blue areas reflect an intuitive, felt culture where legitimacy depends on consent. 🧵

This is true. It resonates because it draws on real culture and aligns with the deeply felt human instinct to defend oneself and one’s group. Many people genuinely feel under threat from small boat incursions and would willingly volunteer to stop them. The same is not true of Ukraine 🧵

I wonder what this correlates with? Especially in the UK context.

Liberal democracy can not survive multiculturalism. It requires an unstated monoculture to provide shared behavioural norms, trust, and order. Without that, it must either become illiberal to enforce cohesion or collapse under its own contradictions.

The UK is in a preference cascade. Opposition to mass immigration is becoming an 80/20 issue. The veil has lifted: slowly, then suddenly, and now everywhere at once. With this realisation comes an obligation: we must plan for our new state. VI. The British Dream: open.substack.com/pub/commontr...

A live exchange showing the gap between professed progressive values and actual behaviour. "Solidarity" when it’s abstract, elitism when it’s personal 🧵

London 2012. A nation still celebrating while the fall had already begun. "V. Britain’s Place in the World" explores how we mistook spectacle for strength and lost our footing between empires. Link in the replies.

Post-Brexit Britain’s future remains uncertain. So far we’ve sought refuge within our junior role in the special relationship, yet the pull to rejoin Europe remains deep. Caught between two empires, the question is whether Britain can chart an independent course of its own. 🧵

Britain’s problems are many, but one runs through them all: a crisis of identity. We have gone from an empire on which the sun never set to a middling power in visible decline. At the same time, we have undergone rapid cultural upheaval from mass migration and a weakening of local roots 🧵

Socialism is rising in 2025. Embodied in Zohran Mamdani in 🇺🇸 and Zack Polanski in 🇬🇧. "Tax the rich" is now a buzzword. And as the left champions open borders. There is a contradiction here: mass immigration is a pillar of the left’s sworn adversary: neoliberal capitalism. 🧵

You've done it multiple times. You misrepresented Pettis yourself when you disregarded my comments on education and claimed reindustrialising is just capital flows.

And what about the guy working at Tesco with £40,000 of student debt? Who could have learnt something useful to his life that is actually marketable?

The ENTIRE sector doesn't create value. Parts of it obviously do, as you would know i realise if you bothered to argue in good faith or listen to anything your opponent says. Is the concept of optimising, streamlining, perfecting, calibrating whatever name you want to give it alien to you?

Ive Never Said They Dont Stop Fucking Making Up Arguments. 🫠

You have critiqued me relentlessly. Why dont you offer your prescription? For the sake of argument, everything I've said is now wrong. What is your solution to the problems i have tried to address? How do we manage a post industrial society?

Germany South Korea Singapore Taiwan Japan up to the 90s China (obviously????)

Do you honestly feel Blairs 50% of children should go to Uni target has been a net positive for the UK? Please give your reasoning.

But you dont understand? you misrepresent arguments and pretend not to hear things that disprove what you've said. Combined with trying to shut down the conversation with appeals to authority, which in reality are no more than pompous intellectual posturing that has no substance in reality.

You’re arguing as if every degree creates productive capacity. It doesn’t. Most strategic industries rely on a mix of engineers, technicians, and skilled trades. Closing low-value universities doesn’t weaken innovation. It strengthens it by redirecting resources into sectors that actually produce.

We can do multiple things at the same time for a variety of reasons and benefits 🤷‍♂️ I didn't propose the Glasman solution either i proposed my own, unlike you i do not defer my reasoning to higher authority.

You’re arguing against Fordism, which isn’t my position. Reindustrialisation today means rebuilding strategic capacity: energy, defence, advanced engineering, semiconductors. Every one of those sectors needs skilled domestic labour. A country that can’t make critical things isn’t sovereign.

Reindustrialisation needs both capital flows and a domestic skills base. High-skill automation still relies on technicians, engineers, and vocational training. Use your own logic instead of insecure appeals to authority. No country has rebuilt industry without rebuilding its skills pipeline.

No reindustrialising? Our academic institutions are a part of the problem, overproducing elites and funnelling them into bullshit unproductive jobs. Half the universities need to close or become vocational colleges. You didn't even mention productivity. Brexit is in the past. That ship has sailed.

Define fascism for me...

This is literally Anglofuturism you have no clue of what you speak.

Oh, we need to do far, far more than that.

Everything I don't like is fascism # 783427

Politics aren't supposed to be fun! They are a response to reality. If you ever want the world to get a little less miserable, then you really need to understand this. Or carry on flailing around in the dark, wondering why everything is so shit.

Personal responsibility is fascism now. These guys aren't gonna make it.

@sharonk.bsky.social Turning on replies is a common courtesy when you sub tweet someone multiple times.

The UK is in a preference cascade. Opposition to mass immigration is becoming an 80/20 issue. The veil has lifted: slowly, then suddenly, and now everywhere at once. With this realisation comes an obligation: we must plan for our new state. VI. The British Dream: open.substack.com/pub/commontr...

Socialism is rising in 2025. Embodied in Zohran Mamdani in 🇺🇸 and Zack Polanski in 🇬🇧. "Tax the rich" is now a buzzword. And as the left champions open borders. There is a contradiction here: mass immigration is a pillar of the left’s sworn adversary: neoliberal capitalism. 🧵

Britain’s problems are many, but one runs through them all: a crisis of identity. We have gone from an empire on which the sun never set to a middling power in visible decline. At the same time, we have undergone rapid cultural upheaval from mass migration and a weakening of local roots 🧵

🧵 Here’s why a left-wing Democrat winning in New York is proof that Keir Starmer needs to move further left to win in small red wall towns in Britain. (1/245)

Post-Brexit Britain’s future remains uncertain. So far we’ve sought refuge within our junior role in the special relationship, yet the pull to rejoin Europe remains deep. Caught between two empires, the question is whether Britain can chart an independent course of its own. 🧵

London 2012. A nation still celebrating while the fall had already begun. "V. Britain’s Place in the World" explores how we mistook spectacle for strength and lost our footing between empires. Link in the replies.

This turned into an accidental case study on why capitalism builds beauty and socialism builds basics. Labour only has value when paired with capital. A short thread on why socialism is a race to the bottom, and capitalism is the climb. 🧵

If we ever want to return to a contributory society with civic pride, the first step is to reinstil personal responsibility as a social expectation. This is a step in the opposite direction, another personal problem the state will solve for you, free of charge or shame.

18% of the economy and 45% of GDP is the public sector. Productivity problem? What productivity problem 🤷‍♂️

Great piece. Gray offered excellent diagnosis but ultimately nihilism. In his critique, Sebastian Milbank injects the pragmatism and hope embodied in Blue Labour, reform rooted in morality and realism. thecritic.co.uk/john-gray-is...

We may already have passed through the event horizon. Our only chance for salvation may lie in something transformative. This is hardly an original insight; the danger is in transition. We must minimise the chaos around us while we birth a dancing star.

Great piece. Gray captures the situation with precision, the danger of inaction, the lure of false prophets, and above all the constraints of reality. Required reading for anyone trying to understand the world as it is, not as they wish it to be. www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2025/1...

"We are trying to run twenty-first-century systems on nineteenth-century hardware, the bureaucratic equivalent of Facebook powered by typewriters and candlelight." open.substack.com/pub/commontr...

Scrapping ILR is the right decision. Anyone who wants to make their home permanently in Britain has the option of applying to become a British citizen. ILR devalues citizenship and the responsibilities that come with it 🧵

Ask anyone on the street: Britain feels Disorderly. Shops keep goods behind glass, youths broadcast crime for attention. Knife crime has surged by around 80% over the last decade. Less than 1 in 20 burglaries now result in a criminal charge. Public trust is collapsing 🧵

This is pretty damming for many UK liberal and progressive commentators credibility. Especially given they are so quick to label legitimate concerns as "misinformation."

A lot of you really need to sit down and think about how easily you believed a huge, obvious pack of lies about this, in the face of clear evidence to the contrary, just because you heard it repeated a lot and found it ideologically validating. Barely distinguishable from MAGA conspiracy nonsense.