Andy Burnham may not just save Labour - he could save the Tories too. This is very good from @stephenkb.bsky.social

It should be obvious that Britain’s economic problems cannot be accounted for just by Brexit. A focus on the real causes of low investment, low productivity, inequalities and imbalances is needed. Joining the EU is not primarily an economic question and is necessarily for the longer term.

Thank you Mick This has really resonated with me. Starmer's huge unpopularity seems to be completely out of proportion in comparison to the previous 14 years.

Govts don’t govern only for their own voters. They need some legitimacy among people who didn’t support them and good democracy can’t function if huge numbers of people feel that the government is indifferent to their concerns.

If all young people deferred having children until they could meet the entire cost of raising them, there'd be no workers to pay for pensions in thirty years time.

Before I read this piece today I was just thinking about how quaint #cambridgeanalytica seems now that our would be proprietary tech overlords have internalised those tricks and learned to switch their once open platforms into #techagainsthumanity… #SomethingSomethingDarkSide

What if governments have been governing to a public opinion that never existed? @pauliewaulie.bsky.social argues that the real political battlefield isn’t what people think, rather it’s what people think other people think. 1/5🧵 medium.com/@pauliewauli...

Echoes of #Barbarossa…?

File under #FiredByDoge…

This is how polling (expensive to do well, but easy to do badly), is rapidly becoming scripture. Undisclosed sample splits. Loaded questions. Online panels open to gaming. But because the company stated ±2.2%, respectable outlets just… reported it as fact: sluggerotoole.com/2026/06/18/f...

Highly recommended read on a Taoiseach that few of us around today have any adult memories of but arguably both the father of modern, outward looking Ireland and the architect of what genuine reconciliation on the island actually looks like…

Now, the games begin…

Directly related is this piece by @mickfealty.bsky.social about the diamond labour market and it's impact, and what we could do about it. Belfast certainly has some complicating factors not present elsewhere, but the hollowing out of the labour market is real. sluggerotoole.com/2026/06/17/d...

I see this on social media, but has it actually been confirmed?

I like this piece a lot. It's not "What happens next with AI?" it's "What do we want to happen?" Personally, I want people, including myself, to have work, paid decently. I don't want this destitute, jobless future the AI companies envision. ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/all-to...

1/7 Preparation is not persuasion. @finegael.bsky.social marks Garret FitzGerald’s centenary by launching a “blueprint for a unified island.” Worthy enough on paper. But the nationalist drum on unity keeps missing the beat — and I’m not sure this changes that. sluggerotoole.com/2026/06/18/f...

Great stuff from Mick

And as if to highlight the point below Northern Irish politicians no longer have the excuse that Northern Ireland is an economic basket case… This from @reuters.com … www.reuters.com/world/uk/nor...

“People with jobs and prospects don’t burn down their neighbours’ homes.” Last week’s Belfast riots weren’t really about immigration. They were about something the headline employment figures have been hiding for years. 1/8🧵 sluggerotoole.com/2026/06/17/d...

This is well worth a read before we get sucked in too far to the AI multiverse..

Is there still something to be said for farting about?

Good summation from @jamesmeek.bsky.social, esp the parallel irrational hatreds toward Brown and Starmer. Could also mention overseas dark cash that undermines the UK’s political sovereignty and the unbuttoned rhetoric of tech overlords who actively amplify what were once extremely minority views.

Few politicians have been more effective in twinning a strong command of policy with an ability to communicate without losing it than Taoiseach @micheal-martin.bsky.social…

Good and essential read

Belfast has been burning. Buses set on fire, families evacuated, helicopters overhead for two nights. But if you want to understand what is actually going on beyond the headlines Sara Morrison has written the piece you need to read. Thread. 🧵

Really good to see Labour proactively pushing this. If - as Farage says - he was "hacked by Russia" then it needs to be investigated. If it wasn't then why has Reform claimed this? www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

“Foreign individuals/companies aren’t allowed to donate to UK political parties or individuals under electoral law. Farage has earned more than £21,000 from X since late 2024, while fellow Reform MPs Richard Tice and Lee Anderson have each declared more than £6,000.” www.ft.com/content/63ed...

🗂️ From the archive | June 2016 — four days before the Brexit vote. I was writing about the origins of what we’d soon call “post-truth” politics. Looking back, it’s striking how clearly the shape of the next decade was already visible. sluggerotoole.com/2016/06/19/e... 🧵1/7

The slow creep of generational asset stripping…

Viva Il Papa…

The headline is simple & well-established now: Welsh voters consolidated behind the dominant party of the bloc they were already in. About 40% of 2021 Labour voters went to Plaid. 56% of 2021 Tory voters went to Reform.

🧵 1/3 In two by-elections in Ireland on Friday the headline results matter less than what happened to the votes underneath. And, strategically at least, it’s bad news for Sinn Féin. sluggerotoole.com/2026/05/26/l...

Obviously there is aircon everywhere in Aus and the buildings are designed to be cool, but also life is different. When it hits 35C, Australians go out at 7am and then stay at home with the curtains drawn and the aircon on until the evening. I got invited to an outdoor unshaded lunch today at 1pm

Stay awake my sadly deluded climate change denying friends….

No there will not be an early election. A man with 400 seats will not risk half of them three years early to satisfy columnists’ belief in mandate fairies.

My sister married a Juventus fan, one of whose main missions on visiting England was to go for a photo with a welcome to Nottingham sign in his black and white striped top Notts County played at Juve in 2011 to celebrate the opening of their new stadium, in an away kit www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...

Given that it fosters bigotry and disinformation, shouldn't the same case apply to legacy media? (Yes, I do know why Streeting wouldn't think so.)

Trump yet again reaching into US taxpayers pockets, this time it’s to try to bail himself out of his ill advised military misadventure in the Gulf… #NoNobelComingAnytimeSoon

the overwhelming message the AI industry has sent to young people is “this will ruin any chance you have at a stable career”, of course college grads are booing it regardless of the reality of the claims, the way this technology has been sold is one of the greatest self-inflicted PR disasters ever

One reason I have never supported this club…

'Knowing your own darkness is the best method of dealing with the darknesses of other people.' ~Carl Gustav Jung. Pretty much describes the current (slightly psychotic) polarisation of politics almost everywhere you look…

Spot on from my mate @pauliewaulie.bsky.social medium.com/@pauliewauli...

This is pretty much why western democracies are speedily going out of whack. MSM treat every issue as an emergency like a Twitch host. Trump knows this, Farage knows this. It’s a tricky, post modern and structural, with no other answer but to “keep buggering on”, like Churchill (or indeed Starmer).

“Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.” - Picasso

1/7 “Disneyfication of the conflict.” Is Mick Clifford’s phrase. A younger generation being sold a smoothed-over version of a war that killed 3,700 people — and failed to delivered a united Ireland. This is the real problem nationalism faces. 🧵

Top news from my clean tech/transport panels this w/e: 1. Small plug-in home batteries that let you store grid energy when it's cheap & use it later are HERE. 30% cost savings! 2. Home sodium-ion batteries are also here, & cheaper than Li-ion. 3. Plug-in solar panels are coming to the UK SOON 🎉

🚀 Heat pump sales are surging across Europe and high fossil fuel prices appear to be a key driver. Q1 2026 data from the European Heat Pump Association shows: 🇩🇪 Germany: +34% 🇫🇷 France: +21% (300,000+ units in just one quarter - the largest market in Europe) 🇫🇮 Finland: +71% in March alone

Interesting how polling can operate in a radically different world from electoral reality. This is the highest rating for united Ireland sentiment in Northern Ireland where there is no evidence of a trend in that direction the nationalist vote has increased by just 0.2% since the GFA in 1998.

“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.” Isaac Asimov