Shapps and Dorries on Laura K pontificating over Starmer is genuinely infuriating. A reminder that for me, (who is supposed to be the Tories’ core demographic remember) that 2019 to 24 government is my equivalent to the Winter of Discontent for my parents.

Watching linear TV for the first time in forever, and you know who *is* overrepresented in adverts? People who look about 27, have two kids and a massive house.

Not satire apparently

I mean I know newsletter curation is a delicate art but I loved that the key takeaway of an interview with *Theresa May* on leadership is “well I guess you should be prepared for your meeting schedule to get really wacky”

Our glorious new Great British Railway is going to fix the fuckery of not enough carriages during one of the busiest weekends of the year right? Right?

No Doctor Who Christmas special this year but you do get these piece from me as to why the show has become so awful. open.substack.com/pub/itsallst...

Should probably mention I couldn't have written this piece on why Doctor Who feels like it needs to lie down in a dark room, without the insights from @jonnelledge.bsky.social 's Misadventures in Space and Time Substack - specifically his 'Rosa' review. Publishing tomorrow morning.

Absolutely. Make it stop #AI

Apparently the creative team were too distracted by the sugar-rush of AI video production to really stop & think about the other moving parts of the advert. You know, the tedious bits of the creative process: plot, character, tone, pacing, messaging itsallstorytelling.substack.com/p/mcdonalds-...

Perhap @edzitron.com will enjoy my latest piece the hypocrisy and bullshit of that McDonald’s advert. itsallstorytelling.substack.com/p/mcdonalds-...

If you've never seen this speech from The Long Good Friday, I can only tell you that it never gets old...or, from a broad perspective, any less tragic: www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVoT... #london

Anyone remember the five missions? What happened to the decade of national renewal? I went back to the beginning, pulled the whole rotten comms strategy apart and showed why it’s indicative of a much deeper problem. open.substack.com/pub/itsallst...

Annoyingly, @stephenkb.bsky.social’s “can I have Rishi back? take from a few months ago is now aging like fine wine.

I despair about all this who is briefing against who nonsense. Could they just govern.

My analysis - how did No10 radicalise this cohort of loyal, centrist, careerist Labour MPs who are now all out for regime change? www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

@13sarahmurphy.bsky.social can I politely suggest that you’re proving Robinson’s point? He’s saying that if we dismiss Farage as a clown and *dont* take his ambitions seriously, we risk deluding ourselves that he doesn’t stand a chance. Which is the trap liberals fell into with Trump and Johnson?

My Halloween long read. Why British conservatives are still haunted by Thatcher. open.substack.com/pub/itsallst...

Yes I’m similarly annoyed that no one in a car advert is ever stuck in traffic or that people who take Gaviscon have their indigestion cured in under 5 seconds.

Really enjoyed “Still Thatcher’s Britain?” hosted by @robertsaunders.bsky.social at @mileendinstitute.bsky.social. My favourite, if sad observation of the night was @philipjcowley.bsky.social’s observation that we’re no longer in an era of policy detail, which was a hallmark of MT’s leadership.

every single tech idea is like “soon our robots will be capable of playing catch with your kid, freeing you up to spend more time working on your employers’ spreadsheets”

I suspect I'm late to conclude this, but the long list of Freeview channels after the first handful are just a load of tat, aren't they.

It's never the comms. Labour's comms is grey because in the absence of a clear strategy for what the government wants to achieve, no-one can defend or articulate what the government says in an interesting or exciting way.

Latest post In a summer when Westminster went quiet, Nigel Farage filled the silence. While others holidayed, he ran a one-man campaign about “lawless Britain” turning unworkable ideas into viral stories. He isn’t winning on policy. He’s winning on narrative. open.substack.com/pub/itsallst...

The latest from me: what makes Nigel Farage a master political storyteller for our age? open.substack.com/pub/itsallst...

Can someone ask Farage or Zia Yusuf why, if they're so concerned about incitement to violence, they had Lucy Connolly as a guest star at their conference?

I’m enjoying both left wing and right wing critics of ID cards posting their objections on….checks notes….social media.

I chatted with the @financialtimes.com about my writing, the podcast, tech criticism, and being myself. archive.is/2025.09.25-0...

Free speech news

One of the better developments on the Beeb in recent years has been "BBC Verify", which does proper fact-checking & analysis. But this substantive analysis seems entirely divorced from its political commentary, which is entirely focused on "showbiz" & sports-punditry. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Started this week's newsletter trying to be impartial about Angela Rayner but just got angrier as the newsletter went on itsallstorytelling.substack.com/p/the-week-i...

*sound on* This is Andrea Jenkyns's ACTUAL singing entrance to the Reform UK conference. Utter crackpots. And anyone who thinks this kind of idiotic look-at-me amateurs are how this country will "rediscover its pride" needs to have a lie-down.

Enjoyed writing this Superman piece over the summer. I learned that Superman was essentially a New Deal Democrat. So people complaining about the politicisation of the character look kinda silly. open.substack.com/pub/itsallst...

One for @edzitron.com. Yet another example of a journalist interviewing an executive at Anthropic and letting them speak in vague truisms. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

Reform leader of Nottinghamshire council bans all communication, including by officials, with the main local paper. Nottingham Post/Nottingham Live ban also includes BBC-funded local democracy reporters. www.nottinghampost.com/news/news-op...

Good piece on Welsh Labour: "When I asked the First Minister about how Welsh Labour had improved Wales during their 25 years in office she pointed to free prescriptions - a policy introduced 18 years ago. When your key selling point is in itself old enough to vote in the election you have a problem"

This is a very thoughtful critique of my piece on men and attraction, I got a lot from it open.substack.com/pub/noahberl...

This is a useful distinction and like most people I think it’s fine to engage in 1 and 2 but sadly we’re surrounded by tech bros and politicians who are desperate to sell us on ‘3’

Johnson is admittedly a low bar here, but his reference to “ChatGPT androids” demonstrates how ignorant most of our leaders are about the different degrees of AI. Generative AI and a sentient bot that can wipe your arse are very different degrees of programming.

This hadn’t occurred to me but it’s spot on

Generative AI is the biggest bubble for some time. It can help with certain tasks, but my experience is that it cannot do even the most basic things unsupervised and regularly fabricates its work.

I wrote about what I call "The Red Queen Fallacy" -- the toxic blend of hustle culture, checklist existences, and under-regulated capitalism that make too many people in modern life feel like they're stuck on a treadmill without an off switch:

My latest newsletter asks whether tech's managerial class is excited about generative AI because it distances them from any responsibility for their failures -- and thus, any accountability. whatwelost.substack.com/p/mediocrity...

My feature for @theobserveruk.bsky.social on global migration trends and why the battle between economic wellbeing and nationalism is only going to get more intense. observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

The "EXTREME HEAT" warning is just too perfect for this story

Wrote a short piece on the inherent problems with treating Norman Tebbit as a "political grandee" itsallstorytelling.substack.com/p/the-origin...

After the latest round of grading papers, I wrote about AI, ChatGPT, the death of the student essay, and what it means for the future of human cognition.

You’ll often hear the “well Thatcher wasn’t popular in 1975 either” defence. But even MT’s most sympathetic biographer, Charles Moore, will admit she compensated for her lack of political acumen with the humility to learn from others around her.

No, this is worse than not doing your homework. This is like setting up a class *next door* to the one your History teacher is giving and complaining that you're not learning anything.

to @stephenkb.bsky.social 's point that Kemi Badenoch doesn't do her homework: she's just done a press conference detailing what she thinks should be prioritised by the new grooming gangs national enquiry AT THE SAME TIME as Baroness Casey was giving exhaustive testimony to the H Affairs Committee.