Christ he just rambles on and on
Professor of the Political Economy of Europe at LSE. Interested in democratic representation and inequality in the rich democracies (and the US). Author of Anti-System Politics (OUP, 2020). Also random thoughts on football, cycling, the weather etc
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Christ he just rambles on and on
Says he hadn’t heard anything about the death thing, then that he had heard it, then that he hadn’t. I’d say he’s fine.
Seeing Vance makes me want to pray for Trump’s health. Seriously gives me the creeps
Jeez who is the guy in the wig
He doesn’t look great does he
The nucleus of the problem is that someone (the big bang) has already built a massive nuclear reactor for us at a safe distance (a few planetary orbits away) and we have finally developed cheap technology to harness it for free. But sure, let’s built Putin-targets near our homes at an extreme cost!
Which one is Bill Murray
www.theguardian.com/business/202...
I’m very excited to share that my paper “Cleavage theory meets civil society: A framework and research agenda” with @eborbath.bsky.social & Swen Hutter has now been published online in @wepsocial.bsky.social (w/ open access funding thanks to @wzb.bsky.social!) www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Polanski wins Green Party leadership with a huge majority and vows to replace Labour. Not sure I agree with @jessicaelgot.bsky.social that Sultana's party has no role to play (they have support from ethnic minority voters that Greens lack), but agree that they will play second fiddle to Polanski.
Vanderley Industries
Would have been fun to interview the Duquesa de Alba
Don’t spoil the fun
Great read!
I *loved* working on this story: what do Spain’s aristocrats think now Rafael Nadal (as the new Marquess of Llevant de Mallorca) has become one of them? on.ft.com/47o4byZ
PR
Elon Musk is a radicalised extremist openly championing the most racist faction who would deport the Foreign Secretary, the Leader of the Opposition, the Justice Secretary and the last Prime Minister The govt silence about such a level of extremism is craven: infinite tolerance of racial hatred
I just want him to come out and say “we’ve seen some disgusting, racist behaviour outside hotels housing asylum seekers and it’s got to stop”. Is that really so hard to say?
Pity nobody has the courage to tell them their problems have absolutely nothing to do with the asylum system. But then there would be a risk they started demanding a fairer share of the nation’s resources instead
This whole debate is just based on a bunch of evidence-free vibes, leveraging how easy it is to get disadvantaged people to believe foreigners are being treated better than them
We’re being asked to believe that our liberal elite London-based politicians don’t know what it’s like to have asylum seekers in hotels in their neighbourhoods, when London actually has seen the biggest increase migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/br....
Storm Eric
People find it very easy to get upset about immigration but for very inconsistent and often completely self-defeating reasons. There always has to be a scapegoat and they are the easiest target. It used to be single mothers
Well they’re pushing at an open door but that doesn’t make what I said less true
There’s a lot going wrong in the world today but I’ll settle for dealing with the perennial problem of befurred asylum seekers strutting around England on their snowmobiles
Quechua, whose original meaning is ‘cheap but surprisingly high quality sports and outdoor wear’
The great unspoken success of the British Right is to convince us that the people doing all the work are spongers and that the spongers are in fact doing all the work
It’s the great unspoken success of the UK that kids with a migrant background outperform native-born kids at school, despite a widespread perception that somehow they are a problem for schools
They should all be electricians or plumbers, problem solved
The Telegraph used to openly despise the very same people for their lack of entrepreneurial spirit and their attachment to unions and the welfare state
Bring back the nanny state, but just for white working class people
If you want to get a sense of how fundamentally ****ed Britain is, read this article where someone reveals how grateful they are to be paying only £2000 per month in rent, with a convenient £30 trip to work www.standard.co.uk/homesandprop...
New exam question for my Concepts in Political Economy course just dropped
Immigration 101
US life expectancy had already become 4 years lower than in comparable countries. Expect the gap to grow under RFK Jr.
“I believe Nigel Farage is right but don’t vote for him” seems a strange strategy for a Labour government to follow.
I remember reading years ago that a quarter of over 65s had a second property
Quite a chunk of change, no wonder Reform are doing well
As a humble salaried employee I’d missed that one 🧐
Landlording is a completely unsustainable response to the decline of occupational pensions because it simply shifts costs between generations
Maybe a better way would be to tighten the connection between NI and pensions rights, like in just about every other advanced country. So people might actually want to pay it rather than evade it
The clue to part of our fiscal predicament is in this thread - evading NI by pretending your job is a corporation seems a common way to shift the tax burden onto a shrinking cohort of regular salaried employees
😬
We need Big Wind to start buying politicians
Nothing the far right enjoys more than wasting your money for a headline
You do have to wonder why Labour are so afraid of agreeing with the majority of the population
NEW Yes, an incoming illiberal and radical UK government would have absolute constitutional power By me Substack: emptycity.substack.com/p/yes-an-inc... Personal blog: davidallengreen.com/2025/08/yes-...
Honestly think so many problems stem from a massive chunk of people thinking their pension is paid from them 'taking out' of a system they have 'paid into' rather than a generation's workers paying for a generation's pensions.
Let’s face it were in the grip of a mass delusion
Alyssa Battistoni discusses her book, Free Gifts, a value-theoretical study of capitalism's appropriation of nature, with Jochen Schmon. They cover the "new materialism," reproductive labor, existentialism, and activism. @alybatt.bsky.social, @jochenschmon.bsky.social, @princetonupress.bsky.social
Once hundreds of schools start closing across the country and the retirement age rises to 75, the current period of moral panic over immigration is going to look utterly ridiculous
Turns out some of the “we want small government” people kiiiinda wanted the government to be just one guy.
Nice tan he’s got there, must have been out hanging flags
What about the chemtrails
Sole qualification is being so stupid you make Trump sound smart
Pardon my economist technical parlance, but what the fuck does “issuing its statistics on the blockchain” even mean? This data is already publicly available, thanks to this super fancy piece of technology called “an API” These people are complete idiots
The mental health benefits of not knowing any history right now must be massive. Moving through your day with total equanimity. What happens next? Who knows? Maybe something good
Critically only the US can get away with this kind of clownery. Doesn’t anyone remember Liz Truss?
Again, any signs of complicity? www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...
I keep seeing the Trump-Intel deal called socialism, but there’s a term for this. This parallels what Mussolini did—the Italian state was one of the world’s largest industrial owners while keeping private companies. Nazi Germany did this too. So did Francoist Spain. It’s called state corporatism.
Insane
Among all the other things, "The President has screwed things up so badly that the world's other rich countries won't deliver mail to us anymore" really should end it immediately.
Can it really be that hard to find ways to defeat such a fragile man?
As I argue here Anti-System Politics: The Crisis of Market Liberalism in Rich Democracies share.google/F8HKGtW0hsNk...
Obama was a fluke? But Trump isn’t? I’m not saying racism isn’t relevant, just that it isn’t the variable that changes to cause the end of democracy in the US. The end of the middle class (yes, the white middle class!) is the trigger that turns ‘democratic’ racism into actively backing dictatorship.
My woke wife says I am probably losing my sports socks in the wash or at the gym, when it is perfectly obvious they are being stolen by migrants
Obama won two elections but racism explains Trump?
Your argument seems to suggest that Trump is the consequence of the end of Jim Crow 60 years delayed
Racism is a constant, hard to explain a big shock with a constant
I’m seeing the FBI at the door of the Fed offices
I dunno maybe leaving the economy as it is and doubling down on the culture wars might save America but it doesn’t seem to be working so far
Democrats would rather let America slide into dictatorship than actually attack to root of the problem, which is the billionaire class
This administration seems to be following this playbook. How would the rise of fascism in U.S. look any different than recent events? The American people, civil society, state & local govts, & private sector still have a LOT of power. Use it or lose it.
Today’s Executive Order creating a *nationwide* military “quick reaction force” and setting up an online portal to permit random fascist vigilantes to join soldiers is one of the scariest things I’ve seen in U.S. politics in my adult life. Why is it not getting more attention?
I’ll have more faith in AI when autocomplete stops making me look like a idiot
'Immigration doesn't bother me but it seems to bother everyone else' – Everyone. This is what happens when the media runs away with Hard Right narratives.
To Donald Trump and his administration: If you hurt my people, nothing will stop me — not time or political circumstance — from making sure you face justice under our constitutional rule of law.
Guy In Philosophy Class Needs To Shut The Fuck Up https://theonion.com/guy-in-philosophy-class-needs-to-shut-the-fuck-up-1819568055/
Your occasional reminder -- as arrivals on student visas decrease 28% -- that tuition from foreign students counts as an export, which means that every rejected student visa is going to contribute to the US trade deficit. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Pedestrian crash 🧐
Wonder what they’re going to be teaching this year
I know it’s easy to say from here (and we might get tested this way soon), but I somehow expected a society as resourceful and rich to have some sense of attachment to democracy
Must admit to being a bit shocked by Americans’ inability to react to their constitutional order being destroyed. Maybe don’t go to the mall, go to work, pay taxes as normal?
American Politics scholars going to end up like Soviet-era Kremlinologists
Comparative Politics already uses different frameworks for legislatures, civil society, the executive, parties etc depending on regime type. So much of the work in AP is likely no longer valid because the regime type has changed
Black cats waiting to be auditioned for a horror movie, 1961.
what the fuck is this headline from the BBC, I feel like I'm losing my mind www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Well well well isn’t that nice and clear
For my entire life Republicans have held out as virtues their commitments to small government & free market economics. Then in a few short years they abandoned both. Reflecting on this has led me to think about their real "values," that could only be spoken in hushed terms, they we're hiding.
Aight I guess some people are taking "Trump is doing a socialism" seriously so it needs to be said that what's actually happening here is bribery.
That flag could cause someone to lose an eye
My family (and likely yours) alone paid more federal tax in 2023 than these corporations, each of which reported >>a billion dollars in income. Tesla, Airbnb, Aptiv, PG&E, Palo Alto Networks, FMC, Pfizer, Gen Digital, & certainly others. And Trump/the GOP raised your taxes and cut corporate #taxes.
Where’s the Deep State when you need it
Ah yeah you’re right
A crazy person yelling at you and your family, huh
Laurence Fox's Reclaim party managed to spend nearly £840,000 last year - without employing any staff. Considering their electoral impact was zero, that's impressive going...
Kinda funny John Gray headlining alongside Brian Cox
Exclusive poll: Labour voters are rallying to Jeremy Corbyn Nearly half of Labour voters would back a left-Green alliance.
Never respond to these bulls**tters on their own terms. Dismiss these whinings as the total fakery they obviously are and talk about reality instead. How hard can it be?