It's unfashionable to be positive about any developments in UK politics right now, but I'm low key excited for this
I'm sorry to be so difficult, but I'm afraid the truth is that I am.
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It's unfashionable to be positive about any developments in UK politics right now, but I'm low key excited for this
Happy birthday 😊
Today, Parliament debated child sexual abuse. Not a single Reform UK MP turned up. The party that constantly rants about “Pakistani" and immigrant gangs - yet when it comes to an actual Commons statement on child rape, they couldn’t be bothered. Hypocrisy doesn’t get more blatant than this.
Sorry, why wouldn't it be? You want to play with the big kids, you need to be prepared for things like "the Mail doing an investigation into that time you had a beer with your curry" and "the left implying you are paid to support genocide because your wife is Jewish." Politics is not *nice*.
❤️
I'm not, I'm very conflicted about it all, which was my starting point. But it sounded to me like you did have clarity about it, at least you didn't seem to agree with me that it's all confusing & ambiguous, so I was trying to understand what that clarity was.
Right, so US, Israel, England - bad, Ukraine, gay people, Palestine - good? That's the heuristic?
You wouldn't actually always assume that (e.g. about a teenage girl during the Euros wrapped in an England flag), but why has belonging to the national community become coded (for lefties) as negative & violent, & belonging to supra-national ones or even foreign ones like Ukraine as morally good?
Yes, that definitely a factor. But when Labour added the Union flag to its leaflets in 2023, there was wailing & gnashing of teeth from the membership & commentariate like you would not believe. You'd think it was the swastika we'd stuck on there. So the anti-flag side still has Qs to answer here.
I just started listening - thank you, it does sound like an incredible album.
All flags are political in the broader sense, up to & including football team scarves. The point is that in Israel & the US the national flag is contested between political tribes, but in England it is rejected or mocked by one tribe & fetishised by the other.
Sure, but if we say that despair is a driver of fascism, then we need some kind of explanation for when more despair leads to less fascism.
And that's OK, but the things I'm talking about are currently quite powerful forces in England, which is where I also live, so it's little consolation to me that smaller nations with historical grudges feel differently 😅
I don't know why I ought not worry, given that England is where I live & where I'm an active Labour politician!
Thanks Claire, that's kind.
I guess what I've done in this thread is clarify my thoughts a bit, in that the reason I'm so ill at ease in this discourse is that at some level I'm aware we, the left-broadly-defined, have feet of clay in this whole business, & are on very shaky ethical ground. /end (probably)
But what do "we" believe about which flags are good & which are bad? What is the heuristic that says Ukraine flag good, England flag scary? Or, poppy cringe, watermelon pin virtuous? Only the latter celebrated the death of civilians. What, apart from naked in-group signalling, is our ethic here? /10
Long story short, I feel that actually the Liberal left is in a lot more of a muddle about flags than the right is. They (the right) seem to know their minds about flags & what they represent: the nation, the state, & the community that belongs to those two. It's simple & attractive. 9/
Here's what I *don't* get: who are those more cosmopolitan-leaning people - "my" people - so blind to their own side's various flag obsessions? And what do people who mock Starmer for being photographed with the English flag have to offer by way of justification for waving all those other flags? 8/
I can understand why people are passionate about belonging to their national community: it structures most of their lives, it's the thing with whose history they identify etc. & I get why more cosmopolitan-leaning people feel uncomfortable about it: states are a locus of war as well as belonging. 7/
All flags are symbols of imagined communities. Nation states are social constructs, & so is the EU or the community of trans allies or the pro-Palestine community. None of those are more or less "real" & compelling than the others, although nation states do edge it slightly on real-world effects. 6/
They come to Labour Conference & pull out a thousand Palestinian flags to defiantly wave at the leadership. They hang Progress flags in the window & lobby councils to fly those flags on official buildings. They drape themselves in EU flags head to toe. They proudly display Ukraine flags on sm. 5/
The other thing is that so many of the people who are either upset about or contemptuous of the current outbreak of flag-waving are unbelievably obsessed with flags - just not their own national flag(s). 4/
So the idea that there's something cringe, or some kind of political statement, behind the flag is just hard for me to compute. I understand intellectually that British culture is different, but I don't *get it*, not emotionally. 3/
I grew up in a society where the flag & its colours are *everywhere*. Every independence day people hang flags on their windows & put up tiny flag poles on their cars. In school, you have to come dressed in blue & white for every major ceremony, or you're sent home. It's all agnostic of politics. /2
I've been really confused & uncertain where I stand in all of the various flag discourses, which is very unusual for me (ahem.) There are two things, I think, that stop me from developing a stable opinion about it: one about me & one about the people who opposed & ridicule "flag shagging." 1/
I've worked in HE for over 20 years, in that time I have been in charge of making CAS letters, collating visa and passport info from students, international student monitoring and attendance monitoring.I've worked in 9 depts in 7 unis. Not once have I known of a student who overstayed their visa.
The gender split here is extremely revealing: at all age groups, women are suffering from despair more than their male peers. But it's not women who are turning either to violence or the far right - young men, who do better than young women on many other measures too, are the fascist curious cohort.
That view conflicts with the gender finding in this graph: women at all ages are more affected by despair than men, but they are radicalising left, not right.
New @trusselluk.bsky.social research finds c 1 in 4 people from ethnic minority backgrounds has faced hunger hunger. Almost twice the rate for people from white backgrounds. No one should be trapped in food insecurity.
Brilliant thread
Because they can read English & have internalised the lesson from the US that calling voters racist doesn't work?
Sorry.
Oh gosh. His face was basically the wallpaper of the 90's.
This is an interesting episode on Labour's big reset, but omg how incredibly typical that SO MUCH of the content is focused on making speeches and telling stories. pca.st/episode/f6f1...
Guerrilla Girls, Untitled, 1985 #artbots #tate https://botfrens.com/collections/14375/contents/1122576
Few people are as aggravating as libertarians, but philosophers might just edge it. I worry your idea would generate some kind of annoyance singularity.
What is it about their culture that makes them do these things
I don't want to have to go back to the Bad Place to find my own tweet, but when the referendum was announced I said something to the effect that xenophobic rhetoric is a ratchet, not a slope: it can only ever become more extreme, de-escalating it is virtually impossible.
Couldn’t quite believe this so I went and checked. It’s true. And this man was once a Conservative MP.
Maybe, if they move somewhere saner.
In *Brighton*?!
Ngl, I could honestly do with less despair atm
“Prominent among [the anti-Netanyahu protestors] are Israeli academics and artists, the exact same people that self-styled western progressives are currently so eager to expel and boycott”. Really interesting, thoughtful piece
Jill Paton Walsh's Imogen Quy series is Betty fun. Another good one not mentioned in the replies is 'The Case of Gilded Fly' by Edmund Crispin. Arguably all Crispin's Gervase Fen novels qualify as academic to a degree (npi), but that one in particular.
This was not the timeline cleanse I wanted, but it turned out to be the timeline cleanser I needed
I always admire Becca Rothfeld's nonfiction reviews. Here I particularly admire her persistence in reading the book. What a lede: www.washingtonpost.com/books/2025/0...
Yeah I can't choose between those two options either, I just think whatever it is, it'll be a fucking mess for the ages. As in, we *think* we've seen how unreliable & volatile a superpower can get.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but from the point of view of the people fixing things, we're not talking about one election here: there are at least 50, in some cases as many as a state has counties, all with different voting rules, different tallying systems & different internal small-p politics.
Old Soviet joke for today: A man walks into a newsstand every day, looks around, and leaves. After a long time of this, the owner says “Can I help you find something?” “I’m looking for the obituaries.” “The obituaries are in the back of the newspaper, comrade.” “Not the one I’m looking for.”
I don't know either, but I have a feeling that if Trump does die/is incapacitated we'll meet a level of chaos we can only imagine right now. Trump may be disordered & sclerotic, but he's an effective central node. Nobody else has the authority to keep that coterie of evil idiots from infighting.
In response to my rant yesterday, I was asked how we can make better parks and other public places for teenage girls? What do they want? I have answers to this, so now a positive 🧵. Starting in Sweden, where this was co-designed by teenage girls.
London’s SUVs now take up the same space as the entire borough of Kensington and Chelsea, with more than 800,000 registered in London alone. Madness. www.standard.co.uk/news/london/...
“Over the past 20 years, Paris has undergone a major physical transformation, trading automotive arteries for bike lanes, adding green spaces and eliminating 50,000 parking spaces. Part of the payoff has been invisible — in the air itself.” Leadership, strategy, real action, common sense. #Paris
The construction industry needs a minor wakeup call is all I'm saying. We're not in a world where they get to choke off supply indefinitely anymore.
I mean sure, but supermarkets have risks too - bad harvests leading to supply shocks, sudden trade barriers, weather disruption, logistics breakdowns, demand fluctuations, inflation... They'll still get out of bed for 4%.
We're looking at regenerating the town centre here, & builders won't even talk to us unless we deliver a shovel ready site, with an those contamination & utilities issues taken care of by the council for them. Their 'viability' formulae don't change as a result though 🤷♀️
Thank you @joshgabbatiss.bsky.social for the reminder that golf courses should be forcibly seized by the government and converted to solar farms interactive.carbonbrief.org/factcheck/so...
Flippin' 'eck
On the night of August 28, Russian attacks killed 23 people in Kyiv, with the fate of 8 still unknown and 53 injured, Zelensky said.
In places like Swindon where land values are 0 & the council is prepared to give you a pass on virtually everything - no CIL, no S106, offsets on affordable etc. - but housing demand is still high, their risks are nugatory. They need to get used to living in a <10% margin economy like other sectors.
I feel duty-bound to share this nonsense by Mary Wakefield for @thespectator1828.bsky.social but it does demand some sort of response www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-...
It doesn't feel to me like we're asking them to build at a loss (at least, I'm not in London, so maybe things are different there, but out here we're not), but they seem reluctant to build if they can't get their viability spreadsheets to show a 20% margin.
One time my (ex) mother in law threw a fit because I added a bottle of elderflower cordial to a grocery run she was paying for - she thought it was a litre bottle of juice that was costing like £8 or whatever, & I was a spoiled little madam. She's English, I'm not, so unfamiliarity was no excuse!
Are we *sure* this story wasn't genetically engineered to prove radical feminists right about all the things we've been denounced over in the last decade? (It is, needless to say, horrific. It's also predictable in every part.)
the way the Tories really did keep jettisoning their leaders every five minutes, but a lot of it is to do with the fact that populism worms its way into everyone's psyche, & that includes clever commentators based in Westminster.
Yes. There's a kind of background music - maybe not even the whole music, but a recurring motif - that he is the legitimate representative of the people, whereas the actual governing politicians are placeholders, there on sufferance & liable to be jettisoned at any minute. Some of it is to do with >
Nobody really believes Labour deserves to be in power in this country, least of all actual Labour people.
Even before all the votes were counted, the delegitimising messages began coming from *inside* the house: vote share was small, turnout was low, Corbyn got more votes, the majority is "thin", they won't be able to hold this coalition together, look how many ex-Lab independents there are, on and on.
Oh it's happening. One of ours has had "Refugees Welcome" painted on it. And a handmade flag appeared on a footbridge, blaring the immortal slogan "Racists Don't Wipe."
Your gloomier moments are all my moments at the moment. So to speak.
We have evidence from the locals that Labour councils that retained power did it through positive campaigning & delivery, not fighting Reform on its own ground. It's very partial & inconclusive evidence, but it's the only electoral test Reform has faced, so data-based strategy leans against attacks.
Yes, and: there is something in the water that makes people hate this govt right now, & the make a bold case people are *drinking the same water* - when they do make a case, any case, about anything, the consensus is always "Not like that!"
אני מגיעה מקסימום 90 דקות לפני הטיסה כי אין מקום יותר מעצבן משדה תעופה. מעולם לא איחרתי לטיסה עצמה.
Millenials grew up being told over and over "don't believe everything you read online" ...only to witness social media destroy the notion of objective truth anyway Feels like the societal wide advice needs to go further to "be less online, go outside, seriously"
Come on, man
That's exactly it - the most successful local media outlet in my area is actually Facebook-only, they don't even pretend to have things like print. And Reform can't even deal with being in the papers whwn it's their own narrative that brings the clicks?
Considering how Reform-friendly most local media is, this is really something - it means Reform councillors are *even less* prepared for the realities of governing, even with the most gentle & friendly levels of scrutiny, than we all thought.
As long as I live I will have control over my being" - Artemisia Gentileschi Self-portrait as the Allegory of Painting,1639, created when the artist visited London #womensart
It's not just Ireland. (The Salvation Army is evil, pronatalism is evil, adoption farmers are evil, patriarchy is evil, religion is evil. Women should not only continue but intensify their fertility strike.)
It’s a demonstration against the state visit, but if we didn’t try to manage awful people, the economy would be more fucked, not less – and those who want some kind of Love Actually scenario from Starmer need to be reminded that that film is (a) a fairy tale, and (b) fucking awful
It's the *most* rational.
It's not wrong. If Brexit had been s roaring success Farage would be finished. His ideology is resentment, & resentment doesn't survive success.
Never mind that I'm a British citizen, but in the 24 years I've lived here, I never collected state benefits (mostly through good fortune, this isn't a flex) & always paid tax. But when I retire, my state pension will be lower than most British people's. Is that the way to treat "a guest"?
(We're nerds, factor that in as appropriate)
Probably the best advice I wish someone had given me about the Museum Triangle (other than: it exists) is to schedule two days for the Prado & plan the other museums around that. We missed out the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum because the Prado was *so* unmissable we ran out of time.
Maybe it's just me but I don't expect the PM to comment on Farage's press conferences. Starmer has a job to do and it isn't holding Farage to account, the media and others are behaving as if Farage is the PM not the leader of a party with 5 MP's.
Yeah, we became certain to lose the next election when we'd barely won the last one.
"Are asylum seekers the biggest political issue in Britain?" Asks radio 4. "We interview man who is determined to make it the biggest issue in Britain. And make it a headline every morning until it definitely is"
If you point out that the media is overwhelmingly hostile to this govt, the riposte is usually that if Starmer somehow (how is not specified) took firmer control of the information space, the hostility would lessen. That is not a serious argument, & I increasingly fear they are not serious people.
Then there's this thing I notice among higher profile journalists, where they low-key want the government to control how they do their jobs. They write books & articles about how terrible the state is, how Labour is failing etc., then complain on social media about "No. 10's poor media operation."
I had an argument with a BBC chap who was asking me stupid questions about a non-story once. He said they have a responsibility to report on the non-story because "people are talking about it on Facebook." I was like, surely you ought to be leading the Facebook discourse, not following it? But no.
...yes? (More seriously I think the media, & papers in particular, have abdicated any agenda-setting responsibility: when it comes to the national discourse, they see themselves as basically Facebook with a smaller user base.)
Maybe they could all retrain as ballet dancers
There is a level of pluralistic ignorance about immigration in the country - people do tend to think the majority view is more hardline than their own - but the fact that they (wrongly) think immigration is a net negative for Britain is noteworthy in itself.
That's not what the question asked or answered. The gap is between how much people think various issues threaten the country as a whole versus how much they are personally affected by them. There is little contradiction in e.g. thinking crime is a big problem without being a direct victim of crime.
‘Are we, as Richard Seymour suggests, “in the early days of a new fascism”? In 𝘋𝘪𝘴𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘕𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘮, Seymour argues that in trying to understand the new far right, we have been looking in the wrong places.’ @trillingual.bsky.social on far-right populism: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...