Look, we all know that Starmer is atrocious on this issue but I think it’s at least important to acknowledge what the Telegraph have pieced this together from.
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Look, we all know that Starmer is atrocious on this issue but I think it’s at least important to acknowledge what the Telegraph have pieced this together from.
instagram is even worse, “link in bio” and then there’s a dedicated landing page with all the articles they’ve been linking for weeks. my instinctive response is exactly the same, to think of it as a lack of dignity
That we are in this situation should not be a surprise to Labour. It was always a likely if not central scenario. The reaction — scrabbling around for more salami slicing tax increases — suggests that it has come as a surprise.
Just lunacy for Labour to think that UK's problems can be solved while keeping their manifesto promises intact:
Around a year ago, there was a plausible but unlikely scenario where growth improved somewhat, rates eased and a positive feedback loop emerged. It’s time to accept that we lost that dice roll. Now we have the opposite feedback loop: rates increase, government reacts stupidly, repeat.
Zack Polanski here opposing building on the green belt, and supporting watering down the Planning Bill. Left populism looks weirdly like the status quo!
It's hard to say to Green members "look, three more seats won throughtfully will win us a lot of respect and airtime in itself" when Farage's summer is right there
One possibility is they split the map - Corbyn-Sultana focus on seats with large Muslim populations and big Gaza independent/Galloway party votes last year; Greens focus on seats with big student and graduate populations. Bit quite a few seats with both, which will generate tensions.
what do you think he’s talking about in the picture the BBC chose?
imagine running against the guy who told the Sun he could hypnotise women into having bigger boobs, never mentioning it, and saying “oh by the way he has the same politics as the electorate for this contest, which is bad for some reason” bsky.app/profile/mich...
It’s not as bad as the Scottish Green Party’s truly minuscule leadership election turnout last week, but there’s something weird going on with turnout levels for Green leadership polls.
scientists will study the Ramsay/Chowns campaign as an example of what not to do
very good thread. In my brief time working in Westminster I encountered, generally, two views of local gov 1) It's boring and doesn't matter (more an implicit view ofc) 2) It matters a lot because (patronising tone indicating speaker's superiority) actually potholes matter a lot to the little people
My piece on Douglas Carswell's journey from blue-sky thinking to the gutter: www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...
“The previous grown ups? Children, toddlers, babies in comparison to this lot. They’re fully grown. They’re haggard. They’re pensioners. They’re practically corpses.”
Unbelievably irresponsible from the shadow justice secretary and a trained lawyer, no less.
I don't disagree with the first two sentences, but I think in general there's been far too much movement from 'not really noticing the problem' to 'despair'. Let's experiment with 'people and organisations try and enforce the norm' and then see if it is actually hard for it to be re-bottled.
Sickening footage from Nuneaton tonight, where a Sky News interview with a local businessman was disrupted by racists hurling abuse. Another local said, "Warwickshire Council Council has gone to Reform... It's given certain people a licence to be aggressive and racist."
My guess would be that they thought that the backlash to the Snape casting was a sign that they had to be 'true to the book' not people going 'did you miss the parallel to racism that is literally so unsubtle *A CHILD* is meant to pick up on it and is important for this one bit of casting?'
Sex Matters is one of the crankier GC organisations. They have literally called for school uniforms to be based on biological sex!
Labour's whole 'well everything sucks but the politics are what they are, look we're at least getting the employment rights bill through' act is the behaviour of a junior coalition partner
god that's incredibly disheartening
If I were trying to win elections and arguments, I simply would be doing everything I could to move UK political conversation away from a website run by an avowed enemy who believes and writes this stuff about me:
NB you’re clearly right about the overall trend and it’s mystifying to me that that results in such a hostile response, so I hope this isn’t read in that tone!!
series you’ve *chosen, I meant to say
would we expect lower post totals at the weekend? notable on the series you’ve that there’s a rebound from May (ends on a Saturday) to June (ends on a Monday)
The article talks about a Newsnight interview where he struggled to defend the PIP cuts, and it’s like, lads, that’s because the PIP cuts were indefensible and that’s why you had to U-turn on them.
don’t know if you saw this anonymous Labour MP quote on Torsten Bell over the weekend bsky.app/profile/mich...
I turn on my TV and a TV presenter is asking a Govt minister why they are talking about rolling out free childcare when the big issue is asylum hotels. This is objectively insane.
Pretty clear that every minister has been instructed that they are to say they "understand people's frustrations" and to avoid condemning any behaviour and that no thought has been given to changing this even as it's become ever clearer that some of those who are frustrated are just Neonazis.
Cringed so hard while reading this terrific @jessicaelgot.bsky.social story I think I ruptured something. Who at GMG do I need to sue?
Christine Jardine!
just had the impulse to send one of my infrequent emails moaning about this to my Labour MP and then remembered I’ve moved house and don’t have one any more
dancing to the tune of Nigel Farage, Robert Jenrick, Elon Musk and the X algorithm, but not being willing to give them what they actually want - unserious! forgetting that you have the most pro-immigration coalition of any government in recent history - unserious!
arguing we have to reform the ECHR but not being clear how or why - unserious! arguing we have to reform the ECHR but complaining it’s premature to be asked what happens if it doesn’t work - unserious! arguing we have to reform the ECHR even though the PM is on record against - unserious!
fundamentally unserious position and messaging from Labour here, clearly incompatible with the actually existing parliamentary Labour party and indeed the actual Prime Minister’s entire career
It's also another instance of the right, by virtue of having a clear ideological project, driving the government agenda. Kemi wants to extend ILR to 10 years? Policy within 4 months. Nigel wants to leave the ECHR, well we're now going to reform it. The massive majority left flailing.
This is, frankly, embarrassing and a very clear articulation of where Labour's cowardice has taken it. As Phillips gets at, Starmer has defended the ECHR previously, he's rightly dismissed reform as unserious, but Phillipson is now forced into pretending this doesn't contradict Cooper trying to.
Richard Tice consistently claims to be standing up for "Christian values", on the basis that "we are a Christian nation". If that's your pitch, you can't just tell the Bishops to shut up when they criticise your policies.
Another dishonest post from the greens. No one cut NHS funding - it has had real term funding increases (ie rises above inflation) from every government since the 60s. If you think NHS funding was cut you fundamentally do not understand what is happening.
Many years ago, a friend who volunteered with a refugee charity, mentioned taking the kids out for the first time to pick a toy each, nothing hugely expensive, but basically a brand new experience for kids who'd fled Syria at 5. It was one of the best days of her (at the time) 78 years, but anyway.
Oh sure, but it’s an odd choice of grounds to criticise a junior ministerial appointment over!
apologies to the at least two other people who posted similar screenshots of this naturally occurring phenomenon
all roads lead back to the new Harry Potter TV series being mad
we are, rounding up, 23% of the way from the last election to the latest date on which the next one could be held. it is rank insanity to think the budget should be determined by how it “lands” this autumn as opposed to how it affects the state of the economy in 2029
this Labour MP needs to be sat down and have it explained to them in very short words that the primary goal of a budget is to set good fiscal and economic policy that will pay off over the medium and long term, not to have something that will “land” well with anyone
I guess they had significant and (thus far) enduring tax cuts for middle earners; not actually a good thing for the country or public services but it is something that Tories would all agree they wanted to do, and they did it
Ben Obese-Jecty is the only Conservative MP and frankly one of the vanishingly small number of MPs, full stop, to react to this stuff in a normal way.
Great man theory: Labour’s problem since 2007 has been a desire to avoid a repeat of the fights between Blair and Brown, but governments don’t really *work* if there isn’t some tension between the PM and Treasury. Structural theory: Labour right’s economic model went “bye” in the financial crisis
Thank God we have an electoral system that blocks radical parties from reaching parliament. I'd be really worried if we had one that might, say, give them a landslide majority on a third of the vote.
"Fears of mass unrest" over the appeal court over-ruling the high court. The Independent says police "braced" (again). There is once again a list of 23 locations where protests will be attempted. These v underwhelming (30-300 people) when previous protest "waves" announced last weekend & in July
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.”
This is fucking, what??! What are they doing…dear god
One of the big downsides of Labour's refusal to consider broad based tax rises that go against their election pledge is that bond traders are far more sceptical about the viability of all these others taxes being muted. So it's pushing up borrowing costs.
thanks, that’s really interesting! I can very much see how having to click past pages of lesser elections would put off less engaged members who don’t know the candidates in those
Forthcoming statutory guidance could have a profound impact on trans people's lives. I've written to the Women and Equalities Minister to urge her to reject anything that undermines trans people's rights, inclusion, privacy or safety, and for Parliament to have proper oversight.
surely it’s quite a big moment to choose who will lead into the next Scottish Parliament election (& replace very long-serving co-leader in Patrick Harvie)?
I mean polls before the election showed people thought taxes would go up under the Tories let alone Labour!
The Tories left us a massive black hole and their fiscal plans were made up. Our plan to fill the black hole is to just be smarter than them :)
A positive at least that thus far, none of the chatter from the government is 'maybe there's room for yet more spending restraint'. A negative that all the mooted tax rises are silly salami stuff that may have unintended consequences:
Another fun day searching for 'ways to unpick Cameron-era austerity' that don't run through 'taxing the people who got tax cuts under David Cameron'!
they should simply copy the Scottish Lib Dems and not have had a contested leadership election for 17 years imo
crazy numbers in the Scottish Green leadership election, for a party that was in government until last year!!
NEW BLOGPOST On the folly of attacking the practicality of Farage's deportation plans. Saying "it won't work" ignores that voters are looking for resonance - not practicality - and plays into Farage's pitch as the outsider who'll try. www.joxleywrites.jmoxley.co.uk/p/it-wont-wo...
anyway I’m not getting into an argument about it at half eleven at night with someone who says raising employer NI doesn’t breach “we will not raise national insurance”
I didn’t say they lied, I said (correctly) that they’ve already broken the pledge, because they promised not to raise national insurance and then did raise it. to be clear, my view is that the pledge was a mistake and they should break it again!
feels a bit crazy that public opinion, or a spectre of it, is a massive constraint on the chancellor, and yet there’s not much of an attempt that I can see to work out what public opinion actually is on these trade-offs
have there been any focus groups digging into how the public would balance the trade-offs between pledge/desire to avoid rises to the main taxes, negative effects of other tax rises, high borrowing costs and need for additional money for public services?
I don't think we realise just how bad this ratchet effect could get. Last year Farage was saying mass deportations weren't practical, now he's been bounced into promising them, and his press allies are cheering him on. The fanatics on X are leading the discourse, and it's only getting more extreme.
The classic government solution of the last 20 years: give it to big Lou til the end of the parliament
I hope it’s not to dismiss the main argument of the column to say that I don’t think majorities are telling pollsters that immigration is their main concern, I think this is conflating with questions that allow multiple answers
A Tory MP is hiring a "red tape researcher" to fight "sclerotic regulations" obstructing "wealth creation". Two clicks away from that ad, on his website, he boasts about his repeated objection to building houses on a field in his constituency.
I do think X is seriously damaging the brains of the UK political class. It's wildly unrepresentative of actual public opinion but is still being treated as such. (Bluesky isn't representative either obviously but no one treats it as such).
but yeah let’s make sure we mess around with as many piddly little tax rises as we can think of instead of just raising income tax or VAT
always amazed this doesn’t get discussed more. they said “we will not increase National Insurance” but they already have
and who could forget Peeves, the character with so much to add: - is a poltergeist - is annoying - has no relevance to any plot at all
even as a child who loved logic puzzles and identified with Hermione I’m not sure how you make that scene very interesting on screen, but I’m sure we’ll get to see them try!
I like how this project now has even more of the energy of 'troubled political party that has bitten off way more than it can chew' in that 'successful former leader is now making not particularly veiled comments about it in interviews'.
No 10's use of Keir Starmer’s Twitter feed is not something Keir Starmer could credibly defend. What is he doing with the imagery here & why? x.com/Keir_Starmer...
Farage’s “probity and judgment were sold as the product called Brexit. It turned out to be a piece of shit.” And, unbelievably, this Labour govt finds itself trapped because it has refused to call this out. What a profound - and now dangerous - political failure. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
thought we’d got it all sorted until the first bill comes in with a massive early termination charge despite the fact the contract *hasn’t been terminated* oh well I guess I’ll just use their online chat service - ah, no agents available, right
literally easier to find an NHS dentist than get Vodafone to understand “the same contract for the same price but just in the new house please”
amazed how smooth every part of the house moving process has been *except* dealing with Vodafone as broadband provider
The Tories have lost two MSPs in a week: one because the party is resembling Reform too much and now another because the party does not resemble Reform enough.
In a year of Labour putting major restrictions on legal immigration to appease immigration focussed voters they have gone from 35% to 19% in polls, immigration is now a higher profile issue, and both right opposition parties have moved to calling, either as leaders or as MPs, for mass deportations.
The Times has now led on migrants/small boats eight days in a row.
well sure, but I also think it's a problem if he needs to be phoned to be able to respond to a pretty unsurprising opposition press conference, and that does come back to his leadership
Labour's weak responses are again, downstream of the fact they have no project, so when the PM is on holiday just get the usual 'uh, are we against the invasion stuff?' coupled with crappy 'nuh-uh, can't do that because of Northern Ireland' lines.
"Things will change when the choice is PM Starmner or Farage. No we will not spend any time explaining why that would be bad. Why? Oh well a decade ago in a 52-48 vote we chose to leave a trading block, and since then we obviously can't disagree with ethno-nationalist parties. No me neither "
I'd like to say I didn't steal this tweet from Stephen, and I hadn't seen his most recent one when I sent it, but I think I've basically stolen the point from earlier newsletters / tweets bsky.app/profile/step...
If you want to fight and win a fear election, you do in fact need to be able to say loud and clear what it is people should be afraid of.
yes - I think the fundamental problem is that without a clear ideological project driven from the leader, everything needs to be run past him or his closest aides, people don’t feel empowered to make decisions on his behalf
you would never know that the coalition electing these two parties is broadly pro-immigration the way our politics has hyper-focused on (a caricature of) a tiny set of marginal voters is arbitrary and fundamentally undemocratic
same applies to this bsky.app/profile/guar...
this is fine as far as it goes, but I don’t think the words “costed plan” would be in my first paragraph responding to that speech
I’ve just moved to a seat where they got 15% last year (and that was an improvement on the last few) so that makes the decision of whether to vote for them next time pretty straightforward!
or cargo cult old Labourism for some of the people involved I guess
cargo cult Blairism where the bit you’re supposed to emulate is the factional wars and not the ideological project to fund and reform public services and drive down poverty
