No, more in pipeline... long pipe, though, needs unblocking!
Political columnist, The Guardian Author, Politics, A Survivor's Guide Website: https://rafaelbehr.com/
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No, more in pipeline... long pipe, though, needs unblocking!
And second jobs/outside earnings, Ofcom enforcement of GB news obligation not to go full Haw-Haw. Etc.
Column, on Westminster politics played to an empty stadium and the leaching of power elsewhere www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Jamie Raskin's full speech roasting Farage and free speech imposters like him/Trump is now online here..... Watch it all. www.youtube.com/watch?app=de...
Next week, Boris Johnson with advice on monogamy. ~AA
Did he maybe ... hypnotise his vote share bigger?
I endorse this message. I see 3 big problems - failures of online culture , the most toxic voices feeling legitimised & 2 major parties anxious & mute We also have a significant potential coalition of support, capacity and resources to push back strongly bsky.app/profile/step...
It shows such a basic lack of political understanding that Labour didn't go straight on the attack over this. Just because most people are worried about immigration being too high it doesn't mean they're psychopaths.
Column, on a grimly familiar Farage plot line and Starmer sticking to the script in the Brexit sequel. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Join us on Wed 3rd Sept as we invite Helen Lewis to Brighton to discuss her new iconoclastic book, The Genius Myth, with Rafael Behr, at the Tusk Room, Walrus Pub, Ship Street. Tix link in comments @helenlewis.bsky.social @rafaelbehr.bsky.social @penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social
Thank you!
Thank you.
"Bluntly, if the government cannot make the point that it is a bad idea to give money to the Taliban, it is far from clear to me when a better opportunity to attack Farage is going to present itself."- on.ft.com/3HKB1zO via @stephenkb.bsky.social
The Times editorial line: "sieve" the entire population so we can put 100s of thousands of people into camps. "Removing a city’s worth of people would be an extended exercise. Identity cards would be a must if the population was to be sieved into legitimate and illegitimate camps" archive.ph/78dcP
Column, on a grimly familiar Farage plot line and Starmer sticking to the script in the Brexit sequel. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
To me the most interesting bit of this story is that everyone involved seems to have forgotten that this is all pretty much exactly what the Conservatives tried while in government. But this time it'll work, because Lee Anderson will be in charge.
Reading an article titled "Why didn't Brazilian democracy die?" and a key part of the story is a Supreme Court that actually did its job
Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes - but only vocals and bass tracks. Treat yourself open.spotify.com/track/2zUYlh...
The lengths I'd go to make you focus on the front page of the Sunday papers so you didn't notice the football pages.... (now with the link done right. Cos I'm a tech bro) observer.co.uk/news/opinion...
This is a really great book.
A great many more people protested the plight of Sheffield Wednesday this month than have attended any protest against asylum hotels www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Interesting use of simple future tense as opposed to conditional - will, not would - in Times reporting of what Farage intends to do *if* election. Getting a bit ahead of themselves.
Yes, I clocked that appreciatively.
Unsatisfactory.
Do you?
I do. And it is, isn't it.
Could serve as former, latter not so much.
Collaboration between Hohner (harmonica aristocracy) and sE electronics.
It's meant for playing cupped to a harmonica.
That's the theory ...
Close. If Martians play the harmonica.
Yes, a Hohner sE harpblaster to be precise.
Very excited by the Bank Holiday present I bought for myself.
Love TMBG, love a fat brass arrangement.
Genuinely baffled as to what Bertie Jenrick would have to do for any of the one in ten Tory MPs from an ethnic minority to go “steady on”. Turn up at their house in a Klan robe?
wow sure sounds like president donald j. trump spent a LOT of time with convicted sex trafficker ghislaine maxwell in order for her to provide such a comprehensive character reference
Bonus Friday column! The Guardian asked me to write about being blacklisted by Moscow and it got me thinking about an old Russian proverb ... www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Strongly agree. Turns out veneration of constitution was more a function of cultural bonding within a ruling class than mechanism of enforcement. Maga revolution brings new bonding rituals.
Indeed. I keep hoping, as we teeter on the edge of the abyss, that we can skirt it, since we know what's down there, but then I get the sinking feeling that, no, looks we're gonna have to go through it.
Footnote to this, which describes Russia's recent past, but also America's present and UK future if Farage becomes PM. Constitutiona and cultures are different, intensities may vary, but the ethno-nationalist trajectory is a template that repeats and repeats.
Thank you.
Too kind. (Never knowingly induced anything like joy in editors), but thank you.
That too.
Bonus Friday column! The Guardian asked me to write about being blacklisted by Moscow and it got me thinking about an old Russian proverb ... www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
This is very good. The risk of dramatic bubble deflation (no slow punctures here…) is underpriced but - maybe more importantly - so are the consequences of that rapid deflation. www.ft.com/content/a76f...
Such boldness in the departure!
And were relieved, of course, because you are a true patriot, not some seditious Francophile, right?
Those tricolor curbs could lead to confusion. Might accidentally think you are French. Or Russian.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Always gratifying to have ones work recognised.
Thank you.
Well yes ... "attempted humiliation" maybe more precise. Self-degrading in eyes of any decent onlooker.
Thank you. I'm guessing it's related. Maybe cumulative effect.
I have. Nice to have work recognised.
Thank you!
Thank you.
On the limited range of European Trump-whisperers when White House ears are bent by the Kremlin. And superstitious pigeons. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Yes, he merited a digression - interesting approach - but there wasn't room. Another column.
On the limited range of European Trump-whisperers when White House ears are bent by the Kremlin. And superstitious pigeons. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
🚨OUT NOW🚨 @nndroid.bsky.social and @rafaelbehr.bsky.social are joined by UCL politics professor Julie Norman to take as sober a look as possible at how the Middle East has changed after the October 7 attacks and Israel’s devastating response 👉 linktr.ee/ohgodwhatnow...
we need this on uk tv asap
Actually a good idea!
I'm fractionally less pessimistic. Putin's paranoid anti-westernism prevented him capitalising on the full gift of Trump's idiocy early on, and the shift to frustration from White House seemed real, albeit very shallow. Trump ultimately always tlits to Putin, but there is hope of getting a wedge in.
Column: Putin, Trump and failing to distinguish between peace and conquest www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Another group of "patriots" selling out their country. "From 2019 to 2024, Jian G. allegedly passed on everything he knew, read and heard to Chinese intelligence services, even going so far as to hand over European Parliament documents considered sensitive." archive.ph/2025.08.05-1...
Thank you!
And now a hazard for me in writing in her voice.
Column: Putin, Trump and failing to distinguish between peace and conquest www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 Trump is doing the Hokey Cokey when it comes to running for a third term. Is he in or out? And if he's in – how will he actually get round the legal blocks to another run? @nndroid.bsky.social & @rafaelbehr.bsky.social discuss with Dr. Casey Burgat ➡️ linktr.ee/ohgodwhatnowpod
⏰START YOUR WEEK⏰ Will Trump and Putin's meet achieve anything other than boost the pair's egos? @rafaelbehr.bsky.social joins @jacobjarvis.bsky.social to discuss this and more news to look out for this week ➡️ linktr.ee/bunker_pod
Mathematicians get their kicks on 8.1240384
Thank you.
I did, thank you!
I agree, as I hope came across in the piece. I tend to share @naomialderman.bsky.social view that this info/tech transition is about as big as it gets in the pattern of changes that remake human civilisation.
Who, apart from Russian security services, is advocating banning VPNs?
Intermittently, yes. We also hope.
Some thoughts stirred by return to the internet after a couple of weeks of digital detox. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Thank you!
Oil price is maybe the single biggest, most decisive variable in all of this. Correlation of $-per-barrel and aggression level of Moscow foreign policy historically pretty reliable.
He has set the bar for victory very high and his ideological outriders boast of Russia's record of fighting long wars - eg 18th C, 2 decades against Sweden. USSR stayed in Afghanistan 10 years achieving nothing except burning up young conscript lives.
Column. On Trump warming to Nato, cooling on Putin (for now). It isn't the bombing that bothers him, it's the ingratitude. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Great to see that the English Devolution Bill, published today, restores the Supplementary Vote system for electing mayors and PCCs. In a blogpost last year, I set out why the switch to FPTP in 2022 was bad for democracy, and why reversing that move is good. constitution-unit.com/2024/05/24/t...
Thank you.
I’m no expert but I would’ve got a person to do it.
Big day for Lords reform. The amendment to reduce the size of the Lords is a great idea (it’s currently the biggest legislative chamber in the world apart from China’s National People’s Congress) but proper Lords never seems to happen.
Thank you
Column: Macron visit, striving for European solidarity and the Brexit ghost at the banquet www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Many contributory factors to why Elon Musk's AI tool is so racist + antisemitic. - His platform is awash with antisemitism & racism. - He changed the rules of the platform to allow more racism & the rules of the AI to enable racism - He radicalised himself into believing it woke to impede racism
🚌 Your hometime listening! 🚉 The commentariat talk up a Farage government, a new party of the Left (SPLITTERS!!) and would PR sort it all out? 🔮 @hannahfearn.bsky.social @rafaelbehr.bsky.social @jonnelledge.bsky.social & @nndroid.bsky.social gaze into the future… 🔮 Listen linktr.ee/ohgodwhatnow...
Calling regular listeners to Politics on the Couch. We - that is me and @philipberman.bsky.social - want your input. Has been fun 5 years, but what next? Survey link in show notes to latest episode here: shows.acast.com/politicsonth...
Bagleys!
Upgrading Democracy, the new report from our Chief Executive Polly Curtis is out today. 💡Read the report: demos.co.uk/research/upg... 🎙️Hear the deep dive on Politics on the Couch with @rafaelbehr.bsky.social: lnkd.in/e2rVEup3 🧵 Insights from @eliothiggins.bsky.social Founder of Bellingcat below
New post just out "Blood and Soil" Race and the radicalisation of the British right. Looking at why mainstream figures on the right are using increasingly racist language and ideas. And why the centre/centre-left is struggling to contain it. (£/free trial) samf.substack.com/p/blood-and-...
... prompted by this very astute paper on upgrading democracy in an age of endemic mistrust. demos.co.uk/wp-content/u...
Podcast! New Politics on the Couch, and a timely one, too, on breaking the "democratic doom loop". Conversation with the excellent @pollycurtis.bsky.social shows.acast.com/politicsonth...
Column: The methods that won power for Labour don't work in government and Starmer needs to give his old supporters new reasons to stick with him. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Danger is welfare rows + winter fuel and coming rows on SEND etc recreates sense of chaos voters thought they’d got rid of with the Tories. Damaging in two ways 1. Annoys exhausted electorate 2. Derisks Reform - people think (fairly or not) if current lot already chaotic how bad can Reform be.
Writing on deadline, waiting for knife-edge parliamentary votes, like it's bloody 2019. Had not missed it.
