Gerhard Schnyder

ha, didn’t know that. Well, I can’t blame them. Everyone in the UK seems to think their rise inevitable! That’s why I feel the real story is not Labour’s decline but Reform’s failure to win…we could learn from that!

I’m intrigued by reporting on the Caerphilly by-election. I mean bookies had Reform to win. They didn’t. Focus in the media (even the good ones) is on Labour losing. We expected that. Reform non-win is the bigger story here? Compare with reporting on Dutch right-wingers coming second. 🤔

Superb reporting by @peterjukes.bsky.social in @bylinetimes.bsky.social on Farage, Putin & Nathan Gill.
The sort of reporting you’d want the BBC to do and should really be career-ending for Farage if @teamlabouruk.bsky.social or the Tories knew what they were doing!

bylinetimes.com/2025/10/04/t...

@peterjukes.bsky.social

Are mainstream economists losing influence over policy making? "The ‘Appallingly Bad’ Dismal Science: Of the Increasing Irrelevance of (the Wrong Kind of) Economics"
www.gerhardschnyder.com/blog/2025/8/31/the-appallingly-bad-dismal-science-of-the-increasing-irrelevance-of-the-wrong-kind-of-economics

❓ Does the British state have what it takes for its industrial strategy? ❓

Merve Sancak and I doubt it. Importantly, it lacks the willingness to be 'anti-business' in the right way to be 'pro-business' in the long run...

Read our piece on Encompass Europe:
encompass-europe.com/comment/does...

There’s one slight issue with Labour’s immigration plans: they’re completely untethered from reality | Jonathan Portes The government’s new policy will take us back to an uglier, more dangerous place – and it’s not even supported by the data, says professor of public policy Jonathan Portes

"The UK is very good – much better than most European countries – at integrating migrants, because most Britons, and most migrants, want integration... The rhetoric and policy we saw yesterday will take us backward to a much uglier, and more dangerous, place."

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

This is interesting: UK Labour are not only digging their own electoral
grave by adding water to Reform’s mill, but also undermining centrist/progressive parties’ case against anti-immigration in other countries! 👏🏻 Well done Keir!

😱

That went well.

Alienated your voter base and MPs, Reform voters still hate you and The Mail still drags you because, unlike Reform, they don’t think you really *believe* in racist policy.

I mean, who saw that coming? *points at self*

You win by stopping this bullshit.

Spot on by @pmdfoster.bsky.social ! 👏 The most astonishing thing though is: It is so obvious and yet none in Labour seems to take notice/understand/act...beyond frustrating seeing the country slip into Reform's dirty grip...

All this while refusing to call out Brexit as one of the main factors for Britains low growth and the rise in immigration after “Brexit got done.”
Which allows Farage to evade his responsibility for the situation he now so happily exploits.
This all helps only Reform.

The Farage effect. Pretty stark. bsky.app/profile/adam...

How a little-known French literary critic became a bellwether for the US right René Girard is best known for his theory of ‘mimetic desire’. Now Peter Thiel and the vice-president are among his fans

Super interesting piece in the FT on MAGA’s appropriation of René Girard’s philosophy of mimetic desire and scapegoating! 🤯

Fascinating how one of the most anti-intellectual movements in recent times draws inspiration from a “deep-thinker”…

on.ft.com/3YGjRZh

If true, depressing and stupid, negatively impacting on Labour's growth focus & screwing one of UK's few strategic advantages & success stories, when overseas students aren't even the focus of anti-immigration ire - which won't be deflected by this.

This 100% 👇🏻 …

Labour targets international students claiming asylum after election losses to Reform Exclusive: Ministers understood to be drafting white paper this month in move to reduce legal migration

Frantically learning all the wrong lessons.
People who want Reform policies will vote Reform.
People who want Labour policies ... well, perhaps they'll just have to vote Green.
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Hey British media,
It’s no surprise that if you give Farage the run of the place, he’ll start winning.
Time to do your actual jobs and start interrogating him on his Brexit shitshow, his funding, his Trumpiness, his idiotic manifesto, his real plans for the NHS… instead of drumrolling him into No.10

Yes Keir, we’ve noticed! 🙄🤦🏼‍♂️

I think that would be a dangerously simple explanation (which doesn’t explain what happened elsewhere and to be honest a Labour MP punching someone probably made Reform voters more not less likely to vote for them! 😝)

Very well put! Sums up my feelings perfectly! 👍🏻

How does this come as a shock to anyone? It was crystal clear that this would happen given the government’s policies! 🙄

Reform wins Runcorn byelection by just six votes – what the result means for Labour and the Tories Nigel Farage is now claiming to be the official opposition after overturning Labour’s 14,700-majority.

“[In 2024] Labour won more votes than all other parties combined [in Runcorn]. Yet less than a year later, Reform has captured the seat, overturning a majority of 14,700.”
By McSweeny/Starmers logic that’s bc in July 2024 Lab was more like Reform than it is now? 🤔
theconversation.com/reform-wins-...

“Telling voters the Reform leader is right, but they shouldn’t vote for him, is no more likely to work for Labour than it has for the Tories”…Yepp seems blindingly obvious…and yet somehow Labour seems hellbent on trying and defy basic logic and experience!

Sadly Labour’s conclusion from this defeat will probably be “Oh look we need to be more like Reform to win” rather than “Oh people don’t like us trying to imitate Reform” - Hopefully they’ll start looking at polls to realise people are less bothered about foreigners, more about climate than Reform!

Nigel Farage still insisting that he has "never ever, ever suggested anything other than the NHS should be free".

Here's what he's said in the past behind closed doors

Trump has been proven right about pretty much everything, by Liz Truss

Under my glorious rule, anyone contributing to the Comment pages of the Telegraph would agree to have the headline tattooed to their forehead should circumstances demand it…

Important post in fhe @bylinetimes.bsky.social on media ownership in the UK.
It seems increasingly likely that British public and authorities will only wake up to the danger of having right-wind illiberals in charge of the media when it’s too late…
…see Hungary journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

How a 'Populist' Media Has Mainstreamed the Far Right Right-wing daily papers in the UK do not represent 'public opinion' - they simply reflect the radical right views of those 'who own and run them', argues Julian Petley

🔴How a ‘Populist’ Media Has Mainstreamed the Far Right

Right-wing daily papers in the UK do not represent ‘public opinion’ – they simply reflect the radical right views of those ‘who own and run them’, argues Julian Petley

bylinetimes.com/2025/04/29/f...

Good news for those who were 'really sorry to miss' my inaugural lecture "From state to market and back?" The recording is now available: www.lboro.ac.uk/inaugural-le...

Check it out if you want to know what a buff-fronted owl (picture by Gustavo Pinto) has to do with political economy.