Rafael Behr

⏰ START YOUR WEEK ⏰ Will Trump’s attack on Iran topple the regime or set off a regional war? Plus the fallout from #Gorton&Denton and more.

⏰ With @rafaelbehr.bsky.social & @jacobjarvis.bsky.social ⏰ Out now everywhere – linktr.ee/bunker_pod

@benansell.bsky.social has written superbly on this phenomenon in politics

Very much this. Westminster relying on muscle memory of two-party politics is in no fit shape for politics as it is now playing out in the country.

Tomorrow’s #WeeklyWrapUp is out early! We take a closer look at Trump’s barmy State of the Union, Labour’s SEND reforms, the latest from North Korea, and a fleet of AI-powered hoovers with @rafaelbehr.bsky.social & @jacobjarvis.bsky.social

🚨 Listen everywhere now linktr.ee/bunker_pod

I don’t live in London anymore but still consider myself native Londoner, like emigré fondness for the Old Country, and I wholly approve of this long-overdue move.

From Trump’s Maga to Farage’s Reform, they’re all following Putin’s nationalism playbook | Rafael Behr Reform is promising a ‘patriotic school curriculum’ – but what does that mean? In the end it comes down to submission to the leader, says Guardian columnist Rafael Behr

Column. On the nationalist core of Faragism and why it doesn’t need conspiracy, transaction or even knowing complicity to serve a Kremlin agenda. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Or political gangsterism. Hybrid of ideology and raw greed.

From Trump’s Maga to Farage’s Reform, they’re all following Putin’s nationalism playbook | Rafael Behr Reform is promising a ‘patriotic school curriculum’ – but what does that mean? In the end it comes down to submission to the leader, says Guardian columnist Rafael Behr

Column. On the nationalist core of Faragism and why it doesn’t need conspiracy, transaction or even knowing complicity to serve a Kremlin agenda. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Разговор о важном! Reform UK’s education policy, what it reveals about the character of Farage’s politics and where it inevitably tends. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

📳 NEW EDITION 📳 Nobody wants a wider war in Europe, but we might get one anyway. How can we prepare our military and wider society to deter Putin – or maybe fight him?
📲 Ed Arnold of @rusi.bsky.social talks to @rostaylor.bsky.social & @rafaelbehr.bsky.social
📲 Listen: linktr.ee/ohgodwhatnow...

!! … ah

Scholar sacking, as indicator of guard rails down, was big factor in later market reaction to mini-budget, or so bond analysts told me. So much higher order of significance on that front alone.

BBC didn’t have to concede those points. I wouldn’t have been surprised by boilerplate ‘breaking news, we just give both sides’ rebuttal. Seen plenty of BBC correspondence over the years and tone of the email definitely chastened by standard of these things. Hope it has some lingering effect.

BBC Verify also analysed several videos from the scene, concluding that none of the available videos showed Alex Pretti holding a gun in his hands. Although we continued to reference these videos regularly in our posts and key points, after further review of the page as a whole, we acknowledge that once we had this analysis, we should have placed more consistent and explicit emphasis on the fact that it contradicted the accounts given by the federal authorities

Although we later obtained and published the family's full statement on our second live page, we also acknowledge that we were late in publishing the full statement, which included strong criticism of the administration and accusations against the agents who shot him, as well as clearly disputing the suggestion that he was holding a gun when he was shot.

In short, while pointing out that breaking news with conflicting perspectives involves publication of competing accounts, pending clarification, BBC accepts it was slow to adjust once it became clear that only one side was engaged in to truth. Key paras in long email here …

Day after Alex Pretti killing I complained to BBC about presentation of White House statements and evidence as equivalent. Duty of balance doesn’t extend to complicity with clear lies, I said. BBC could and should report WH making false statements as a *fact of the story*. Today I got response …

Where does this leave coconut milk?

And milk of human kindness?

This. Also, I gave Starmer much benefit of the doubt in print. Maybe too much; striving to analyse ways in which he could succeed - how it might work. But you have to recognise the data that tell you he is failing.

It is cope to believe this is all confected. My whole job is talking to MPs and ministers, I talk to a dozen different ones every day, I spend the week in Parliament in the same corridors, same coffee queues. Sometimes even I have been taken aback by the strength of feeling about the need for change

"History is women following behind with the bucket."

So Morgan McSweeney has been replaced by Jill Cuthbertson and Vidhya Alakeson. Antonia Romeo is about to take over from Chris Wormald. Steph Driver may return to fill Tim Allan's vacancy.

Sense that now there's a mess to mop up, get the women in

Haven’t yet seen a nerdy piece situating current political crisis in a mathematically predictable recurring pattern of chaos and corruption under headline “Mandel-rot Set” (with suitable illustration) and I think that is a missed opportunity.

As something of a specialist in mitigation, “Actually I took my children with me to Paedo Island” is not what I would open with.

Keir Starmer is the bandage Labour can’t rip off for fear of opening old wounds | Rafael Behr The party’s MPs know their leader is failing but they are paralysed by fear of a contest with no obvious successor, says Guardian columnist Rafael Behr

On Labour’s certainty that Starmer has failed and paralysing fear of what a leadership contest actually involves www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I doubt I have earned fandom of any dimensions, least of all huge, but thank you.

🔥🔥🔥It's emergencycast time!🔥🔥🔥
@rafaelbehr.bsky.social and @zoegrunewald.bsky.social discuss McSweeney's departure and what it means for Starmer and 'Starmerism' in this special bonus edition ➡️ linktr.ee/ohgodwhatnow...

Peter SCANDALson, amirite?

🚨 NEW EP OUT EARLY in case of… you know… 🚨 “I’m Mandy, buy me.” The Mandelson downfall horrifies even seasoned scandal-watchers. Could it consume Starmer too?
🚨 With @jonnelledge.bsky.social @rostaylor.bsky.social @rafaelbehr.bsky.social & @nndroid.bsky.social
🚨 Listen: linktr.ee/ohgodwhatnow...

Exactly this. Starmer’s position is so bad because, even with his defence of being lied to, the question ‘what is the only acceptable degree of past intimacy with Epstein in a potential ambassador?’ demanded the answer ‘zero’.

Thank you.

When Maga oligarchs control the platforms, it isn’t really a debate about ‘free speech’ | Rafael Behr The debate over banning under-16s from social media should raise deeper questions about who controls democracy’s digital infrastructure, says Guardian columnist Rafael Behr

On the sleight of hand that uses free speech as a diversion from questions of who controls the digital infrastructure of democracy and to what purpose. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

When Maga oligarchs control the platforms, it isn’t really a debate about ‘free speech’ | Rafael Behr The debate over banning under-16s from social media should raise deeper questions about who controls democracy’s digital infrastructure, says Guardian columnist Rafael Behr

On the sleight of hand that uses free speech as a diversion from questions of who controls the digital infrastructure of democracy and to what purpose. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...