Imogen Shaw

All these people really want is to pay no taxes and be treated with floor scraping deference. Everything else is just bullshit in pursuit of that goal.

If Any Writer Is Due for a Revival, It’s One of Literature’s Most Misunderstood Novelists Rebecca author Daphne du Maurier was dismissed as merely a “romantic” novelist.

slate.com/culture/2025...

Labour Party conference's most stylish accessory - modelled here by @imogenshaw.bsky.social

Paging @caitprowle.bsky.social

If you’re heading up to Labour Conference from Euston today, remember to say thank you Louise Haigh for getting the giant departure boards back 🙏

What do the Burnhamites believe? The soft left are agitating against Starmerism – but are yet to provide a successor ideology

I've written about Mainstream, "The Starmer Symptom", and why the soft left getting organised is a good idea – if they can update themselves.

www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2025/0...

The evidence for this argument has grown and grown, and become increasingly convincing.

The policy remains difficult, unavoidably. But the rhetoric is clearly wrong. Critically, the centre left must directly challenge the slow normalisation of far right ideas for both moral and tactical reasons.

Lots of cats love shoes… but not many quite as much as Mordred.

The good news: I finally have my Labour Conference pass.

The bad news: The party’s printer has done something to my photo which makes me look like a Halloween zombie 💀

Retrospectively removing indefinite leave to remain would be immoral and economically damaging. It would tear families apart.
Attacking it as ‘potentially illegal’ is completely beside the point.
Argue with the (awful) idea. Don’t try ’well, actually you can’t do that’.

Farage vows to scrap indefinite leave to remain, placing thousands at risk of deportation Reform UK plans to force non-citizens to apply for visas with high salary thresholds and no access to NHS services

Thousands of Londoners have indefinite leave to remain.

They have legal rights and are our friends, neighbours and colleagues, contributing hugely to our city.

Threatening to deport people living and working here legally is unacceptable.

Yet another example of the bot-filled, far-right X atmosphere shifting norms in mainstream journalism

Where are Starmer’s friends? Labour MPs have abandoned the Prime Minister

I wrote about the noticeable Vibe Shift around Keir Starmer's viability as PM:

www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

Thanks, David!

A row of matches, some of which are unused and some of which are burned out

Me for SEC Newgate News:

‘What was forgivable in opposition, faced with a long-serving and unpopular Conservative administration, is not enough to carry a party through five years in government.’

www.secnewgate.co.uk/our-insights...

At a point where both following and working adjacent to UK politics was feeling depressing, this thread was a delightful read.

It seems blisteringly obvious to say, but there is no reason that it should be like this. There are some hugely talented and dedicated people in No10 and across the Labour operation. Yet, we keep handing the reigns to people who demonstrate they lack the judgement to make a Labour government work.

So now No10 Director of Strategy Paul Ovenden has quit over “lurid comments” made about Diane Abbott. Every time I think I could not rate the judgement on display at the top of government any lower, I’m proven wrong.

Really pleased to see a Labour MP saying this. I hope it kicks off a proper conversation within government. Given Musk’s latest, the status quo is not sustainable.

Our Government needs a revolutionary change... in the social media platforms it uses.

It’s far from the only (!) problem with UK political discourse, but the government could do a lot worse than get off X. Journalists would adapt. It’s not widely used by members of the public. What‘s the remaining audience, apart from bots, fascists and a billionaire owner who does things like this?

👇 Leadership matters and does change things. (A smaller scale version of this is watching people on here who have a red rosette where their own moral compass should be sharing a statement that only earlier this morning they thought it was Actually Wise Not To Make)

At this point, I don’t even think the No 10 operation is listening to dissenting voices from the Labour *right*, let alone the middle and (soft) left of the party.

On the plus side, you now have a great option for a WhatsApp ‘out of office’ profile photo

Thank you, Lise!

Why Labour’s deputy leadership contest is - and isn’t - significant. Me for SEC Newgate News ⬇️

A rare example of an all-women planning panel - you love to see it!

#GGsummit

I understand (though I do not accept) the government's case for remaining on X.

What is totally indefensible is the *exclusive* presence of many MPs & departments on that site.

They are handing a monopoly of key government communications to a site that's increasingly run by & for the radical right

"The Cat Read the Emails First" (2025)
acrylic painting

By Ukrainian artist Nataliya Bagatskaya - n.bagatska [IG]

#art #painting #illustration #caturday

Nothing I have seen so far has convinced me that a Reform majority/largest party outcome at the next general election would produce a whip-able Parliamentary Reform party…