Maria Sobolewska

Labour needs to be much smarter, not noisier
- Must grip live issues of high salience (boats, hotels): act effectively, not shout ineffectively
- Show deals can work vs quit ECHR
- Don't amplify salience on settlement
- Can't win auction to end net migration
- Need boundaries vs remigration+racism

The untold story that is told constantly and isn’t really true

The endless column inches, YouTube videos, podcasts and more given over to the largely non-existent rightwards shift of young men is exhausting.

A small fraction are getting radicalised by the online right. But most young men vote left and liberal! Even more so than millennials did at their age!

The Listening Government The idea that MPs are in touch with the real world through their constituency offices has been turned into an article of political faith, but it is ill-founded.

"MPs’ preferred policy instrument is a sticking plaster. Any well worked-out policy will have losers as well as winners, but MPs are not up for the challenge of putting across the big picture when they face angry and noisy constituents" - Deborah Mabbett

OpenVAA v0.1 Shiba is out now!

Did you know there is an open-source framework for building Voting Advice Applications? OpenVAA (openvaa.org) offers a way to develop a VAA for any election. It is fully localisable, accessible, modular and free to use. 1/3

Really looking forward to this 😃

Advocacy for political violence will poison our country.

The White House has seized and imprisoned college students recently for political speech without a hint of such direct advocacy of killing.

The opposite of "Conservative". The opposite of "Christian". We reject this recipe for horror.

Investment in the sector is on the up in some countries. Why? Right across the continent, things are looking bleak when it comes to university finances and investment in the sector.

'In the Netherlands, the coalition has leaned heavily on the language of “choosing knowledge” – de coalitie kiest voor kennis – and positioned international students and researchers as contributors to the Dutch knowledge economy rather than as a cost to be managed.'

Churchwarden linked to foreign-born billionaire is behind £200k Reform gift The man whose firm made the donations will not discuss where the money came from, nor his ties to wealthy Farage allies who may not hold citizenship Gabriel Pogrund, Whitehall Editor Saturday January 31 2026, 8.00pm, The Sunday Times Share A churchwarden from Potters Bar who works for the family of a highly secretive, Kazakhstan-born billionaire can be revealed as the man behind £200,000 of donations to Reform UK., John Richard Simpson is a 59-year-old

Why isn't this a major news story?

The Listening Government The idea that MPs are in touch with the real world through their constituency offices has been turned into an article of political faith, but it is ill-founded.

Is the idea that MPs are in touch with the real world through their constituency offices ill-founded?

The Labour government needs to be bolder and braver—and this probably means listening less to its MPs, argues Deborah Mabbett.

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@polstudiesassoc.bsky.social

The abandonment of Labour’s moral crusade The UK is taking a cynical but fruitless turn to the reactionary and insular on aid, immigration and trade

An excellent piece. Especially on the evergreen topic of how our leaders turned into our followers with quite frankly terrible consequences

How is the Public Interest Defined When Building New Houses? The concept of public interest is ill-defined, contested, unevidenced and, too often, unchallenged.

Current Labour policy potentially restricts public input into the building of new houses.

But the concept of public interest is ill-defined, contested, unevidenced and, too often, unchallenged.

Labour risks election wipeout unless it improves Britain’s high streets, study finds Decay of town centres a top issue among voters especially Reform UK supporters and is fuelling resentment against Westminster

🏬 Important coverage today on the state of Britain’s high streets. @drjennings.bsky.social's research finds people who feel their local area has declined are more pessimistic about the future + Reform supporters are most likely to report decline: buff.ly/UcFpKkQ @michaelgoodier.bsky.social

Should British Jews flee to America? A reply to an invitation

Another good read, if you’re having a Substack morning like me

How The Simpsons Explain America's Political Realignment How the Democrats lost Homer Simpson but gained Mr Burns

“Yep, Mr Burns is now a Democrat!”

Honestly the best thing on the internet today- do yourself a favour and read it

How The Simpsons Explain America's Political Realignment How the Democrats lost Homer Simpson but gained Mr Burns

I use @electionstudies.bsky.social data from 1972 to model how characters in The Simpsons would have voted in presidential elections

It turns out to be very revealing about how the demographic coalitions of the Democratic and Republican parties have completely rearranged themselves...

We are hamstrung by human rights apparently… if only these terrible terrible things were abolished 😳 it is going so well in the US after all

A big problem with The End of History is it’s far too long and has far too much Hegel so most people know the title but not the book and missed the crucial and prophetic caveat at the end. This book should have remained an essay

When will they finally ban this criminal website?

Absolutely cracking work here from Jim's team. I defend the BBC a lot, but when a small team is doing really solid work like this while BBC London is doing puff pieces about the Wicked films, it really does make you wonder what's gone wrong with the big news outlets.

A REALLY great piece!

Attacking Universities Is Now a Populist Position. We Must Redefine Their Moral Purpose Britain's universities face an acute financial and moral crisis.

Could a version of Trump's attack on US universities happen here?

Universities are increasingly criticised as elitist, self-serving and disconnected from the everyday lives of UK citizens. We must redefine their moral purpose.

Who Pays and Who Speaks? Reforming Democracy in the UK | UCL Uncovering Politics This week we’re looking at proposals for democratic reform in the UK. What are the problems that reformers want to address, and is there any chance they’ll be implemented?

Interested in democratic reform?

Don't miss this episode of 'Uncovering Politics' in partnership with @uclspp.bsky.social.

Experts examine two specific reform ideas: reforming party funding and giving smaller parties a stronger voice.

Raise this whenever the UK far-right floats the idea of a 'UK DOGE'

> Be in Sainsbury's
> Looking at carrots
> Ask nearby women if these carrots are creepy or wet
> She doesn't understand
> Pull out illustrated diagram setting out what is creepy and wet
> She says "They are good carrots, Sir"
> Buy them
> They are wet

Slightly tempted to ask them for contact details so I can send them my lemsip bill when I inevitably get their lurgy

New - Nigel Farage has been found by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards to have made 17 standards breaches, adding up to over £380,000 in late declarations.

He’s apologised, so no further investigation (which seems unusual for a breach this large)

Hemmed in between two people coughing heavily on a two hour train to London/ with of course no opening windows. They are not wearing masks of course. I wish we would collectively start calling it what it is- antisocial behaviour. Stay the f^ck home if you have a cough, or 😷