Mike Slaven

terminal case of a lack of the juice

amid the new briefing coming out of No 10, just putting down a marker that I called Starmer's downfall on 18 September 2024, and the reason why hasn't really changed

Increasingly I suspect that Labour MPs, in waiting until late spring 2026 to defenestrate Starmer, will discover that they did so too late to repair the damage -- two years of maladroit leadership and atrocious vibes will be baked in, and the governing job won't have gotten easier. Hope I'm wrong!

Our project members Anita Huizar-Hernandez and @mcslaven.bsky.social presented their research on Friday at the Roatch-Haskell Lectures at Arizona State University, on "The Complex Historical and Political Events of the Southwest Borderlands."

Thanks to the hosts and everyone who came!

For those interested in the history of the far right in Australia, @drjpersian.bsky.social, Vashti Jane Fox and I provide an overview in the introduction to our book 'Histories of Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Australia'.

www.academia.edu/121035689/Hi...

www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Excerpt from the Wikipedia entry on The Big Lebowski: "Before David Huddleston was cast as "Big" Jeffrey Lebowski, the Coens considered Robert Duvall (who did not like the script), Anthony Hopkins (who was not interested in playing an American), Gene Hackman (who was taking a break from acting at the time), Jack Nicholson (who was not interested, he only wanted to portray Moses), Tommy Lee Jones (who was considered "too young"), Ned Beatty, Michael Caine, Bruce Dern, James Coburn, Charles Durning, Jackie Cooper, Fred Ward, Richard Mulligan, Rod Steiger, Peter Boyle, Lloyd Bridges, Paul Dooley, Pat Hingle, Jonathan Winters, Norman Mailer, George C. Scott, Jerry Falwell, Gore Vidal, Andy Griffith, William F. Buckley, and Ernest Borgnine; the Coens' top choice was Marlon Brando.[18] Charlize Theron was considered for the role of Bunny Lebowski.[19] David Cross auditioned for the role of Brandt.[20]"

absolutely incredible paragraph, and very sad about the lack of an alternate version in which The Big Lebowski played by Bill Buckley and David Cross plays Brandt

The improvement in the employment rate of non-EU migrants to the UK over the past 15 years is remarkable, especially since the pandemic.

www.ons.gov.uk/employmentan...

"A BBC edit was harsh to Trump so the people in charge there have been fired" is just such a bonkers story showing how much of the UK right is being colonized by Trump simps engaged in a culture war against their own country. An "issue" with close to zero resonance for the average British person.

SUPERB and angrily unvarnished response, by former BBC chairman, Lord Patten.

"I don't think that we should allow ourselves to be bullied into thinking that the BBC is only any good, if it reflects the prejudice of the last person who shouted at it." ~AA

I think that would be better, though I think that could also potentially exacerbate rather than alleviate the other issues!

If you want to expand legal channels it can't all be premised on increasing border security, it actually has to be argued per se. I'm not saying that there aren't some reasons to do the former, but it's not a realistic political plan given the history of this issue in the US and elsewhere.

I wouldn't have much confidence this approach would work for very long for the US. We haven't even gotten to the maritime borders, really. But European policies have some pretty major problems (like in Libya) and while it's hard to prove a counterfactual, hasn't really stopped the far right here.

This would be an important development. This summer, @commissionerhr.coe.int highlighted that the 2-child limit was "an outlier in Europe and beyond" and that scrapping it was "among the most effective and urgent steps to lift children out of poverty"
www.coe.int/en/web/commi...

I agree, but this is the extent to which migration like this happens for exogenous reasons and even title 42 would not stop it enduringly. If you’re trying to come up with political solutions, everything in the western world since the end of the Cold War suggests you have to expect that.

Yes it really is. In the UK for instance the impacts of 2015/16 were rather modest. The UK has had new asylum acts continually from the early 90s, Germany had new laws post reunification, Yugoslavia was a big deal, etc. Lots of policy changes over many decades all aimed at reducing asylum seeking.

Well, it’s a bit more than no easy answers — it’s that this has been the main form of controversial migration to Europe for more than 30 years and after that long of governments continually hollowing out asylum, people are still coming and claiming it in numbers considered too high.

Mail Online reports Nigel Farage says that the BBC may have no future.

He imagines bringing to an end century of public service broadcasting in the UK - because the populist politician and his US political ally Donald Trump do not want the BBC to survive

No thanks, Nigel.
No thanks, Donald

We estimate the number of non-EU citizens with ILR is likely to be between 620k and 820k

More details on how we reached those figures in the commentary

I think the issue is that it is often rather hard to discern the differences between these groups or draw form lines between them, which as long as you actually care about extending protection to the deserving (some don’t) will be a difficult barrier to operationalizing more scrutiny.

Honestly I do, though it would have been a somewhat different backlash.

FWIW in my migration politics class one assignment is for students to write a policy brief about whether the 51/67 framework should be replaced. They usually conclude that it’s best not to try because no one will agree what to replace it with.

At the end of the day -- and this is my point in criticizing most supposed "solutions" -- I think to a certain extent there is no substitute for actually making the case to voters that migration is good actually and it is in our interests at least to tolerate it, rather than suggesting the opposite.

I think the reasoning of this piece has a lot of issues but I think it does hint that the actual solution to irregularized asylum seeking etc. is, in great part, going to be more work migration. Which of course we all know is actually subject to similar political attacks.

Part 1: Why is asylum a chronic policy problem in the UK? | Institute for Government The asylum system is complex and hard to manage.

Occasionally you hear of an ECHR-based decision that's iffy (e.g. can't send a Brazilian back to prison in Brazil because of prison conditions), but I don't think the UK is systematically different from other European countries. Aslo a good primer: www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/...

afaik most aren't in "city centers," many in marginal towns. The issue with tighter scrutiny is that decisions get overturned on appeal when it's revealed that the decision-making in the initial phase is poor - HO is overruled frequently. That actually adds to length of time in hotels, etc.

Yeah, the problem is that as long as you very tightly control asylum seekers, you have to put them somewhere, and alternatives are not that popular either. In that sense reducing the backlog is important.

'A Slap in the Face': Federal Employees Feel Betrayed by Democrats' Shutdown Cave "I would rather be an actual pawn. At least pawn sacrifices are calculated and achieve something."

I heard from a bunch of federal employees last night and this morning. They aren't happy.

"I would rather be an actual pawn. At least pawn sacrifices are calculated and achieve something. All this for a fucking meaningless vote."

we'll see if any are tempted though. the other thing is that I expect to hear a lot about this kind of thing from insurgent dems running in open seats for instance, even if no one responsible for passing this is directly involved