Martin Heneghan

Wow the Sheffield Tribune did a huge write up on this a few weeks ago as he has also been terrorising people in Sheffield.

Going to go out on a limb here and say it won’t happen.

The closest an angry politico has ever come to doing me harm is when someone, while I was sipping on a glass of water on a panel, said "four billion might not be a lot of money to a middle class person like you". Damn near drowned choking with laughter.

I don’t think 2016 covered itself in glory. Kuenssberg was reporting on splits in the cabinet over Gove and Johnson supporting Brexit rather than, you know, the consequences of it, the lack of preparedness for it etc.

… social investment and the third way to justify interventions on child poverty. This govt has no underlying philosophy and hence no story to tell. Ironically, the only senior member to orate a philosophy is Reeves herself. Ending child poverty could easily be part of a ‘Securonomics’ agenda.

I’ve been naively surprised at the hostile media reaction to the lifting of the 2-child benefit cap. I expect it from right wing press but it’s been negatively portrayed by broadcast media too. The problem for the govt is it has no guiding narrative to defend itself. New Labour had …

Your Party 🤣

h/t @adamwren.bsky.social

Michael Bohacek, a Republican state senator from Indiana who has a daughter with down syndrome, says he will vote against redistricting in Indiana after Trump used the word "retarded."

Go back and listen to George W Bush – it is profound in comparison to what we have today!

The UK’s majoritarian electoral system has necessitated a communicative political discourse (to the electorate) rather than a coordinative one (to potential coalition partners). At one time this entailed chasing favourable tabloid and rolling news headlines. Now it is in the sewer of social media.

Great post. What is interesting is that the government has had to be cautious because of their posturing on migration, which has done nothing to win over Reform voters but has constrained their ability to do anything transformative which would pay off in the future. Very bad politics

Really found this analysis useful, Sam. Worth the subscription fee just for this 😊

I respect @edconway.bsky.social a lot so it’s disappointing we don’t get enough context from him about why taxes are rising everywhere and not just the UK: ageing populations, increasing demands on the state for defence, climate change, industrial policy, mitigating shocks (like Covid, energy etc.).

I'm hearing criticisms of the end to the two child limit, because it was done just to mollify Labour backbenchers, at a cost of £billions.

I remember another govt delivering a referendum on EU membership, just to mollify restive backbenchers. That's costing way, way more... A little perspective?

Criticising Myleene Klass for her outburst was my first ever viral tweet on Twitter haha.

What have you found so far?

A brilliant piece this is. I think about nostalgia a lot lately – as I suspect a lot of people do in the tumultuous era we live in. Stephen really gets at what I think is important. It is not just reflecting back on being young but on a time where we all had shared cultural understandings.

Yeah I still enjoy seasons 8 & 9. It’s also stylistically different as Jerry Seinfeld steered it towards absurdism instead of nihilism.

Not drama but most great sitcoms never sustain the greatness of earlier seasons: Seinfeld, Peep Show etc. For some reason the actors seem to lose their chemistry, you would expect the opposite. Maybe good writing makes the chemistry. Larry David stopped writing for the last two seasons of Seinfeld.

I’m really surprised this isn’t bigger news. Just under 10 million people live in Tehran. Where can they go? Where else in Iran will have enough water? This will undoubtedly strain the country’s and the region’s politics, finances and governance capacity.

I sometimes get excited about the prospect of Miliband getting the Labour leadership again and how much better it might be, but that is tempered by remembering it was Miliband who appointed Glasman a peer and gave Blue Labour its influence in the party.

Would be good to see some head to head polling on best PM: Miliband vs Farage.

Coming of age in an era of cheap money has distorted a lot of commentators’ and politicians’ perception of the economy.

Well that’s one way to drive down immigration. I highly doubt it will raise anywhere near £600m though. Labour may well end up being worse for the higher education sector than the Tories.

That’s because they think Twitter is reality.

I know Starmer seized control of the NEC from the Left during his time as Leader of the Opposition, but can we still assume he has control of it now when the opponent is a soft left candidate like Burnham and Starmer is such a terrible PM? How loyalist to him personally are they?

Haha I thought about Miliband when I wrote this. He would be a better PM and there would be a coherent policy stance. He sadly wasn’t up to it in the television era of politics, but his social media game is pretty decent!

It was also very common to be prime minister on more than one occasion. For whatever reason Harold Wilson was the last. I would have Major, Blair or Brown back given the crop of likely successors to Starmer.

Starmer isn't Britain's worst ever prime minister, but he is Labour's worst ever prime minister and it's not even close

These bumps are fascinating and a great illustration how distorting the British tax system is.