@profafinlayson.bsky.social
Prof of Political & Social Theory @ UEA: regularly a political theorist, often a political analyst, always a rhetorician. Sometimes I teach people how to make political speeches; usually they are happy about it. Mostly I study Reactionary Digital Politics.
This play is born out of some work I & colleagues did teaching rhetoric to…anyone. It’s about politics/political speech. Each night different non-actors will join in & deliver their own speech as part of the action. Still looking for volunteers in Cornwall!
www.dasharts.org.uk/our-public-h...
New critical cultural metapolitics from ContraPoints (1m views in two days). You can see where it’s going early on (good foreshadowing) & getting there is a good trip which might help you understand why the Right wants to punish the Left (which is perhaps the purpose of a Tragic ending).
A typical trajectory for a UK radical right influencer? Teen YouTube prankster; lots of press after SA allegations made on YT by ex-bf he then sued for defamation; degree in digital; made 2016 pro-Trump LGBT content; advised failed Tory leader; moves to US to feed propaganda to UK via GB news clips.
Yes, exactly: clear measures of public feeling/govt success & staging posts for opposition parties that they put in power in cities/regions/nations giving them experience & a platform. How Labour responds to losing Wales & poss London will be a key test of capacity to correct ideology-driven errors.
Lewis understands that Labour’s problem isn’t ‘the narrative’ but a systemic crisis of legitimacy (cultural, economic and political) which makes governing impossible. I’m not sure how many other MPs will be able to understand this but the asteroid landing on them in May will be a good teacher.
POST-DOC!
3-year job in history of political thought / visual culture / art history
Department of Politics & International Studies
University of Cambridge
@thecambridgeschool.bsky.social
www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/54724/
The PM’s latest TikTok: images of fighter jets taking off & dropping bombs while his words are drowned out by guitars from 1985 hit Money for Nothing by Dire Straits (a song about how it looks easy to do things on TV).
What were they thinking? A gift to 1985-style semioticians?
Thanks Keir!
It’s as if a Sports Scientist, having learned how to describe the dynamic of some matches, decided he could now play in the Premier League. He has the desire for fame & money necessary for success but he doesn’t actually understand the game, the art of it or its purpose.
The fragmenting political spectrum is now consolidating around two new poles: those who think the role of government is to improve productivity and prosperity vs those who think it’s to proliferate religious war in the Middle East, hasten the time of tribulation & generate content for social media.
I genuinely don’t understand why a minister would publicly justify a major policy by asserting its electoral benefits for her party. That seems guaranteed to make people think it’s insincere & to implied it’s not been designed to work or be in some way good for the nation: ‘party before country’.
A prominent Labour MP has discovered (1) good politics creates coalitions; (2) people think the economy's rigged against them. Huge if true! Yet he refers to the latter as if just a perception. Until it can explain WHY this is REALLY happening Labour won't be able to build a coalition to address it.
Disturbing in a good way I hope. Your substack is very clear headed I think.
Only if you can build up enough interest in your merch that you never have to sell out to GB News. Would you like to buy a water bottle with a picture of @jemgilbert.bsky.social on it saying 'Yes, I agree with all that' ?
I think this is broadly right. A key contradiction of online culture is 'everything-slop' vs 'niche-craft'. Niche was King in early online days (before corps took over). But niche is economically viable for many. Something similar is going on with political commentary (& I guess, everything else).
I’m drawing up the constitution for my own ideal society & a key clause is that you are barred from holding public office for ten years if you use the phrase “It is right that we…”.
Asserting your conviction that your own position is good is not an argument for it.
It’s a kind of genius: “Only Labour can do what needs to be done. No need to say what is to be done, just that only Labour can do it as long as it doesn’t do Labour things; the country is made only of electoral segments most of which we should ignore; everybody else is stupid, er, …immigration”.
The fragmentation of the UK’s party politics should no longer be treated as an aberration.
The Green Party’s victory in Gorton and Denton underlines the importance of UK democracy adapting to a multi-party future, argues @drhannahwhite.bsky.social
www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/gort...
When trying to reconstruct why people voted as they did, it's as well to remember John Stuart Mill's warning that a voter may exercise a:
'base and mischievous vote … from the voter’s personal interest, or class interest, or some mean feeling in his own mind’ (Representative Government)
Obvious prediction: Greens will be subjected to a vicious campaign to delegitimise their very presence in British pol (by papers/parties/national broadcaster etc.)
Less obvious prediction: it'll validate their appeal as younger outsiders, dismay Lab/Lib voters who think some of the policies are OK.
Meanwhile, in the ongoing war of position in the US, the radical right looks set to seize some important ground. If the deal comes off it can shut down CNN. But the bigger prize will be control over popular cultural history.
slate.com/business/202...
Also to note - Mahmood is essentially saying that immigration policy should be made entirely for political reasons and those reasons should be what they think their ideal type working class voter believes. Quite literally a policy of pandering.
@martamiori.bsky.social and I have been writing, since 2024, about why Labour's 'Reform' challenge and emphasis was based on a misunderstanding of Labour's vote. Here for anyone interested: politicscentre.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/news-and-eve...
Over the past eighteen months, the political science consensus on the nature of Labour's vote has been absolutely correct - and yet also completely ignored by pundits and strategists who continue to get it wrong.
A good overview. Also includes sound advice for Labour should it wish to revive its fortunes.
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...
No surprises, surely?
Candidate is arrogant charmless TV presenter & hates everything: lose.
Campaign is entitled technocracy + smearing left-liberalism: lose.
Candidate is local & can make OK speech about how a good job should lead to a good life: win.
Normal politics is trying to be born.
Here's a table in the new @britishelectionstudy.com book (forthcoming). We calculated 'second preferences' - here Labour voters after elections 2015 to 2024.
50% of Labour's 2024 voters had Greens as second preference. 42% the Lib Dems. The left bloc is coalescing behind the most viable left party!
Odd but not unusual. Restore-isn has been building for 15+ years online & off. Old media & mainstream politicos have only been concerned about the left. It’s partly blindness to online & thinking places like Yarmouth are irrelevant and ugly. But it’s also ideological. They fear the left more.
Really clear & helpful review of a very important bill. As seems usual for this govt. it includes sensible things alongside mistakes due to ignorance & inattention + egregious things to do with elite influence & things Labour thinks are in its self interest which will be used to crush it by Reform.
NEW BLOG: The Representation of the People Bill: contours of the debates to come
Ahead of the bill's second reading on Monday, @alanrenwick.bsky.social covers 'astonishing weaknesses', an idea that is 'indefensible in a democracy' and another 'breach of such a basic democratic principle'.
Well worth a read. Ties up a lot of the threads (and so makes more visible the black hole at the centre that is exerting gravitational force on our political culture). www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...