ProfAFinlayson

The real lesson to take from Gorton and Denton is for the future of UK democracy | Institute for Government Westminster is dangerously underprepared for a multi-party future.

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.

The Warner Bros. Sale Is Even Worse Than It Looks The Ellisons might have beat Netflix, but their $111 billion deal still needs to survive lawsuits, regulators, and a mountain of debt.

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.

Article - Nuffield Politics Research Centre

@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.

The Representation of the People Bill: contours of the debates to come The government’s long-awaited proposals for electoral reforms, published last month, will receive their first scrutiny in the House of Commons next Monday. Ahead of that debate, Alan Renwick analyses which of the bill’s proposals – and omissions – are likely to spark most contention. He suggests that pressure to strengthen the bill will be intense on multiple fronts.

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'.

James Butler · ‘Need a lord on the board?’: Mandelson and the Lobbyists Why​ did a man whose political expertise was acquired in the departed era of broadcast television maintain such...

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...

Transatlantic TikTok propaganda and the end of localised populism TikTok deportation propaganda is fast becoming the new border wall. States, platforms and algorithms are fusing into a single machine. This, says Mimi Mihăilescu is turning deportation into bingeable ...

“TikTok deportation propaganda is fast becoming the new border wall. States, platforms and algorithms are fusing into a single machine […] turning deportation into bingeable content, burying resistance in the feed, and replacing physical walls with algorithmic control.”

Myth, monsters and making sense of a disenchanted world: why everyone is reading fantasy I have made the leap from literary fiction to fantasy – for those who think it’s mere wish-fulfilment, here’s why we need that thing with the dragons

These ‘defences’ of fantasy come along every so often. This is fine but like most, turns to ‘psychology’ & standard Pullmanisms: ‘the power of the imagination’. All fiction is fantasy. Some forms hide that fact because ‘ideology’. “Fantasy” is huge now as that ideology collapses at multiple levels.

It’s a Wonderful Life bank run scene.

“You're thinking of the $175 billion in tariff money all wrong. As if I had the money back in a safe. The money's not here. Your money's in the White House ballroom, the renaming of the Department of Defense, the $10 billion transfer to the Board of Peace, and a hundred other unauthorized actions.”

Crypto super PACs have hundreds of millions ready to spend on the midterms With Trump faltering and their policy agenda incomplete, the crypto industry has moved at least $288 million toward the midterms in a desperate bid to keep Republicans in control of Congress

Newsletter: With Trump faltering and their policy agenda incomplete, the cryptocurrency industry has moved at least $288 million toward the midterms in a desperate bid to keep Republicans in control of Congress.

www.citationneeded.news/crypto-super...

Londoners: next Wednesday we'll be discussing how the right won the internet with @profafinlayson.bsky.social. Open to all, but limited capacity, so RSVP essential.

To: londontalkingshop@gmail.com

I’m not sure his professional background is the main problem. He’s opposed to the principle of political equality - and I’d find that a problem if he was a sociologist, engineer, think tank lifer, ex-spad, public policy specialist, tv presenter, waiter, banker, small businessman etc.

This explains how the LibDems did so well in 2024 and how critical constituency level predictions could be in 2029. A conversation about MRPs and constituency polling seems to be quite urgent.

In the large: Mortality in France, 1816-2016.

Ah. I misremembered. I think afterwards there was some rule that they couldn’t replay it and couldn’t mention his name when talking about it. And I’ve confused it all.

I should add to this: what’s hurting reform isn’t just that part of its voter base doesn’t like old Tories. It’s also that the Tories they’ve recruited make the party ‘diverse’ in the eyes of that part of its base.

Not as far as I know. But Advance are.

From what i see online: recruiting Tory losers is harming their brand of ‘outsider insurgents’. The Gorton and Denton candidate isn’t helping: a media professional with no populist authenticity confirms the sense it’s not the party it claims to be. Hence Restore is doing better (and has X on side).

Google Scholar Is Doomed Academia built entire careers on a free Google service with zero guarantees. What could go wrong?

Since search is dead, how soon do you think Google Scholar is headed for the Google Graveyard? I'm betting it's soon, and academia is NOT prepared

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin