Joseph Haigh

Do we take from this that Starmer no longer thinks the 'island of strangers' speech was a mistake? This seems to be a pretty dramatic doubling down on that kind of rhetoric - a u-turn on a u-turn, in that respect.

Apart from anything else, how did Starmer get from saying the 'island of strangers' speech was a mistake to signing off on this nonsense which is even worse? I don't get it.

You are not going to be able to pull together the anti-Reform coalition if voters don't see you are meaningfully different to Reform.

Mad reaction from the government given an increasing threat on the left.

The first Thatcher govt had a majority of just 43.

Thatcher, like Starmer, was not a natural orator, but she recognised that the battle of ideas mattered.

She saw it as part of her job to go out & win the argument: to shape public opinion, not just react to it.

That's almost wholly missing today.

This week, I've lurched from being cross at Labour to almost sympathising with Starmer for how dire his personal polling is, and then they pull a stunt like this and now I want to throw the book at them again. How are they *this* bad at politics?! They really did luck into government in 2024.

A chart from "The British General Election of 2024" (out soon!) which is relevant to this debate - here's what voters wanted (black line) and what they though Labour (red) and Cons (blue) would do on tax and spend during the campaign. Higher figures = "put them up". Some important lessons here 1/?

It makes me wonder whether Prescott actually consulted the original source himself & doctored it or simply took dictation from someone else. A person, for example, who had helped insert a right-wing lobbyist who hadn’t done journalism for over 20 years into such a potentially important position…

Its not the main objection, obviously, but doesn't he only have a majority of like 500?

Since the summer, I've been wondering how remembrance and poppy politics would be impacted by the latest wave of ethnonationalism (e.g. far-right flag raising).

Are poppy zealots moving from a compulsory/universalising logic ('everyone must wear one') to a more straightforwardly exclusionary one?

Hollowed out: can the centre hold? Can the centre hold and resist the far right

Clinical and really quite damning from @geoffmulgan.bsky.social geoffmulgan.substack.com/p/hollowed-o...

Those who say "Trump is taking us back to the Gilded Age" are thinking way too small:

He's taking us back to a pre-Magna-Carta world.

For all their talk about borders, Trump & the broligarchs & the autocrats of the world don't care abt nations: they aim to rule as warlords over personal empires.

AI is shit.

Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time – regardless of language or territory An intensive international study was coordinated by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and led by the BBC

Awesome that every search engine and major social media site is forcing AI news summaries onto everyone //

Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time – regardless of language or territory

www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/...

Ed Luce watching democracy die in the United States of America

Possible lesson here for Labour?

we should bring back shame actually

www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...

This is my new favourite analogy for mainstream parties' problem with the radical right! If you're a mainstream party, you can talk about other things! If you're the government, you can talk about *and do* other things *and* you get to set the agenda, at least to some extent, much of the time!

Another one for the vicarious militarism file

Omg Remembrance Day this year

It’s official - “Nigel Farage is right, don’t vote for him” is a demonstrably awful strategy for Labour. Boosts salience of immigration, costs votes on the left, doesn’t persuade any voters on right (why would they accept a crap knock-off when they can have the original?)

We have a paper on how Labour's strategy is disastrous.

There's an exclusive coverage in @newstatesman.com

www.newstatesman.com/politics/202...

Deftly done

The Failure of Mainstream Politicians and Media Organisations to Oppose This Violent Far-Right Movement Is a Disgrace The silence and complicity shown towards the anti-migrant movement on Britain's streets is pushing us towards a dark place, argues Adam Bienkov

@adambienkov.bsky.social is spot on

www.bylinesupplement.com/p/the-failur...

The BBC has apologised for Radio 4 broadcasting a critique of Robert Jenrick MP saying "I certainly don't want my daughters to live in a neighbourhood with men from a backward country" which said "these words echo a fear many people have - fear of a stranger .. the technical word is xenophobia"

BBC apologises after Robert Jenrick accused of xenophobia A contributor to Radio 4's Thought for the Day slot made the remark about the shadow justice secretary.

'Honest Bob' Jenrick, a politician obviously & deliberately embracing xenophobia, does some weapons grade xenophobia & the BBC *apologises* for a Thought For The Day contributor calling it xenophobic. Licence fee payers need to know who makes these decisions & why. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

When you've lost Nick Ferrari and Andrew Pierce, you know the game is up.

Palestine Action ban is an attack on fundamental freedoms | Letter A letter from 47 scholars including Tariq Ali, Judith Butler, Angela Davis, Naomi Klein and Avi Shlaim

Proud to see my former PhD supervisor Gilbert Achcar here, alongside some of the biggest names in progressive academia. Every one of us needs to raise our voice in this moment. Its a matter of basic moral obligation and civic duty.

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

The EU will keep warning Israel until the last Palestinian in Gaza is either killed by Israeli’s military or by its starvation policy.

You will not see a more tangible encapsulation of the genocide. A war of utter annihilation waged as a joint enterprise between the Israeli state on the ground and its allies in consistent support. The debt of reparations that the West owes to the Palestinian people at this point is incalculable.

As I read somewhere else recently, it's only a murder of crows if you can establish probable caws