Look what A Very Public Sociologist melted into
Across the land, grass has withered and died under the relentless glare of the burning sun. A climate catastrophe to be sure, but one that serves as an apt metaphor for the travails of Nigel Farage. At least as it exists in his and Reform's political imaginary. Instead of a drought, this was supposed to be Farage's evergreen summer. A hapless Prime Minister in office, racist pogroms to egg on and…
Time for the monthly duty post! What did the business on the blog during July? 1. The Desperation of Nigel Farage 2. From Brexit to Frexit? 3. Andy Burnham in Downing Street 4. The Political Uses of Ann Widdecombe 5. The No-Hopers Vs Andy Burnham The difficulties Reform are experiencing came out top of the pops. And as July progressed, the situation got worse. More allegations of law breaking, and…
This month saw 75,444 votes cast in 46 local authority contests. All percentages are rounded to the nearest single decimal place. 22 council seats changed hands. For comparison with June's results, see here . Party Number of Candidates Total Vote % +/- Jun +/- Jul 25 Avge/ Contest +/- Seats Conservative 45 14,287 18.9% +3.1 +0.3 318 +1 Labour 34 10,983 14.6% -3.4 -2.0 323 -2 Lib Dem 39 11,951…
From Andy Burnham's point of view, he couldn't have asked for a better week. His daily list of announcements went down with nmst official politics watchers, leaving those complaining, like the Tories, like the Daily Express , looking distinctly fogeyish. His social media output, particularly his chat with John Healey about pub snacks, also did the business of going viral on Facebook and TikTok.…
A new dawn has broken has it not? You could be forgiven for thinking these famed words of Tony Blair applies to our shiny new Prime Minister. Outside Downing Street sans the lectern and without the benefit of a crib sheet, Andy Burnham sketched out his plan for his premiership. Tomorrow we're going to see immediate measures to ease the cost of living and set out the direction of travel. Perhaps…
My book haul brings all the boys to the yard, so it's time we had another. These have been picked up in dribs and drabs from a variety of exotic locations. I.e. Nottingham and Derby. Digging into the B formats first, it's the doyen of British hard SF, Stephen Baxter. His officially endorsed sequel to HG Wells's The Time Machine might just be his best book in my opinion. So what can he do with the…
Nigel Farage has used every opportunity to fabricate a persecution complex. Being criticised for pocketing £5m and facing a standards inquiry is the establishment out to get him. Questions about his relationship to a moneyed fraudster and his mother is so much hounding. Having his by-election stunt backfire as all the other parties rightly refused to play his game is an elite conspiracy. The…
"This is 4D chess!!" shouted Matthew Goodwin into the howling void that is Twitter. With such an endorsement, you just know he was heaping praise on stupidity. And so it was. At 2pm Tuesday afternoon, Nigel Farage fielded a press conference about his political future. Was he going to resign ? Yes! Sort of. Viewers were treated to a self-pitying whine about how terribly unfair it was that he wasn't…
If you're sparing a thought for Nigel Farage this Sunday, his exposed links to a convicted fraudster are likely to colour them. The Sunday Times writes that Farage received security support, housing perks, and staff funded by crypto "entrepreneur", George Cottrell. Deliciously, Cottrell was arrested in the US in Farage's company in 2017, after doing the rounds at that year's Republican convention.…
The Birmingham bin strike has been rolling on for 18 months, and the workers - organised by Unite - have long suspected that the council's refusal to negotiate and willingness to throw money at breaking the strike, more than it would have cost to have settled the dispute , suggests the local authority wants to break the union. And yesterday, ITV West Midlands regional news confirmed it. They…
Another scorching month! For the blog that is. June was kind to this corner of the internet, and not all the traffic was from LLMs hungry for new content to "train" on. Here are the favourite five. 1. Authoritarian Babyism 2. A See Ya to Keir 3. Labour after Makerfield 4. On Cowardice 5. Right Riot Coming out on top is the government's plans to curb social media use for teenagers. Typical…
There was one occasion during Keir Starmer's leadership that I felt a frisson of hope. That was during Gordon Brown's report back on his commission on the UK's constitution . Its devolutionary agenda and programme of, by Labourist standards, radical reforms set out a convincing plan of state modernisation . But because nice things aren't allowed in politics, nearly all of it was decanted into the…
Everywhere you turn, there's advice pouring from every media orifice. Indeed, there is a concerted campaign running through unnamed (naturally) Labour MPs, the right wing press, and former military brass saying what Andy Burnham needs to do when he enters Number 10. These boil down to throwing money at the armed forces while stripping social security from the unworthy poor, and under no…
This quarter 289,878 votes were cast in 110 local authority contests. All percentages are rounded to the nearest single decimal place. 58 council seats changed hands. For comparison you can view Quarter One's results here . Party Number of Candidates Total Vote % +/- Q1 +/- Q2 25 Avge/ Contest +/- Seats Conservative 109 51,069 17.6% -0.3 -0.4 469 -4 Labour 95 40,363 13.9% -1.8 -3.2 425 -15 Lib Dem…
This month saw 98,917 votes cast in 43 local authority contests. All percentages are rounded to the nearest single decimal place. 19 council seats changed hands. For comparison with May's results, see here . Party Number of Candidates Total Vote % +/- May +/- Jun 25 Avge/ Contest +/- Seats Conservative 44 15,627 15.8% -3.0 +1.0 355 -1 Labour 40 17,824 18.0% +6.1 +0.7 446 -3 Lib Dem 34 19,055 19.3%…
I felt many emotions seeing Keir Starmer announce his resignation outside Downing Street on Monday morning. Not one of them was sympathy. For those who've spent the day celebrating the Prime Minister, demanding we respect the human frailties of a hard-done-to public servant, of Starmer's cracking voice as he struggled through the last few lines of his speech, there's a straightforward reply. Where…
Belated congratulations to Andy Burnham. As Simon rightly observes , Makerfield was an extraordinary by-election result. An increase in the size of the incumbent governing party's majority barely a month after Reform stomped over the constituency and won over 50% in the local elections. An exercise in solidifying a social democratic majority behind a Labour Party that has spent the last six years…
If you're lucky to be under the age of 16, congratulations! You will still be allowed to access this site from April next year. But if you want to watch more or less identical content on YouTube or TikTok, or the Prime Minister announcing decisions about your future, tough. If you're 16 or 17, you can join the army, pay tax, and (soon) vote , but hanging out with your favourite cool politics…
Another night of rioting, this time culminating in the burning out of African immigrants from a Loyalist area of Belfast. This was called for by Tommy Robinson, amplified by Elon Musk, and backed by Rupert Lowe's Restore. And what is the British government's response? Exactly the same as the Southampton rampage . Hand-wringing, pious words, and a pitiful attempt to shame the far right into…
A great tune from a great 80s movie.
There have been two phases to the riotous assembly Nigel Farage stoked following the investigation into the police handling of Henry Nowack's murder . There was the confrontation in Southampton itself. This was no grassroots anger bubbling over, but a flashpoint that saw the far right across London and southern England mobilise for a fight. All the fascist faces were there - Tommy Robinson,…
For The Times , JL Partners' poll of the political intentions of trade unionists found that 28% of them are prepared to back Reform, a 20-point increase since the general election. Labour on the other hand have fallen by the same margin to tie with them. Elsewhere in the survey the Greens have increased their support to 12%. Speculating about the why behind these figure on Times Radio , Terry…
What a scorcher! No, not just the month but the traffic on this blog! If you're inclined to believe the very basic Google stats package built into this platform, we had almost a million page views last month. Unfortunately, because this has been the pattern for a while it's not a sign of my breaking through into the big time. More a matter of generative AI repeatedly crawling though the pages…
Tony Blair's essay about what's gone wrong in the Labour Party has been widely read and discussed, and earned decent length ripostes from Wes Streeting , Andy Burnham , and Keir Starmer . The cage of Labour statecraft was well and truly rattled. Still, if you've read one Blair essay you've read them all. There was nothing new here that he hasn't already said in a thousand-and-one other rare and…