Welcome to the ‘Youth Hunger Games’: the brutal NEET race for shrinking pickings
Young people are being exhorted to keep chasing the elusive prize of employment, even as our work-centred world is diminishing
Bearly Politics
Welcome to Bearly Politics! I'm The Bear, your slightly exasperated guide to the strange world of modern politics. Here, I attempt to tackle the absurdities of power, with claws sharpened by satire and the occasional heavy paw of wit.
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Latest posts
Net Zero: Unacceptable. Neo-Nazis: Let’s Talk.
Welcome to the completely normal world of British right-wing politics, where ideological purity matters enormously - unless the ideology in question is fucking Nazism.
Turns Out Reform Isn't Inevitable After All
Reform came second, Labour won comfortably, the Conservatives somehow finished fifth, and the political story everyone expected never quite happened.
A Very Brief Update
My last week of my 30s didn’t pan out as expected.
Interlude: The Serious Business of Taking the Piss
From Evita Bezuidenhout and Nando's, to Screaming Lord Sutch and Count Binface, political satire has spent generations doing what power fears most: making itself look ridiculous.
Faragian Farce Day 5: Winning Isn’t Enough Anymore
Why Nigel Farage may still win Clacton, but lose the only contest that really matters.
Faragian Farce Day 5: Winning Isn’t Enough Anymore
Listen now | Not a Podcast: Why Nigel Farage may still win Clacton, but lose the only contest that really matters.
Faragian Farce Day 4: A Deep Dive Into The Nine Bins Of Reformati Arguments
The Farage/Reform response has become a panicked tour of grievance, victimhood, and procedural illiteracy, with one very large question still sitting slap bang in the middle of the room.
Faragian Farce Day 3: The Clacton Clown Car Fills Up
Farage’s grand anti-scrutiny stunt now has Count Binface, Laurence Fox, far-right oddities and the potential to become the weirdest by-election in British history.
The Clacton By-Election Has Entered Peak Binface
With no major parties standing, a standards investigation paused, and Count Binface waiting in Clacton, Farage’s grand reckoning is quickly something much funnier and much dodgier.
Nigel Farage And The Five Million Pound Victim Complex
The man of the people, backed by crypto wealth and aristocratic fixers, would very much like you to look somewhere else.
Realism vs Idealism
Reinhold Niebuhr explained why it’s so hard to build a better world. But he still has much to teach us.
Burnham Is Ascending While Farage Is Waning
Reform’s rebellion looks far less inevitable when Farage is facing questions about £5m and Burnham is offering a different kind of disruption.
Sunday Long Read: Carol Vorderman Made Reform Look Small
One by-election exposed a wider pattern: contempt dressed as banter, grievance dressed as common sense, and "protection" offered without rights.
“Remember ’76?” Isn’t a Climate Argument
Britain is boiling, but some people still think a hot summer in 1976 disproves climate change. It doesn’t.
Long Read: Brexit, Burnham and Britain’s Permanent Restlessness
Six Prime Ministers later and we're still no closer to solving the foundational issues in this country
A Year of Bearly Politics: Thank You for Helping Me Through It
One year after introducing paid subscriptions, a look back at 211 posts, one very expensive Nigel Farage photo, and the hardest year of my life.
A Week of Joy, A Week of Warning
From the beaches of Sitges to the streets of Belfast, two very different visions of society were on display.
Republication: Is Banning X Really Censorship - or Long-Delayed Accountability?
Why governments should no longer be willing to ignore a platform architected for harm.
Beach-Bear Mode - Activate!
The out of office is on, and I will see everyone on the 16th of June