Or if you have journalistic ambitions.

It bears repeating, but: the idea that the Green Party or the left in general is a kind of Islamic/Bolshevik conspiracy to undermine and destroy the Reich has a very specific historic pedigree, and it’s not one that anyone should be politely accepting as a suitable point for debate.

Reform plans ‘ideological purge’ of Whitehall | The Observer Fears the party will pack civil service with ‘believers’ rather than the brightest and the best if it wins election

We can look forward to some extraordinary contortions by the liberal centrist wing of the Thatcherite uni-party, as they explain at the next election why they cannot in good conscience support the Green Party, and must, reluctantly, recommend voting for Reform.
observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Popular Sovereignty and the Constitutional Reform Agenda The constitutional reform agenda in England tends to focus on the key institutions of the existing state—the legislature and the executive, in particular. Consequently, proposals to change the consti....

The @politicalquarterly.bsky.social article that forms the basis of our discussion can be read online for free for the next month. It is an attempt to put media and finance closer to the centre of debates about constitutional reform. 2/2
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Restructuring The Constitution: A Hobbesian Thought Experiment Constitutional reform is a recurring theme in UK politics. Debates regularly surface about changing the electoral system, reforming the House of Lords, or redefining the role of the courts. These conv...

I had a fun conversation with @alanrenwick.bsky.social of the UCL Constitution Unit about the horizon of constitutional reform in the UK, which explored the subject from the perspective of Hobbes' account of sovereignty and its implications for popular rule ... 1/2
www.podbean.com/media/share/...

It's billed on the .gov website as "Government response to Humble Address motion of 4 February 2026", which doesn't exactly make things easy for the citizen.

The BBC and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport haven't organised that serious conversation yet and it isn't too late for them to start. But If they don't the conversation is going to happen without them: public media is too important to be left to senior BBC managers and MPs.

Now @demos-uk.bsky.social, @cooperativesuk.bsky.social and @mediareformuk.bsky.social have published reports recommending the use of sortition. There are important differences between the three approaches. But they form the basis for a serious conversation about the BBC's future in the digital age.

It's very welcome that the leading body promoting cooperative values is calling for "mutual features" to be introduced at the BBC, including a randomly selected Members' Council, which will be empowered to create bodies to oversee other aspects of its operations and governance.

The UK Green Party will fight tooth and nail to take over powerless local councils. Every US state is sovereign in matters not explicitly assigned to the federal level and could create a communicative assembly that destroys capitalist, imperialist and pro-duopoly propaganda. Just get on with it.

Stop saying a new party is impossible, and build a new party. In the UK we have the same godawful voting system and, sure, maybe the federal level is shut off, but don't tell me you can't take over a single state and use it to tell the rest of the country exactly how they're being scammed.

Feels like this is something that the Green Party should go in on hard: elements of the ancestral constitution are good and worth preserving, and the Green Party should embrace and defend them.

How rightwing rhetoric has risen sharply in the UK parliament – an exclusive visual analysis In the past five years, MPs’ attitudes in the House of Commons towards immigration have swung harder to the right than at almost any other time in the last century

It's amazing the contortions that the supposedly progressive and sensible sections of the mainstream media will put themselves through, in order to exonerate and excuse the reactionary, racist and duplicitous sections of the same industry.
www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-...

Getting a lot of replies from Americans today about how Labour’s woes portend doom for the Democratic Party, if they don’t mend their ways. I think that’s right, in one specific way: both wanted so badly, for so long, to claim the centre ground as the party of mean-as-fuck Business Win authority…

Vote Green, whenever you can.

I am not a numbers whizz or anything but I'm pretty sure something has gone wrong with the maths here.

Public media has long been top down and patrician. We need to think through how we make it more egalitarian, more reliable, *more interesting*. The best way to start is through a conversation this year about what we want from the media we pay for.

Imagine if the BBC invested the money it currently spends on (confidential) market research on a public consultation process, and developed TV, radio and digital assets to publicise it, and to enable broad and deep participation through randomly selected panels, open discussion online etc.

It is more obvious than ever that we need a public option in media and communications in the digital age. The BBC is the natural space to develop this. But our establishment seems determined to stop us from thinking together about what that looks like after 2027. Why?

This is a very serious blow to the Charter renewal process. It isn't too late for the Department of Culture Media and Sport to work with the BBC on a consultation that is public, both in the sense of having adequate publicity, and of being open to us all.

And for the avoidance of doubt 'democratic' here means a substantial redistribution of political, economic, social and communicative power, away from the few to the many. It doesn't mean using the threat of fascism to blackmail voters into supporting centrism, which only fuels fascism.

Feels quite urgent that (at a minimum) we look at individuals and institutions with significant influence over politics and public opinion and ask if they (1) democratic (2) anti-democratic or (3) trying to pretend that everything is fine, actually. Keep (1) and drop (2) and (3) immediately.

1. A mixture of digital and real world. Developing a new policy platform needs to be massively participatory; Reform trades in plausible fictions, the left needs to make its factual claims stop sounding implausible. 2. The trade unions and the Green Party, more or less coordinated.

The major media won't move decisively against Farage et al. The urgent questions become: 1. How do we build an information infrastructure that can reach large audiences, with a post-Thatcherite, anti-fascist programme? 2. What does it look like, what institutional actors can and will create it?

If history is any guide the Green Party will likely try to maintain constructive ambiguity about its aims as long as it can, and will not build the resources its needs for a transformative struggle against what Tawney called 'the oldest and toughest plutocracy in the world.' But let's hope not.

In 2015-2019 Labour's leaders could not bring themselves to choose between Tawney's options, and tried to live with the tension instead. After 2020 the current leaders chose - decisively - to manage British capitalism, not to challenge it. The decision is probably final.

As it happens I wrote a commentary on this in 2016 - pointing out that Corbyn's Labour Party had to make the choice Tawney set out. Now it's for the Greens to decide: administrators of the system, or creators of Tawney's (long delayed) socialist commonwealth?
www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemoc...

I've written something on Lisa Nandy's rhetoric of popular empowerment and her record in office. It speaks to a broader problem on the contemporary centre left: politicians seem to think they can say whatever they like, and act completely differently.
modernmediatheory.wordpress.com/2026/02/18/r...

Labour Together’s Smear Operation Made This Government The Labour Together spying scandal shows how Britain’s mainstream press looked the other way when dirty tricks were deployed against the Left — allowing a culture of surveillance and paranoia to take ...

This by @martinoneill.bsky.social is a damning indictment of Labour's degeneration at the hands of the Labour Together clique.
tribunemag.co.uk/2026/02/smea...