I can completely believe he didn’t know - in fact I would be shocked if he did! - because the signal that comes down from on high in this government is “don’t bring your problems to the prime minister”.
So much of the Mandelson affair involves people making objectively insane decisions and thinking, well, this surely will not blow up in my face -- despite substantial precedent that, where Mandelson is concerned, it really will definitely blow up in your face.
Some first-rate science writing: For this story, @jdrakephd.bsky.social carefully read our recent paper and then we spent a very fun 90 minutes or so talking on zoom. His article that gets right to the heart of our model, explains it clearly, and then explores why it will matter in the future.
The London Spinoza Circle has been reborn as the UK Spinoza Circle, thanks to the hard work of @asalgadoborge.bsky.social. Please see the website here to sign up and for info on the first event, happening this Friday!
www.spinozacircle.co.uk
A grid of horizontal stacked bar charts titled “How Former Conservative Voters Have Voted Over Time.” Each panel represents a group of voters defined by the election year in which they voted Conservative (e.g. 2005 Tory Voters through 2025 Tory Voters). Within each panel, bars show the proportional distribution (0–100%) of how those voters reported voting in other general elections (2005 to 2025). Bars are colour-coded by party: Conservative (blue), UKIP/BXP/Reform (teal), Liberal Democrat (yellow), Labour (red), Green (green), Other (light grey), and Don’t Know/Would Not Vote (dark grey). Across all panels, Conservative remains the largest share in most years, with noticeable variation over time in support for UKIP/BXP/Reform, Labour, and other parties. The x-axis shows proportion, the y-axis lists election years, and the legend appears at the bottom. Source: British Election Study Waves 1–30.
Listening to the ghosts of Tories past - and moving to the 'centre' - is not a great idea for Kemi.
If you track how Tory voters in each GE have voted in other elections, it's not clear that the Cameronite coalition has fled the Tories for centrist parties.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission has asked the appeal courts to consider the cases of five men who are still serving indefinite prison sentences for offences committed as long as 20 years ago. The offenders were under 21 when convicted in separate cases.
rozenberg.substack.com/p/new-hope-f...
Very interesting and enlightening discussion around Pascal's Wager! Highly recommend listening to it for a good discussion around pragmatic choice theory, dealing with probabilities and infinity, and the relation between belief and faith
Interesting audit of a wrong prediction by Tyler Cowen marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevo...
This is also not just a UK phenomenon - in Spain support for Catalan Independence was highest while the Partido Popular (quite conservative Centre-Right) was in power in Madrid, while it has gone down under the social democratic PSOE governing Spain.
#OnThisDay 1852 Lord Adolphus Vane-Tempest became Conservative MP for Durham at a by-election. Our post re-assessed the career of a man described by one historian as ‘a syphilitic alcoholic wastrel’: victoriancommons.wordpress.com/2014/05/27/m...
Of course another consequence of removing juries from all but the most serious crimes is that those pesky juries won’t be able to find annoying protestors not guilty.
Brilliant thecritic.co.uk/auntie-in-th...
Unless someone in the Treasury reassures the markets pretty soon, there’s every chance the UK will need to raise *more* tax for less in return. Total clusterfuck in the making, this.
Having a budget fall apart more than a week before it’s actually be delivered might be a new record.
The niche moment I'm waiting for is Kemi Badenoch denouncing whichever government was in charge when Davie was appointed.
She's thinking of a poppy tax isn't she
There’s nothing wrong with it as a policy, other than it just raises much, *much* less money than just raising income tax. And Labour needs to be one and done with tax rises. The way they’re doing this…won’t raise enough.
Genuinely the greatest trick the aviation industry has ever pulled to convince people that “sitting on a stationary plane for longer” is something worth paying for.
You simply cannot successfully integrate into British society unless you can write 800 words on the role of gender in 'A Streetcar Named Desire'.
Do homework before PMQs. Pick some areas where Labour might be seen to be doing badly but Reform are less comfy (education, benefits, foreign policy) and highlight those instead of being Nigel's warm up act.
None of those guarantee a win, but they leave you in an OK place for something to turn up
For a start starting a fight with Jenrick to kick off a leadership challenge on the subject of 'gutter racism: yes or no' and hopefully winning an extra year. Then wait for Reeves to raise taxes at the Budget, condemn, propose some mindless but plausible benefit cuts instead. Be nice to journalists.
I’m gonna defend Liz Truss, because I like to be blocked by two or so people every day, and say that her plans were 100 times more reasonable than these, in that she thought she would have enough time to bounce Tory MPs into backing spending cuts. Much less daft than anything Badenoch has said.
In recent decades, scholars have examined various facets of Avicenna’s #logic. But how did Avicenna himself conceptualize logic—its definition, status, and purpose? PhD student Shahab Khademi explores this question in a new paper! 👇📃 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... #philsky #histphil #HPS
"While Britain was redefining what a woman is, China was building five nuclear reactors," says Kemi Badenoch.
I cannot be the only person curious about how these two things are related
Wondering how Kemi Badenoch can stand up and complain that no one can get a GP appointment? She's taken SUPER MAGIC DEFEAT-O! thecritic.co.uk/super-magic-...
It’s such a weird level of non-rigour, at the point you are going to “cut the civil service, actual roles to go TBC”, why stop there? Why not just go “the stamp duty replacement (tbc) will actually raise double the money!”
The "line to take" for Badenoch's supporters seems to be "we've changed leaders too often in the past".
So which of those leaders should *not* have been removed?
Liz Truss? IDS? May, after those huge defeats? Johnson, despite lying to Parliament?
The problem isn't the firing. It's everything else
A Tory party under Jenrick might take a few of the racist votes from Reform, but they’d haemorrhage bucketloads to the Lib Dems.
So, on balance…
