Alexander Clarkson
@aphclarkson.bsky.social
Senior Lecturer for European Politics and History at King's College London. Opinions my own. RT not always endorsement. Also to be found at @APHClarkson https://www.ullstein.de/werke/die-macht-der-diaspora/hardcover/978354910
Datapoint nr. 940 indicating a structural inability within UK elites to grasp how much European integration has become a state-building project
Simon Usherwood@simonusherwood.bsky.social · 7h agoNot reading any more viable in its full version demos.co.uk/research/bey...
What Euan said. Trump's strategic idiocy makes it too easy for Dems to ignore the list of strategic blunders of their own Presidents around flashpoints from Ghouta, to Crimea, to Helmand to Scarborough Shoal
Rob hints at this but it’s worth reiterating that a major failure of the Starmer government was their inability to convey a consistent antiracist message or uphold norms. They confused anger about ‘the boats’ with generalised racism and since they couldn’t denounce the former they avoided the latter
Rob Ford@robfordmancs.bsky.social · yesterdayThis is what happens when anti-racism norms erode, and elites bear a lot of the responsibility for norm erosion, as they have disproportionate power to set and enforce norms
Our average of polls at FiftyPlusOne gives Trump a roughly 36% approval rating and 61% disapproval rating — a net -25 — among all adults, and he’s rapidly losing ground. The president set a new record low six days in a row just in the last week: www.gelliottmorris.com/p/2026-08-04...
Friendly reminder for everyone on here and the other site getting excited about the Strait of Hormuz that revenue accrued through it will come nowhere close to financing the rebuilding of Iran's economy. For the Iranian regime and people it is sanctions relief that is the long term ballgame.
Trump's strategic idiocy has laid bare a deeper failure in US defence manufacturing and procurement policy for which each President since Clinton shares some responsibility.
Aron Lund@aronlund.bsky.social · yesterdayIran has now gobbled up nearly all U.S. ATACMS and PrSM ballistic missiles, plus half of Tomahawk cruise missiles and a very considerable share of the THAAD and Patriot interceptors, sources tell @reuters.com’s Erin Banco, Jonathan Landay, and Michael Stone. www.reuters.com/world/us-has...
I mean this with love - I do! I like many Americans! - and I totally get that things are maddening over there and tempers are running high but lads you must realise that you really do keep ruining it all for the rest of us on here
Marie Le Conte@youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · yesterdaylove that my online routine is now "wake up, pleasantly post and talk to people for a few hours, panickedly restrict interactions to most posts are Americans begin waking up,"
To an extent this is also because less and less apolitical people who might be more drawn to more centrist forms of politics are on any of these kinds of platforms. Twitter and Bluesky are both niche spaces, with the worldview of regular voters taking shape elsewhere.
Marie Le Conte@youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · yesterdaysaying this not as a dig to Paul but as a general point, but it does worry me that we've ended up in a world where the two options are seemingly "leftist bubble" or "oh hey the nazis are here" - surely we should be able to have a politically heterogenous platform with tight rules on hate speech etc?
The Ukrainian publisher of board games including Catan and Exploding Kittens is fighting for its existence after a Russian missile strike destroyed its warehouse, wiping out its entire stock of about 200,000 games: boardgamewire.com/index.php/20...
The war between the US and Iran increasingly resembles one of those Early Modern sieges along the Danube or the Euphrates which start almost accidentally with one or other empire thinking they can get a quick win only to end up lasting for six years
Ben Schwarz@benschwarz.bsky.social · 2d agoAustralia’s eSafety commissioner buried a report (released Friday afternoon) that shows the under 16 social media ban didn’t tangibly reduce teen social media use, and also resulted in parents tuning out of kids usage. We traded our privacy for no reason. theconversation.com/more-than-80...
Looks like parallel to issues around Farage, Tice and Reform, the UK parliamentary standards commission is now running a separate investigation of the DUP's Sammy Wilson
I am old enough to remember the spring of 2015, when a younger Meloni, at the head of a tiny opposition party, said: "The only solution is an international military intervention [...] & a naval blockade to prevent departures [from Africa]". It is the first mention l know of of a "naval blockade".
If Nigel Farage needed millions of £s to induce him to return to politics you have to wonder whether he has the will or desire to actually take on the responsibilities of Prime Minister
Why do so many progressives want this? I just don't get it.
Al@btown85.bsky.social · 2d agoThe pressure on kids too! In Berlin they get divided after the 6th class (12). My eldest already under so much pressure (despite us trying to remove it) to do well in exams etc to ensure she’s at the gymnasium. Parents going nuts in regards to it. They’re 9!
Having gone through the German secondary system with its ruthless sorting in the 1990s, one thing I find a lot of Brits never got about it is the extent to which its sharper edges were sanded off outside school gates through more egalitarian forms of civil society associational life. Vereinsleben.
Sam Freedman@samfr.bsky.social · 2d agoTalked a bit about this in this post - you can't stop education systems sorting kids, as it's one of their implicit functions. But you can ameliorate the consequences of that sorting. samf.substack.com/p/the-gap-th...
And beyond the legal mess, a brief examination of the Royal Navy's current personnel, equipment and ship shortages should rapidly infuse some realism among even the most lazy journalist about what the UK military has the capacity to achieve
Tim Bale@timbale.bsky.social · 2d agoSorry but unless you, as a media outlet, have managed to get someone from the Navy (probably a former sailor because those currently serving maybe disbarred from commenting) to explain that this is extremely unlikely to happen for legal reasons, then, arguably, you haven't really done your job.
Sorry but unless you, as a media outlet, have managed to get someone from the Navy (probably a former sailor because those currently serving maybe disbarred from commenting) to explain that this is extremely unlikely to happen for legal reasons, then, arguably, you haven't really done your job.
Politics latest: Reform wants to use Navy to stop small boats after Burnham vows to be 'relentless' in tackling crossings
Reform UK says a Nigel Farage-led government would send the Royal Navy into the Channel to intercept all migrant boats - and is accused by Labour of "reheating" old proposals. Follow the latest.
news.sky.com
Counterpoint: One of the best things to happen to the 90s/00s Berlin scene was the introduction of pastis with petanque by hardworking French immigrants
Marie Le Conte@youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 2d agohappy to continue my journey down Unpopular On Bluesky Avenue and say that, though I do love playing video games by myself, which I believe is a different proposition altogether, I basically agree with all of this www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
And it should be noted that part of it is that S&D governments have been indulging in similar partisan hackery over issues which suited them. We are, after all, Europeans. The desired state is one where we can indulge in our desired petty, vicious brawling without existential threat.
Alexander Clarkson@aphclarkson.bsky.social · 2d agoThe EPP and ECR partisan hackery over Ceuta is cynical, dumb and self-sabotage from governments that might face similar trouble soon. But the Pikachu shocked face reactions at politics happening when it comes to an increasingly state-like EU is also a bit tiring.
And yet...if you want the EU to become more state-like, political and powerful there is a strong likelihood that European policy and politics will experience the kind of bog standard party polarisation that always afflicts member states on a supra-national level
Alberto Alemanno@alemanno.bsky.social · 2d agoEU Ministers discuss Schengen this week over a crisis that never threatened Europe's free-movement area: no one leaves Ceuta without a border check. Instead, the EPP & far-right allies use this manufactured crisis whose price was paid by real lives to attack Spain's different stance to migration.
It is rather grim to see how some senior figures in the Labour Party are as susceptible as any Conservative or Reform MP to hankering after the supposed stability of a social order where there is a place for every man and every man knows his place
Ben Newmark@bennewmark.bsky.social · 2d agoIf I wanted to protect the most prestigious and highly paid jobs for the social groups who usually hold them I'd probably design an education system that discouraged poorer children from studying the entry qualifications for these jobs as early as possible..
EU Ministers discuss Schengen this week over a crisis that never threatened Europe's free-movement area: no one leaves Ceuta without a border check. Instead, the EPP & far-right allies use this manufactured crisis whose price was paid by real lives to attack Spain's different stance to migration.
If I wanted to protect the most prestigious and highly paid jobs for the social groups who usually hold them I'd probably design an education system that discouraged poorer children from studying the entry qualifications for these jobs as early as possible..
This may dramatically slow down the attacks on science. It also provides a template for how to prevent the federal government from becoming a patronage state. It’s a big deal!
Politico@politico.com · 3d agoSenate finalizes funding patch that would block Trump’s grant overhaul
But also worth noting that Americans won't call off their blockade until the Iranians provide enough concessions for Trump or whoever follows him to save face Until the Iranian regime works out where it can concede a bit, we'll get cycles of escalating attacks, panicked phone calls, rinse repeat
Kampf mit Kette@kampfmitkette.bsky.social · 3d agoThe average "senior US official" when talking to Axios, N12 or the WSJ about the Iran negotiations
