Duncan Robinson
@duncanrobinson.bsky.social
Bagehot columnist and political editor for the Economist. Columnist of the year at the 2026 Press Awards
"Whether Ms Truss and her fellow-travellers truly believe the paranoid MAGA worldview preached in Greenwich, or whether they just need the money, is hard to say." www.economist.com/britain/2026...
Postcard from the Liz Truss festival of ideas
British conservatism is weaker than you think
economist.com
Making or changing legislation on the basis of individual cases is disproportionate by nature. Feels like we’re seeing some of the downstream effects of the recent slew of *Name’s* Law here — whatever the morally right take, it creates hyperfocus on the case in question which now backfires on gov
Quite the stat, via @londoncentric.media “the 119,000 residents of Camden who pay income tax contribute more (£4.7bn) than all the residents of Birmingham and Glasgow combined (£4bn).”
Lot of politics coverage is pre literate oral culture. Folk wisdom and rumour passed on via WhatsApp (which is oral but text)
Bet the Germans have a word for leaving your phone charger in a hotel for the seventeenth time
The excitement people felt when indie/underground stuff started being referenced in mainstream pop culture was based on an equation of “I’m a good person, people like me like band X, so people who like band X are a good person.” Many have not yet accepted the ego-death that this is not true!!
Duncan Robinson@duncanrobinson.bsky.social · 5d agowww.economist.com/britain/2026... Wrote about our indie music loving elite and how Burnham is...just another 50-something bloke interested in the exactly same thing as others of his generation
And burnham chief of staff James Purnell campaigned to keep the station open (via @ian.allenmoss.co.uk )
Duncan Robinson@duncanrobinson.bsky.social · 5d agowww.economist.com/britain/2026... Wrote about our indie music loving elite and how Burnham is...just another 50-something bloke interested in the exactly same thing as others of his generation
as they'll say: "not many people listened to 6 Music, but everyone who did formed a government"
Incidentally, my band was played on 6 Music in 2010, so maybe I can be prime minister now
Duncan Robinson@duncanrobinson.bsky.social · 5d agowww.economist.com/britain/2026... Wrote about our indie music loving elite and how Burnham is...just another 50-something bloke interested in the exactly same thing as others of his generation
"An indie establishment has long held sway among British politicians who came of age in the 1980s"
Duncan Robinson@duncanrobinson.bsky.social · 5d agowww.economist.com/britain/2026... Wrote about our indie music loving elite and how Burnham is...just another 50-something bloke interested in the exactly same thing as others of his generation
“ed balls plays in a band called ‘centrist dad’” is a single panel league of extraordinary gentlemen joke
Duncan Robinson@duncanrobinson.bsky.social · 5d agowww.economist.com/britain/2026... Wrote about our indie music loving elite and how Burnham is...just another 50-something bloke interested in the exactly same thing as others of his generation
This sort of article tends to suggest that Herman Hesse was prophetic in the Glass Bead Game when he wrote about the Age of the Feuilleton.
Burnham has broad indie tastes but I think of him as essentially baggy-coded. Can you dig it? ("It" being a cross-party effort to reform social care) I'm free to do what I want any old time (within the fiscal rules) Etcetera
Duncan Robinson@duncanrobinson.bsky.social · 5d agowww.economist.com/britain/2026... Wrote about our indie music loving elite and how Burnham is...just another 50-something bloke interested in the exactly same thing as others of his generation
The "6 Music news bulletins have ruined the country" hypothesis given extra credence here.
Duncan Robinson@duncanrobinson.bsky.social · 5d agowww.economist.com/britain/2026... Wrote about our indie music loving elite and how Burnham is...just another 50-something bloke interested in the exactly same thing as others of his generation
Ok yes but as a gen-xer there is another left political music strand that has been eclipsed now - oona king (whose book was house diaries) and chuka umunna ran house /garage nights… think there were others too
Duncan Robinson@duncanrobinson.bsky.social · 5d agowww.economist.com/britain/2026... Wrote about our indie music loving elite and how Burnham is...just another 50-something bloke interested in the exactly same thing as others of his generation
Yup. A football loving indie music man with a penchant for bomber jackets you say?
Steven Seggie@stevenhseggie.bsky.social · 5d agoThe difference being that nobody believes Starmer was into the Smiths, while everybody believes Burnham was.
Gonna be fun in 10 years when we get a PM who posted on The Albion Rooms forums.
Duncan Robinson@duncanrobinson.bsky.social · 5d agowww.economist.com/britain/2026... Wrote about our indie music loving elite and how Burnham is...just another 50-something bloke interested in the exactly same thing as others of his generation
This is the British (read: more polite) version of the American alt-right’s love for corporate grunge (Creed, Limp Bizkit) There was a systemic and industry wide selling of 90s alternative to men and thus butching it up as much as possible by leaning into misogyny, anti-PC backlash etc etc
Duncan Robinson@duncanrobinson.bsky.social · 5d agowww.economist.com/britain/2026... Wrote about our indie music loving elite and how Burnham is...just another 50-something bloke interested in the exactly same thing as others of his generation
We've had an emo First Minister of Scotland actually
Duncan Robinson@duncanrobinson.bsky.social · 5d agoGood question. Has a goth ever been elected?
Obvs the most interesting bit is the striking image of Peston and Balls forming an indie covers band but it doesn't mention that two 90s britpop musicians (Dave Rowntree from Blur & Tom Grey from Gomez) unsuccessfully stood as Labour candidates in the last election
Duncan Robinson@duncanrobinson.bsky.social · 5d agowww.economist.com/britain/2026... Wrote about our indie music loving elite and how Burnham is...just another 50-something bloke interested in the exactly same thing as others of his generation
I think the thing that _irks_ me about politicians of this ilk name-checking 80s/90s artists is that while I don't expect them to frantically try and stay up to date on modern music - if they're out of touch with music then what _else_ are they out of touch with when it comes to the electorate?
Duncan Robinson@duncanrobinson.bsky.social · 5d agowww.economist.com/britain/2026... Wrote about our indie music loving elite and how Burnham is...just another 50-something bloke interested in the exactly same thing as others of his generation
[eats crisps] if I were a fund manager I'd try to increase the value of my assets, not destroy them
Duncan Weldon@duncanweldon.bsky.social · 5d ago“His fledging firm has watched its assets plunge from $45 billion at the start of July to about $10 billion”. Oh dear.
David Cameron also quoted The Smiths a few times at the despatch box
Duncan Robinson@duncanrobinson.bsky.social · 5d agowww.economist.com/britain/2026... Wrote about our indie music loving elite and how Burnham is...just another 50-something bloke interested in the exactly same thing as others of his generation
