James Hawes
@jameshawes.bsky.social
Father of three boys. Married to an Irishwoman. Ex-novelist. Historian. Teacher of writing. Novel “Speak for England” (2005) predicted Brexit - “it deserves some kind of prescience prize" (Observer, 2017). Website: Jameshawes.org.uk
It was a very good idea. If only I’d known then what I know now about structuring novels!
Jonathan Calder@lordbonkers.bsky.social · 20h ago@jameshawes.bsky.social I expect you know this, but I've discovered that Speak for Engand didn't only forecast Brexit, it forecast this.
41% of voters in S-A = just over 1% of German voters. If the #AfD win a majority of seats on 41%, the other 99% of German voters will see what this corrupt band are like in power, in good time for the next federal election. It might actually be a good result.
Marcel Dirsus@marceldirsus.com · yesterdayThe latest poll for Saxony-Anhalt has the far-right at 41%. If some of the smaller parties (SPD, Greens, BSW) don't clear the threshold to enter parliament, the far-right may gain an absolute majority in September.
They would say it was worth it. They bought the Kremlin-backed, non-dom billionaire–funded lie that the EU was the cause of all England’s ills. This was shown in that famous 2019 poll of exactly the Tory Brexiters you are talking about: www.businessinsider.com/poll-conserv...
Conservative party members would rather break up the United Kingdom than stop Brexit
YouGov poll finds that Conservative party members would prefer their own party and country be broken up and destroyed than accept the end of Brexit.
businessinsider.com
Roland Smith@rolandmcs.bsky.social · 4d agoImagine time-travelling back to Feb 2016 and telling Tory Brexiters, 'In ten years time, after Brexit happens, you will be worrying about a civil war, about Britain becoming a third world country, and the Tory Party will be electorally destroyed by overtly racist parties that you want to emulate.'
I can’t believe that Reform UK turned out to be financed by a bunch of money laundering fronts for Russia. It’s just so unexpected.
Just saw The Odyssey. Casting Matt Damon as Leopold Bloom was brave, but it really worked. Tom Holland good as Stephen Dedalus too. Anne Hathaway brilliant as Molly, but wish they had not cut her soliloquy. Wasn’t familiar with which bits of Dublin they used, but that didn‘t seem to matter.
13th week at #1 in the Irish Times today. Say that again. Crazy. When we launched on 4 March, I remember thinking, after my interview on @news.rte. with Oliver Callan went so well (God I was nervous beforehand!), that we might make the top 10 for a week, with luck… www.rte.ie/radio/radio1...
Can you sum up all of Irish history in just 250 pages?
British author James Hawes will tell us of his nerves writing the Shortest History of Ireland. He challenges some orthodox views of our story in and it's a remarkable feat. The Shortest History of Ire...
rte.ie
#Burnham King of the North is going to hold the North for @labourpartyuk.bsky.social If he can persuade people that Labour candidates under him are a viable anti- Ethno-Nationalist choice across the UK, he could even win a majority thanks to the oppo being split Reform/Restore/Tory
Naomi Smith@pimlicat.bsky.social · 5d agoNEW: Bev Craig wins the Greater Manchester Mayoralty. Reform second.
Badenoch is trying to win over Reform voters who will never vote for her, because.
Sam Freedman@samfr.bsky.social · 5d agoIncreasingly clear that a sizeable chunk of the vote Reform is losing is transferring to Restore not back to the Tories.
Tories beaten by Restore, which is basically one aging racist with a Facebook page. The Keminaissance in action.
Owen Winter@owenwntr.bsky.social · 5d agoManchester mayoral results, first round Bev Craig - Labour 47% (+24 vs local elections) Reform 21% (-10) Green 12% (-7) Restore 9% (new) Conservative 8% (-3) Lib Dem 3% (-7)
Why so it was! And my research for the next book (coming soon!) shows that the North-South divide within England is central to the entire history of the Anglo-Celtic archipelago, once aka 🇬🇧…
Six years ago, the North-South divide perfectly explained by @jameshawes.bsky.social: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Thank you. Absolutely, it’s the entire motor of the plot.
@jameshawes.bsky.social Loved your enlightening contribution to Adam Fleming’s Anti Social on BBC Radio! Also love the fact the Jurassic line (incl Trent and Severn) is intriguingly present in Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part One (though splitting the North’s East & West seems particularly unkind)…
Too all at @booksky.club @booksky.bsky.social #booktok: Watch out for this bunch of scammers. They seem to be the real Byron Writer’s Festival until…
The Reform donations story is obviously exploding right now, and it just so happened that on Thursday I spoke to Ben Habib, Reform's former deputy leader, about what he knew and what he thinks of Farage now. It's worth a watch, it's pretty excoriating. Some key bits: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq_L...
Ben Habib reveals the truth behind Farage's by-election battle
YouTube video by Politics Uncensored
youtube.com
Not many places you come down to make a cup of tea and find this. #Donegal
WE ARE ALL CANADIANS NOW! Trump’s unprovoked attacks on Canada, show the pointlessness of trying to appease the US. Like a Shakespearian villain, America will hate you whatever you do. Piece from me
America’s Motiveless Malignity
We are all Canadians now!
open.substack.com
Same as the Brexiteers all going ape at the very thought of a second referendum on that disaster: because they know damn well they’d lose
Colin Dunn 🏴@indyposterboy.scot · 2w agoI have yet to hear a *good* political or democratic reason for unionists opposing an independence referendum. Why not have one and clear the air? What's the downside? #Scotland #Burnham
Child throws caution on the Santa story but sees promise in Tooth Fairy
A fascinating point! Could he reassemble the Gladstonian anti-Tory coalition between the northern English, the Catholic Irish, the Scots and the Welsh?
Dave McGrath-Boyle@theboyler.bsky.social · 2w agoIt's also rarely commented upon that in Burnham, the Irish diaspora now have their first PM, as well as the first Catholic PM upon taking office. It's good that the latter isn't a germane issue, but I can't help think the former might have more import than generally considered.
Raise the Colours, an organisation which has had one of its founders charged with murder, has been heavily implicated in a hit and run (currently under investigation), and another "leading light" faces trial for 22 indecent images charges.
Anna H@athenepallas.bsky.social · 2w agoThis may be a relatively minor thing for people, it may not but the whole phenomenon of 'Raise the Colours' and the shrug with which the government greeted it (IIRC at one point RtC was even tacitly endorsed?) continues to blow my mind.
The military ideology that says “we” will beat “them” because we have purged ourselves of modern decadence and gone back to ancient military virtues is the classic tell of a regime that is about to send its forces into catastrophic defeat.
Dominic Holland@dominicholland.bsky.social · 2w agoAlso, Hegseth and Trump are not just buffoons but cowards, and not just cowards but grandiose cowards. They manifestly are the opposite of what they grandiosely pose as being. They attract only cowards and buffoons. They are using & abusing & destroying the US military, which itself is complicit.
I've gotten into the habit of reading these kinds of essays as funding bids. Would I fund this? Bollocks I would. It's insulting nonsense.
The Guardian@theguardian.com · 2w agoCould AI be conscious?
To all those who accuse me of exaggerating the importance of the north-south divide in English history, here’s Andrew Marr’s conclusion on #Burnham in the latest @newstatesman1913.bsky.social
