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Peter Allen

@peterallen.bsky.social

Professor of Politics & Co-Director of the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Bath, U.K. / British politics, representation, public sphere / author of How to Think About Politics (2025) and The Political Class (2018)

266 Posts1985 Follower640 Folgt
Peter Allen@peterallen.bsky.social · last wk.

To quote Mark Blyth, the climate crisis is ‘a giant non-linear outcome generator with wicked convexities. In plain English, there is no mean, there is no average, there is no return to normal. It’s one way traffic into the unknown’. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

There is no ‘getting back to normal’ with climate breakdown | Mark Blyth

As the IPCC report makes clear, there are now only unknown and unfamiliar alternative futures that we can choose from, says political economist Mark Blyth

theguardian.com

James Murray@james-bg.bsky.social · last wk.

It's not going to become 'the norm' though, is it? That's what so fucking terrifying about it. It's going to become a lot worse, very quickly.

Rob Ford@robfordmancs.bsky.social · 2w ago

If they were skilled political operators perhaps they wouldn’t be on the backbenches, along with their chief, two years into a Parliament which began with a landslide election win?

PoliticsHome@politicshome.bsky.social · 2w ago

Labour MPs unhappy with the treatment of Starmer loyalists have warned they could make life hard for Burnham at the Budget “Andy’s Starmerite purge has created an incredibly powerful phalanx of skilled political operators who intimately know the government’s fiscal position" Harriet Symonds writes

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield.bsky.social · 2w ago

This point is coming up a lot today. Last year, I argued that failure to recognise this would be the downfall of Starmer's "decade of national renewal": theconversation.com/keir-starmer...

Luke Tryl@luketryl.bsky.social · 2w ago

None of which is to say long term Isn’t important, but you’re more likely to get people to think things can be better in long term if you help in the here and now and show progress along the way. There is just limited resonance for jam tomorrow style politics 18 years since 2008

Boak & Bailey (Jess & Ray)@boakandbailey.bsky.social · 3w ago

Instead of a newsletter for July 2026... Notes from a heatwave, where fans, air-conditioning and cold beer are the topics of the day in pubs, bars and taprooms. boakandbailey.com/2026/07/inst...

Instead of a newsletter for July 2026… Notes from a heatwave

As you might have noticed, there’s been another heatwave in the UK, and we’ve noticed signs of drinkers and pubs adapting to this new reality. At The King’s Head the other week we found ourselves sitt...

boakandbailey.com

Jim Waterson@jim.londoncentric.media · 3w ago

As an ex media report I can't help looking at the BBC Annual Report, it's a habit I cannot kick, I'm going to stick some things I've noticed in a thread. The tldr to my mind is if you're at the BBC and you're not panicking and trying new stuff and tuning out low level moans you're screwed. 🧵

Nick Garland@npjgarland.bsky.social · 4w ago

🧵 Progressives need to think much more ambitiously about citizenship: it can't only be a debate about the "who" - the boundaries of citizenship. Our new @ippr.org report today makes the case for a new politics of "democratic citizenship": www.ippr.org/articles/the...

The democratic citizen: Renewing citizenship and the public domain | IPPR

Often, this descends into little more than an argument about eligibility for welfare benefits. This is a disaster for progressives, who find themselves fig

ippr.org

Prof. Ian Walker@ianwalker.bsky.social · last mo.

Look out for "Let's Save Water" - a major new campaign to get water demand to a level that future infrastructure can cope with. I'm one of the behavioural scientists involved, and am quoted in this article discussing the various forms of action people can take www.theguardian.com/environment/...

New campaign urges public to reduce water use as UK emerges from heatwave

Exclusive: £75m publicity drive will ask people to treat water as precious resource and cut daily use by 28 litres

theguardian.com

Kirsty Grainger @kirstygrainger.bsky.social · last mo.

Remember that FOUR week turn around for a £40M call @ukri.org. Turns out it was actually a £60M call. How does this meet the Nolan Principles of Openess? UK invests £60m in two university-led AI research labs www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-p...

UK invests £60m in two university-led AI research labs - Research Professional News

Minister makes case for “forward-facing” academic research infrastructure

researchprofessionalnews.com

David S. Moon@daimoon.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I have a provocatively titled piece in the latest issue of @renewaljournal.bsky.social, in which I propose that among the lessons of the “Epstein files” revelations is the value of a properly directly, healthy paranoia suited to an age of opaque networks, dark money, and unaccountable elites. (1/2)

Title: In defence of paranoia: rethinking politics after the Epstein Files Abstract: Th is article argues that a refl exive dismissal of ‘conspiracy’ has left political analysis blind to the routine operations of elite collusion, a failure exposed in stark terms by the Epstein case. It calls for a disciplined, evidence-led ‘paranoia’ capable of tracking power across the opaque ‘parapolitical’ networks that structure contemporary politics.Just as politics itself has a ‘Too Difficult’ box32 – long-term problems such as climate change or media regulation that are quietly shelved because they are complex, unpopular, or resistant to accessible solutions – so too, it seems, does political studies. Structural questions about the influence of security services, corporate lobbyists and/or organised crime on democratic outcomes are almost entirely nudged to the margins, bracketed as conspiratorial and excluded from peer-reviewed publication. Instead, answers are sought where data is more accessible and ostensibly transparent – elections, legislatures, policy pro- grammes – and approached in turn from a perspective buuilt upon broadly pluralistic assumptions. This matters, because despite their relatively small readerships, the outputs academia produce provides a key evidential basis that structures wider political discourses. When political scholarship declines to grapple with these darker dimensions and subsequently fails those seeking reliable, authoritative sources, it cedes fertile ground that can, in turn, be exploited by more malicious or misguided actors. Movements like QAnon weave genuine historical conspiracies – such as MK-ULTRA, Operation CHAOS, or Project Paperclip – into their narratives of mass deception. In doing so they blur truth and fabrication to increase the per- suasiveness of their fantastical claims.33 In short, when scholarship fails to offer rigorous analyses that take account of the darker workings of power, demagogues and opportunists readily fill the void.
Renewal@renewaljournal.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Subscribe to read: @daimoon.bsky.social on how the Epstein Files show the need for "political paranoia", and why social democrats should pay attention to "parapolitics" renewal.org.uk/articles/in-...

Hetan Shah@hetanshah.bsky.social · 2mo ago

A rare chance to join the @britishacademy.bsky.social public policy team to lead on our environmental programme, working closely with academic specialists from our Fellowship and research community. £52k www.prospect-us.co.uk/job/195013-p...

Policy Programmes Lead – Environment - Prospectus Recruitment Agency

Prospectus is delighted to be supporting The British Academy - the UK’s national body for the humanities and social sciences - in seeking a Policy Programmes Lead to join the Public Policy Team, provi...

prospect-us.co.uk

Peter Allen@peterallen.bsky.social · 2mo ago

For any Bath/Bristol folks, Darragh is launching his book at Toppings next Tuesday — www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/bath/...

How Gambling Hijacked Sport with Darragh McGee at Topping & Company Booksellers of Bath

toppingbooks.co.uk

The University of Bath@uniofbath.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Dr Darragh McGee, a Senior Lecturer in the Department for Health, and a member of the @centre21cpubhealth.bsky.social, has published a new book examining how online gambling has become increasingly embedded in modern sport and fan culture. https://bit.ly/4wNv9dC

Text on the image reads: "Bath academic to publish new book examining how online gambling has become increasingly embedded in modern sport and fan culture.
Nick Pearce@iprnickp.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I’m off to the launch of the Pensions Commission Interim Report this morning. It sets out our analysis of the problem of inadequate savings for retirement in 2050 and beyond. PN is here, full report to follow. www.gov.uk/government/n...

Britain is undersaving for retirement warns Pensions Commission

The Pensions Commission has today (19 May) published its interim report on the state of retirement saving in the UK, setting out the key challenges facing the current system and where it will focus it...

gov.uk

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield.bsky.social · 3mo ago

A write-up of the key findings and points made in this thread on my Substack: open.substack.com/pub/drmatthe... The way I see it, the argument that the public’s irrational impatience makes it ungovernable can’t be defended rigorously because it simply hasn’t been put to the test.

Testing the public's patience

Even if the electorate is short-termist, it's hard to argue irrational public impatience is to blame for the prime minister's woes

open.substack.com

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Is impatience killing the government? Some data and some thoughts. @karlpike.bsky.social @philipjcowley.bsky.social and I found a year ago that people expected noticeable improvements in the NHS, schools, housing well within Labour's first parliament. www.politicshome.com/news/article... 1/7

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Is impatience killing the government? Some data and some thoughts. @karlpike.bsky.social @philipjcowley.bsky.social and I found a year ago that people expected noticeable improvements in the NHS, schools, housing well within Labour's first parliament. www.politicshome.com/news/article... 1/7

Graph showing public expectations of length of time for change.
Sam Bright@writesbright.bsky.social · 3mo ago

British voters have high expectations of politicians, who are afforded virtually no time to fix problems that have been decades in the making. 📝 New piece on the perils of chronic impatience 👇🏻

Peter Allen@peterallen.bsky.social · 3mo ago

18 months ago, @ntmatthews.bsky.social and I published a paper on the persistence of the mythology of New Labour in British Politics and how it seemed to play a big role in the new government’s thinking. Feels relevant today (open access) — www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

New Labour and political myth

The 1997 UK General Election preceded 13 years of New Labour government. It would be a further 14 years until the Labour Party next held office. Following the initial disavowal of New Labour by man...

tandfonline.com