The Tory "plan" to send prisoners to foreign jails isn't getting enough scrutiny. What is the legal basis for banishing British citizens to Albania? Whose laws are they subject to? How many prison staff have to go over? Are family visits just abolished? How many prisoners are we talking about?

I was open-minded on this at first. I do believe in repentance, I think people can change, & I could see the logic of giving someone who was trying to do better a chance in local govt. But the evidence suggest that the abusive, persecutory mode of politics hasn't changed. He's just switched targets

James Austin@jamesdaustin.bsky.social · 7h ago

I'll be honest: I'd buy this a lot more if his main outlet wasn't abusively attacking opposition politicians via AI slop in ways which obviously nod to other forms of prejudice.

Then I hope she'll ban her party from using them. She could make a public commitment and challenge other parties to match it. The Tory Party has got into a deplorable habit of issuing doctored & dishonest videos in recent elections. If Badenoch means what she says, she should commit to ending this.

It's nice to see P&P promoting my article as we approach the anniversary of the 1976 IMF Crisis, when unilateral protectionism was furiously debated within the bowels of the British state. It's open access and free to read via the link below.

Past and Present@pastpresentsoc.bsky.social · yesterday

On advance access "The Political Crisis of British Keynesianism, 1973–1983" by @colmpm.bsky.social (‪@qmpoliticsir.bsky.social‬) #OpenAccess doi.org/10.1093/past...

Appreciate this is 'make it make sense' howling into the void, but the failure (with some exceptions) of government, politicians, media, and business to point at the heatwaves and fires and state 'this is why climate action matters' is a serious problem. www.businessgreen.com/blog-post/45...

Summertime silence

The right of British politics has stepped up its attacks on climate action in recent weeks, so why has the rest of the political spectrum largely failed to seize the 'teachable moment' presented by cr...

businessgreen.com

I was struck by a piece on Radio 4 the other day, asking whether Burnham would be more "pragmatic" - meaning "positive" - about drilling in the North Sea. It was simply taken for granted that drilling was the "pragmatic" option, while opposing it was dogmatic or ideological.

James Murray@james-bg.bsky.social · 2d ago

Wrote about the deafening silence on our summer of climate impacts from Labour, the Lib Dems, the Greens, business leaders, and even some campaign groups. The dominant climate discourse from the past week has been from those who want to ditch net zero targets and trash decarbonisation policies.

I got stuck for hours on a train in Somerset once because of swans on the line. Passing on the bad news, the driver added: "Before you ask, no we can't just run them over. They belong to the Queen". They had to send for a specialist swan-remover (one of those rare jobs that should be safe from AI)

Greg Jenner (Historian)@gregjenner.bsky.social · 2d ago

My train to Glasgow is having to terminate at Preston due to *swans* on the line. Yes, really. 🦢 (Luckily I’m getting off at Preston)

If he's into T.S. Eliot, Christopher Nolan could have another crack at "Cats".

Daniel Tunnard@danieltunnard.bsky.social · last wk.

Are there any other poems that have been made into films? Could Nolan have a crack at "This is just to say"?

What I find troubling about Badenoch's polling is that, when she faced a really serious test of her judgement over the War in Iran, she failed it spectacularly - and blamed British Muslims. And it's had almost zero effect on her reputation. That says something about us, not just her.

Luke Tryl@luketryl.bsky.social · last wk.

🧵Looked quite a bit over past week at appeal of Burnham, what about Badenoch, whose approvals have risen significantly since a low last Autumn, when barely 10% of voters gave her a gross positive approval, to over 30% and higher net approval than Farage, Polanski & Davey.

I wish the Conservatives were as alarmed as I am about them finishing *behind Restore* in the Greater Manchester byelection.

Really interesting 1956 interview with Nancy Astor, the first woman to sit in Parliament - not least as the interviewer, Mary Stocks, was a leading suffrage campaigner. Loads to enjoy in here, plus a pretty good impersonation of an old antagonist, Winston Churchill. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Woman's Hour - Nancy Astor - BBC Sounds

Nancy Astor on being the first woman to take a seat in the House of Commons.

bbc.co.uk

25% turnout for the Greater Manchester Mayoral Election. Nearly 3/4 of voters didn't show up for a contest, whose previous winner has just become prime minister. We shouldn't be blase about this: it raises big questions about the health of our democracy & the public appetite for the mayoral model.

Ash@queerash.bsky.social · 5d ago

it's an interesting contradiction of devolving power to local people when it's a pretty consistent finding that they don't really care about exercising that power

Drought declared across the whole of Wales with July on course to be driest in 190 years

Drought declared across the whole of Wales with July on course to be driest in 190 years

Drought has been declared across the whole of Wales, with this month on course to be the driest July in the area since records began.

news.sky.com

The anti-climate lobby has been all over UK media this week, pushing stories designed to counter action. There's been almost no pushback from political leaders. Governments need to use these scenes as a teaching moment, to show what climate change means &what it costs www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Devastating European wildfires in maps - and how they're being tackled

Spain and France have so far borne the burnt of this summer's wildfires, caused by a succession of heatwaves and prolonged dry spells.

bbc.co.uk

🧵UK media has been duped about net-zero (again) The playbook is identical: 1️⃣ Find a big scary number 2️⃣ Speed-dial non-specialist hacks 3️⃣ Do say “serious economic damage” 4️⃣ Don’t say “we pretended gas is free” 5️⃣ That's it! Many papers still fell for it 🤷

Historians! What should I read on why France was so late to women's suffrage? And in particular, on why the First World War didn't have the same accelerating effect as in Britain? (Ideally in English, but French not impossible...)

Andy Burnham, "To me, carers should be the best paid people in society, not the worst" "Many people from other countries have been caring for my dad" Andy Burnham praises migrants to the UK who care for our elderly, a stark contrast to Keir-island-of-strangers-Starmer

Absolutely shameful piece. Even if a "Mediterranean" future were desirable - and a third of a million people are currently fleeing an inferno - what about those parts of the world being made uninhabitable? Where do their people go? Heath doesn't want them here. www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2026...

Britain can’t stop climate change. Scrap net zero and embrace Mediterranean life

We’ve lost the war against global warming so let’s learn to handle hotter weather

telegraph.co.uk

A minor point, but I hate the whole "my party" thing. The Conservative Party existed for 150 years before Badenoch was born. She has a mandate to *lead* it, not to pure every strand of Conservatism she disagrees with. Parties cannot just be support groups for The Leader, however brilliant & gifted

James Murray@james-bg.bsky.social · 6d ago

I know it's not news Kemi Badenoch is not across the detail, but this is an absolute shocker. She says the UK's net zero plans are 'perversely increasing carbon emissions'. In 2019 when net zero targets were adopted emissions were 45% below 1990 levels. Last year they were 54% below 1990 levels.

Any serious social-care plan will bring down the fires of hell from the Conservatives, Reform & much of the press, with endless headlines about "death taxes" & "dementia taxes". The only solution may be to get some beloved older celebrities to front a campaign, & call it "David's Law" or some such.

The front page of the Daily Telegraph, standing up for the real victims in modern Britain.

Lovely story about the closest derby in British football: Cwmbran Town vs Cwmbran Celtic, whose grounds are 40 metres apart. "I don't know if Town are putting on a coach for their players..." www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...

Fellow historians: I regret to inform you that the fabulous British Newspaper Archive has changed its website and search facility. It is now impossible to find anything... (I suppose we'll get the hang of it eventually, as the dinosaur said of the asteroid).

Cat Changing The Clock Time

ALT: Cat Changing The Clock Time

static.klipy.com

Fires in France have now burned over 91,000 acres, by far the most of any year since the satellite record started in 2006. Current area burned is about 34x larger than this date in a typical (median) year:

Just watched the Burnham interview on Panorama. He handles it well, as you'd expect, & is good on welfare. But the problem is that Kuenssberg just isn't a very good interviewer. The questions are designed to trap, not to inform, so you don't really learn anything (except that he's better at this)

Andy Burnham, 21, writes to The Guardian in defence of Philip Larkin

Agreed. How Burnham fares remains to be seen, but having leaders who've experienced defeat & tried to learn from it; who are willing to talk about what they got wrong; who've been in politics for more than 5 minutes & whose position has evolved used to be normal. It's not some Scooby-style unmasking

Phil Tinline@philtinline.bsky.social · 2w ago

This is why the "B..but he stood for leader before and lost! Twice!" discourse was so dumb. Maybe people staying in politics when they lose or fail & sticking at it makes them...better? If we applied today's norms on when you're meant to leave politics, Churchill would've been gone after Gallipoli

Sooty.

Nanoraptor@nanoraptor.danamania.com · 2w ago

You suddenly get a narrator describing your life and there’s no way to turn it off - everyone can hear it. While shopping, at work, at home, with friends - the voice narrating your every move goes on. Who do you hope is the voice of this narrator?

💯 A two-party system is only viable - & is certainly only democratic - if those parties can hold a broad range of opinion within them. If they refuse to do that, the best they can hope for is to deny much of the electorate representation. More likely, they'll see challengers emerging outside them.

Dylan Difford@dylandifford.bsky.social · 2w ago

Endlessly fascinating how many in the Tories and Labour combine an obsessive preference for two-partyism and a hatred of the internal pluralism needed to have the big tents required for a two-party system. The cost of ideologically pure silos is external pluralism.

You probably won't be surprised to learn that the Daily Telegraph and GB News have totally mangled a new study... ...and their mangling has then been gleefully amplified by rightwing influencers including Reform MP Richard Tice. 🫠 Here's our new factcheck... www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-no...

Factcheck: No, Europe’s heatwaves are not being ‘caused’ by declining air pollution - Carbon Brief

Scientists tell Carbon Brief that the framing of heatwaves being “caused” by declining air pollution is “wrong”.

carbonbrief.org