In the second half of 2025, one man accounted for almost 40% of all money donated to political parties in the UK: a crypto-billionaire who lives in Thailand.
Britain desperately needs to rewrite its party funding rules.
observer.co.uk/news/the-sen...
One option is a more deliberative approach of the sort used in Ireland for Abortion referendum. You use that citizen jury model to build legitimacy for the process.
But - big caveat - they have rather fallen out of fashion in Ireland, and have proved less successful / more divisive since.
Interesting question from @sundersays.bsky.social ⬇️
One broader point is I think 🇬🇧 needs urgent conversation about how to do constitutional change… I’m guessing most govs will now shy away from referendums, so does that mean we do it through Parliament?
(Alternative is more deliberative options)
Nothing they talk about more in "left behind communities" than reinstalling the Shah.
This is really important new research and it was great to work with Steve on publishing it.
Two myths exposed here:
1. “Labour shouldn’t worry about voters it’s losing to its left because there’s a minimal electoral impact”. False.
2. “Labour’s only losing are woke lefties in safe seats”. False.
The key argument here seems to be that students who aren’t capable of doing UG studies should be admitted. But surely that is a decision for universities and their admissions rules?
Meanwhile, off-the-record Pentagon briefings suggest there is now a serious concern that American manufacturers won’t be able to up the production of banal cliches fast enough to cope with the way the US military is burning through them.
💯
In memoriam William E. Connolly 1938-2026 A career-spanning reading list, including “Symposium: William Connolly at 80” from Theory & Event in 2019 All articles free @ Project MUSE thru 31 March press.jhu.edu/newsroom/memoriam-william-e-connolly Illustrated with a photo of William E. Connolly from his JHU faculty page and cover art from Theory & Event and Social Research
Political theorist William E. Connolly passed last week, leaving behind an influential body of work studying democracy, capitalism & culture
To celebrate his legacy, we're unlocking his contributions to our journals thru 31 March on Project MUSE
press.jhu.edu/newsro...
1/3
Guardian headline: UK supermarket chain Iceland drops trademark dispute with Iceland
Well at least one major international conflict has been averted.
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(Or put differently, what does 5.3 per cent mean in old money? How bad is this situation compared with previous periods of high unemployment?)
I'm sure it makes more logical sense, but when did unemployment start to be reported as a percentage? In 70s/80s/90s political discourse, the headline figure was always numeric, which at least provided a fairly understandable benchmark for what was happening.
www.theguardian.com/society/2026...
sky news Iran latest: Trump criticises Starmer over UK stance - 'this is not Winston Churchill we're dealing with'
I imagine Starmer feels like he isn’t exactly dealing with FDR either.
*Academics of Bluesky:* Do you know a great UG/PG student with excellent quants skills?
@nspmartin.bsky.social and I are advertising a great fully-funded PhD on MRP and minority voting with our friends at Ipsos, so send them our way! ✌️
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In any normal week this would be a huge story. France moves toward extending a nuclear umbrella over European allies-- a major sign of declining credibility of US extended deterrence.
www.defensenews.com/global/europ...
JOB
Assistant Professor of Political Theory
University of Cambridge
@thecambridgeschool.bsky.social
www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/univers...
Interesting from @YouGov. Public broadly with Starmer rhetorically (neither praise nor condemn US action in Iran).
However, there is no difference in levels of support for joining US action & the more defensive posture Starmer has adopted (e.g. UK resources can be used to take out missiles).
Very insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but in a weird way carries quite a lot of symbolic weight as a moment.
I've always used QDA Miner for my qual coding needs, but am using Nvivo for Mac for another project with someone else. Am I missing something??? It seems to lack really obvious functionality, like the ability to export all your highlights under their headings so you can review them???
It’s just an individual poll etc, etc…
5 party politics through the chaos engine of FPTP.
What I love is it looks like he wrote “reap the whirlwind” then thought… nah, that’s over the top… “reap the hangover” is perfect.
One of the consequences of this is that any conversation about 🇪🇺 strategic independence isn’t just about weapons and the military, but about where Europe gets its from energy and how it insulates itself from big supply shocks.
This article highlights the difference between 🇪🇺 & 🇺🇸 in terms of dependence on energy resources from Mid East.
Trump is a feckless & unpredictable, but the structural difference in energy use means 🇺🇸 can afford a reckless foreign policy in a way that 🇪🇺 cannot.
www.theguardian.com/business/nil...
One of the strangest WHSmith facts is its involvement in broadcasting in late 80s / early 90s, leading to a strange parallel universe where it wins Premier League broadcast rights over Sky and becomes one of the biggest media companies in the world.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screens...
I’d like to think the people at the Pentagon are smarter about these things than I am, but I tried to get the LSE’s Claude account to war game the political outcomes of the US decapitation strategy in Iran. Let’s just say it was not optimistic that things would end well.
I’m writing a bit about this at the moment. Reform seem to be using classic populist election defeat playbook of conflating made-up / rumoured / numerically inconsequential electoral infringements AND delegitimising votes cast by genuine members of the electorate on an ideological basis.
U.S. Ability to Determine What Comes Next in Iran Might Be Limited
Understatement alert
While you can’t really take anything Trump says at face value, there seems to be some misunderstanding of his speech about Iran. Talk of “regime change” suggests mode is Iraq 2003. But the level of commitment Trump is offering feels more like Iraq in Spring 1991.
This is pretty bold stuff from somebody who got 552 more votes than Sir Oink A-Lot.
