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Andrew Naughtie @andrewnaughtie.bsky.social · 11d

If the game is to convince people change is underway, Labour need to work out 1) who can really be convinced *by them* that it’s working and 2) whether those people’s desired change is one they want to be morally and intellectually. “Ever sterner treatment of foreigners” fails on both points. /ends

Andrew Naughtie @andrewnaughtie.bsky.social · 11d

Waiting for voters to detect “change” in the results of policy takes too long if it even works, and doesn’t guarantee that people will feel it OR that the govt will get the credit if they do. /5

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Andrew Naughtie @andrewnaughtie.bsky.social · 11d

They seem to be chasing Reform-amenable Lab 24 voters who want the boats stopped, but who will have no way of knowing it’s been achieved outside the media and government comms. And I’d venture that the media they’re likeliest to trust won’t be given to celebrating Labour “success” on this front. 4/

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Andrew Naughtie @andrewnaughtie.bsky.social · 11d

People are often poor judges of how policy and changes to it specifically affect *them*. People within Labour’s coalition will have mutually contradictory reactions to changes proposed, perceived and empirically real. In that situation, the party has to choose whose criteria for change to meet. 3/

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Andrew Naughtie @andrewnaughtie.bsky.social · 11d

Making indefinite leave to remain conditional on compulsory volunteering (inane) would be “change”. So would rejoining the EU and accepting freedom of movement. 2/

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Andrew Naughtie @andrewnaughtie.bsky.social · 11d

With “change”, I always wonder what would move the needle furthest and fastest: promised general change (has run dry), a promised *specific change* with credibility, a concrete policy to make it happen, the rollout of said policy, and people *feeling* change whether or not it’s empirically real. 1/

Rob Ford @robfordmancs.bsky.social · 11d

It is still early days, and fragmentation helps, but this is on many measures the worst start for any govt in polling history. Only govts dealing with economic collapse come close. This govt was elected to deliver change. Voters have made clear their patience on delivery is already running out /ends

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Andrew Naughtie @andrewnaughtie.bsky.social · 11d

“I leaned over, tapped her on the cleavage with a pastry fork, and I said: ‘My mother gave birth to twins in an unheated wash house and then go straight up and finished the mangling, so think on.’” RIP indeed.

youtu.be/wisQQueMPxM?...

Andrew Naughtie @andrewnaughtie.bsky.social · 12d

Me for the i Paper again, this time on the continuing emergence of a fascist US - unveiled by Hegseth, visibly high on cruelty fumes, and Trump, who’s cognitively crumbling day by day.

But like the two men heralding this new order, states that rule by cruelty and terror are brittle things.

The i Paper @theipaper.com · 13d

🔎 Analysis | The second Trump presidency is the pubescent stage of a fast-growing fascist government

Read more: trib.al/x06f8Qb

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Andrew Naughtie @andrewnaughtie.bsky.social · 12d

Not the main point, but you have to love the idea that the US Census asks if you’re “English” because the institutions of the American state have a world-leading grasp of ethnic and racial nuance.

Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 12d

Praise for Matthew Goodwin, declaring Shabana Mahmood can't be English, from Britain First leader Paul Golding

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Reposted by Andrew Naughtie

Joshua J. Friedman @joshuajfriedman.com · 12d

One of my favorite anecdotes from THE PREHISTORY OF THE FAR SIDE: "That doesn't sound like the Jane Goodall we know."

A few days after this cartoon was published, my syndicate received a very indignant letter from someone representing the Jane Goodall Institute.
Not only did my syndicate and I both get read the Riot Act, there was a vague implication that litigation over this cartoon might be around the corner.
I was horrified. Not so much from a fear of being sued (I just couldn't see how this cartoon could be construed as anything but silly, but because of my deep respect for Jane Goodall and her well-known contributions to pri-matology. The last thing in the world I would have intentionally done was offend Dr. Goodall in any way.
Before I had a chance to write my apology, another complication arose.
The National Geographic Society contacted my syndicate and expressed a

desire to reprint the cartoon in a special centennial issue of their magazine. My editor, aware of what had just occurred, declined, explaining why.
Apparently, whoever it was that sent the inquiry from National Geographic was shocked. They told my editor that "that doesn't sound like the Jane Goodall we know." They did some checking themselves, and an interesting fact was eventually discovered: Jane Goodall loved the cartoon. Furthermore, she was totally unaware that any of this "stuff" was going on. Some phone calls were made, and the cartoon was not only reprinted in the centennial issue of National Geographic, but was also used by her Institute on a T-shirt for fund-raising purposes.
I've since had an opportunity to visit Dr. Goodall at her research facility in Gombe. It's a wonderful place (sort of like right out of National Geographic).
"To refer to Dr. Goodall as a tramp is inexcusable even by a self-described 'loony' as Larson. The cartoon was incredibly offensive and in such poor taste that readers might well question the editorial judgment of running such an atrocity in a newspaper that reputes to be supplying news to persons with a better than average intelligence. The cartoon and its message were absolutely stupid." —Excerpt from the above-mentioned letter that started the ruckus

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Reposted by Andrew Naughtie

Guy Shrubsole @guyshrubsole.bsky.social · 15d

Miliband says it's 'possible' government should come off Elon Musk's X social media platform

DO IT

www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

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Andrew Naughtie @andrewnaughtie.bsky.social · 16d

V good. The question I’d ask is: in what scenario in which Burnham *doesn’t* become leader do he and the current No. 10 *both* end up better off?

Given the degree of serendipity or machination that’d be needed to get Burnham in, I struggle to see how this can possibly be a positive-sum game.

Andrew Rawnsley @andrewrawnsley.bsky.social · 16d

Fantasy politics
observer.co.uk/news/columni...

Andy Burnham taking Keir Starmer’s crown is pure fantasy

Leadership speculation is a distraction from Labour’s real challenge of restoring confidence and offering hope

observer.co.uk

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Andrew Naughtie @andrewnaughtie.bsky.social · 16d

“The higher you build your barriers
The taller I become
The further you take my rights away
The faster I will run”

This from the build-walls-and-eliminate-rights mob.

There’s an essay to be written about how it’s Afrikaner nationalism, not Nazism, that makes the best parallel here. Working on it.

Steve Lockley @stevelockley.bsky.social · 16d

There's something ironic about the Far Right adopting an anti apartheid song, written by a gay black man, as their anthem.

@chadbourn.bsky.social

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Something inside so wrong: Labi Siffre tells Tommy Robinson to stop using anti-apartheid anthem

Exclusive: UK singer, 80, says it is ‘absurd’ as a ‘positive atheist, homosexual black artist’ for far right to claim his work

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Andrew Naughtie

Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 20d

Farage is now following or fence-sitting on expansive agenda of radicalised online right that reflects a third to half of his 2024 voters (pro-Trump, pro-Tommy, pro-Musk, net zero sceptic, vaccine sceptic is narrower) + a much smaller share of his target voters for 2029 but many of his activists

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Andrew Naughtie @andrewnaughtie.bsky.social · 20d

Some lunchtime misery for you all.

The American far right’s contempt for London and Sadiq Khan is actually grounded in a deeply conservative cultural Anglophilia – one that now grieves the pollution of Britain by outsiders.

The i Paper @theipaper.com · 20d

For the far right, the UK is always going to be the US’s closest family member – as long as it doesn’t fail in its function as the redoubt of Anglophone whiteness

🔎 Analysis by @andrewnaughtie.bsky.social

Read more: trib.al/HEPWQxH

Reposted by Andrew Naughtie

Lewis Goodall @lewisgoodall.com · 20d

The “Ed Davey is obsessed with Farage” takes are weird.

A) The media is obsessed with Farage
B) If the next election looks anything like the polling, it will basically be a progressive/populist bloc election. Labour won’t be Davey’s enemy. They’ll be his path to govern.

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Andrew Naughtie @andrewnaughtie.bsky.social · 22d

As the lights go out, more like.

Huw C. Davies @huwcdavies.bsky.social · 22d

Yarvin is one of world’s most influential racists right now. Yet, here we are.

Reposted by Andrew Naughtie

Julia Carrie Wong @joolia.bsky.social · 24d

this exists it is called thinking

Matthew McConaughey says he wants a private LLM, fed only with his books, notes, journals, and aspirations, so he can ask it questions and get answers based solely on that information, without any outside influence.

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Republicans Against Trumpism @rpsagainsttrump.bsky.social · 25d

Stephen Colbert: “Tonight we’re all Jimmy Kimmel…. With an autocrat, you can’t give an inch. If ABC thinks that this is going to satisfy the regime, they are woefully naive, and clearly they've never read The Children's Book If You Give a Mouse A Kimmel.”

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Andrew Naughtie @andrewnaughtie.bsky.social · 25d

And mostly shot weekly in rep theatre style! Who wouldn’t go on holiday?

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Andrew Naughtie @andrewnaughtie.bsky.social · 25d

The episode of Doctor Who where the Doctor becomes invisible and silent because William Hartnell was on holiday.

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Holyrood @holyroodmag.bsky.social · 26d

BREAKING: Scotland's centuries-old 'not proven' verdict has been scrapped with the passing of the Justice Bill.

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Wrecked @wrecked9n76e.bsky.social · 27d

Karina Villa protecting her constituents by literally running ICE off the streets in West Chicago and yelling to residents to stay inside their homes.

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Andrew Naughtie @andrewnaughtie.bsky.social · 28d

If it doesn’t come from an actual 1930s-1970s fascist regime, it’s just sparkling authoritarianism. Cremant de Mar-a-Lago.

Will Jennings 🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 28d

Well, I guess if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Andrew Naughtie @andrewnaughtie.bsky.social · 28d

Still think it should go the Ukrainian/German route and call itself “Jeremy Corbyn Zarah Sultana Party”, because he is, she is and it is. Obviously this would lead to a schism over the order of the names.

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