Chris Wilkins
@mrchriswilkins.bsky.social
Communications and strategy advisor. Media commentator. Former Downing Street Director of Strategy and serial Tory SPAD. Politics, International Relations & National Security.
Reposted by Chris Wilkins
Polanski here exhibits classic main character syndrome, as in believing that others are only ever responding to us as opposed to pushing their own agendas.
December 7, 2025 at 10:35 PM
Polanski here exhibits classic main character syndrome, as in believing that others are only ever responding to us as opposed to pushing their own agendas.
Reposted by Chris Wilkins
What really strikes me is their utter inability to see how this sort of language is not just morally wrong, but very clearly helps their opponents.
December 6, 2025 at 8:10 PM
What really strikes me is their utter inability to see how this sort of language is not just morally wrong, but very clearly helps their opponents.
Reposted by Chris Wilkins
Journalists are desperate to write 'young people are voting for Reform stories' even though the data simply does not back it up.
December 6, 2025 at 9:29 PM
Journalists are desperate to write 'young people are voting for Reform stories' even though the data simply does not back it up.
Reposted by Chris Wilkins
It’s weird that news organizations like the BBC are covering this as if it’s a real thing with a real process behind it—and not clearly some nakedly invented “participation trophy” by a corrupt organization to curry favor with a corrupt and easily manipulated man-child. www.bbc.com/sport/footba...
Donald Trump: US president named inaugural Fifa Peace Prize winner
US President Donald Trump receives the inaugural Fifa Peace Prize before the draw for the 2026 Fifa World Cup.
www.bbc.com
December 6, 2025 at 10:23 AM
It’s weird that news organizations like the BBC are covering this as if it’s a real thing with a real process behind it—and not clearly some nakedly invented “participation trophy” by a corrupt organization to curry favor with a corrupt and easily manipulated man-child. www.bbc.com/sport/footba...
Reposted by Chris Wilkins
This is pretty much exactly like a European saying the United States should be abolished, so that the governments of individual states can better represent their people.
It’s a take, you’re entitled to it, but what’s it got to do with you, buddy?
It’s a take, you’re entitled to it, but what’s it got to do with you, buddy?
December 6, 2025 at 3:39 PM
This is pretty much exactly like a European saying the United States should be abolished, so that the governments of individual states can better represent their people.
It’s a take, you’re entitled to it, but what’s it got to do with you, buddy?
It’s a take, you’re entitled to it, but what’s it got to do with you, buddy?
Really great piece this. But the thing is, none of this is a secret. This is the world we’re now living it. Yet we’ve still just managed to go through an entire budget process that barely referenced any of this important context or to make any provision for us to respond. Time to wake up.
“Russia wishes us harm and is working in a very organised way to inflict damage”
There’s been a lot of recent Russia-UK news - from spy submarines to the Salisbury inquiry.
So I asked someone who’s been tracking what’s going on why Russia has singled us out
www.newstatesman.com/internationa...
There’s been a lot of recent Russia-UK news - from spy submarines to the Salisbury inquiry.
So I asked someone who’s been tracking what’s going on why Russia has singled us out
www.newstatesman.com/internationa...
Russia has made Britain its number one enemy
Ex-Nato official John Lough on how the UK is being “singled out” for Russian aggression
www.newstatesman.com
December 6, 2025 at 4:49 PM
Really great piece this. But the thing is, none of this is a secret. This is the world we’re now living it. Yet we’ve still just managed to go through an entire budget process that barely referenced any of this important context or to make any provision for us to respond. Time to wake up.
Reposted by Chris Wilkins
“There is a risk that the focus on the second strike and specifically the talk of ‘war crimes’ feeds into the administration’s false wartime framing and veils the fact that the entire boat-strikes campaign is murder, full stop,” sagt @becingber.bsky.social — völlig zurecht.
Second Strike Scrutiny Obscures Larger Question About Trump’s Boat Attacks
www.nytimes.com
December 5, 2025 at 6:02 AM
“There is a risk that the focus on the second strike and specifically the talk of ‘war crimes’ feeds into the administration’s false wartime framing and veils the fact that the entire boat-strikes campaign is murder, full stop,” sagt @becingber.bsky.social — völlig zurecht.
Reposted by Chris Wilkins
We have this cycle over and over of people panicking over the assumption that Trump can reshape the global order when the more likely trigger for global crisis is Trump generating disorder in America that collapses the US.
Europe needs to prepare for a post-American world.
Europe needs to prepare for a post-American world.
December 5, 2025 at 2:11 PM
We have this cycle over and over of people panicking over the assumption that Trump can reshape the global order when the more likely trigger for global crisis is Trump generating disorder in America that collapses the US.
Europe needs to prepare for a post-American world.
Europe needs to prepare for a post-American world.
Reposted by Chris Wilkins
This is a good piece and I agree with all of it. But I'd add that a lot of Americans on encountering Actually Existing England come down with a version of "Paris Syndrome" - a widely recognised phenomenon described as....
Why does Tucker Carlson hate Britain?
His garish fantasies about our country are starting to infect our own conservative movement
By @JonnElledge.bsky.social
His garish fantasies about our country are starting to infect our own conservative movement
By @JonnElledge.bsky.social
Why does Tucker Carlson hate Britain?
His garish fantasies about our country are starting to infect our own conservative movement
www.newstatesman.com
December 5, 2025 at 12:14 PM
This is a good piece and I agree with all of it. But I'd add that a lot of Americans on encountering Actually Existing England come down with a version of "Paris Syndrome" - a widely recognised phenomenon described as....
This whole thread on the US‘s new national security strategy is worth reading, but this point on its incoherence and self-defeating nature is important
The doc is all about closing the US, yet it says that “openness” is what differentiates it internationally.
It wants to rebalance markets, criticises globalisation, yet says that “free market capitalism” will “continue to make us the global partner of first choice.”
It wants to rebalance markets, criticises globalisation, yet says that “free market capitalism” will “continue to make us the global partner of first choice.”
December 5, 2025 at 12:35 PM
This whole thread on the US‘s new national security strategy is worth reading, but this point on its incoherence and self-defeating nature is important
Reposted by Chris Wilkins
The new National Security Strategy is a propaganda document, designed to be widely read. It is also a performative suicide. Hard to think of another great power ever abdicating its influence so quickly and so publicly. It will be worth following the reactions around the world, not just in Europe.
Trump's national security strategy is out and some of the Europe sections are shocking. "...the growing influence of patriotic European parties indeed
gives cause for great optimism."
www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...
gives cause for great optimism."
www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...
December 5, 2025 at 12:17 PM
The new National Security Strategy is a propaganda document, designed to be widely read. It is also a performative suicide. Hard to think of another great power ever abdicating its influence so quickly and so publicly. It will be worth following the reactions around the world, not just in Europe.
Worth following @shashj.bsky.social for insights into the US’s new national security strategy published overnight. It’s a real window into the bizarre parallel world in which its authors live.
Trump's national security strategy is out and some of the Europe sections are shocking. "...the growing influence of patriotic European parties indeed
gives cause for great optimism."
www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...
gives cause for great optimism."
www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...
December 5, 2025 at 7:52 AM
Worth following @shashj.bsky.social for insights into the US’s new national security strategy published overnight. It’s a real window into the bizarre parallel world in which its authors live.
Reposted by Chris Wilkins
The Trump National Security Strategy is an act of vandalism against the things that actually make our country strong, safe, and prosperous.
December 5, 2025 at 6:17 AM
The Trump National Security Strategy is an act of vandalism against the things that actually make our country strong, safe, and prosperous.
Reposted by Chris Wilkins
US national security strategy.
Something sure is unrecognisable here, but it’s not Europe.
www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...
Something sure is unrecognisable here, but it’s not Europe.
www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...
December 5, 2025 at 5:06 AM
US national security strategy.
Something sure is unrecognisable here, but it’s not Europe.
www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...
Something sure is unrecognisable here, but it’s not Europe.
www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...
Reposted by Chris Wilkins
Farage has been dismissing evidence of Russian ties to the Salisbury Novichok attack since 2018 🧐
December 4, 2025 at 7:52 PM
Farage has been dismissing evidence of Russian ties to the Salisbury Novichok attack since 2018 🧐
Good and important piece by @robertshrimsley.bsky.social highlighting why the government needs a sense of urgency that it sadly lacks
Labour is slow-marching working people to populism on.ft.com/4peZkpR
Labour is slow-marching working people to populism
Insurgent parties to left and right peddle nonsense economics but enjoy dramatically rising support
on.ft.com
December 4, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Good and important piece by @robertshrimsley.bsky.social highlighting why the government needs a sense of urgency that it sadly lacks
Reposted by Chris Wilkins
There was a time when Americans would have laughed at this sycophancy. And that would have been all of American history before now.
December 4, 2025 at 2:29 PM
There was a time when Americans would have laughed at this sycophancy. And that would have been all of American history before now.
The madness of our justice system in full. We complain about prison overcrowding and end up releasing a load of people early, then put two men in prison for cutting down a tree.
Didn't realise the Sycamore Gap tree fellers were each sentenced to over 4 years for cutting down a tree.
Lucy Connolly got only 31 months after calling for people to be burned alive in their beds.
I'm sure there's a campaign in there somewhere if anyone could be arsed to find it...
Morning.
Lucy Connolly got only 31 months after calling for people to be burned alive in their beds.
I'm sure there's a campaign in there somewhere if anyone could be arsed to find it...
Morning.
December 4, 2025 at 8:16 AM
The madness of our justice system in full. We complain about prison overcrowding and end up releasing a load of people early, then put two men in prison for cutting down a tree.
Reposted by Chris Wilkins
A: Who gives a fuck apart from racists?
B: His figure is wrong. 71.2% of Glaswegian children speak English as their first language.
C: So that's 28.8% who speak it as a second and I'll bet you they speak brilliant English and that it's much better than most Reform voters I've met online.
B: His figure is wrong. 71.2% of Glaswegian children speak English as their first language.
C: So that's 28.8% who speak it as a second and I'll bet you they speak brilliant English and that it's much better than most Reform voters I've met online.
December 3, 2025 at 10:43 PM
A: Who gives a fuck apart from racists?
B: His figure is wrong. 71.2% of Glaswegian children speak English as their first language.
C: So that's 28.8% who speak it as a second and I'll bet you they speak brilliant English and that it's much better than most Reform voters I've met online.
B: His figure is wrong. 71.2% of Glaswegian children speak English as their first language.
C: So that's 28.8% who speak it as a second and I'll bet you they speak brilliant English and that it's much better than most Reform voters I've met online.
Brilliant
I do sometimes wonder if I'm losing my mind. thecritic.co.uk/full...
December 4, 2025 at 8:09 AM
Brilliant
Essential thread
1/11 Most Europeans have no clue about what is coming.
These are extremely dangerous times, and we are entering even more dangerous ones
These are extremely dangerous times, and we are entering even more dangerous ones
December 3, 2025 at 7:44 PM
Essential thread
The budget debate we should actually be having…
www.thetimes.com/article/646f...
www.thetimes.com/article/646f...
Labour are still not serious about defence
PM and chancellor need to fill the gap between soaring rhetoric and pinched reality at the MoD
www.thetimes.com
December 1, 2025 at 7:05 PM
The budget debate we should actually be having…
www.thetimes.com/article/646f...
www.thetimes.com/article/646f...
Good. Bye bye. Off you go. But again, they haven't 'defected'. They're not MPs. They just joined Reform online like any member of the public can.
Three Conservative former MPs have defected to Reform, a source in Nigel Farage’s party confirmed today.
Three former Tory MPs defect to Farage’s Reform
www.independent.co.uk
December 1, 2025 at 10:57 AM
Good. Bye bye. Off you go. But again, they haven't 'defected'. They're not MPs. They just joined Reform online like any member of the public can.
Reposted by Chris Wilkins
if only there was a recent speech where the chancellor could have made this case to a packed House of Commons 😉
Rightly lots of debates about growth this weekend - rightly because it was low productivity growth that saw wages entirely flatline during the 2010s.
December 1, 2025 at 10:39 AM
if only there was a recent speech where the chancellor could have made this case to a packed House of Commons 😉
Reposted by Chris Wilkins
A lot of people need to hear this. @jayrayner1.bsky.social is 1000% correct. on.ft.com/4rnR3lb
November 29, 2025 at 1:00 PM
A lot of people need to hear this. @jayrayner1.bsky.social is 1000% correct. on.ft.com/4rnR3lb