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Steven Fielding @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social · 1h

As ever with politics, the substance, the reality, is much less important than the meaning that people invest in it.

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Steven Fielding @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social · 1h

In that regard and in many others, Powell changes nothing.

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Steven Fielding @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social · 1h

Along with the rest of our fearless media of course.

Steven Fielding @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social · 1h

I’m sure GBNews is on the case.

David @zero-4.bsky.social · 5h

Starmer regarding Reform’s former leader in Wales, Nathan Gill: “The member for Clacton & his deputy worked alongside someone who took money to spread Putin’s propaganda. They have serious questions to answer about what they knew”

#PMQs #PoliticsLive

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Steven Fielding @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social · 1h

I completely agree, but they shape how many people see things and unfortunately shapes how the government acts.

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Steven Fielding @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social · 1h

I don’t think Starmer is someone you can reshape along your favoured lines, & I speak as one who dearly wises him to be different. I don’t see a Powell victory changing him much if at all, but it will create more fevered speculation about his leadership. It’s a dagger that wounds but cannnot kill.

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Steven Fielding @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social · 1h

Whatever members’ intentions her victory which seems pretty inevitable will be interpreted by the party’s enemies as a huge vote of no confidence in Starmer and will create another round of speculation in his leadership without actually ending it or even changing the govt’s direction much.

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Steven Fielding @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social · 1h

But more seriously if you want Starmer gone then you should be honest with yourself & take a more direct route. A Powell victory will just made a bad situation just that bit worse without achieving your ends.

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Steven Fielding @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social · 1h

Well, somebody has to.

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Steven Fielding @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social · 2h

Given Cuomo’s record with women, this is a bold move.

The New York Times @nytimes.com · 2h

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, who has sought to paint Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani as an extremist, has homed in on questions about his stance on prostitution. Mamdani has stressed that he has never supported legalization and called Cuomo’s comments smears.

Cuomo Tries to Make Prostitution an Issue in NYC Mayor’s Race

Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has criticized Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani over his past support for decriminalizing prostitution. Mr. Mamdani’s campaign has not emphasized the issue.

nyti.ms

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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 2h

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, who has sought to paint Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani as an extremist, has homed in on questions about his stance on prostitution. Mamdani has stressed that he has never supported legalization and called Cuomo’s comments smears.

Cuomo Tries to Make Prostitution an Issue in NYC Mayor’s Race

Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has criticized Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani over his past support for decriminalizing prostitution. Mr. Mamdani’s campaign has not emphasized the issue.

nyti.ms

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David @zero-4.bsky.social · 5h

Starmer regarding Reform’s former leader in Wales, Nathan Gill: “The member for Clacton & his deputy worked alongside someone who took money to spread Putin’s propaganda. They have serious questions to answer about what they knew”

#PMQs #PoliticsLive

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Steven Fielding @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social · 6h

But they’re clinging on.

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Steven Fielding @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social · 6h

Although in his latter stages as labour leader he was generally regarded as having strangulated himself to appear respectable. Like lots of other politicians once freed of responsibility, he started to talk more authentically.

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Steven Fielding @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social · 6h

There that is - it called thermometer theory - which suggests that public opinion moves away from a government the longer it is in power and towards whatever the opposition happens to be saying? That implies there is no ultimate shift but opinions merely oscillate. I’m not sure that helps!

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Steven Fielding @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social · 6h

A Summer refugee.

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Steven Fielding @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social · 6h

I don;t know about the public but Labour members - who of course are subject to some churn over time - became less supportive of nationalisation between Kinnock's and Blair's leadership - according to Seyd and Whiteley surveys.

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Steven Fielding @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social · 6h

Is a rhetorical question.

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Steven Fielding @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social · 6h

👍

Steven Fielding @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social · 8h

If this kind of commentariat is an avatar for their readers, it’s no wonder we are in the mess we are in.

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Steven Fielding @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social · 8h

I appreciate they live an elevated lifestyle, but how they could be so oblivious to the lives of the majority I just don’t know. They must be incredibly selfish, ignorant, or in other ways sociopathic/solipsistic.

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Steven Fielding @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social · 8h

Yes, it sounds virtuous and I’m sure there are people with ‘aspirations’ that are but essentially it hides greed for those that don’t need anymore.

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Steven Fielding @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social · 8h

It’s a Times columnist: they seem to imagine that everybody is on about £100k or so when the average household income is about £35k. What world do they live in?

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Steven Fielding @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social · 9h

But in her spirit let’s look after those on £100k and forget those struggling on £35k 👍🏻

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Steven Fielding @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social · 9h

The idea that Thatcher can be associated with aspiration when she created greater inequality is almost sick-making.

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Steven Fielding @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social · 9h

Isn’t ‘aspiration’ one of the great BS words in politics? It’s a catch-all term word which hides the good along with the bad & the ugly.

Paul Lewis @paullewismoney.bsky.social · 10h

It is may be 3x average pay but 62% tax rate on earnings over £100,000 and cliff edge removal of childcare subsidies limit aspirations of upper middle classes bit.ly/49arr4e misleading to call it ‘working hard’ not ‘being lucky and clever’. Many work very hard on £12.21/hour 48 hours a week or more

This tax trap is killing youthful aspiration

Little wonder the under-40s laud Margaret Thatcher: she valued hard work, unlike the rules that penalise them today

bit.ly

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Paul Lewis @paullewismoney.bsky.social · 10h

It is may be 3x average pay but 62% tax rate on earnings over £100,000 and cliff edge removal of childcare subsidies limit aspirations of upper middle classes bit.ly/49arr4e misleading to call it ‘working hard’ not ‘being lucky and clever’. Many work very hard on £12.21/hour 48 hours a week or more

This tax trap is killing youthful aspiration

Little wonder the under-40s laud Margaret Thatcher: she valued hard work, unlike the rules that penalise them today

bit.ly

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Dr Anna Clark @drannaclark.bsky.social · 12h

“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster...For when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, influential German philosopher, born #OTD 1844.
Jenseits von Gut und Böse 1886 | Portrait by Edvard Munch 1906, Thielska Gallery

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Steven Fielding @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social · 1d

I suppose I can only speak for myself and I did go on to do English Lit A LeveI but was only discovering novels at that point.

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Steven Fielding @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social · 1d

We did it at secondary school and I think it’s appropriately pitched there. I certainly remember being engrossed by it and found the polite racism of many of the characters very memorable.

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