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demsocnerd.bsky.social
Dem Soc Nerd
@demsocnerd.bsky.social
Disassociated political nerd living in Sydney | DemSoc 🌹| Interested in world politics from Latin America to Africa and Asia
Pinned
Ongoing collection to bring together a news feed that mirrors my former Twitter feed for election and politics news from all over the world
go.bsky.app/FbEVRzGo
You have to wonder at what the neocons and regime change lovers will do if a detente is reached here. No nuclear threat but the regime clings on after slaughtering protesters. Can’t imagine that’ll go down well with them at all.
February 5, 2026 at 1:43 AM
End of republic type of operation (if it wasn’t already dead)
February 4, 2026 at 10:06 PM
Reposted by Dem Soc Nerd
I'm happy to be quoted in this long read from the @financialtimes.com but in general it's a great overview of the tension between Takaichi's popularity and what's waiting when the campaign is over.

giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
Can Sanae Takaichi govern Japan on star power alone?
The new prime minister has revived the LDP, which had looked as if it might collapse. But if she wins this week’s elections, she will face harsh realities
giftarticle.ft.com
February 4, 2026 at 3:45 AM
Reposted by Dem Soc Nerd
Internal rifts, growing support for smaller parties are challenging Labour’s dominance in Greater Manchester.
By-election in northern England tests Labour's grip on heartland voters
Internal rifts, growing support for smaller parties are challenging Labour's dominance in Greater Manchester.
www.aljazeera.com
February 4, 2026 at 11:30 AM
Reposted by Dem Soc Nerd
Norway, Opinion poll:

Ap-S&D: 26% (+4)
FrP~ECR: 24% (-3)
H-EPP: 17% (-1)
R~LEFT: 7%
Sp~RE: 6%
V-RE: 4% (-1)
SV~LEFT: 4% (-1)
KrF-EPP: 4%
MDG-G/EFA: 3% (-1)

+/- vs. 24 November - 02 December 2025

Fieldwork: 26-31 January 2026
Sample size: 1,000

➤ europeelects.eu/norway
February 4, 2026 at 11:45 AM
OVP, SPO and NEOS seems like a German counterpart match made in heaven that will likely open the doors even further for the far right in Austria. Brittle, centrist coalitions like this (with a free market focussed party like NEOS) have seemingly turbocharged far right growth across the world.
February 27, 2025 at 12:16 PM
Reposted by Dem Soc Nerd
As Slovak PM Robert Fico steers Bratislava away from the West and into Moscow’s orbit, a bitter animus is estranging Czechia and Slovakia. 👉 www.politico.eu/article/czec...
February 27, 2025 at 8:55 AM
Reposted by Dem Soc Nerd
A YouGov MRP has found a median estimate of Coalition 73 seats, Labor 66, were an election to be held today.

If those numbers were replicated on polling day Dutton would be the firm favourite to govern.

My story for ABC News:

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02...
Albanese in trouble as polling shows Dutton in line to be next PM
The ABC can reveal the results of YouGov's latest MRP model, which finds the Peter Dutton-led Coalition would be likely to win about 73 seats if an election was held today.
www.abc.net.au
February 15, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Reposted by Dem Soc Nerd
It is very hard for me to imagine a national political party succeeding in 2025 if it organizes itself to such an absurd degree around the guidance of consultants and consultant-minded people. www.offmessage.net/p/out-with-t...
February 16, 2025 at 7:45 PM
Reposted by Dem Soc Nerd
Wake up babe, a whole "Will Stancil is a fucking idiot" article just dropped
Voters Were Right About the Economy. The Data Was Wrong.
Here’s why unemployment is higher, wages are lower and growth less robust than government statistics suggest.
www.politico.com
February 11, 2025 at 11:54 PM
The AfDs watershed moment in the upcoming election will have monumental repercussions across most of Europe in a post truth world. As Austria has shown, you can keep skirting around the far right for only so long before centre and right wing parties realise they’ll never have a majority without them
Fantastic piece by @francescaebel.bsky.social on the “frozen” people, thousands of Ukrainian civilians being held in secret in Russian prisons and the activists in Ukraine and Russia fighting to get them out. Urgent story and brilliant storytelling. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...
Ukrainians are vanishing into Russia. These people track them down.
Thousands of Ukrainians have disappeared into prisons in Russia, and a network of Russians and Ukrainians are working together to find them.
www.washingtonpost.com
February 10, 2025 at 11:47 AM
When the gears come to a screeching halt in this AI “revolution”, the governments and companies that have sunk huge sums of money into a failure of a project will be left with egg on their face.
French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday announced a €109 billion plan to boost artificial intelligence in France "in the coming years."
Macron pledges to catch up with Trump with €109B AI investment
“We have to be in the race,” the French president says.
www.politico.eu
February 10, 2025 at 11:44 AM
Reposted by Dem Soc Nerd
Labour is facilitating the rise of 'Reform' by trying to out-Farage them and anyone in denial of this needs to wake up before it's too late. These are cruel policies worthy of the worst Tory, and it is being done by Starmer's Labour.
By failing to repeal clauses from the Illegal Migration Act which make it harder for victims to be recognised, along with current policies of increased detention and deportations etc, Labour are actively contributing to people being trapped in modern slavery. #r4today
www.reuters.com/world/uk/uks...
February 7, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Kier Starmer as the feckless equivalent of a UK Joe Biden has nowhere to go but the dark abyss in which Nigel and his cronies will rise from. Kier is politically bankrupt after not even a year after a landslide majority victory (though FPTP saved their graces in this one)
Reform UK has taken the lead in a British opinion poll for the first time, in a move that will alarm Labour and the Conservatives www.ft.com/content/2a22...
February 4, 2025 at 12:26 PM
National Rally’s thought process in this is probably fairly simple. Already toppled one useless, unpopular PM and made the centre look weak and falling apart at the seams. Why bother doing it again when voters will likely reward you anyway at the ballot box in 2027 (thanks again Macron)
The president of the far-right National Rally, Jordan Bardella, strongly indicated today that his party would not vote to topple French Prime Minister François Bayrou’s government as it faces series of no-confidence votes in the coming days.
Bardella hints French far right won’t topple PM in multiple no-confidence votes
The National Rally chief says Bayrou has put forward an “extremely bad budget,” but that “uncertainty needs to be avoided.”
www.politico.eu
February 4, 2025 at 12:24 PM
Reposted by Dem Soc Nerd
Like the typical bully, Trump turned tail on tariffs when confronted. But the domestic assault on rule of law continues. paulkrugman.substack.com/p/what-the-m...
What the Musk is Happening?
It’s a catastrophe, but what kind of catastrophe?
paulkrugman.substack.com
February 4, 2025 at 11:50 AM
Reposted by Dem Soc Nerd
🗳️ 🇸🇰 📉 January poll by AKO finds the social-national bloc of Smer + Hlas + SNS + Republika continuing on a downward trend from their mid-2024 peak.

Charts with individual parties below.

1/
January 29, 2025 at 8:53 PM
Reposted by Dem Soc Nerd
As this story develops, Giorgia Meloni publishes a video stating that she is not "scared" & won't "refrain from changing Italy" due to pressure.

Usual populist playbook against magistrates, well tried and tested during the Berlusconi years 👇

www.ft.com/content/8e33... via @ft
Giorgia Meloni under investigation by Rome prosecutors over release of Libyan warlord
Italian PM says prosecutors are probing her government’s decision to return Osama Elmasry Njeem to Libya
www.ft.com
January 28, 2025 at 5:39 PM
Reposted by Dem Soc Nerd
Trump's pick for Deputy Transportation Secretary wrote key memos justifying waterboarding and other barbaric interrogation tools for George W. Bush.

John McCain once called these documents "permission slips for torture.”

www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
Trump picks torture memo author for deputy transportation secretary
Sen. John McCain said Steven Bradbury, whose legal memos authorized waterboarding, wrote "permission slips for torture."
www.motherjones.com
January 29, 2025 at 9:13 PM
Trump might fondly compare himself to his hero McKinley but this admin will be a Warren Harding 2.0, rife with corruption, bought by billionaires and Biden to them. At least Harding didn’t spend most of his time pretending he cared about anyone that wasn’t well off though
The move signals Mark Zuckerberg’s ambition to work closely with the Trump administration as he seeks a role in influencing regulation in areas such as artificial intelligence. www.ft.com/content/9310...
January 29, 2025 at 12:37 PM
Reposted by Dem Soc Nerd
French budget talks were on the verge of collapse a day after Socialist party officials suspended their participation in protest over remarks about immigration by the prime minister reut.rs/4goonS1
France's budget talks close to collapse after Socialists pull out
French budget talks were on the verge of collapse on Wednesday, a day after Socialist party officials suspended their participation in protest over remarks about immigration by the prime minister.
reut.rs
January 29, 2025 at 10:29 AM
Reposted by Dem Soc Nerd
Keeping Up With The Coupdashions:

As of today- Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have officially left West African regional bloc ECOWAS- the three have formed their own "Alliance of Sahel States".
ECOWAS say citizens of all three countries will enjoy “right to visa free movement”.
January 29, 2025 at 11:29 AM
The international community after seeing Israel break a pledge on territorial expansion.
January 29, 2025 at 12:24 PM