It's hard not to conclude a lot of Westminster politics is just what Balkan people calls predstava; a kind of performance theatre of public opinion as imagined by elites, played out through the empty shell of legacy media, as much about impressing each other as managing existing voter coalitions.

Thanks, have given Colin a follow and ofc a big Sunder fan (!) so will have a read.

More concretely I’d be v interested to read alternative proposals on making the system less dysfunctional and reducing boats esp, particularly from a more progressive pov - if you have anything you’ve seen let me know (saw some Refugee Council stuff on hotels that seemed sensible)

I agree with much of that - if anyone in govt briefed that jewellery story (which doesn’t even seem to be true?) they need firing out of a canon. And speaks to a broader blind spot for sure.

But still thought there was a massive head in sand aspect to some of how Polanski responded for instance.

Not sure - prob returns have got harder post Brexit. But you do get these waves, saw a similar one in early 2000s post Yugoslav wars too but the system adjusted and it become more sustainable. Am no expert but I think huge amount is instability + growing cottage industry of smugglers, lawyers etc

I am sometimes frustrated by the comms or electoral strategy on this stuff, but it is simply not some right wing hoax issue.

Some rough numbers:

~110,000 asylum claims last year compared to ~40,000 a decade ago.

~3,700 people arrived on small boats *every month* Jan-Oct this year, most of which were adult men.

Human trafficking on an industrial scale.

Lower courts endlessly gummed up with spurious legal appeals.

A lot of English ppl are not as attached to national team as their club so are less tribal. That does a lot of work here, it’s really not that sinister !

just wanted to test a bunch of possible 'bad things' ! not inconceivable that perceptions of crime or real crime would rise in the context of tight budgets and such

Well yes if your obsession is managing the lobby, that will happen. But they aren’t the only ones, it’s built into the architecture of govt comms.

🇬🇧🇬🇧

good question but not sure - would need to find a long-term dataset with that question in it! but i don't see why they would necessarily?

Possibly! Hadn’t thought of that. Was mostly just thinking “well yeh if you came of age in the 90s you probably thought the world was going to be great forever”

Relatedly! @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social bsky.app/profile/stev...

Agreed. Very keen to look at this in the context of less artificial info environments about who can win and lose locally.

Yeh those cycles have sped up in ways that are terrifying, and candidates and issues still matter, but in the US esp it did a huge amount of work in 2020, 2024, last night and will do next year too