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David Irwin

@davidirwin1987.bsky.social
149 followers 112 following 1.6K posts

Former journo, left for pastures news. I enjoy good books, old footpaths, folklore, writing, watching wildlife and tennis and most geeky things involving goblins.

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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 5h
In terms of the 3 who have stood down in the same ward, none were sacked from the party that I can see. 2 resigned the whip citing personal/health reasons ahead of the ITV report and the other actually kept the whip and the party suggested no further action needed until he resigned the seat himself.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 5h
What hasn't had enough scrutiny is that another councillor in Solihull was found to have tweeted an abundance of anti-Muslim nonsense in May (including endorsing Tommy R and suggesting all mosques should shut), when he was a candidate. The party said it would investigate and then did naff all.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 8h
Some of it will be people who have no clue about local govt too...
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 8h
Castle Bromwich just down the road now has the grim distinction of not having any councillors in what should be a 3 councillor ward.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
Also often unforgotten that they launched as an anti-lockdown party desperate to chuck pensioners under the bus...
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
I read a great Warhammer pirate book by him.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
I have to laugh as "stick them on planes" guy once contacted me when I was a local reporter and he was a Tory activist, clutching his pearls about a Green councillor who had tweeted a reference to Stewart Lee's famous "immigrants coming over here" skit. He claimed it was inflammatory!
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
What does he imagine Reform's prospective Home Secretary or London Mayor would swear on?
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Also statements of"Putin is totally nuts, he could plunge us into a hot war at any moment and we must have every weapon at hand to counter him" is hard to reconcile with "but obviously he didn't use botfarms to boost Brexit."
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
As much as anything, Russia phoned bomb hoaxes through to polling stations in Democrat districts 2 years ago, why would botfarms boosting Brexit be a step too far? www.reuters.com/world/us/fak...
reuters.com
Hoax bomb threats linked to Russia target polling places in battleground states, FBI says
Hoax bomb threats, many of which appeared to originate from Russian email domains, were directed on Tuesday at polling locations in five battleground states - Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and...
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Woke!
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
It occurs that the projected public cost of net zero annually(£4bn) is basically half her planned IHT cuts.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
I have often thought this. Farage hand-picked the most Reform friendly seats at the GE. But if I remember rightly the party polling a quite distant third in Newark.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
When he was still in the Tories I remember one commentator noting that his rhetoric was far more incendiary than Farage's.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
It's not surprising, those animals were refugees. Why didn't they stop at the first safe nature reserve?!
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
As much as anything, this implies only certain symbols of nationhood are valid. I tend to think native wildlife is a nice and unifying theme. And if he paid attention he'd know that nature and conservation is quite popular here - hence Attenborough being probably our most popular public figure.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
1.1 per cent is not exactly "well ahead" either...
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Not necessarily, Blair held every one in his first term I think.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Surely a low turn-out is to the disadvantage of incumbent govts? That was generally how George Galloway used to get in.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Since Reform won the Runcorn by-election by 6 votes the major contests have been: Hamilton (Lab gain), Caerphilly (Plaid gain), Gorton (Green gain), Makerfield (Lab hold), Arbroath (SNP hold) Aberdeen South (Con gain ), Manchester mayoralty (Lab hold), Holborn (Lab hold). Govt in waiting my arse...
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
True, but obv in context of London being a left-leaning city...
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Be fair, that's only a question if we're funding social security or better public services.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Why has the administration appointed Simon Pegg and Miss Scarlett from Cluedo?
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Rightly or wrongly I see politics at the minute as how do we stop a far-right govt and will be willing to back whoever is best placed to do this at the GE. In the mean-time I'm encouraged by the fact progressives can work on some areas of mutual interest - electoral reform, Europe etc.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I never understood why he went for the candidacy, Camden was a rare council which Labour held relatively comfortably even in the bloodbath in May
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Turns out healthy grown adults objecting to masks during Covid and that being treated as a reasonable response set a bad precedent.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
The trouble is Thatcher was the product of an age where there were lots of public assets to sell, the North Sea basin was barely tapped and unions were genuinely powerful. The Tories act like all these things are still true.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I think Thatcher of the Common Market jumper and "no, no, no" Thatcher were distinct from each other. Tory MPs only tend to remember her most dogmatic final few years.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
The Tories instinctive reach for more Thatcherism is a bit like those Georgians who used to cake their faces in lead make-up to conceal the ravages of lead poisoning.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
If it's any consolation he'll get to fight Clacton again soon...
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
"Don't let them build a solar farm on arable land, stick a data centre there."
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I don't know, I get the impression a shed-load of pensioners are in wildlife NGOs.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I find it grimly funny that the Conservative Environment Network has spent a year digesting the party's total retreat from net zero and trying to build a new brand around protecting nature/landscapes only for Kemi to make looser rules for shit-dumping and habitat destruction her next ambition.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Having spent a year trying to convince itself CEN should refocus on nature/the natural landscape, what now for the green Tories? "We think foxhounds are really, really cute"?
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
My reading is that there are people on the Labour left who are mostly decent and probably joined the Greens in genuine anger about Starmer's policy choices, but there is also a chunk of cranks and SWP-types who also signed up and are obviously toxic.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
To be honest Starmer took a similar view within Labour and it's partly why he got the boot.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I mean two of their current seats are Tory-facing rural places.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
But we don't need to care about the 15-20 per cent of voters who thrive on that. They're never voting for a centre left or centre right govt again.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I have to confess to being genuinely worried having Truss in the job. I think people have forgotten how uncertain the escalation risks were in the first weeks of the Ukraine war and Truss was using it to sharpen her leadership bid.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I remember a devastating meeting where my Nana was refused state funding because she could still turn over on a matress. At that point she was incontinent, bedbound and didn't know her own name.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Even though all the big swings, like PR and social care and EU policy have been explicitly put down as manifesto commitments.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Graham's problem is that she wants a Labour Party that will do left economics while trashing net zero targets and not really wanting to work with Europe. That's a vanishingly small sub-section of progressive thought in Britain largely occupied by George Galloway.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The best riposte to this question would be: "Yeah well, my predecessor made a major cut to a state benefit his first big announcement and it's a big part of the reason I'm here answering that question and not him."
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The hope is their polling falls back to the 15per cent mark (probably their core vote) and Farage is ousted/walks.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
That isn't quite true, insofar as UKIP never finished top in local elections or took control of multiple councils. I think they briefly ran Thurrock I think they share lots of structural weaknesses though - in-fighting, terrible candidates etc.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I think it's hard to say for sure. Trump's election definitely damaged right populists in Canada and Australia, but hasn't yet arrested the rise of the AfD. I think local factors and variations still shape things too.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This is an obscure reference but in BBC's Being Human, there is another Mr Snow. He has a line which is also apt: "These eyes have looked upon Pharaohs, and the son of the carpenter. And now, they must look at you, proudly showing me your idea like a child with a handful of its own excrement."
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Possibly, but you'd then be at a point where I think certain things would happen which would hitherto be unthinkable and the chain of events impossible to control. Maybe he'd have enough headbangers to drive that through, but I suspect not.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I'm not on about influence, I'm on about whether we should give a toss. We can control what we can control but hoping for the neutering of a mad man's power is not unreasonable.
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David Irwin @davidirwin1987.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I'm generally of the view as long as the US President is starting inflation-spiking, deeply destabilising wars, threatening NATO territory and raising the spectre of tariffs every 5 minutes it probably is our business...
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