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Ben

@murfbenj.bsky.social
253 followers 1K following 1.5K posts
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 11h
What is the market for the wacky litany of half-baked, resentment-dripping, anti youth policies the #Conservatives have pumped out the last couple of days? Do they not realise their vote base is dying out and they absolutely need young voters - trust funded weirdo Tory boys ain’t going to cut it
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Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Labour was polling a little over 30% when these articles were written. It is genuinely strange that the Conservative Party is not being subjected to the same obituaries by op-ed given its frequent sub-20% polling.
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 13h
Eh? What?
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Kemi Badenoch’s speech on Wednesday is going to be jammed full of petty, waste-of-time, culture war crap. It will be bigoted, reactionary, negative and shrill. It will not move humanity forward one inch.
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Dewy eyed Laura Kuenssberg
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
The state of the country explained in one chart. This hyper concentration of degree holders is just not representative of the country. And where we had a clear problrm with out of touch old etonians when Tories were in office, we have and enduring one of Oxbridge educated lawmakers
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Shut it down. Racist propaganda shite
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Never forget that the states over there with the death penalty have the highest murder rates.
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Luke Tryl @luketryl.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
In this week’s voting intention, Labour's lead widens as Reform fall to their lowest in over 18 months. 🌹 LAB 27% (+1) 🌳 CON 22% (-1) ⏩ REF 21% (-1) 🔶 LIB DEM 11% (-) 🟢 GREEN 9% (+1) ⚫ RES: 6% (-) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1) ⚪️ OTH 1% (-) N = 2,041 | Fieldwork 25-29/9 | Changes w 18/09
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Oh how terrible it would be to be in the #euro with its bond yields nearly a full 2pc points lower than #sterling #EU
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
😂😂😂😂😂 news.sky.com/story/anti-m...
news.sky.com
Anti-migrant activist Daniel Thomas remanded in custody
The 37-year-old, known as Danny Tommo, faces trial accused of criminal damage to a boat in the English Channel.
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Dan Neidle @danneidle.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Luxury retailers want taxpayers to fund a 20% tax break for foreign tourists. They paid consultancy Cebr to claim this will raise £2.6bn for the UK. That convinced Sadiq Khan and Kemi Badenoch. But it's false: a free lunch. Four basic errors mask a £600m loss. Thread:
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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Pope Innocent III,who died in 1216, spoke of a certain kind of older man, who is "easily provoked", "will believe anything and question nothing", is "stingy and greedy" and "praises the good old days and hates the present." Reform UK's voter base has been knocking around for a very long time.
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The shifts in this show how pointless these things are at this stage but if #Reform get over 100 seats I’ll eat my hat. All I’ll say at this stage is that they’ll get ‘dozens’.
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Why on earth was the Orange Order given permission to march down the Garvaghy Road in #Portadown? There obviously still isn’t community consent. So there’s another highly avoidable flare-up. Stupid officials
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Going to write an exasperated letter to local paper later to inform its dozen readers about national debt and yields. It’s not what they think. Will do a highly miffed one after that on the Budget season scourge of all these govt spending slashers being all over our media, every fucking year.
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James O’Brien @mrjamesob.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Perfectly put. (The whole thread’s very good.)
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This mad, twisted nonsense from Braverman is where the British Right is now and it’s being further radicalised with every passing year. What will snap them out of this? Jailing of Trump and his henchmen on treason charges after next election might help a bit.
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Key indicator why Britain won’t be joining the #EU soon as Crashy Kwasi Kwarteng on #GMB sits in total denial of the damage EU withdrawal has done then dribbles about people wanting to ‘move on’. You can’t move on from Europe, Crashy, it’s just over the Channel there. All the time.
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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
The usual moral “I’ll support anything as long as the rosette is red” voids in the replies to this. The reality is that Sunak did take real political damage in sacking Braverman and taking the whip from Anderson. Starmer and Burnham both useless on this.
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
The economy is… Government Spends We spend Business invests Foreigners buy out goods and we buy theirs. More of the first than the second adds, vice versa detracts Add that all up, you get GDP. The spending cut fanatics are always out and about pre budget, wanting to reduce the first bit.
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
No tolerance for all the right-wingers far too stupid to understand the power bestowed on them as individuals by the European Convention on Human Rights. You’re supposed to be for individualism guys, remember? Have all your principles been jettisoned for unadulterated racism? (Answer: yes) #echr
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Labour lead up to 4 points in the latest Ipsos poll. (And congrats to them for using error bars - all pollsters should do this).
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Dmitry Grozoubinski @explaintrade.com · 20/09/2026
I don't think we disdain the center-right enough. First, they rode nativist populist tigers to power to get their tax cuts and deregulation; Then, they lost control of their own parties to those tigers; Now, they sit in lucrative jobs as columnists writing about how it's all the left's fault.
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
This is really good on IHT
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
It bears repeating always: British gilt yields fluctuate primarily because of inflation, not because traders are scolding the government for its spending decisions. Trump has shut Hormuz and that is now showing in inflation. Bank of England is worsening this by flooding the market with its holdings
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Watching Blue Eye Samurai on Netflix. Just incredible animation and artwork. At root a revenge thriller/adventure but done with panache and deep characterisation against backdrop of tonnes of 17th century Japanese culture. Very mature themes, and a good amount of gore.
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Roland Smith @rolandmcs.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Just checking how Calvin Robinson and Andrew Bridgen are getting on these days....
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
It’s UK govt #budget season and you can tell because the spending cuts fanatics are all out on the airwaves describing in salacious detail how they would make Britain poorer and British lives harsher by wildly cutting government spending for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
To be fair I thought they were already banned and there was a long list of sycophant podcasters in there
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
So the bank of England announces it will slow dow its foolish Quantitative Tightening programme and #gilt #yields plummet. This should make you angry - the BoE has been titting about with the country’s prosperity in a monomaniacal lurch for a pre 2008 ‘normalcy’ that exploded in that crisis.
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Why is anyone giving the secessionist traitors in #Piddington any airtime?
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Saw End of Oak Street and as entertainment it is great. Thoroughly enjoyable. Won’t go down as a great piece of art but not a bad way to spend 90 minutes. Thus a great non bladder stretching runtime too. Also a very Rick and Morty ending I thought (If you know, you know)
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
And Trump fan Kemi sheepishly crawled out from her rock to condemn the words. Doesn’t stop this being another one to strike up on the lengthening list of Kemi’s crashing misjudgements
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
The Unionist community in Northern Ireland has been royally screwed over in the last 10 years - and that screwing has come from people they consider political allies: The Conservative Party and now Donald Trump.
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
If America is not gearing up to jail Trump, Vance, Kennedy and the rest of the junta of stupid (and if the compromised zealots on the Supreme Court try to intervene they go in too) then that country is lost. Reconciliation worked in South Africa because it was the majority who chose to do it.
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
In this Starmer was Union general George McClellan - utterly feeble and useless
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Tyron @tyron.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
LMAO at this from Margaret Hodge's diaries
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Abraham Lincoln - what a guy. We could do with his like right now, an uncompromising leader who holds the moral ground while those charged with actually doing so in the theatre of our politics flail and give away so much of it to those who would destroy our liberties on the altar of hate
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Nick Pettigrew @nick-pettigrew.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I just think that risking your life at a moment's notice to save people you've never met in exchange for no money is a better expression of patriotism than dressing up like a Poundshop paramilitary and intimidating families with kids trying to get onto a ferry.
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Roland Smith @rolandmcs.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Haha. Not in Reform, nor really out of it, but somewhere in between. #Montie
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Roland Smith @rolandmcs.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
That Montie news has made my evening. Credulous plonker.
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Election Maps UK @electionmaps.uk · 08/09/2026
Westminster Voting Intention: LAB: 26% (+3) RFM: 25% (-1) CON: 20% (-3) LDM: 11% (+2) GRN: 11% (+1) SNP: 2% (-1) Via Freshwater Strategy, 4-6 Sep. Changes w/ 7-10 Aug.
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
New PISA data out England is now top ten in all three areas (reading, maths, science) and the second highest performing country outside of east Asia (after Estonia). This is a huge public policy success.
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Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I think the worst part of Labour's response to the fascist mobilisation is Andy Burnham's absence. He's the most popular politician in the country, with social media reach and actual powers of persuasion, and he's saying nothing in public. He can actually be of use here but he's choosing not to
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Revising this given the next night’s far right disorder in Portsmouth and the spineless Starmer-like response from the government. Burnham making the self same mistakes
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Nikola @greasyboiler.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I firmly believe that the decision of the post-Johnson Conservative government to try to capitalise on the mess it had made of the asylum system and make "Small Boats" a cypher for all immigration will go down as one of the most corrosive in modern British politics, and that's a crowded field.
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Mic Wright @brokenbottleboy.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
NEW | On fascism on the streets and the front-pages… STOP THE BLOKES With fascism on the streets of England again, The Times uses its front-page to deliver the same message beneath a thin veneer of respectability. brokenbottleboy.substack.com/p/stop-the-b...
brokenbottleboy.substack.com
Stop The Blokes
With fascism on the streets of England again, The Times uses its front-page to deliver the same message beneath a thin veneer of respectability.
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Scum Farrige started these far right attacks on the RNLI
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Ben @murfbenj.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Not most popular opinion but police did right thing with these radicalised men, watch them wander around aimlessly a bit then file back on train at Dover Priory with no escalation. Govt response deliberately not provocative probably right too, so long as police intelligence now being mobilised
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