The prime minister may be doing politics differently but there is a lingering suspicion that this is an old-school Labour government, just like the last one

Friday notebook: 31st July 2026

Making sense of our political moment – and the history you need to understand it. Click to read Patrick Maguire Syndrome, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.

Prime minister-in-waiting’s mission to end 40 years of neoliberalism is as much about democracy as it is economics

This week's Friday notebook

What I've been reading and writing this week

Podcast Episode · The LRB Podcast · 1 July · 1hr 8min

Podcast Episode · The LRB Podcast · 1 July · 1hr 8min

The putative prime minister’s No 10 North could be the most serious check on the finance ministry’s centralised power in half a century

The making of ‘Superboy’: the great revelation of this biography is just how traumatic a childhood the Labour leader suffered

Plus: The Jimmy Reid School of Party Management

What made our next prime minister – and some recommended listening

Catholicism defined the home, the school and the streets where the new MP grew up. It moulded the view that this former altar boy would take into Downing Street

Catholicism defined the home, the school and the streets where the new MP grew up. It moulded the view that this former altar boy would take into Downing Street

Burnham and Reform’s candidate both pitch themselves against the establishment — but can Labour emerge unscathed?

Reform leader cast the flirtation with Tory Lite aside in a crusading campaign that relied again on his big-tent appeal

McSweeney, Starmer, and Joseph Kennedy Sr

Dr Mark Montebello, the author of Dom Mintoff’s biography The Tail that Wagged the Dog: The Life and Struggles of Dom Mintoff (1916–2012) says “With this first scientific biography of Dom Mintoff we g...