iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Paul Ewart @paulewart.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Actually existing Mark E. Smith is one of the many, many reasons that Naked is such an appalling film. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/l...

podcasts.apple.com

Corrie on Acid: The Fall with David Wilkinson

Podcast Episode · Love is the Message: Dance, Music and Counterculture · 6 August · 1hr 31min

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Ed Poole @edpoole1975.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

For decades, governments have been asleep at the wheel, and the consequences are going to be worse than anything we have ever experienced. We need profound change now.

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Paul Ewart @paulewart.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

The NEET stuff is so obviously a smokescreen. Education is a mess, largely thanks to Thatcherite reforms that led to schools as placeholders for outsourced parenting, the introduction of the market and choice, and gentrification. The issue, as ever, has to do with inequality.

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James Butler @piercepenniless.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

(I also think regional variation in education advantages wealthy and mobile parents, though that's also true already. Lots of other reasons to be sceptical about needs of local businesses as a major criterion, not least because they don't always know what their needs will be in 5, 10, 20 years.)

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James Butler @piercepenniless.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Sceptical that NEET problem is just a misalignment between curriculum and business needs. Much more credibly a mix of struggling local business (= fewer openings) & huge increase in mental distress and disability among young people. Latter (including un- or self-diagnosed) a huge part of the issue.

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David Timoney @fromarsetoelbow.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Those changes that lasted (BoE independence, academisation, the GFA, the ECHR etc) enjoyed cross-party consensus (at the time) and would likely have been implemented by the Tories anyway after 1997. Probably the only one they would have balked at was devolution, and that was done half-cock anyway.

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David Timoney @fromarsetoelbow.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

There were no massive, substantive changes under Blair. We know this because most of what he did change was reversed or made irrelevant within a few years of the coalition govt.

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flyingrodent @flyingrodent.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

As I said about MPs in the main left party here: you don’t suicide-bomb your political career and try to tank your own side because you’re worried that your party is going to *lose*.

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Paul Ewart @paulewart.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Enjoyable as ever, but raises a significant question: what is the Soft Left’s legacy, other than blocking Bennism and enabling New Labour? A lamentable return for a 40 year project. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/c...

podcasts.apple.com

Emergency Podcast: Burnham Begins

Podcast Episode · Culture, Power, Politics » Podcast · 24 July · 1hr 50min

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Paul Ewart @paulewart.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Worth remembering that French students explicitly rejected conservative Fordism in 1968: they demanded the right to sexual freedom within the disciplinary university. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/c...

podcasts.apple.com

Universities in Crisis (part 2)

Podcast Episode · Culture, Power, Politics » Podcast · 16 July · 1hr 21min

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Paul Ewart @paulewart.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Worth remembering that French students explicitly rejected conservative Fordism in 1968: they demanded the right to sexual freedom within the disciplinary university.

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Paul Ewart @paulewart.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Excellent cultural materialist outline of Fordism here. The culture referred to is, of course, the popular modern with origins in the inter war years. If you’re interested in this history, come and see me talk about it at HM26. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/c...

podcasts.apple.com

Universities in Crisis (part 2)

Podcast Episode · Culture, Power, Politics » Podcast · 16 July · 1hr 21min

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Paul Ewart @paulewart.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Some wanker’s presenting 3 papers at Historical Materialism London this year. Come to find out about Popular Modernism, Affective Strategies and Exiting Capitalist Realism. Stay for booze.

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Paul Ewart @paulewart.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

No real surprises here, Christopher Steele is a fraud, the Democrats are repugnant and Liam Byrne is a wrong’un. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

podcasts.apple.com

Among the Private Spies

Podcast Episode · The LRB Podcast · 8 July · 38min

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Cat Hobbs @cathobbs.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

"Britain’s current model of privatised essential services is not protecting the public finances...it is actually jeopardising our fiscal sustainability" @chrismwhayes.bsky.social for @cmmonwealth.bsky.social explains public ownership is a good deal 💰 www.politicshome.com/opinion/arti...

politicshome.com

How Burnham can do public ownership without scaring the bond markets

During months of speculation about his return to Westminster, the presumptive prime-minister-in-waiting, Andy Burnham, has made comments that have ...

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 28/06/2026

KARL: Rs are gonna make you the poster child for the D Party MAMDANI: Let them. We don't have to ask ourselves what life looks like if a socialist wins. I won last year & over the course of the last 6 months what we've delivered for working people are the very things we were told were impossible.

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Theo Priestley @theopriestley.net · 28/06/2026

We were robbed of this round future.

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George @georgem.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

the democrats are less a political party than a jobs program for people who got into elite universities and then did nothing of distinction in them

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Paul Ewart @paulewart.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

It always amazes me that liberals simply refuse to acknowledge domestic radicalism in Britain in the 60s and early 70s, always insisting on discrete and opposing struggles - the feminist movement opposed by trade union dinosaurs etc. 1/2

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Paul Ewart @paulewart.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Rory Stewart is a grade A inbred aristo-idiot. That people still listen to him is a testament to deferential Britain.

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Phil Burton-Cartledge @philbc3.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

It's high time this happened. No excuse for any MP not to back this.

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Paul Ewart @paulewart.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

The Left is right. Who knew?

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Paul Ewart @paulewart.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Exemplary Cultural Studies alert to the dangers of Fordist melancholia - a subject close to my heart - and reductive liberal common sense. Importantly John is open to the wide variety of approaches that once characterised Cultural Studies. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/c...

podcasts.apple.com

The Battle For Britain with John Clarke (Part 2)

Podcast Episode · Culture, Power, Politics » Podcast · 23 June · 1hr 46min

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Paul Bernal @paulbernal.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

The media silence over the Island of Strangers speech seems to be part of an overall consensus that it’s impossible for people *not* to be against immigration. The media won’t even consider that there are people upset by xenophobia.

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Phil McDuff @mcduff.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Amazing how much of this stuff there is today. Couldn't have been that the things he did were bad, because we liked them and foisted him onto the public specifically so he would do them.

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flyingrodent @flyingrodent.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

They seemed pretty determined on e.g. winning the culture wars for reactionaries against minorities and the left; scything benefits; migrant terror and sucking up to racists; draconian crackdowns on protest; giving a zillion pounds to US arms companies and boondoggles like AI and carbon capture.

Opinion
Keir Starmer's fatal flaw? The blankness on to which voters projected their years of frustration
John Harris
His government was directionless and confused, and from that murk emerged the Peter Mandelson scandal

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Paul Ewart @paulewart.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

Amazing how cops always defend Fascists, huh?

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Paul Ewart @paulewart.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

A worthy subject but one that fails to interrogate the work Mick Heron’s novels do. I can only assume the absence of JLC is deliberate, though jarring.* *He sees The Human Factor as a forerunner to Slow Horses - a stretch imo. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/p...

podcasts.apple.com

The Great Political Fictions: The Human Factor

Podcast Episode · Past Present Future · 10 June · 1hr

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Æðelwułf @iamdarkink.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

The Rogoff paper was what I remember setting everyone into a spasm over deficits. And only after the damage was done did someone say "wait a tick... is that a math error?" And then "why was this data left out?" www.nber.org/system/files...

nber.org

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Paul Ewart @paulewart.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

The sour grapes are off the scale. Ask yourselves why Arteta’s Arsenal are so unpopular that even FIFA are changing rules. It’s nothing to do with cosmopolitanism, a risible and offensive excuse, but anti football and footy in the digital age. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/f...

podcasts.apple.com

PSG break Arsenal’s hearts and Arne Slot out at Liverpool – Football Weekly

Podcast Episode · Football Weekly · 1 June · 53min

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Grace Blakeley @graceblakeley.substack.com · 01/06/2026

When people say 'AI isn't a bubble because the technology isn't going away', it just shows they don't know what a bubble is. The internet didn't go away. Railways didn't go away. Tulips didn't go away. An asset can be overvalued, even if its useful.

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Ann Pettifor @annpettifor.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

In this video Hasan Piker & Trita Parsi discuss current negotiations to end Iran war. I listened to every minute of it and found it intellectually rigorous and informative. Please watch it and decide whether Piker deserves to be banned by this Labour government, youtu.be/LcloUmMPMWk?...

youtu.be

Trita Parsi Breaks Down the Endgame With Iran

YouTube video by HasanAbi

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Spooky Snigdha @snig.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Michael Gove publishes, in The Spectator, the explicit promotion of the racist Great Replacement conspiracy theory, white nationalism and a call for Enoch Powell and NF "remigration" policies.

THE SPECTATOR

And what of British birthrates? There are hints in the data that remigration might help there too. In 2021, when migration was close to zero as a result of Covid, White British births made a small recovery before plummeting as the Boriswave began. A country where young people can find work is likely to be one where they find partners and start work sooner. Without the pressure on housing costs from migration, it would be cheaper for those couples to find homes and start families.

There has never been any democratic consent for mass migration. Indeed, the British electorate have voted against it again and again. Now, after decades of being ignored, we face becoming a minority, marginalised and ultimately replaced in our own country. That is wrong. The Scots, Welsh and English, have been here for at least 1,500 years. It is perfectly right to wish to remain a majority in our home. To that end, merely slowing the pace of replacement is not enough. Recent arrivals like the Boriswave must return home.

WRITTEN BY

David Shipley

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Mollie Goodfellow @hansmollman.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Look at what they have kept from us

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Paul Ewart @paulewart.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Very touching celebration of Stuart Hall here. Should say that having gone to the same 6th Form as Jem and having studied the less traditional Eng Lit course with Doc Parry, that emerging as a radical from conservative Southport is unusual and commendable.

podcasts.apple.com

Stuart Hall: Class, Race and Conjuncture (part 2)

Podcast Episode · Culture, Power, Politics » Podcast · 31 May · 1hr 52min

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Paul Ewart @paulewart.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Interesting this. The Britain of the 1950s is misunderstood. Far from the era of conformity, consensus and deference so beloved of liberal and conservative historians, 1956, in particular, was the year of rupture, one that made the 1960s possible. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/p...

podcasts.apple.com

The Great Political Fictions: The Golden Notebook

Podcast Episode · Past Present Future · 31 May · 1hr 1min

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Paul Ewart @paulewart.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

To discuss Brave New World without referring to Fabianism is frankly perplexing. ://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/past-present-future/id1682047968?i=1000769768018

podcasts.apple.com

The Great Political Fictions: Brave New World

Podcast Episode · Past Present Future · 27 May · 1hr 6min

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Barry Combo @barry-combo.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

You can have a decent society or you can have one in which the Guardian thrives but you can't have both.

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flyingrodent @flyingrodent.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

The dog that isn’t barking: the Sensible Moderates have been going all in for decades - win or go bust - on their ability to co-opt and channel reactionary racism, and they’ve hobbled and destroyed any attempt to do things differently. And now, it’s conclusively proven this was insane and disastrous

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Gregk Foley @gregk.co.uk · 18/05/2026

"The Labour Right were like the Velvet Underground of British politics. Nobody actually liked or supported them, but everyone who did went on to start their own corporate lobbying consultancy."

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