iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I wrote something about Colfer's style on my blog, ages back. This was in the context of his 'Hitchhiker' sequel, which didn't really work; the 'Benny' books were a lot like this, but I thought in those ones he brought it off (although YMMV).

010

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

"check pls: I'm assuming 'sequel' just from the title, but really it could be anything: a prequel, an alternative version, a companion piece, a satire, a refutation, a rendering in alexandrines..." - srsly? its a sequel obvs "do you know that?" - what else is it gonna be? "see above. check pls!"

100

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Not quite nothing. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

010

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Who’s for a spot of victim-blaming? Just about everyone, apparently.

110

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

The policing of the boundary between "political issue" and "be serious, no one's discussing *that*" is actually what my book's about! I think it's probably fair to say that Morgan McSweeney hasn't read it.

As we have seen, the exclusiveness of the PCI's engagement was not a foregone conclusion until Berlinguer committed the party to the 'historic compromise' strategy - if then. The engagement was a missed opportunity which could have been taken. Similar choices could face other gatekeepers in other relatively closed systems. In Britain, where the electoral system excludes social movements from the national political system, the Labour Party remains the principal Left gatekeeper. Faced with a disorderly and uncontainable rival to its left, Labour would have the same options as the PCI. An inclusive engagement would require the party quietly to appropriate and absorb the demands and tactics of the new movement, while publicly denouncing its leadership as irresponsible extremists. An exclusive engage-ment, in contrast, would involve denunciations of violence, escalating demands for dissociation and emphatic assertions of the party's own commitment to democracy and the rule of law. Thirty years on, the Italian political system and the remains of the Italian Left still demonstrate how disastrous the effects of this approach could be.

021

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

My reply, which was born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air (of my blog), but at least I got it out of my system:

In other news*, Toby Young is an unmitigated idiot. In all of my five years as a freelance I made a point of taking a week off in summer and disconnecting completely from work. This in no way prevented me from paying the bills, despite the fact that I was writing Web pages for Channel 4 and sub-editing German computing advertorials rather than, say, for instance, writing a column in the Guardian and having my million-selling autobiography made into a film. Tosser.
*OK, not news** as such.
**Inasmuch as the column dates from 2008, I mean, not the 'unmitigated idiot'***. I was going to blog on it at the time, but it infuriated me too much.
***Although that too.

010

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

When you’re having a quick meal in Spoons’ and you *really* don’t want any company:

161

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Introduce yourself as what almost killed you. (Roughly; my memories are a little unclear.)

020

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

I then randomly wandered into our bedroom and saw... this. Something to do with the curtain fittings, I think. However it was produce, it wasn't there twenty minutes later - so I guess I have now Seen the Eclipse.

260

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Putting the figures in a longer perspective shows that the Corbyn surge followed a similar surge when Blair took over – and that the desertion of the party as disillusionment with New Labour set in left numbers considerably lower than they had been before.

251

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Back in 2017 I took his "racial self-interest" article (with Eric Kaufmann) seriously enough to critique it at length on my blog, and I was braced to deal with counter-arguments from him. But arguments came there none.

3160

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

How did he do? Here's Tom Holland's father (59)

110

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

"Matt Damon looks old enough to be Tom Holland's father" - Mark Kermode on THE ODYSSEY Tom Holland (30)

120

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

I'd like to thank FIFA this morning for reminding us so powerfully of the true meaning of their motto.

040

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Never realised they could do *that*.

130

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

There already is a 10 Downing Street in Manchester, anyway.

110

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

I'm optimistic about Andy Burnham's premiership. I think his government will make the country a noticeably less mean, less hateful and better functioning place.

220

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Why, it's Something Someone Has Known For Quite A Long Time And Not Seen Fit To Mention Until It Was Absolutely, Unequivocally Safe To Do So (Despite Notionally Being In The Business Of Informing The Public).

100

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

What else did he learn that day, about who was calling the shots in getting Labour's message out and why? About the gulf between "Keir Starmer, left-wing lawyer" and "Keir Starmer, solemn, sententious block of wood*", and why it was so wide? *Beckett's words, not mine

110

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

It’s a trap! When ICE get hold of a few Socialist Alternatives his feet won’t touch the ground!

010

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Well well well well well well well. There’s a thing. Who’d have thought.

021

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Go home, bookies' odds on Makerfield, you're drunk.

000

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Anyone got any stats on homicide involving blunt trauma and improvised weapons? Just wondering.

110

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

I believe it was Thudycides who said... Absolute state of this.

A Tweet from Al Carns, Labour MP, reading as follows:
Britain spent a decade choosing to be smaller in the world.

Right now the rules on communications, energy and trade are being rewritten. By China. By Russia. By countries that take their own security seriously. We need to be at that table. That's a choice we must make.

Strong countries get cheap energy. Weak countries pay whatever the strong ones decide.

4154

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

But I agree it was a fork in the road. Morgan McSweeney's entire career seems to have been dedicated to denying this:

020

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

I have a bad habit of opening what could otherwise be quite a readable blog post with three paragraphs of conceptual analysis, to which I gave full rein in this post; apologies for that. Here's the key graf:

So the Leninist threat to the Labour Party in England and Wales numbers, at most, 5,000 people - most of whom, so far from having a common purpose, hate one another's guts in true Life of Brian style. And there's nothing really there for them to 'enter' anyway - most of the old levers of power have been dismantled or locked away. And even if they all did have a collective rush of blood to the head and decide to sink their differences (pauses for hollow laugh) and become born-again Corbynites - and even if their applications for membership were accepted - five thousand people would hardly make a dent
on the party these days, what with the rate that people are joining...

100

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

"A hard line on Israel" can't be permitted in the light of "the attack in Manchester". This is utterly disgraceful and shouldn't go unchallenged, including by whatever hack wrote down these conveniently anonymous whispers.

130

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

I guess there are people who are 'libertarian' but not 'pro-liberty', but I'm happy to say I'm not one of them.

010

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

"Keir! You've got to hear this! They're chanting your name – I mean, they're actually *singing* your name! I couldn't believe it, it's just like when they used to... oh, wait... No, it turns out I got the wrong end of the stick. Never mind."

a chant heard at almost any protest of any political persuasion in 2026: the reliable "Keir Starmer's a wanker," to the tune of "Seven Nation Army".

020

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

(What it says about the state of the party is "nothing good".)

Keir Starmer was not the start of something new but the resumption of a long history of decline - decline in the sheer capacity of a certain kind of Labour politics to understand the world and act on it, as well as decline in popular support for the party. The local election results demonstrate how far the second of these has gone; McKinnell's letter, the first.

000

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

OK, I did *not* see that one coming.

140

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

But they've done it in such a way that nobody notices, including having train operating companies launch new advertising campaigns after being renationalised. Can't get called socialists for nationalising rail if nobody knows you've nationalised rail!

230

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

Also, this is just incorrect. Corbyn highlighted precisely this at the same time that he was criticising the rush to judgment over the Salisbury attack (which should have put to rest the idea he had any Russian sympathies).

020

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

And I mean, come on. I'm in Manchester, and even I think the Fylde coast is pretty close to Merseyside. Enough vibes-based geography!

180

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

“See that new Stockport-set fantasy series? You know, Tales of the Underbamk?” - Are you sure about this? “Yeah, I took a picture!”

010

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Better have a word with the OED.

030