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Professor Christopher Painter

@prfchrispainter.bsky.social
1.3K followers 832 following 866 posts

Politics and statecraft. Beware of blind alleys serving nefarious interests. Emeritus Professor, BCU. Posts in a personal capacity, as an academic and citizen.

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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 19h
UK political battle lines are now drawn. Burnham's intention to unpick Thatcherite neo-liberalism. Badenoch's Thatcherism on speed, rendering Cameron/Osborne's austerity seem like child play by comparison. Farage replicating the divisive chaos of Reform-controlled local councils on a national stage.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
We need to move on from the toxic politics of 'welfare', with its pejorative connotations of dependence (used to be known as social security!), to the politics of 'well-being', whereby everyone has a meaningful stake - and related opportunities - in the society to which they belong.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
A notable positive in Burnham's political narrative is weaving in notions around 'public good' and 'public purpose'. That focus is crucial if society is once again to work for the benefit of the majority - not just the few, whose privileges are unashamedly entrenched by the Right.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
There is no denying that Burnham's Conference speech was an accomplished performance. The challenge for him now is, having raised people's hopes, not dashing the high expectations thereby created, whilst dancing on a fiscal pinhead.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Autocrats have no interest science (except where it promises to further entrench their power); no interest in truth; and no interest in humanity. That's why each one is ultimately doomed to fail. The more invincible they feel the more vulnerable they become.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Trump doesn't understand economics. He doesn't grasp climate science. Nor does he even comprehend medical science. He's hopeless with statecraft on the international stage. His obvious shortcomings on human intelligence means he's ill-equipped to deal with pros and cons of artifical intelligence.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Obscene concentrations of wealth are threatening the very fabric of our societies. It's essential that these runaway levels of inequality rise to the top of the politcal agenda, if any kind of stable equilibrium is to be re-established. www.theguardian.com/inequality/2...
theguardian.com
Global leaders urged to join initiative to fight extreme inequality
More than 1,500 academics and economists sign letter, calling growing gap between richest and poorest ‘a policy choice that can be reversed’
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
The sinister impact - every which way - of the mega-rich on the very foundations of democracy. Countervailing pressures and powers urgently required. Elon Musk is a bigger threat to British democracy than crypto billionaires observer.co.uk/news/politic...
observer.co.uk
Elon Musk is a bigger threat to British democracy than cr...
The foreign-based tech mogul is using the X algorithm to influence British politics in more sinister ways than the £72m given to Reform last week
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Trump's words carry little meaning any more. So many empty threats confounded by events. A President living off vacuous rhetoric rather than grounded in the real world. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/s...
theguardian.com
Trump calls EU offer to Canada of associate membership ‘laughable’, while threatening tariffs
US president warns over ‘hostile act’, as Canada seeks to move closer to the EU and diversify its defence ties
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
'constitutional'
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Far from Making America Great Again, Trump provides an exemplar of the strategic folly invariably accompanying unchecked power. The United States - and rest of us - are paying a heavy price for the abandonment of virtually every constititional principle that underpinned the American Republic.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Trump is an utter fool, convinced the only valid repository of knowledge lies in his gut and totally incapable of absorbing actual evidence. BBC News - www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cm... Trump criticises AI boss who called for slowdown and says only guardrail needed is a 'smart president' - BBC News
bbc.co.uk
Trump criticises AI boss who called for slowdown and says only guardrail needed is a 'smart president'
Stock markets fall in the US, Europe and Asia as Anthropic boss Dario Amodei says AI development should be slowed "to reduce the risk that something goes seriously wrong".
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Other loopholes exploited by billionaires need to also be closed.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Democracy for sale! Burnham urgently has to get his act together on capping political donations. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
theguardian.com
Christopher Harborne matches £36m Reform donation of Ben Delo
Party leader, Nigel Farage, ‘humbled’ by contributions from billionaires as Harborne addresses ‘media speculation’
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
The company Trump is in speaks volumes!
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Quite apart from the fact that no one can believe a word Trump says, any blatant attempt by him to bribe American voters for the mid-terms will be more than offset by the inflationary effects - reflected in prices and interest rates - of his reckless domestic policies and foreign adventures.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
As expensive, disrupted and extraordinarily damaging fossil fuels are eclipsed by renewable sources of energy, Trump celebrates a neo-colonial deal to access Venezuelan oil and gas (which will take some years to come to fruition). Nothing spells political dinosaur more than this foolhardy obsession!
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Something both Trump and Putin need to get into their stubborn heads. You cannot simply bully other countries into doing your bidding!
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Conflicts and disputes in which Trump is involved - Gaza, Iran, tariffs - are never resolved. They continue to fester. Confrontation rather than conciliation is his default position. Where decisive intervention would make a difference, he's a pussy to malign autocrats or never-ending war merchants.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Yet more lives lost because of the total irresponsibility of social media platforms and their owners. This posting anarchy simply cannot be allowed to carry on. BBC News - UK minister urges social media firms to remove dangerous driving videos www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
UK minister urges social media firms to remove dangerous driving videos
Defence minister Luke Pollard says "there's no place" for social media trend showing people driving the wrong way down roads.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Commission an immediate public inquiry to ensure we never see a tragic death like Dr Arday's again. goodlawproject.org/s/abb8a1
goodlawproject.org
Jason Arday: Demand a public inquiry now | Good Law Project
Commission an immediate public inquiry into how to ensure a responsible press given its contribution to Dr Arday’s tragic death.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
So many recent problems are due to disregard for mainstream scientific, economic and diplomatic advice: austerity; Brexit; a botched Covid pandemic; climate emergency; and strategically catastrophic wars. Special interests or political hubris have prevailed. Trump has epitomised this new Dark Age.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
The theory that Great Powers can impose their will on others with impunity in the context of a collapsing international order is starting to look seriously suspect, what with Russia's gridlock in Ukraine and Trump's strategic humiliation in Iran.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Re-watched Oscar-winning film, The Deer Hunter. How the Vietnam war tore apart the lives of a friendship group; indeed a war tearing apart American society. Fast forward to 2026. Not only do we have a President who was a draft dodger at that time, but has torn US society apart all over again.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Putin has calculated that time is on his side in Ukraine. Ukraine's allies need to ensure instead that, as time goes by, Putin's terrorist state becomes progressively more vulnerable. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...
theguardian.com
Nato to ‘urgently’ get air defences for Ukraine, as Zelenskyy warns of surge in Russian missile production
After Ukraine failed to shoot down a single ballistic missile fired by Russia on Wednesday, the president urged allies to increase supplies of Patriot interceptors
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
This is not 'pragmatism'. It is gross irresponsibility in view of the extreme weather events of this Summer. It will merely add to the net global sum of carbon emissions, when the imperative is to do exactly the opposite. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
Burnham promises ‘pragmatic’ approach to North Sea oil and gas
PM tells reporters the government cannot ignore the energy resource ‘when people are struggling’
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Political bounces these days two a penny. What that suggests is voters are attracted to novelty, looking for immediate outcomes well nigh impossible to deliver, given prevailing financial and geopolitical realities. Marginal resource shifts are no substitute for longer-term structural reforms.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Starmer got it right on Ukraine; Trump fundamentally mis-read the omens. Starmer got it right on Iran; Trump, by contrast, sinking in a quagmire of forever Middle East wars.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Something to bear in mind as mini-Trump Farage desperately tries to distract from his own financial scandals, emulating the Trump trajectory of exploiting public office for self-enrichment.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Everything touched by 2nd Trump presidency has proved a fiasco: DOGE: ICE; tariff policy; fossil fuels; undermined confidence in vaccines; cultural dumbing down; alienated allies; claiming Ukraine had no cards to play; Middle East intervention; Board of Peace; and corrupting FIFA World Cup rules.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
So it does - but, hey, you have to start somewhere!
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
(1) Disregard for civilian life turns into a recruiting bonanza for adversaries. (2) Strategic blunders merely embolden enemies.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
The agency-structure debate all over again.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
The world will only become a safer place once Netanyahu, Putin and Trump have all been removed from office. They are looking politically vulnerable, because of the impact on themselves, but also on each other, of their respective strategic military follies.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
A fly on the wall insight on just one dimension of the fractured world in which Starmer had to try to effectively operate: Trump's White House cesspit. Shocking, even withstanding all that we already know. Tina Brown on Trump’s second term observer.co.uk/culture/book...
observer.co.uk
Tina Brown on Trump’s second term | The Observer
The former New Yorker editor reads the definitive account of how the 47th president learned to govern on impulse, greed and revenge
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
Good to see a front-line commentator pouring cold water on the fatally flawed idea of a Burnham coronation. Remember Gordon! Why Labour should take a beat before parachuting in Andy Burnham observer.co.uk/news/columni...
observer.co.uk
Remember Gordon! Why Labour should take a beat before par...
There are considerable risks to installing the new MP for Makerfield at Number 10 without a searching test of his mettle
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
Very much the leading example.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
Precedents suggest those constantly on manoeuvres to occupy the highest political office in the land rarely turn out to be the national saviours they perceive themselves to be.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
I think the magic is wearing thin, Dianne.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Netanyahu will do his best to undermine it. But even more than that, is the memorandum of understanding tantamount to capitulation on Trump's part?
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
It's now becoming abundantly clear not only that Trump's intervention in the Middle East turned out to be an embarrassing strategic calamity for the United States, but also that Trump is losing his bet on Putin having the stronger hand in Ukraine.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
A very welcome piece demonstrating how far-right culture war claims are driven by ideology not evidence. The real threat to civilisation is when we allow these ideologues to erase the truth. observer.co.uk/news/politic...
observer.co.uk
‘Two-tier Britain’? The reality is far more complicated t...
The idea of “two-tier” public services has been weaponised by right-wingers wanting to whip up “pure cold rage” against immigrants, but in so many areas the concept simply does not stand up to scrutin...
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Badenoch chasing Farage; Farage chasing Lowe; Lowe chasing Robinson. All chasing one another in a downward, self-defeating and ugly spiral.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
The D-Day landings were infinitely more successful than the debaclè over which Hegseth has presided in the Middle East! BBC News - Hegseth attacks Europe over migration with beach 'invasion' D-Day speech www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Hegseth attacks Europe over migration with beach 'invasion' D-Day speech
The US defence secretary was speaking in Normandy, 82 years after allied forces launched their operation to liberate Nazi-occupied north-western Europe.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
It's the crypto millions.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Except, the more Trump messes up...
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Possible to be a bad as well as good influence. Same could be said of Trump. Look where that's landed the States!
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Farage has done untold damage to the British economy by being instrumental in Brexit; enormous damage to British society by inflaming ethnic tensions; and incalculable damage to the probity of British politics by countenancing obscene levels of funding from disreputable sources.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Trump badly miscalculated over Iran. Looks like same may apply by cosying up to Putin over Ukraine. Despite continuing deadly bombardments, aerial attacks against determined adversaries cannot compensate for lack of success in a ground campaign. It's Putin who is increasingly the desperate one.
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Professor Christopher Painter @prfchrispainter.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
If Burnham finds his way into Downing Street then, yes, there is a high probability that Labour will revert to its comfort zone. It doesn't take too much imagination - or advice from former Prime Ministers - to work out the likely consequences of that for general election outcomes.
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