Christopher O'Neil

bohemian layabout. relentless dilettante. live and love to Laugh Knowingly. class reductionist. nothing human is alien to me. workin' things out.

[Christopher O'Neil @Chris24_Oneil]

@DouglasBeattie4 Walking past the portraits in No10, McTague discovers that Wilson—supposedly Starmer's political hero—was just his answer when told he couldn’t pick Attlee.

https://t.co/Ck2OIcS3f4

Burnham’s genuflection to Wilson is intriguing, but I suspect Andy has a better answer than Keir.

[Christopher O'Neil @Chris24_Oneil]

@NicolasDVillar1 Please do. DMs open

[Colin Millar @Millar_Colin]

Norway the model football nation in Europe right now. Nation of 5.6million into World Cup quarter-finals while Bodo-Glimt - town of 55k - beat Man City, Atleti, Inter x2 on way to UCL last-16. Bodo aren't even the Norwegian champs or current league leaders. Squads 90% homegrown.

[Sean McDonald @seanmcdonald01]

Grateful for the highs and the memories, and grateful that he’s made the right call at the right time.

Good luck to him in the future, and thanks for the amazing nights. Over to the SFA to make the best appointment they can.

[Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs]

The battle for Britain’s future hinges on Ed Miliband becoming chancellor.

Against Miliband: big business, large industrial unions and the press.

For Miliband: Unison, Britain’s biggest union, and the wonkier side of left-wing intellectuals (myself included).

[Herald Sport @HeraldSportScot]

Martin O'Neill has agreed to become Celtic's manager on a permanent basis, following talks with Dermot Desmond in London.

The 74-year-old will sign a one-year contract, with the option of a further year.

✍️ Exclusive from @mcgowan_stephen.

🔗https://t.co/WtwPjMhRXW

[Despotic Inroad @DespoticInroad]

V popular argument on the Right that our current problems are the result of ~statism/~socialism, & that the market-liberal reforms of the last ~half century were a mirage (contradicting Thatcher's own claim that her greatest achievement was Tony Blair/New Labour, because they ~continued much of her legacy).

Here's a reminder of what the state used to do in the pre-Thatcherite era:
👉Own/run water, gas, electricity, railway companies as nationalised public monopolies (all sold off in '80s/'90s, often to foreign states, sovereign wealth, PE funds etc.)
👉Own/run municipal bus companies, coal mines, airlines, car factories, steelworks, telecommunications, shipbuilders & much else besides (all privatised in '80s/'90s, many mothballed entirely)
👉Build ~50-100k municipal homes/yr & impose rent controls on the PRS (social housebuilding, and ALL housebuilding, is now a tiny fraction of the post-war peak, millions of units have been privatised under R2B, rent controls were lifted in '88, & the Housing Benefit Bill exploded)
👉Impose strict controls on Forex & the export of capital abroad (controls lifted in 1979 & never re-imposed)
👉Have full employment as consensus policy aim & an attempt to control incomes & prices through Pay Boards/Price Commissions + corporatist relationship with trade unions (all abolished, with trade unions slowly emasculated, & with out-of-work/sickness & disability benefits bill exploding)
👉Impose punitive taxes (of 80/90%+) on high/"unearned" incomes
👉Spend ~5% of GDP on public capital investment/fixed capital formation (collapsing to ~1-2% in Thatcherite decade, where it has hovered around since)

Britain's pre-Thatcherite political economy had levels of state involvement in PRODUCTION + NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT + the MANAGEMENT/DIRECTION of capital (not simply redistribution + regulation, as today), that are unimaginable nowadays.

Many of the phenomena Ben describes below have little to do with anything approaching a social-democratic political economy – the "massive taxes" (relative to GDP) are largely a function of demographics, common across the developed world (even though our base rate/higher rate/additional rate are MUCH lower than they once were). The regulatory regime in water, energy etc. is a product of privatisation itself. And what we're seeing on stuff like the Renters'/Employment Rights Acts, energy subsidies, judicial rulings on pay via Equalities Act, minimum wage etc. is an attempt by legislators to perform a kind of post-hoc, bureaucratic, progressive distributional correction to the outcomes of a growth model still based on private ownership of core sectors, poor collective bargaining, low levels of public investment, outsourcing, PFI/PPP, globalisation/import dependency, financialisation, with the state desperately facilitating continued FDI etc. etc. rather than altering the growth model itself (which has been broken since 2008).

[Jonathan Shainin @jonathanshainin]

Truly brutal obituary for the Starmer project from one of Britain’s great living historians, David Edgerton

[Marl Karx @BareLeft]

Ultimately, there is no amount of facts, logic, rebuttals, statistics, or graphs that can truly counteract a paid agitator snorting a line of coke backstage before lying to a crowd of people who want to be lied to so very much.

[Celtic Football Club @CelticFC]

🤯

[Scottish Labour @ScottishLabour]

Congratulations @PaulJSweeney on becoming the Scottish Labour MSP for Glasgow!

[a rare photo of sean connery signed by roger moore @steamedhamms]

you can basically disregard any commentator who doesn’t understand the below

[Clare Hinchcliffe @Subversivite]

I'm reluctantly posting on X again because the world needs to read this.

My daughter Zoe Rogers gave her own closing speech at the Filton trial, as did 4 other defendants, while their barristers looked on.

This is what she said 🧵 1/

[a rare photo of sean connery signed by roger moore @steamedhamms]

there’s a risk of getting overexcited on burnham for sure but also… can anybody genuinely think of a politician in the country who has handled this kind of confrontation better?

[New Left EViews @NewLeftEViews]

A hero of the enlightenment and civilised humanity. We will name streets after her and build statues in her honour.

[The Herald @heraldscotland]

Since their founding in 1920, St Roch’s have been much more than a football club 👇

[Vicky Spratt @Victoria_Spratt]

A welfare state and pensions time bomb is coming because we aren’t having enough children

But nobody in power seems interested in supporting younger adults - who can’t afford family-sized homes and have big student loans

My latest column @theipaper

https://t.co/DUab81AgL7

[Kieran Cunningham @KCsixtyseven]

Sally Rooney on Mo Salah.
From The Guardian in 2017.

[UranianOctober @UranianOctober]

Doing the soy ameribrained war porn for a conflict you simultaneously insist we're totally neutral in is pretty emblematic of Starmerism. Confused, unconvincing to either side and contemptuous to the public's intelligence