David Skelton 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦

Author of 'The New Snobbery' & Little Platoons, Partner Flint Global, Advisory board @ukonward, North Easterner, SAFC, Durham CCC, racing, cricket, darts.

[David Skelton 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦 @DJSkelton]

My new book 'The New Snobbery' is published today. You can buy it on Amazon here: https://t.co/LJ61Zq1ejQ

[David Skelton 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦 @DJSkelton]

@MKnelmes It definitely felt that way at 55-5!! Thank goodness for Brook.

[David Skelton 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦 @DJSkelton]

A shocker of a batting display so far.

[Will Macpherson @willis_macp]

A piece about Test cricket being off free to air TV for 20 years in the UK. A contentious deal that remains a very raw topic for many https://t.co/WqLKwEK5Bl

[David Skelton 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦 @DJSkelton]

@HarryStewartMo1 It was nowhere near as bad in 1994 if I remember correctly.

[James @jhallwood]

Maybe the collective term for ex PMs should be: A Rare Intervention of Former Prime Ministers.

[David Skelton 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦 @DJSkelton]

New piece for @unherd - The elections symbolised the political transformation of former citadels of Labourism, first Durham, now Barnsley. Failure and decline of Labourism long left a political void, which can be replaced with a focus on industry, resilience and economic renewal.

[UnHerd @unherd]

Labourism isn’t working, by David Skelton (@DJSkelton)

At its peak, labourism was not merely a political identity but a complete social world. The pit or the steelworks provided the work, but the union, the cooperative and the chapel provided so much more.

Miners’ institutes housed libraries stocked with improving literature. Choral societies and cricket clubs gave leisure its shape. The workplace was not just where you earned your living — but the hub around which an entire network of community institutions revolved.

To be working class in Durham or Barnsley was not simply an economic condition, but an identity, a set of loyalties. Together, it encompassed, in David Marquand’s memorable phrase, a civilisation as much as a politics.

Read more below ⬇️
https://t.co/L8p6clnoPF

[David Skelton 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦 @DJSkelton]

Blair might not be providing the right answers. But, unlike most of our political class, he’s at least asking the right questions. It’s a fascinating piece.

[Historic Cricket Pictures @PictureSporting]

Crowds snake down the Wellington Road waiting to get in to Lord's on the first day of the 2nd Ashes Test, June 24th 1948 (C)

[Henry Winter @henrywinter]

... but surely the best value-for-money, most impactful signing is Granit Xhaka, Sunderland’s £13m recruit from Bayer Leverkusen. Instant authority. Assists. Led Sunderland to seventh. Column. 2/2 #SAFC https://t.co/rLtcRsIEin

[Richard Jones @RichardALJones]

A good FT piece from Martin Wolf arguing, rightly imv, that at root of UK's political woes is a 20 yr long slowdown in productivity growth
"a good economy — one with widely shared economic growth — is a necessary condition for political stability in a liberal democracy"...

[David Skelton 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦 @DJSkelton]

@JamesHarrisNow US-UK free movement would be madness. Can definitely get behind CANZUK though. Agreed about the need to build a constituency of support amongst younger voters.

[David Skelton 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦 @DJSkelton]

@jhallwood @LaurenMaeve Bravo!

[David Skelton 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦 @DJSkelton]

@residentadviser Very true. Polls on election day gave labour a lead too. Fast forward two years and I spoke to Tories on election day in 2017 who assumed they’d win a thumping majority.

[Mark Douglas @MsiDouglas]

🚨 Inside the greatest final day of #safc modern era.

🔴 Regis Le Bris has to be manager of the year 🏆
⚪️ Loudest I've ever heard the Stadium of Light 🏟
🔴 A new blueprint for promoted teams 🆙️

Free to read 👇
https://t.co/Rraclw4awx

[David Skelton 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦 @DJSkelton]

@holland_tom As was famously written (I think in the Yorkshire Post) about the proposal to put a time limit on test matches: “that way lies Bolshevism.”

[David Skelton 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦 @DJSkelton]

@lewis_goodall Tories got 35% in 2019. Not enough has been written about how their failure to deliver that manifesto massively narrowed their electoral coalition and accelerated the right realignment.

[David Skelton 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦 @DJSkelton]

Looking even more fascinating now. Tories on 2%. They got 35% in 2019.

[GB Politics @GBPolitcs]

🚨BREAKING: The first Makerfield by-election poll has been released

🌹 LAB: 43%
➡️ REF: 40%
🇬🇧 RST: 7%
🔸 LDM: 4%
🌍 GRN: 3%
🌳 CON: 2%

[@Survation]

[Philip West @Philip_RJ89]

“Remember that big Mag carthorse I nutmegged in the derby and turned into a disco dancer? Thomas Tuchel thinks he’s a World Cup-level footballer.”

[David Skelton 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦 @DJSkelton]

This sounds a lot like Tory advisers thinking that history somehow repeats itself in monochrome loops. Much to criticise Burnham about but he clearly much more experience at national/ cabinet level than Boris had. And this is a bit like Tory advisers making it all about them.

[Christopher Hope📝 @christopherhope]

"Conservative advisers are shocked that Labour are repeating their mistakes, believing that a metro mayor who is great at solving local issues can do the same nationally, despite those problems often being entrenched in areas for decades.
"Mr Burnham has many of Boris Johnson’s characteristics. A metro mayor, not fully tested at national level, offering "Manchesterism" as solutions for the nation, which sounds an awful lot like levelling up 2.0."

[The Athletic | Football @TheAthleticFC]

𝗣𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗶𝗲𝗿 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗴𝘂𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗼𝗻

🥇 Regis Le Bris | Sunderland

“Newly-promoted teams are not supposed to reach the heights that Sunderland have hit this season.

“Le Bris has been the man to make it all possible.” - @PJBuckingham

#PL | #TAFCAwards26