Mike Slaven
Author of "Securing Borders, Securing Power" (Columbia UP, 2022) tinyurl.com/yeywvdaa Doing migration politics/policy research, currently @colmigproject.bsky.social. Political speechwriter of yore. Obscure academic in provincial England, AZ guy 🌵
- When historians write about Starmer, they’ll say he lacked a clear political programme as well as political experience and judgment, relying on bad advice from very factional aides. And that this had become apparent long before Labour MPs pulled the plug in him as the most unpopular PM ever polled
- British political media is the Kate vs. Meghan avocado incident all the way down. Ideological allies (Mandelson and anyone to the right) are treated deferentially as presumptively legitimate, and if there are questions, "hmm someone should look into that." Everyone else exposed to maximal hostility.
- The British political media just doesn't do "exposing" of the groups or individuals within the circle of people that lobby journalist culture regards as presumptively legitimate, the Labour right being one. It is all cosy relationships. Instead it does hounding of those outside the circle.
- A better starting point than I expected them to come up with TBQH.
- There are reasons to cut down on this policy (waste is one) but the Home Secretary is basically telling the public that asylum seekers are drawn to the UK so they can take taxis from where they have been forced to live to where their GP is, 250 miles away. The dishonesty at this stage is gratuitous.
- An abhorrent policy which inevitably leads to people seeking asylum being denied necessary medical support. People seeking asylum don't receive enough financial support to pay for taxis, or often public transport, themselves, but still need to travel to appointments 1/ www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
- These taxi journeys come from the Home Office relocating asylum seekers far away from where they've accessed care, then having to go for follow up appointments to their original providers and having no money of their own to pay for transport. This is rebranded for the public as frivolous consumption
- An abhorrent policy which inevitably leads to people seeking asylum being denied necessary medical support. People seeking asylum don't receive enough financial support to pay for taxis, or often public transport, themselves, but still need to travel to appointments 1/ www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
- There are many problems here for the HO to sort out and the taxis are the symptom rather than the cause.
- I've lost count over things that Labour MPs say has doomed Starmer. I'll believe it when they get their act together and get rid of him www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
- Historically, when UK governments have made major changes to immigration policy they have tried to ensure it would not affect people already here. Good that Labour MPs are standing up to plans to retrospectively apply new ILR rules. @tonyvaughanmp.bsky.social made a very fine speech on this.
- To be clear, this is entirely motivated by responding to far-right charges that the Johnson governments let in too many non-white people and they should not be allowed to stay. The minister is dressig it up with a welfare argument when a huge number of them work in the welfare state!
- Archive link to the story. Obviously huge problems arose eventually with "don't retrospectively apply new rules" when it comes to the Windrush Scandal. But the intention of Parliament was clearly that the 1971 Act would not change the status of people already in the UK. archive.ph/2026.02.03-2...
- This brewing rebellion addresses a major mistake by the government that @emile-chabal.bsky.social and I wrote about in @foreignpolicy.com. But raising the profile of this issue the govt has opened the way for the right parties to promote even more damaging policies. foreignpolicy.com/2025/11/05/b...
- So have the ICE/CBP tactics in Minnesota changed in the past few days? I have seen little commentary one way or the other recently. Anyone seen any reports?
- Should the people who gave Mandelson the ambassador to the US job be made to answer? It's fair I guess to not have known in 2024 the depths of his links to Epstein. The real problem is that he's been a known slimeball for three decades according to this Labour grandee, but kept getting big jobs!
- Even Maurice Glassman getting in on the reputation-massaging here. Modest proposal not to print retrospective "told you so" stuff about Mandelson if the source was too scared to say it publicly at the time
