Patrick Maguire
Chief political commentator, The Times
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- There's a name for this psychological phenomenon – the Baader-Meinhof effect!
- I spent today with Nigel Farage and watched Robert Jenrick’s rumoured defection become reality in the space of minutes, listening to a phone call from my vantage point in the back seat of a people carrier. Here’s how it happened. www.thetimes.com/article/12d3...
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- Millions of people in this country wouldn't be able to tell you who exactly Liz Truss is
- 99 per cent of analysis I’m reading about Zahawi is way too involved. To the extent people pay attention to this at all, it will be to note that Reform are doing well and hear someone else say Farage will/can be PM. Also: are Reform the same old Tories or something new and scary?
- Plus psephologically they surely need a bit of they-can’t-be-that-bad-he-used-to-be-chancellor-they’re-just-the-Tories-now-I-may-as-well-vote-for-him to grow beyond 30 per cent consistently
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- Stephen Flynn’s already done it. Keir Starmer’s PPS did it a few months ago too. As has his former political director. Polanski would be great!
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- Errrr... no. It's "oh dear" because this is a self-inflicted disaster for No 10, who assumed - wrongly - that this wasn't going to happen. If I thought what you think I thought, I'd just write it.
- I've gone completely insane. New Substack on – variously – Harry Enfield, Alan Bleasdale, Walter Greenwood, Dennis Potter, Jimmy Reid and Damian McBride. maguirepatrick.substack.com/p/in-defence...
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- This station is now managed by Great British Railways on behalf of the people
- New Substack: why Labour Together's membership survey matters. And how to define "helpful" maguirepatrick.substack.com/p/how-not-to...
- I've written a Substack about what I've been reading and writing recently – on the voters who make populism happen, and why Labour isn't speaking to them. maguirepatrick.substack.com/p/the-voters...
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- It's so good, isn't it? Beautifully written, often laugh-out-loud funny, and – while obviously sympathetic – never anything less than fair, and duly critical of his excesses. The Brinkley book I mention is more sceptical, as I say, but broadly concurs in how it assesses him.
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- I think at least some of it was conscious imitation of the man he still calls "Grandpa"
- New on my similarly new Substack: why Keir Starmer needs fat men around him, the person actually doing a good job inside No 10, and the best books on Brownism substack.com/home/post/p-...
- Column: not many people appreciate just how many Brownites there are at the top of this Labour government. But are they the right ones for a PM with his back to the wall? www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...
- I've joined Substack to share more thoughts on my reading, writing and thoughts on the history that helps explain our political moment. Subscribe here, if you like. substack.com/home/post/p-...
- Nigel Farage v Keir Starmer is the only game in town | ✍️ Patrick Maguire
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- State comprehensive actually, great guess, you muppet 👍🏻
- Nigel Farage is leading Labour round in circles www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...
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- Start taking the Beano if you don't like it pal
- Think this is absolutely true - so much is written about boys and Andrew Tate - Tate is more popular with grown men than boys!
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- Morgan McSweeney: - broke contact with “dismissive” Mandelson on Tuesday - resolved he should be sacked on after PMQs on Wednesday - then went to Brussels that evening - by the time he returned, his longtime friend and mentor was gone Full story in today’s Times: www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...
- Peter Mandelson and Keir Starmer: a sorry story that begins and ends with the incoherence of the prime minister’s political project www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...
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- Where's the propaganda
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- Cheers mate
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- I love the presumably unconscious Wodehouse tribute here. Cosy Moments cannot be muzzled!
- 👇Continually surprised at the number of British people on this website and indeed in British politics who haven’t grasped this.
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- It was literally the founding principle of the NHS after all…
- Column: Labour should beware Mums for Reform www.thetimes.com/article/160a...
- EXC: Ministers and civil servants are deliberately misleading the public with “false” and “unfounded” briefings about the Hillsborough Law, Andy Burnham tells The Times KC who wrote draft bill says officials are seeking to “subvert and destroy the entire process” www.thetimes.com/article/a220...
- Is Keir Starmer planning a progressive pivot? He made a class-conscious speech to cabinet last week. But the justice secretary asked whether Labour could really claim to represent the working class... ...and then his policy chief sketched out a tougher direction of travel.
- Full piece: www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...
- Column in this morning's Times: - How four MPs ended up without the Labour whip – and why No 10 wanted more - Shabana tells Keir: no point having a working class cabinet the working class hate - Liz Lloyd tells cabinet: social cohesion under threat due to migration www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...
- This guy
- Excellent piece by @patrickmaguire.bsky.social. Starmer is entering one of his 'hmm, things aren't working how they should' contemplative modes - will be big personnel changes in the coming weeks and months I think:
- Thank you boss 🫡
- It's quite remarkable that the elite of the British right has chosen *now* as the moment to go blood-and-soil. When the actual public have probably never been as un-racist as they are.
- Why would anyone think beating Farage meant being overtly racist when the first principle of Faragist politics is: emphasise you have no truck with overt racism
- Tomorrow’s Times column: - The key segments of the electorate in No 10’s new poll of trust in government - Farage planning a ‘Robin Hood’ intervention on the cost of living next Monday - What Orban’s aides have told Reform on welfare - Who’s debating a wealth tax? www.thetimes.com/article/eed0...
- EXC: Bank of England independence should be reviewed, say Reform www.thetimes.com/article/6f49...
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- Whereas when I was in Morpeth with Farage recently there was barely an empty shop in sight. And he was still mobbed.
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- Anderson getting suspended as a Labour councillor for dropping a boulder at the entrance to a traveller encampment in 2018 has to be one of the great butterfly effect moments of British politics this century
- What Southport Pier tells you about the new politics of this Labour government www.thetimes.com/article/df83...
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- No. You can’t have a journalist saying Farage is a Nazi because he obviously isn’t a Nazi.
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- This is not me saying what you said I “told you”, though, is it?
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- No I didn’t say this.
- So it turns out almost everyone was completely wrong in their analysis of Reform over the past 48 hours. So many nonsense assertions made without any evidence, largely because people can't, won't or don't want to understand that this isn't just Ukip again.
- Column: Reform have got this far on vibes alone and consciously reject SW1 convention. But Yusuf's resignation shows the limits of doing it differently. No wonder some close to Farage are talking about a new team... after tonight, they'll need one. www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...
- Misread to add Yusuf to long list of people who have fallen out with Farage. The real problem for Reform is that even in a party designed with zero meaningful provision for internal democracy, his chosen enforcer was incapable of running it without alienating everyone else.
- Separate but related: can I have some of what the people who think Reform are done are smoking please?
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- I have literally never described Nigel Farage as “a man of the people”, still less this morning. If you can’t acknowledge he’s a good communicator then I don’t really know what to say. And sorry, which funders and mentors are you talking about?
- Really odd way to talk about someone. Aren’t you a bit old to be carrying on like this?
- In this Saturday’s Times I interview Gary Lubner, Labour’s biggest donor, about politics, philanthropy, and the PM www.thetimes.com/article/6cda...
- Column in today's Times: how and why Rachel Reeves will use the spending review not just to cut, but to rewrite the Treasury's investment rules to build outside of London www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...
