'The ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently.' — David Graeber
Joined July 2015
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This from @ZackPolanski is essential.
Labour will fail to deal with the housing crisis because they don't understand what caused it.
The rapid increase in house prices under New Labour is not talked about enough. Growth by unsustainable private debt: a disaster for society.
Well put from Jamie Driscoll here.
Here is my suggestion of a Cabinet in Preparation, and ideas about how to upgrade internal direct democracy, from earlier this year:
medium.com/@dodo-levin/ready…
'The problem is Zack's carrying so much on his shoulders.'
Green Party councillor @JamieDriscollNE examines the current state of his party and its leader.
@TomSwarbrick1
For clarity: I have been proposing democratic reform of the Green Party for a number of months.
My primary concern is the empowerment of the grassroots and the depth of collective decison-making.
The current system is not fit for purpose.
There are many reasons so few countries have adopted STV for national elections.
The first is that the level of proportionality is in fact not known. This is because there is no direct vote for parties to compare.
There must be a list system element in a proportional system.
Great to see a letter by our activist Michael Bursill published in the Guardian 👏👏👏
"If Andy Burnham is as good as his word to date, he will set up a National Commission on Electoral Reform." 🤞
theguardian.com/politics/202…
We do not want to end up with a situation where votes are counted more fairly but elections cease to matter.
If constitutional change can happen without the consent of the people democracy itself is vulnerable.
A new democratic era cannot begin through undemocratic means.
I'd love PR to happen before the next general election but I also believe constitutional change should only happen with the consent of the people & through direct democracy.
New Zealand have shown us the correct way to move away from First Past the Post. Let's do it properly.
A wonderful summary of our current political system.
We will need a proportional list element to fix this.
We also need to develop the concept of a mandate. If it’s not in the manifesto, power must go back to the people and ask for their consent.
Alternatively: power should not be able to avoid scrutiny.
The most powerful position in the UK could be handed over to someone who has only won a constituency election.
A new vision is being drawn up, yet no election has been called. Burnham's Labour should go to the people.
Every single major broadcast news bulletin, BBC, ITV, Sky GBN, I could go on, has led with Andy Burnham's key messages - the decision not to take questions totally vindicated as millions have seen his message and not the usual Punch and Judy show about "who will be Chancellor..." Really important learnings.
I have to agree with this. So many questions need asking: What powers? At which level? Why?
A nation can be cut into regions, and regions can be cut into more localities, and those localities can be divided again.
But global and national power exists.
medium.com/@dodo-levin/lets-…
"For all the soaring rhetoric about putting 'hope in every heart', it lacked one important thing: an explanation of how it will all work in practice.
"Burnham failed to explain how putting more power in the hands of local politicians rather than those in Whitehall will magically improve the lives of everyone in the country.
"It was therefore unfortunate, to put it mildly, that the many journalists who had been invited to watch the speech were not then given the opportunity to ask him questions about it.
"Because let’s not forget, this is a man who was not even an MP a month ago, and yet stands on the threshold of assuming the highest office in the land without even having to go to the trouble of winning a leadership contest, let alone a general election."
huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/a…
We need a binding treaty on climate action with economic reward for nations that lead and economic consequence for nations that fail their responsibility.
Unilateral action will not save us. We only get there with international co-operation and co-ordination.
Let's go again.
It is the most consequential by-election in modern history and so we must ask: how have we found ourselves in the situation where a by-election has so much impact on the future of the UK.
The issue of democratic legitimacy is a serious one. General elections must carry meaning.
The Makerfield by-election is the most consequential in modern history. It’s likely to be a sliding doors moment for both Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham depending on the result.
-In public, Starmer is determined to fight on. Friends describe him privately as “sulphurous” about both challengers - Andy Burnham and former health secretary Wes Streeting – the men his allies blames for destabilising his premiership. Some in his inner circle are privately scathing about both and believe Starmer is a better Prime Minister than either of them would be.
-But some in the Cabinet suspect Starmer’s defiance is theatre - that he is saying only what he must, with no incentive to concede before the result is known, in case of a seismic upset no one has anticipated.
-According to one Cabinet minister, there have already been quiet discussions about how Starmer might make a dignified exit, and he is said to be markedly less forceful about fighting on in private than in public.
-What will follow the by-election is not one obvious path for both men, but a set of scenarios Westminster has been quietly war-gaming for weeks.
-A Burnham victory does not crown him; it merely fires the starting gun on his march towards power. It is also not necessarily fatal for Starmer; but would dramatically shorten the odds of his survival.
Here are the scenarios that could play out.
'The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself.' — Franklin D. Roosevelt
Elon Musk is now a trillionaire.
A world of trillionaires is, simultaneously, one where the middle class collapses. Anyone informed on the issue knows as much, but few are willing to accept what that ultimately means - and where we end up.
unherd.com/2026/06/the-right…
'Labour insisted that tuition fees would be kept free. Just weeks before polling day, Tony Blair said: “Labour has no plans to introduce tuition fees for higher education...
But just two months after becoming prime minister, Blair went ahead and introduced tuition fees.'
This insight by MacDonald is absolutely correct. PR removes the sense of a governing mandate. The governing programme is decided after the election, by which point voters have been removed from the equation.
While of course under FPTP governments may try to do the same, the political costs are higher because of the expectation that they were elected to govern on the basis of a set of manifesto promises made before the election to the voters.
Another panel that raises serious questions of @bbcquestiontime.
And when is the Question Time special on electoral reform coming?
Do we really want to elect another government on little more than a third of the vote? It could, of course, be less next time.
Let's remember that Corbyn held Makerfield in 2019. Furthermore, in 2024 the Labour Party total was greater than the combined Tory and Reform total.
The combined Reform and Restore total will indicate the strength of a co-ordinated right.
Graph of Makerfield 24 below.
Amazing that the right has been able to launch two new parties successfully while the left hasn’t been able to manage one.
The Labour brand is weak even with Burnham. The key question to be asked after Makerfield: what happens in a FPTP election if the right consolidate?
Much more attention is needed on the inevitable arrival of El Niño.
An information campaign is needed to inform the public about what El Niño is and what it will mean for global temperatures in the short and long term.
@TheGreenParty @ZackPolanski
It's surely time to begin talking about the coming El Niño.
@TheGreenParty
Chances are rising that an El Niño expected to form soon could become one of the most powerful such events on record, according to new data.
El Niño patterns are correlated with food shortages, water impacts and even civil conflict: wapo.st/49yLAQS