Robert Saunders(@redhistorian) 's Twitter Profileg
Robert Saunders

@redhistorian

Author of "Yes to Europe! The 1975 Referendum & Seventies Britain". "A jaw-dislocating page turner"(Andrew Marr). Co-director @MileEndInst, Reader @QMHistory

ID:1363949995

linkhttp://gladstonediaries.blogspot.co.uk calendar_today19-04-2013 08:49:16

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Robert Saunders(@redhistorian) 's Twitter Profile Photo

It's one thing to call an election after a No Confidence vote in Parlt, when your party's lost its majority.

It makes no sense to do it after losing your own MPs. Voting Tory would mean reelecting those who voted to oust the PM. It would be their mandate that was renewed,not his

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Peter Geoghegan @ democracyforsale.substack(@PeterKGeoghegan) 's Twitter Profile Photo

£25m in UK political donations in last quarter.

£15m to Tories alone.

Electoral Commission warning starkly today that Britain needs new laws to stop dark money.

Conservative government's response? Make dark money even easier.

We're in a v bad place

democracyforsale.substack.com/p/revealed-bri…

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Robert Saunders(@redhistorian) 's Twitter Profile Photo

An extraordinary stat, that points to a fundamental democratic problem.

A collapsing Tory party on its 3rd PM in 18 months, engulfed in civil war, can still pull in 5x as much cash as Labour.

Over 2023 it's 2.5x as much. Victorians called this 'plutocracy acting on democracy'.

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Dr Alice Lilly(@aliceolilly) 's Twitter Profile Photo

Presumably the emphasis on the importance of parliamentary sovereignty means that both Houses will be given ample time to properly scrutinise legislation put before it

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Robert Saunders(@redhistorian) 's Twitter Profile Photo

The Tory party is stuck in a doom-loop of simplism, arsonism & conspiratorialism.

The failure of simplistic responses to complex problems can only be explained by spinelessness or sabotage.

So every failure fuels more demands for destruction: of laws, leaders & limits on power.

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Robert Saunders(@redhistorian) 's Twitter Profile Photo

Given the bitter divisions within the Conservative party - let alone the Commons - over the Rwanda Bill, there can be no case for trying to ram it through as emergency legislation without proper debate.

There's no agreement even on what the bill does, let alone what it should do

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Robert Saunders(@redhistorian) 's Twitter Profile Photo

Train announcer: 'We're leaving the station on time, which I appreciate is a novelty for many of you this week...'

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Robert Saunders(@redhistorian) 's Twitter Profile Photo

Apologies come in many different forms, & it sounds like today we're going to get 'the Johnson':
- Apologise 'unreservedly' for the way some people feel;
- Refuse to accept you got anything wrong;
- Blame everyone else;
- Declare the matter 'closed', so the country can 'move on'.

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Robert Saunders(@redhistorian) 's Twitter Profile Photo

At its best, our campus is a place where people of different backgrounds, ethnicities & religions live, learn & build friendships together.

That's more important than ever today, so there can be no excuse for these antisemitic incidents. We must do better
thetimes.co.uk/article/jewish…

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Robert Saunders(@redhistorian) 's Twitter Profile Photo

It speaks volumes for the problems with British public debate that this speech will be largely ignored, while one sentence - literally one sentence - mentioning Margaret Thatcher in Starmer's recent Telegraph article triggered acres of frenzied comment and analysis.

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Glen O'Hara(@gsoh31) 's Twitter Profile Photo

Been receiving messages all weekend from uni colleagues, and have to say that the situation in Higher Ed is worse than even I thought. The megacrisis will really begin to hit in the spring and through the summer, just in time for Labour to take office...
wonkhe.com/wonk-corner/20…

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Robert Saunders(@redhistorian) 's Twitter Profile Photo

So much of British politics is like this: ministers advocating policies they don't believe in, which they know won't work, in a hopeless bid to pacify their critics on the right.

The only effect of which is to amplify the demand, while doing nothing to satisfy it.

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Ruth Fox(@RuthFox01) 's Twitter Profile Photo

🧵I despair that the political editor of a major news channel thinks these ‘radical solutions’ are the answer to the problems at the heart of our political & parliamentary system. Where to start…..1/

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Tides of History(@labour_history) 's Twitter Profile Photo

'We are each other's best friends, and that friendship is the most important part of our marriage. It's never been a matter of one dominating the other'.

Glenys Kinnock during the 1992 General Election campaign - The Independent.

'We are each other's best friends, and that friendship is the most important part of our marriage. It's never been a matter of one dominating the other'. Glenys Kinnock during the 1992 General Election campaign - The Independent.
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David Anderson(@bricksilk) 's Twitter Profile Photo

Think about this - 156 PAGES of new law without pre-legislative or Commons scrutiny. House of Lords will do its best as always but this sort of behaviour treats Parliament with contempt … /1

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Robert Saunders(@redhistorian) 's Twitter Profile Photo

'The picture she paints of Britain’s Greatest Ever Leader is of a gullible man easily pushed into bad decisions by the wicked advisors he’d been so easily prodded into appointing. In desperately trying to scrub away Johnson’s guilt, Dorries has removed his agency'.

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