Patrick Dunleavy

Out now & free to download by chapters or whole text, my @LSEPress book with Tim Monteath, Denisa Kostovicova and Hannah Boroudjou *Doing Open Social Science* press.lse.ac.uk/books/e/10.3... helps qualitative & quantitative researchers make their work more reproducible & robust

Useful from IFG www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/fisc...

So in 2019 IFG and the Blavatnik School in Oxford published a “study” concluding “UK comes top of the 2019 International Civil Service Effectiveness Index”. www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/article/comm.... But you were being secretly critical all along!

Israel is a death cult

'The Prime Minister is not prejudging anything' Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds speaks to #BBCBreakfast about Andy Burnham's call for 'an honest conversation' on whether to rejoin the EU's freedom of movement

#Tories When you're stashing away a six figure income (or more), maybe it doesn't matter but to the rest of us they make a difference! You fuckers got us into this mess. www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

New blog alert! @huwtlmac.bsky.social has written a blog summarising the findings from his new book on the wealth, power and elitism of the House of Lords, 'The Assetocracy'. The blog can be found here, with a link to order Huw's book: wp.me/pcjoA9-24e

The Lords Is full of spivs. “Since the arrival of the Conservative government in 2010, first in coalition and then ruling alone, the upper house has been filled with extraordinarily wealthy peers. A new economic elite has replaced the old aristocracy.” psaparliaments.org/2026/10/27/l...

My advice for Burnham’s first budget? Hit the banks – and hit them hard | Polly Toynbee

“1,431 people, including at least 300 children and 130 women, have been killed since the US-brokered ceasefire deal began in October 2025 and Israel is aiming to "destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in Gaza". news.sky.com/story/un-rep...

Lord Sadiq Khan said there has been “a surge in retailers” wanting to open on Oxford Street ahead of today’s pedestrianisation. www.mylondon.news/news/zone-1-...

If Burnham and Macron have a spine, they need to block this loser:

Andy Burnham — UK government doubles funding to tackle rough sleeping ahead of Christmas #Burnham #Andy #AndyBurnham #News

Between these two victories, Burnham making positive noises about getting closer to the EU and the upcoming US midterms, does anyone else feel like the West is slowly but surely beginning to emerge from a decade-long populist nightmare?

Note to UK government 👇👇👇👇👇👇

“the lack of belief in our ability to win in the Red Wall”… In Leigh the Tories won in 2019 after a century of no Tory MP. It went back to Labour (Jo Platt) in 2024. Recently it was predicted to go to Reform next time… With the right split, it may stay Labour.

The Student List election victory is a tremendous step forward for Serbia. Let's hope Serbia's new generation of liberal democrats will learn from the mistakes that derailed the country's democratisation following the overthrow of Milosevic in 2000:

Sadiq Khan, when asked about Burnham reopening FoM discussion, refers unprompted to the Boriswave of low wage and permanent migrants. Not heard senior Labour figures use the term before.

He worked in Badenoch's office?????????? Do the Tories have a vetting problem? (Rhetorical question)

The Sunday Times still doesn’t get it . It’s underlying theme that cutting public spending leads to growth is now so outmoded and plain wrong but it still pushes it, to the extent that it has contributing articles saying the same from Sunak and Badenoch with no apology from either for the last govt.

I’ve co-signed @labourlewis.bsky.social’s letter to Andy Burnham calling for public ownership of water. We already have ‘public control’. It's failed. £85bn+ extracted by shareholders, sewage in our rivers, bills going up. We need public ownership. Add your name: actionnetwork.org/petitions/la...

Andy Burnham leaves open UK rejoining EU from 2030 as he slams Brexit for loss of border controls. ‘We got a harder Brexit than was proposed in the referendum campaign. It's weakened our economy, weakened our control of immigration,’ says the PM. www.standard.co.uk/news/politic...

Forty five thousand pounds in expenses claims for JUST FIVE MONTHS! The average UK salary is under thirty two thousand pounds PER ANNUM according to Forbes, NOT the thirty nine thousand that the UK government would like us to believe (see below) Maybe all politicians really care about is money? 🤔

From “aristocracy to assetocracy” - Prof Huw McCartney, a colleague at @unibirmingham.bsky.social, explores the make-up and wealth in the House of Lords, which so desperately needs reform: theconversation.com/from-aristoc...

Positives - Labour with a clear lead. Negatives - the far right still on 47%. Wtf? [Don't come at me trying to defend the Tories. Their current policies on immigration and human rights (for example) would have been beyond even Farage's dreams a decade ago...]

Fiscal incontinence Badenoch style. 👇👇

I know it’s easy to mock and it can be a bit forced sometimes, but I personally don’t think it’s a bad thing if our prime minister is more personable and does things to connect with the public across multiple different media platforms. God knows Starmer couldn’t have done it.

Here is the IFG acting surprised that all the damage done to public services by the new public management doctrines they gave a free pass to have turned out even more disastrously than us critics forecast. But now they seem to join the media whine that it is Labour’s fault. Incredible.

So in 2019 IFG and the Blavatnik School in Oxford published a “study” concluding “UK comes top of the 2019 International Civil Service Effectiveness Index”. www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/article/comm.... But you were being secretly critical all along!

Walking up the South Bank of the Thames from Tower Bridge to HMS Belfast on Monday pm, along with thousands of happy visitors, I was thrilled to see a large cormorant fishing, and then a *seal* on his way upstream. How London has changed for the better!

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

From aristocracy to ‘assetocracy’ – how wealth has transformed the House of Lords theconversation.com/from-aristoc...

Get these pricks out of UK government and healthcare. Also reminded of Zuckerberg's 'masculine energy' call.

Burnham’s ‘small fixes’ could go a long way Tackling everyday irritations is not a distraction from the grander questions of statecraft. For Burnham and Labour, it is a necessary first step Weekend long-read for @politics.co.uk: www.politics.co.uk/2026/10/burn...

Did you talk about the “decline” - actually near-crisis - in the services I indicated *at the time* these disastrous policies were being implemented? It’s all very well half-noticing some glaring problems now after 14 years,but you heavily glossed or semi-endorsed every NPM policy at the time.

theconversation.com/from-aristoc...

From aristocracy to ‘assetocracy’ – how wealth has transformed the House of Lords theconversation.com/from-aristoc...

New - @data.ft.com Sheffield focus group on Burnham’s 100 days.. he’s getting a hearing but still lots of work to do against a backdrop of gloom about the state of the country. Farage enthusiasm waning. Great visuals from the @financialtimes.com team as.ft.com/r/7d28bf6c-a...

Here is the IFG acting surprised that all the damage done to public services by the new public management doctrines they gave a free pass to have turned out even more disastrously than us critics forecast. But now they seem to join the media whine that it is Labour’s fault. Incredible.

Yeah. Burnham should have followed the lead back then and not sold off oil and gas rights at the time. How careless of him. PR gesture or not, it's a start.

Headline: Britain doesn't have enough warships in the Arctic to hold the Russians at bay! Burnham should have accepted demands in 2022 to swell the numbers of boats from 11 to 19! Yeah. How foolish of him.

Many thanks to over 10,000 folk who have downloaded their free copies of “Doing Open Social Science” from Tim Monteath and me. It’s OA and always will be, here press.lse.ac.uk/books/m/10.3... And also on JSTOR.

Walking up the South Bank of the Thames from Tower Bridge to HMS Belfast on Monday pm, along with thousands of happy visitors, I was thrilled to see a large cormorant fishing, and then a *seal* on his way upstream. How London has changed for the better!

When you can’t justify your biased tweet, every bad actor says “Read my full report”. No one reads IFG reports with this kind of trailer.

Many thanks to over 10,000 folk who have downloaded their free copies of “Doing Open Social Science” from Tim Monteath and me. It’s OA and always will be, here press.lse.ac.uk/books/m/10.3... And also on JSTOR.

If polls are right, voters are in a mood to send Labor into the wilderness www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10...

Read this before you use bylines such “get a grip on the exodus of super-wealthy individuals" for when you go easy on the billionaires in the upcoming budget John Healey.