Ben Ansell
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Ben Ansell
@benansell.bsky.social

Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions, Nuffield & University of Oxford, FBA. http://benansell.substack.com. BBC Reith Lecturer 2023. Host BBC Radio 4 Rethink. Columnist for Prospect. Director, Centre for Advanced Social Science Methods (CASSM). .. more

Ben W. Ansell is Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions at Nuffield College, University of Oxford and, with David Samuels, editor of Comparative Political Studies.

Source: Wikipedia
Political science 47%
Economics 40%

Yeh but still… rarely have I made a point that has led to such a flurry of mentions. Who knew?

Problem is they all come down St Giles from Banbury Road and don’t go through the congestion charge points!

Sorry about that!!!

Yeh this is something we have spoken about in Oxford, though challenge is worsened by day trippers who won’t pay hotel based tourist tax

At the risk of sounding old and crusty I wonder if the decline of the church has left some people all at sea when it comes to realising all people have a common humanity. In the past, faintly remembered sermons might have tempered some of this stuff. Though I guess all of history disproves this…

Warren Harding I guess
The Secretary of Defense, ladies and gentlemen

That seems likely to me. The risks to freedom of speech against public figures seem very large if they can merely indicate the threat of legal action when people say things they don’t like.

Indeed

New name for the international student levy just dropped

Reposted by Ben H. Ansell

Sometimes wonder if what the UK needs is a thinktank that doesn't do any new research, it just repeats obviously true statements that people try to ignore because they're inconvenient.

International students cross-subsidise home students. Your pension is paid for out of general taxation.

Adlestrop but for Millennials

Not least because the current US President is rapidly losing popularity and things will look rather different over the coming year. I hope Bregman’s missing line is at least reinserted in the podcast editions of the lecture.

When your sample is your population
On Bregman, I was there in the audience and I can’t see what the BBC have gained by removing this line except more bad publicity. I will say that no such edits or censorship occurred when I gave the Reith Lectures and free-speech defenders might want think about whether this is the world they want.

I read this as 24 Labour voters and I thought ‘wow, that’s a powerful bunch!’
are you fucking serious

Reposted by Jack Stilgoe

This is extremely unfortunate to say the least. Not sure how I would have reacted to having my Reith lectures censored - the world has changed in an ill way in the two years since.
I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture.

They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

A great point. In lots of places social democrats dislike inheritance tax - some view it as a second tax on already taxed labour! We can argue the merits of that, but the idea that all social democrats are pro the inheritance tax is not accurate.
I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture.

They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

The people asked and Sam delivered
New post just out:

"MAGA Meltdown?"

With Trump's approval ratings collapsing the Republicans are starting to realise they're in serious trouble.

Here's why it's going to get worse for them.

(£/free trial)

open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/m...
MAGA Meltdown?
Why the Republicans are in serious trouble
open.substack.com
New post just out:

"MAGA Meltdown?"

With Trump's approval ratings collapsing the Republicans are starting to realise they're in serious trouble.

Here's why it's going to get worse for them.

(£/free trial)

open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/m...
MAGA Meltdown?
Why the Republicans are in serious trouble
open.substack.com
All the supposedly progressive people saying 'Nigel Farage's racism doesn't matter. His fans love it'.

It matters whether the leader of the party leading all the opinion polls is an outright racist. It matters if he called black people 'wogs' and said 'gas them' to Jews. Not everything is a game

Perhaps explains his incredible venom when he does come to Oxford to impart his wisdom to us.

Reposted by Ben H. Ansell

Still time for an undeniable crisis…

In my defense, in February I was at an event where I noted that by September 2005 GWB was a lame duck and we shouldn’t assume that wouldn’t happen again. And I think people got that but still the shock and awe of January had frazzled them.

They also could have adopted Harvard’s model of appearing to negotiate but never quite signing off to anything. See also the EU deals on investment.