James Hawes
@jameshawes.bsky.social
Father of three boys. Married to an Irishwoman. Ex-novelist. Historian. Teacher of writing. Novel “Speak for England” (2005) predicted Brexit - “it deserves some kind of prescience prize" (Observer, 2017).
Remind me why Rachel Reeves couldn’t put up fuel duty?
November 26, 2025 at 4:31 PM
Remind me why Rachel Reeves couldn’t put up fuel duty?
How do the spads of @uklabour.bsky.social not see that with them apparently stuck consistently on under 20%, there is a huge issue very strongly supported/supported by a large majority of voters, including almost all their own surviving core?
For a party facing catastrophe, it’s a no-lose bet.
For a party facing catastrophe, it’s a no-lose bet.
November 26, 2025 at 12:47 PM
How do the spads of @uklabour.bsky.social not see that with them apparently stuck consistently on under 20%, there is a huge issue very strongly supported/supported by a large majority of voters, including almost all their own surviving core?
For a party facing catastrophe, it’s a no-lose bet.
For a party facing catastrophe, it’s a no-lose bet.
Reposted by James Hawes
Yes! A broad majority of the Parliament agrees: the EU must take more action against Orbán!
My report on the rule of law in Hungary was adopted with a majority of 415 votes, urging to take away Orbán's voting rights and to freeze EU funds.
We must stop his breakdown of democracy and human rights.
My report on the rule of law in Hungary was adopted with a majority of 415 votes, urging to take away Orbán's voting rights and to freeze EU funds.
We must stop his breakdown of democracy and human rights.
November 25, 2025 at 11:43 AM
Yes! A broad majority of the Parliament agrees: the EU must take more action against Orbán!
My report on the rule of law in Hungary was adopted with a majority of 415 votes, urging to take away Orbán's voting rights and to freeze EU funds.
We must stop his breakdown of democracy and human rights.
My report on the rule of law in Hungary was adopted with a majority of 415 votes, urging to take away Orbán's voting rights and to freeze EU funds.
We must stop his breakdown of democracy and human rights.
Reposted by James Hawes
Brexit has cost the country between 6% and 8% of GDP per person over the last decade, a hit of £180 billion ($235 billion) to £240 billion, according to new research for the UK government. Read more: bloom.bg/4rvdLb9
📷️: Jose Sarmento Matos/Bloomberg
📷️: Jose Sarmento Matos/Bloomberg
November 21, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Brexit has cost the country between 6% and 8% of GDP per person over the last decade, a hit of £180 billion ($235 billion) to £240 billion, according to new research for the UK government. Read more: bloom.bg/4rvdLb9
📷️: Jose Sarmento Matos/Bloomberg
📷️: Jose Sarmento Matos/Bloomberg
I love the way that suddenly, a phrase in Danish will pop up which you can 100% understand, 1000 years after the Danes ruled England!
November 21, 2025 at 1:09 PM
I love the way that suddenly, a phrase in Danish will pop up which you can 100% understand, 1000 years after the Danes ruled England!
Reposted by James Hawes
Interesting to see so many great British patriots right now begging an American president to bankrupt one of Britain’s last remaining truly national institutions.
November 15, 2025 at 4:14 PM
Interesting to see so many great British patriots right now begging an American president to bankrupt one of Britain’s last remaining truly national institutions.
Unlike Wales and Scotland, England has no civic nationalist party to benefit from the bankruptcy of Labour.
The only way to stop Reform now is for Labour to rediscover its roots as the Northern English arm of a pan-British anti-Southern English league (plus 5th column in the London city-state).
The only way to stop Reform now is for Labour to rediscover its roots as the Northern English arm of a pan-British anti-Southern English league (plus 5th column in the London city-state).
Sure is going to be fun watching many Labour strategists discover next May that the party's electorate in metro areas (and Scotland, and Wales) was in fact centre-left people who believe in centre-left things more than they believe in voting for a Labour party chained to an irresponsible pledge.
November 15, 2025 at 1:43 AM
Unlike Wales and Scotland, England has no civic nationalist party to benefit from the bankruptcy of Labour.
The only way to stop Reform now is for Labour to rediscover its roots as the Northern English arm of a pan-British anti-Southern English league (plus 5th column in the London city-state).
The only way to stop Reform now is for Labour to rediscover its roots as the Northern English arm of a pan-British anti-Southern English league (plus 5th column in the London city-state).
November 14, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Reposted by James Hawes
Brexit didn’t just close borders, it closed doors for Wales' artists and cultural voices. Touring and collaboration are now tangled in red tape, silencing Welsh voices across the world 🏴 @walesforeurope.bsky.social
November 12, 2025 at 12:06 PM
Brexit didn’t just close borders, it closed doors for Wales' artists and cultural voices. Touring and collaboration are now tangled in red tape, silencing Welsh voices across the world 🏴 @walesforeurope.bsky.social
Reposted by James Hawes
This is the fundamental problem of the glorious Anglosphere democracies 🇬🇧 & 🇺🇸. #Brexit & #USexit are the Janus heads of the same coin. Totally agree with kresten2.bsky.social.
The UK will need some kind of consensus for sure.
The UK also needs to become a modern day democracy.
We can’t have an extremely close relationship (SM) with a country where 30% of the votes can result in almost absolute power and where one parliament can’t bind the next.
Why make a deal, …
The UK also needs to become a modern day democracy.
We can’t have an extremely close relationship (SM) with a country where 30% of the votes can result in almost absolute power and where one parliament can’t bind the next.
Why make a deal, …
November 12, 2025 at 12:02 PM
This is the fundamental problem of the glorious Anglosphere democracies 🇬🇧 & 🇺🇸. #Brexit & #USexit are the Janus heads of the same coin. Totally agree with kresten2.bsky.social.
Reposted by James Hawes
I want to thank a generation for bringing the expression “cringe” into the mainstream
November 8, 2025 at 10:14 PM
I want to thank a generation for bringing the expression “cringe” into the mainstream
Reposted by James Hawes
This is a question I've been asking a lot of the BBC political coverage in recent months. I love the BBC and would pay the licence fee for Radio 4 alone, but I do appreciate balance and fairness too please.
For as many years as anyone been counting two or more inmates been mistakenly released from British prisons most weeks. Record does not make it acceptable. System needs to be fixed. It does leave me asking why BBC now gripped by end-of-civilisation hysteria heard on Radio 4 Today programme.
November 6, 2025 at 3:30 PM
This is a question I've been asking a lot of the BBC political coverage in recent months. I love the BBC and would pay the licence fee for Radio 4 alone, but I do appreciate balance and fairness too please.
The catastrophic state of modern languages in this country! When I was doing my PhD in the 1980s, Nottingham was a real powerhouse for #German studies.
November 7, 2025 at 9:18 AM
The catastrophic state of modern languages in this country! When I was doing my PhD in the 1980s, Nottingham was a real powerhouse for #German studies.
I’ve been saying for months: don’t underestimate the fact that Trump cannot repeat cannot have another term. Very soon, the fact that his patronage will be dead and buried within four years is going to start really waking up the GOP.
Some came with complaints about Elon Musk. Others chided the GOP to push back against President Trump’s moves to trample the constitutional power of Congress. In districts around the U.S. over the past week, Republican lawmakers faced a groundswell of fear and disaffection from constituents.
November 6, 2025 at 10:38 AM
Reposted by James Hawes
lol
November 6, 2025 at 4:47 AM
lol
Reposted by James Hawes
That's certainly not borne out by my experience. My own knowledge of the workings of the EU comes solely from freelancing as a translator for its institutions for 40 years. Rarely do I have a conversation with anyone in the UK who understands the bare minimum of its history, purpose and functions.
November 6, 2025 at 10:23 AM
That's certainly not borne out by my experience. My own knowledge of the workings of the EU comes solely from freelancing as a translator for its institutions for 40 years. Rarely do I have a conversation with anyone in the UK who understands the bare minimum of its history, purpose and functions.
Well said. The EU is, in fact, “the rule of law“ made flesh: not since the mediaeval church has any institution had such influence over national executives without possessing the slightest physical means to impose its will.
it’s called civilisation: that’s why all dictators and demagogue hate it.
it’s called civilisation: that’s why all dictators and demagogue hate it.
I am not a lawyer, just a historian, but one fundamental problem with the political debate about the EU, especially in English publications is that the whole principle of the acquis communnitaire is not understood or taken seriously. The EU is a framework of rules, not an alliance.
November 6, 2025 at 10:32 AM
Well said. The EU is, in fact, “the rule of law“ made flesh: not since the mediaeval church has any institution had such influence over national executives without possessing the slightest physical means to impose its will.
it’s called civilisation: that’s why all dictators and demagogue hate it.
it’s called civilisation: that’s why all dictators and demagogue hate it.
In 1903 (sorry) Jack London writes:
November 4, 2025 at 9:06 PM
In 1903 (sorry) Jack London writes:
zB: der damals weltberühmter Schriftsteller Jack London schrieb in seinem Buch „People of the Abyss“ („Volk des Abgrunds“) 1906 über eine „völlig fremde Rasse“ die er, als mutige Sozialforscher, im Osten von London kennen lernte.
Damit meinte er die armen Engländer der Riesenstadt London.
Damit meinte er die armen Engländer der Riesenstadt London.
»Wenn deutlich wird, dass die jeweils rassifizierte Gruppe letztlich austauschbar ist, dann wird erkenntlich, dass es beim Rassismus nicht um die Gruppen selbst geht, sondern um ihre Funktion für den Erhalt des Selbstbildes, der Privilegien und der Macht einer Dominanzgesellschaft.«
Naika Foroutan
Naika Foroutan
November 4, 2025 at 8:56 PM
zB: der damals weltberühmter Schriftsteller Jack London schrieb in seinem Buch „People of the Abyss“ („Volk des Abgrunds“) 1906 über eine „völlig fremde Rasse“ die er, als mutige Sozialforscher, im Osten von London kennen lernte.
Damit meinte er die armen Engländer der Riesenstadt London.
Damit meinte er die armen Engländer der Riesenstadt London.
Under FPTP, this requires vital tactical decisions from “centre left” voters.
Winners will be parties with a strong regional identity, where they are perceived as most likely winners vs Farage
Great for #SNP and #Plaid.
But it helps #Labour only if they re-identify their historic regional base.
Winners will be parties with a strong regional identity, where they are perceived as most likely winners vs Farage
Great for #SNP and #Plaid.
But it helps #Labour only if they re-identify their historic regional base.
Notable in today's YouGov that the centre/left bloc - Lab/Green/LD/SNP are on 54%. With Reform/Tories on 43%. That's the biggest differential in a long time.
I think useful to track blocs given instability between parties at the moment.
I think useful to track blocs given instability between parties at the moment.
November 4, 2025 at 10:42 AM
The moment he gets tired and can’t cary off his ridiculous “fags and pints” shtick for hoi polloi any more, he reveals himself for what he really is: just another hardline 90s Thatcherite who dreams of the UK being wingman to a Republican USA (which was always the secret narrative of #Brexit)
Farridge is looking haggard.
Could it be time to hand over the baton to one of his able lieutenants? Which one should it be?
Could it be time to hand over the baton to one of his able lieutenants? Which one should it be?
November 4, 2025 at 10:25 AM
The moment he gets tired and can’t cary off his ridiculous “fags and pints” shtick for hoi polloi any more, he reveals himself for what he really is: just another hardline 90s Thatcherite who dreams of the UK being wingman to a Republican USA (which was always the secret narrative of #Brexit)
Reposted by James Hawes
I am celebrating #ReformationDay with this sticker I spotted recently in the lovely city of Heidelberg.
October 31, 2024 at 10:53 AM
I am celebrating #ReformationDay with this sticker I spotted recently in the lovely city of Heidelberg.
As I’ve been saying else elsewhere, the collapse of #Labour is going to be a huge boost to #SNP and #Plaid because unlike England, Wales and Scotland have explicitly civic-nationalist (not ethno-nationalist), vaguely left-leaning alternatives to #Reform
Agreed. I’d also vote SNP if I lived in Scotland 👍
October 31, 2025 at 8:26 AM
Reposted by James Hawes
The Conservatives plans to deport hundreds of thousands of legal residents of the UK are far more extreme than anything Donald Trump is proposing
Piece from me on the horror show of the right morphing into the far right
open.substack.com/pub/nickcohe...
Piece from me on the horror show of the right morphing into the far right
open.substack.com/pub/nickcohe...
"Respectable" racism and the mass deportation of our neighbours
How the British right out-Trumps Trump
open.substack.com
October 24, 2025 at 1:15 PM
The Conservatives plans to deport hundreds of thousands of legal residents of the UK are far more extreme than anything Donald Trump is proposing
Piece from me on the horror show of the right morphing into the far right
open.substack.com/pub/nickcohe...
Piece from me on the horror show of the right morphing into the far right
open.substack.com/pub/nickcohe...
Please not. I mean, unless you actually want Vance.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris said that her time in politics has not come to an end, offering her strongest indication to date that she would consider a third presidential run.
Kamala Harris Suggests She Is Considering Another Presidential Run
Ms. Harris, in an interview with the BBC, gave her strongest indication yet that she was thinking about making another bid for the Oval Office.
nyti.ms
October 25, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Please not. I mean, unless you actually want Vance.