Phil Tinline
banner
philtinline.bsky.social
Phil Tinline
@philtinline.bsky.social
Author, THE DEATH OF CONSENSUS (The Times' Politics Book of 2022)
GHOSTS OF IRON MOUNTAIN ("riveting" - The New Yorker)

https://tinyurl.com/Ghosts-Iron-Mountain

Last on Radio 4: Societal Collapse https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002lppp
👏👏👏👏👏
Proud husband moment! Mrs H getting a shout-out on the floor of the House of Commons for her work on the recent COP climate conference
November 25, 2025 at 11:21 PM
Look at this
If you’re wondering who’s guiding our transition, it’s the best New Yorkers that money can’t buy.
November 25, 2025 at 10:42 PM
Reposted by Phil Tinline
Since Labour won power, an insidious little phrase has been popping up constantly in the media: "tax raid".

So I looked into this for @thenewworldmag.bsky.social

And it turns out it once meant something completely different.

www.thenewworld.co.uk/phil-tinline...
Why the right wing media keeps screaming ‘tax raid’
This isn’t journalism, it’s propaganda that reframes tax policy as assault and a democratically elected Labour government as thieves
www.thenewworld.co.uk
November 25, 2025 at 7:41 AM
Reposted by Phil Tinline
The economic arithmetic of the budget may be tough, but that isn’t why the chancellor and the prime minister’s jobs are on the line, writes @tom-clark.bsky.social.
Budget 2025: it's the politics, stupid
The economic arithmetic of the budget may be tough, but that isn’t why the chancellor and the prime minister’s jobs are on the line
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk
November 25, 2025 at 10:09 AM
Reposted by Phil Tinline
NEW: FGF proposes a 3 step plan to end use of asylum hotels by mid-2026, saving govt up to £5 billion.

The report brings together ideas from @nestauk.bsky.social, @labourtogether.bsky.social, @refugeecouncil.bsky.social & housing expert Kate Wareing.

www.futuregovernanceforum.co.uk/resource/res...
November 25, 2025 at 9:24 AM
Reposted by Phil Tinline
Huge round of applause for the BBC Wales reporter interviewing Farage and not accepting his shifty formulations - which tend to suggest that he merrily used abusive and racist language but didn’t do it solely with the aim of hurting someone seriously. THAT is how you do an interview.
November 25, 2025 at 7:23 AM
Since Labour won power, an insidious little phrase has been popping up constantly in the media: "tax raid".

So I looked into this for @thenewworldmag.bsky.social

And it turns out it once meant something completely different.

www.thenewworld.co.uk/phil-tinline...
Why the right wing media keeps screaming ‘tax raid’
This isn’t journalism, it’s propaganda that reframes tax policy as assault and a democratically elected Labour government as thieves
www.thenewworld.co.uk
November 25, 2025 at 7:41 AM
Reposted by Phil Tinline
Tyson is closing a Nebraska plant that employs 3,200 workers in order to “right-size” its business.

The meatpacking giant paid its CEO $22.7M last year, 525x its median employee's pay.

It also spent $196M in stock buybacks to reward shareholders.

Textbook corporate greed.
November 24, 2025 at 8:30 PM
This reminds me of a Radio 4 doc I once made in which we asked Clegg, Cameron, Osborne & D. Miliband if they'd taken cocaine in their youth. The answers from the first three were elegantly constructed: references to the important of politicians being allowed a private past etc.

Miliband said: 'No'.
“I would never ever do it in a hurtful or insulting way”

Nigel Farage responds to allegations of racist behaviour from when he was a teenager at school

@itvnewspolitics.bsky.social
November 24, 2025 at 6:40 PM
Reposted by Phil Tinline
Michael Prescott's report makes vital points about the importance of being accurate, and also how difficult that is. For instance, he describes himself as having been Political Editor of the Sunday Times for 10 years, which is not what the Guardian reported when he left the job.
November 24, 2025 at 5:15 PM
Reposted by Phil Tinline
One frustration of watching MPs ask questions for an hour is that they're not very good at it. Prescott has not been asked about the fairly glaring errors in his own report – that *it misquoted Trump in exactly the same way it says Panorama did*
www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-e...
EXCLUSIVE: Michael Prescott himself doctored Trump quote in his anti-BBC report
A report alleging Panorama broadcast misleading Trump quotes contains misleading quotes itself
www.thenewworld.co.uk
November 24, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Reposted by Phil Tinline
He seems genuinely unable to explain what a Kamala Harris Panorama episode should have reported, given she did not actually lead an insurrection against the Capitol. And yet it's a point he keeps returning to as if it's one of his best.
November 24, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Reposted by Phil Tinline
Prescott comes across as out of his depth even under the intensely mild and ineffectual questioning of DCMS committee.

He has repeatedly returned to one of the most bizarre lines in his report, that Panorama should have matched its Jan 6th episode with an "equally aggressive" one into Kamala.
November 24, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Reposted by Phil Tinline
The BBC was founded to stop British media becoming a demagogic shouting match like it had in America. It was only a matter of time before a US demagogue bit back, writes @philtinline.bsky.social.
Trump, the BBC and the lessons of an antisemitic priest
American media have cultivated conspiracy and resentment, setting the stage for the president’s fight with the BBC
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk
November 24, 2025 at 12:18 PM
So a king like, for example, George III?
November 23, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Reposted by Phil Tinline
You're welcome. Thanks for writing such an engaging & illuminating book, as well as for piquing my interest in C. Wright Mills!
November 23, 2025 at 8:15 PM
Reposted by Phil Tinline
I highly recommend @philtinline.bsky.social's Ghosts of Iron Mountain, abt conspiracy theory culture. He provides an acct of its genesis from mistrust of gov't--wch in turn was born from the paranoia of leaders w/r/t intn'l relations--& how this sometimes resulted in a left-right overlap.
November 23, 2025 at 5:46 PM
Reposted by Phil Tinline
Thinking back to November 2023 when Soledad O'Brien and Rob Reiner devoted their time and clout to this credulous conspiracy podcast about the JFK assassination. Feeding the anti-government conspiracy theory mill when there were 12 months to go before a crucial election was, IMO, a bad choice.
November 23, 2025 at 4:21 PM
This is very much on-point on the need for the left/centre-left to make bold creative use of existing legal tools - just to do things like stop price-gouging, not buy Greenland.
"I've long been inspired by Lina Khan's protection of people across this country in the face of corporate greed"

@zohrankmamdani.bsky.social Mamdani tells @mehdirhasan.bsky.social how Lina Khan will get creative to lower prices for New Yorkers

zeteo.com/p/exclusive-...
November 23, 2025 at 5:40 PM
If a sarcastic VC would like to fund a Museum of Comic Tech Failures, I think they should definitely do so.
this utterly stupid bullshit

the health of a whole generation was less important than this useless slop
November 23, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Reposted by Phil Tinline
I had a view from the foothills amongst some mainstream people in the City who were donors & they were convinced the referendum wouldn’t happen or if it did the result would be ignored.

This stuff was treated as a joke, the serious topic was defeating Labour, who were viewed apocalyptically.
November 23, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Reposted by Phil Tinline
How popular AI apps produce a non-scientist’s idea of quality science kucharski.substack.com/p/the-shallo...
November 23, 2025 at 4:38 PM
There's a movie in this.
I saw this map on Twitter, and it has sent me down a Baha'is-in-South-Carolina rabbit hole: www.npr.org/sections/the...
November 23, 2025 at 3:35 PM