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Ben Ansell

@benansell.bsky.social

29K followers 980 following 5.2K posts

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).

benansell.substack.com.

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 4m

Oh ok well fair enough, that produces the injuries I’d come to expect.

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 11m

What’s with all the coloured plastic tho. Only eighties kids will remember entirely wooden apparatus

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 3h

So, France? But without a President.

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PoliticsHome @politicshome.bsky.social · 13h

The Tories are focusing too much on culture wars, according to former long-serving Conservative MP Sir Nick Gibb

In an interview with PolHome, the former schools minister also said the UK should lead efforts to reform the ECHR, not grab at the “most immediate superficial solution" of leaving it

Nick Gibb: The Tories Are Focusing Too Much On Culture Wars

Former schools minister Sir Nick Gibb has accused the Conservatives of focusing too much on culture wars and not enough on “the real lives of peopl...

www.politicshome.com

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 11h

And even then stuck at heart ascension level 19.

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 11h

Guys it only took circa 800 hours of my life

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Amy @lolennui.bsky.social · 17h

George Orwell’s Animal Crossing

Someone in a frog costume facing down a line of police in riot gear

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 13h

Give them time dammit!

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 13h

I for one am looking forward to the cringe Robert Jenrick apology tour where he visits various ethnic groups in Britain and tries to integrate.

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 13h

Looks like quite a few silent generation in there too

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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 13h

Shoutout to the Boomers, really showing everybody else up in 2025

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 14h

Pretty amazing that Reform’s treasurer’s four favourite countries include three dictatorships stretching from pretty fierce to practically the fiercest.

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 14h

A fine piece of writing there from Sam Leith

Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 14h

Party donor Nick Candy says "I cherish the values we grew up with here in the West. But today you are more likely to find the values we grew up with in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.’

Via Sam Leith in the Spectator
www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-...

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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 15h

I know statistics are poorly understood and are misused. But facts matter

Between the 1991, 2001, 2011 and 2021 Census *every* ethnic group in the UK has become *less* geographically segregated and *all* groups, majority and minorities, are more likely to interact with people not like them

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Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 15h

Remember when the Boston Globe ran this supposedly over-the-top front page to attack the idea of Trump ever being president, and now this is just the news every day? We've fallen so, so far because of this man

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Yashar Ali 🐘 @yasharali.bsky.social · 16h

Tommy Marcus, David Adler, and other US citizens who participated in the Gaza flotilla are now in the Kingdom of Jordan.

Yesterday, over 20 members of Congress from the California delegation signed a letter demanding their release.

(Tommy and David are California residents).

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Sathnam Sanghera @sathnam.bsky.social · 19h

I've responded to Robert Jenrick's vile comments in @thetimes.com

www.thetimes.com/life-style/c...

I sang Jerusalem with Robert Jenrick at school — he’s wrong about race

The Conservative MP has complained that, visiting Handsworth in Birmingham, he didn’t see ‘another white face’. You can’t judge whether someone is integrated by skin colour, argues fellow Wulfrunian S...

www.thetimes.com

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Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 20h

One reason former Republicans have been better at opposing Trump than many progressives is because they correctly understand that the GOP’s descent into fascism represents a dramatic shift, and is therefore scarier, where the latter groups feel the need to argue it’s just a continuation of trend

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Robert Hutton @roberthutton.co.uk · 16h

It's quite wrong to suggest Robert Jenrick is a racist. Racists believe in something. My SKETCH.

Rob whistle | Robert Hutton | The Critic Magazine

The day had begun with Robert Jenrick accused of racism. This is of course quite unfair. Racists believe in something. Some of us remember Jenrick as a chubby-cheeked fan of David Cameron fighting the…

thecritic.co.uk

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 16h

Nihilists, Donny.

a man with a beard and sunglasses is sitting at a table in a classroom .

ALT: a man with a beard and sunglasses is sitting at a table in a classroom .

media.tenor.com

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 17h

Surviving non-mad shadow ministers in secret resistance movement

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 17h

‘Buses in Manchester’

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 17h

The de Tocqueville of your age

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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 18h

I'll bite. What is the benefit we gain from politicians being able to 'thoughtfully' say in private 'blacks, British Bangladeshis, British Pakistanis, British Indians, mulattos....all the same, and clearly from the look of them not-integrated?'

Best for Britain @bestforbritain.org · 18h

Shadow DEFRA SoS, Victoria Atkins MP, bemoans those trying to score points off Jenrick's "private" remarks: "These are conversation we must have thoughtfully away from the clickbait of social media that, sadly, is so often the case."

And here is Victoria Thoughtful-Atkins at a farmers' protest. ~AA

Victoria Atkins with a thoughtfull bullhorn, wearing a non-clickbait union jack jacket.

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 17h

"analytically rigorous, deeply researched commentary on global affairs"