Any journalists interesting in covering/following can DM here or contact me at pdkmitchell at gmail dot com. The most recent BBC and ITV coverage is here (CW: violence, femicide, suicide):

www.bbc.com/news/article...

www.itv.com/news/tyne-te...

Thanks @luketurner.bsky.social - and yes, I spent a lot of time thinking and writing about this around the rise of Farage and Towie from 2012 on, looking at the history behind the political stereotype. I thought after the book came out its relevance had passed, but it turns out Faragism relies on it

He may have privately liked the music, but bet he wasn't into goth fashion. The fact he chose Northern soul legend Dobie Gray and Lightning Seeds/Baddiel/Skinner on Desert Island Discs makes me think his trajectory was mod revival>angular post-punk>Britpop. (Bet he loved Pulp's His n Hers aesthetic)

Please! I feel like his opinion is more valuable than, say, Nick Robinson's at this point.

We need a long read on the post-punk archeology of Starmerism, how its detachment lay not in any deep lying discomfort with a role he felt he was born to have, but just his love of groups like Josef K