in the thread: british political journalists who are worth reading

Some good graun clowning on twitter this morning

https://twitter.com/said_mitch/status/663343550822748160

https://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/audio/video/2013/9/25/1380090855803/John-Harris-at-Labour-con-012.jpg

Think Chuck's a bit unfair to Bush -- who it seems to me often does smart and readable policy analysis (I don't really care that it's second-hand). He's clearheaded on arcana -- like the inner workings of labour party voting systems -- an extremely useful from that perspective. (Contrast David Allen Green, who is also clearheaded on legal arcana, but a pinhead when it comes to the consequent politics.)

I think by its nature "political journalist" always falls between comment and leg-work -- and that journalists are often better for being clear and open about their political leaning. I started to write that the "view from nowhere" that dogs US polltical punditry is less of an issue over here -- but in fact I think a particular kind of complacent centrism does actually aspire to this (and kid itself that it IS this). Remembering for example Peter Kellner's war on 80s labour, and thrilled excitement at the emergence of the SDP (Kellner was a pollster at the New Statesman, who went on to found YouGov): the tools of objectivity were very obviously skewed towards a particular kind of emerging consensus politics, which is precisely what Tony Blair spotted and used so effectively. Difference is -- in contrast to the US -- that this never really bedded in over here (Blair's untroubled imperial phase lasts what, five years if that?) and is now of course in ruins. Many of the Guardian's columnists seem not to have spotted this yet.

xp He's literally wearing a lanyard

i don't think will davies fits here tbh. too academic, not embedded enough in the westminster to and fro, so strike him from the list. the specific brexit/may article here for ref tho:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n21/william-davies/home-office-rules

agree with matt dc on rawnsley. you want to read him when he does insidery stuff. indifferent/antagonistic to his opinion.

Also possibly unfair but this sort of prestidigitating-as-reporting thing is annoying (obvs it won't stop, nor is it a specifically british thing)

http://i.imgur.com/ZhgUdfo.png

I forgot James Meek in the LRB, if that counts, as someone who does both comment and leg-work (he doesn't write very often though)

Chakrabortty and Foster are excellent but yeah they report the effects of policy.

Ellie Mae O'Hagan is really good on Westminster politics and has avoided the trap Owen Jones has fallen into wrt Corbyn.

novara media dot com I live 4 this.

novara's james butler is an excellent writer but i wouldn't really call him a journalist i don't think (needs to write more than tweets at least weekly: "journal" actually means daily obv, but hardly anyone can keep up that rate)

(chuck, fair point there re that piece: i don't like that kind of stuff plus i don't think bush has much of a bead on french politics)

re: Novara I was joking and I've only engaged with it as a thing on twitter and a few bits here and there. Might be worth widening this to web-only. Only reading things that seem informative from scattered sources that come through my twitter TL so don't actually have many actual names #societryIsInTheGutter

likewise: my reading is scattershot to the point of being randomised (and as we know i'm easily distracted by piffle)

The LRB has a raft of good writers and is currently good for a kind of long-form story few others do in matters political, but again, not really journalism -- which i really think does require that it stands the test of the writer delivering something substantial (at a minimum) weekly, including responding at short notice to topical surprises.

Longstanding columnists are generally the opposite of substantial in this sense: either they use surprises (and everything else) as grist to their never-changing opinions amd perspectives, or -- even worse -- as grist to their Spiked-esque hot takes.

second chakraborty, foster, meeks. The supposedly left papers in england are brutal though. I wish there was an equivalent of democracy now or the intercept here. Opening the guardian is always such a glut of useless comment from jones, toynbee, freedland, etc., so tuned in to the rapid fire news culture, broad brushstrokes of opinion whizzing by without nuance or engagement.*

I liked David Runciman's extremely mean piece in the LRB recently even if it was largely an exercise in class snobbery.

*I do, however, like it when they get the fashion lady to be rude about politicians: https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2017/jan/09/samantha-cameron-fashion-label-cefinn-hadley-freeman

Aditya Chakrabortty is remarkably, consistently good at what he does. So principled, intelligent, unafraid.

I like this piece by Oborne. Tory yet erm conscientious is the word I'd reach to describe a lot of what he does. It never feels like he is trolling the Telegraph although he might be enjoying playing a rebel card.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/corbyns-manifesto-middle-east-well-argued-radical-and-morally-courageous-2036528122

Gary Younge - like the way he looks at Pasokification and applies it to what we have seen so far: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/22/jeremy-corbyn-labour-anti-austerity-manifesto

never thought much of gary younge's stuff on america

will be glad if he's off that beat

In general journos struggle if they come off London or other major cities etc. (a big failing) so although I haven't read Younge's stuff on the US I wouldn't fancy anything happening there.

Caroline Molloy:

https://www.opendemocracy.net/caroline-molloy/local-councils-love-and-loathing-life-story

this rings so true:
"These bad habits were developed long before the 2008 financial crisis really made things tough. In the Blair years, being tough on services used mostly by poorer women and children became something of a macho rite of passage for ambitious New Labour councillors"

Not so as much as journalism but for commentary on-the-left-from-the-left the crew at New Socialist is worth the time:

https://twitter.com/NewSocialistUK

I've not read lots of it mainly because I can get what the article is going to say as I quite often follow the writer's tweets or know the general direction of travel from discussion on left-twitter.