Lecturer in Literature at the University of Essex.
Researcher and author (Killing Children in British Fiction - SUNY, 2024).
I work on contemporary British fiction and film, children, Ishiguro, migration, intergenerational conflict. All views my own.
Dominic Dean
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In other words, I'm as big an opponent of unfettered executive power as you'll find, but there are also things that are so bad that they merit being targets of such power, and we're all looking at him.
The key point here is that the purported logic of Labour’s ‘tough’ approach to immigration - that once the numbers are down, Farage’s appeal will dissipate - is utter bollocks.
As we knew.
This is pushing the point to an extreme, but Labour (and indeed Tories) losing the young on both progressive *and* aspirational sides doesn’t get discussed enough. Support (at least rhetorically) of personal aspiration among the young was a constant of post-Thatcher governments…now it just isn’t.
Lovely light here in Sussex this evening
Effective early-modern rulers, faced with a subject accumulating extraordinary personal power and wealth, would find an opportunity or pretext to seize the wealth and destroy the power. No doubt there were undesirable aspects of this, but there were reasons kings did as they did; we should heed them
We should treat it the same way other crimes of this enormity are treated (on the rare occasions when they lead to an actual process of justice).
The only way to avoid this grotesque abuse of power, as it turns out, would have been for the jury to acquit entirely. The jury in this case are effectively being punished for their good faith, and I suspect future juries will take note.
I do love an academic book with an unashamedly provocative title.
In general Starmer's unwillingness to be honest about Trump is an underrated factor in his political failure. I get that there are genuine dangers/downsides in risking a breach with US. But I doubt those who argued for normalcy at all costs were clear-sighted about the costs of their own preference.
Today is the final day to express your interest in contributing to The Modernist Review's special issue for the Weird Modernisms conference in Loughborough, held jointly by @moderniststudies.bsky.social & @modernistudies.bsky.social . Get in touch at [email protected]!
