Outside the system
Author: James Bloodworth
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The Chatbot and the Bureaucrat
Will AI end humanity or save it? It may be more mundane than that, writes James Bloodworth
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Who Owns Our Beautiful Game?
Global capital is threatening a takeover of the essence of football – but it’s that essence that makes the sport such a commodity, writes James Bloodworth
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Care: The Cost of Petty Politics
How has the most humane work in our society been devalued and allowed to deteriorate for so long?
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A ‘Special’ Relationship, Indeed
James Bloodworth explores whether Britain and the United States can ever mature their mutual fascination with each other into more than symbolic fantasy
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James Orr: Reform UK’s Religious Cambridge Professor’s Politics of Contradictions
Nigel Farage’s Head of Policy provides a veneer of respectability to a politics that seeks fewer restraints, fewer mediating institutions, and less liberal democracy
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A Town that has Stood Still as the World has Moved On
James Bloodworth returns to Wigan after a decade, en route to Ashton-in-Makerfield, to explore whether Orwell’s sense of the area’s ‘decay’ still rings true
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Can Hungary’s Democracy Recover from its Systematic Dismantling by Viktor Orbán?
The former Prime Minister did not destroy democracy outright – he re-engineered it into a system in which elections continue but meaningful political competition does not. His successor faces a complex dilemma of how to reform such a regime, writes James Bloodworth
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How Labour Became a Party of the Super-Rich
The Telegraph journalist Charles Moore once remarked that whereas Margaret Thatcher believed in privatisation, Tony Blair just liked rich people.
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Sir Paul Marshall and the Rise of Elite Evangelical Nationalism
Sir Paul Marshall, co-founder of asset management firm Marshall Wace, is one of the UK’s most powerful – but least scrutinised – political actors.
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Who Was Jeffrey Epstein?
The Epstein Files lay bare how power always protects its own, writes James Bloodworth
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The Plastic Patriots’ Love Affair with Russia
Why do so many on the British far-right profess to worship Winston Churchill butmake excuses for Vladimir Putin? By James Bloodworth
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Beyond Nostalgia – The Left Needs a Lasting Vision Our Lost Society Can Latch On To
James Bloodworth explores how and why the left abandoned its previous capacity to imagine the future – a vacuum into which the populist right has readily stepped
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The ‘Boriswave’ Powering the Carousel of Scapegoats
Post-Brexit supply chain pressures and a series of international crises all resulted in a significant rise in net migration in recent years. The measures taken were supported at the time – but the public wants to ‘have it both ways’, writes James Bloodworth
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How the Islamophobia Definition Became a New Front in the Culture War
Think tanks, working with right-leaning media outlets and MPs, have toxified the political and social waters around recognising anti-Muslim hate. James Bloodworth reports
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Britain’s Media Has Let Nigel Farage Reshape Political Journalism. Why?
The Reform UK Leader’s rise is not an aberration but the predictable consequence of an industry that has restructured itself around virality, writes James Bloodworth
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From Maggie to MAGA: The Transformation of the Conservative Mind
James Bloodworth examines how the rise of the radical-right is not a sudden aberration but the product of decades of neoliberal policy and the collapse of alternatives
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Going After the ‘Invaders’ – A Protest in Portsmouth
Across the country hotels housing asylum seekers have become a flashpoint for the far-right and those angry about immigration. Beyond the media headlines, the dark and dangerous ideology underpinning much of the unrest needs to be taken seriously. James Bloodworth reports
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The Brexit Revolution and the Power of the ‘Betrayal Myth’
Having instigated the UK’s economically and politically damaging departure from the EU, James Bloodworth asks why Nigel Farage is still the country’s most popular politician
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Beyond the Bro Speak: How the Manosphere Nurtures the ‘Alpha Warriors’ of Political Violence
James Bloodworth spent five years investigating the internet subcultures fostering communities of toxic misogyny. The lethal actions of its members – dismissed as ‘lone wolves’ – are a direct result of the thinking embedded in these extreme online spaces
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‘In These TikTok Times, Nigel Farage Knows Personality Trumps Trust’
With cynicism towards traditional institutions at an all-time high, the new digital landscape in which politicians operate favours the likes of the Reform UK Leader. James Bloodworth reports
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From Grief To Grievance
Last summer’s violence across the UK’s towns and cities saw an eruption of racism in some of the country’s most deprived areas. With the Labour Government’s central policy of economic growth on uncertain ground – and a social media-fuelled right in politics and the media ready to take advantage of the underlying conditions that have…
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‘Two-Tier’ Justice Or Two-Tier Punditry?
By 7pm on 30 July 2024, small groups of white men had begun to congregate outside one of Southport’s mosques. Some were wearing hoodies and masks
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‘Legitimate Concerns’ and Root Causes: Have Lessons Been Learned From Last Summer’s Riots?
Last summer, a motley crew of influencers and populists sought to recast the thugs rampaging through towns and cities as a democratic revolt from below. Though they largely failed in this endeavour – a majority of the public displayed little sympathy towards the rioters – it would be naive to bet against further outbreaks of…
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JD Vance and the Radicalisation of the Right
Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, used to be a harsh critic of the former US president – now he’s a “dutiful ventriloquist of the Trumpian gospel”. Here’s what happened
