Steve Walmsley
@s10countryman.bsky.social
Hallam FC. More sustainable running of football. Politics and current affairs. Music. Books. Oh, and real ale in great pubs!
Reposted by Steve Walmsley
The mob boss solution to a dispute / war involving others is to demand payment for the burden of pretending to keep order between them.
Just as the mob boss solution to international trade is to respect the mob of equal size but expect payments from all the others.
Just as the mob boss solution to international trade is to respect the mob of equal size but expect payments from all the others.
November 22, 2025 at 11:54 AM
The mob boss solution to a dispute / war involving others is to demand payment for the burden of pretending to keep order between them.
Just as the mob boss solution to international trade is to respect the mob of equal size but expect payments from all the others.
Just as the mob boss solution to international trade is to respect the mob of equal size but expect payments from all the others.
Reposted by Steve Walmsley
Britain has set a new wind generation record.
"At 7:30pm on 11 November wind turbines...provided enough clean electricity to power more than 22 million homes"
"Wind was delivering 43.6% of all power on the system which means three quarters of Britain’s homes were effectively running on wind alone"
"At 7:30pm on 11 November wind turbines...provided enough clean electricity to power more than 22 million homes"
"Wind was delivering 43.6% of all power on the system which means three quarters of Britain’s homes were effectively running on wind alone"
Windpower sets new record for baseload - Energy Live News
Wind supplied 43% of all power last week setting a new record of 22.7 GW
www.energylivenews.com
November 21, 2025 at 9:59 PM
Britain has set a new wind generation record.
"At 7:30pm on 11 November wind turbines...provided enough clean electricity to power more than 22 million homes"
"Wind was delivering 43.6% of all power on the system which means three quarters of Britain’s homes were effectively running on wind alone"
"At 7:30pm on 11 November wind turbines...provided enough clean electricity to power more than 22 million homes"
"Wind was delivering 43.6% of all power on the system which means three quarters of Britain’s homes were effectively running on wind alone"
Reposted by Steve Walmsley
This battle to get these recordings released is important just for admirers of Dick Gaughan’s music, but for music fans in general. www.theguardian.com/music/2025/n...
‘I never wanted to sing into a vacuum’: Scottish folk pioneer Dick Gaughan’s fight for his lost music
A skilled interpreter and social justice champion, Gaughan is a hero to the likes of Richard Hawley and Billy Bragg. Yet much of his work has been stuck in limbo for decades – until a determined fan s...
www.theguardian.com
November 19, 2025 at 6:42 PM
This battle to get these recordings released is important just for admirers of Dick Gaughan’s music, but for music fans in general. www.theguardian.com/music/2025/n...
Reposted by Steve Walmsley
Football at all levels has a dangerously insane relationship with its referees, but in non-league it also comes with a chasm between reality and foaming Twitter activists who've never been to a game.
This week's newsletter is on the AFC Rushden & Diamonds v Coventry Sphinx match abandonment.
This week's newsletter is on the AFC Rushden & Diamonds v Coventry Sphinx match abandonment.
Rushden & Diamonds match abandonment was the right response from the referee. Non-league deserves a better reaction.
The idiotic opinions of social media meatheads have no bearing on football safeguarding in the real world
hpbp.substack.com
November 18, 2025 at 9:34 AM
Football at all levels has a dangerously insane relationship with its referees, but in non-league it also comes with a chasm between reality and foaming Twitter activists who've never been to a game.
This week's newsletter is on the AFC Rushden & Diamonds v Coventry Sphinx match abandonment.
This week's newsletter is on the AFC Rushden & Diamonds v Coventry Sphinx match abandonment.
Reposted by Steve Walmsley
New post: Blue Labour’s Electoral Fallacies
mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2025/11/blue...
It worked in 24 so it will work again. Labours marginals are different. Socially liberal voters will vote for us to stop Reform. Used by Labour to justify Reform like policies, but these arguments are just wrong.
mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2025/11/blue...
It worked in 24 so it will work again. Labours marginals are different. Socially liberal voters will vote for us to stop Reform. Used by Labour to justify Reform like policies, but these arguments are just wrong.
Blue Labour’s Electoral Fallacies
The government’s latest proposed revamp of asylum laws reminds us that Labour have not abandoned their approach of using right wing popul...
mainlymacro.blogspot.com
November 18, 2025 at 9:07 AM
New post: Blue Labour’s Electoral Fallacies
mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2025/11/blue...
It worked in 24 so it will work again. Labours marginals are different. Socially liberal voters will vote for us to stop Reform. Used by Labour to justify Reform like policies, but these arguments are just wrong.
mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2025/11/blue...
It worked in 24 so it will work again. Labours marginals are different. Socially liberal voters will vote for us to stop Reform. Used by Labour to justify Reform like policies, but these arguments are just wrong.
Reposted by Steve Walmsley
We should stop the boats because it's dangerous, and we should stop the scapegoating of immigrants because it's wrong and cruel.
Controlled migration is good for the country, helps build our economy and diversity strengthens our communities. (1/6) 🧵
Controlled migration is good for the country, helps build our economy and diversity strengthens our communities. (1/6) 🧵
November 17, 2025 at 11:03 AM
We should stop the boats because it's dangerous, and we should stop the scapegoating of immigrants because it's wrong and cruel.
Controlled migration is good for the country, helps build our economy and diversity strengthens our communities. (1/6) 🧵
Controlled migration is good for the country, helps build our economy and diversity strengthens our communities. (1/6) 🧵
Reposted by Steve Walmsley
Someone should ask Starmer and Mahmood whether they think the Kindertransport, for example, should have been a return ticket. Whether Alf Dubs, rather than becoming a Labour MP and now Lord, ought to have been sent back with his family to Czechoslovakia once it was liberated from German rule.
This contribution to the volume of human misery is yet another policy from Labour based on a false premise, in this case that refugees are overly attracted to Britain. It will increase bureaucratic limbo, thus making worse the problem of "cohesion" it purports to solve.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
UK set to limit refugees to temporary stays
Shabana Mahmood is expected to say the era of permanent protection for refugees is over, in major changes to the UK's asylum and immigration system.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 15, 2025 at 9:05 AM
Someone should ask Starmer and Mahmood whether they think the Kindertransport, for example, should have been a return ticket. Whether Alf Dubs, rather than becoming a Labour MP and now Lord, ought to have been sent back with his family to Czechoslovakia once it was liberated from German rule.
Reposted by Steve Walmsley
It is a very good piece - especially on the importance of a healthy public sphere.
November 15, 2025 at 9:22 PM
It is a very good piece - especially on the importance of a healthy public sphere.
Reposted by Steve Walmsley
This.
While, admittedly, it’s not necessarily the answer to what Starmer/Reeves should do from their own perspective, from a Labour perspective the right thing would absolutely be for them to clear the decks as best they can for whoever replaces them.
I’m sorry, but they’re done.
While, admittedly, it’s not necessarily the answer to what Starmer/Reeves should do from their own perspective, from a Labour perspective the right thing would absolutely be for them to clear the decks as best they can for whoever replaces them.
I’m sorry, but they’re done.
It's true. If Labour raise income taxes, the party might slump to around a quarter of the vote, and its PM and Chancellor might be even more unpopular than Rishi Sunak in 2024 or Jeremy Corbyn in 2019 - wait, sorry, just got an email from Ipsos with some new polling, I'm sure it's nothing important.
Quite a contrast to the BlueSky consensus the last 24 hours
November 14, 2025 at 5:36 PM
This.
While, admittedly, it’s not necessarily the answer to what Starmer/Reeves should do from their own perspective, from a Labour perspective the right thing would absolutely be for them to clear the decks as best they can for whoever replaces them.
I’m sorry, but they’re done.
While, admittedly, it’s not necessarily the answer to what Starmer/Reeves should do from their own perspective, from a Labour perspective the right thing would absolutely be for them to clear the decks as best they can for whoever replaces them.
I’m sorry, but they’re done.
Reposted by Steve Walmsley
A brilliant withering column that reflects so well the patience many of us had with the government basically running out.
My column in today’s FT: a government with no real vision is reverting to its comfort zone of launching campaigns and drawing dividing lines - against Wes Streeting, on tax. Meanwhile in the real world its position keeps getting worse:
Brain-dead Labour retreats to its comfort zone: campaigning
Downing Street’s bizarre war on itself is a symptom of a government whose ideas dissolve on contact with reality
www.ft.com
November 14, 2025 at 4:07 PM
A brilliant withering column that reflects so well the patience many of us had with the government basically running out.
Reposted by Steve Walmsley
Most Labour members make an informal trade-off: we accept that the party leader is well to the right of the members, in exchange for competent leadership and actually winning. If I wanted weak leadership and no plan I could have done that myself.
November 13, 2025 at 10:56 PM
Most Labour members make an informal trade-off: we accept that the party leader is well to the right of the members, in exchange for competent leadership and actually winning. If I wanted weak leadership and no plan I could have done that myself.
Reposted by Steve Walmsley
Good piece by @davidsonofaaron.bsky.social on the Prescott memo, which looks very dodgy:
observer.co.uk/news/nationa...
observer.co.uk/news/nationa...
The Prescott memo flunks the impartiality test | The Observer
observer.co.uk
November 13, 2025 at 7:32 AM
Good piece by @davidsonofaaron.bsky.social on the Prescott memo, which looks very dodgy:
observer.co.uk/news/nationa...
observer.co.uk/news/nationa...
This is why the right wing newspapers hate the BBC...
Finally, a bit of a reality check from our 2024 election book (out soon!) for everyone hyperventilating about collapsing public trust in the BBC - free to air TV (mostly the BBC) is still the most widely consumed and widely trusted source of news - blows print, online & social media out of the water
November 11, 2025 at 2:31 PM
This is why the right wing newspapers hate the BBC...
Reposted by Steve Walmsley
SUPERB and angrily unvarnished response, by former BBC chairman, Lord Patten.
"I don't think that we should allow ourselves to be bullied into thinking that the BBC is only any good, if it reflects the prejudice of the last person who shouted at it." ~AA
"I don't think that we should allow ourselves to be bullied into thinking that the BBC is only any good, if it reflects the prejudice of the last person who shouted at it." ~AA
November 10, 2025 at 6:40 PM
SUPERB and angrily unvarnished response, by former BBC chairman, Lord Patten.
"I don't think that we should allow ourselves to be bullied into thinking that the BBC is only any good, if it reflects the prejudice of the last person who shouted at it." ~AA
"I don't think that we should allow ourselves to be bullied into thinking that the BBC is only any good, if it reflects the prejudice of the last person who shouted at it." ~AA
Reposted by Steve Walmsley
The reaction to the Panorama edit has been nothing short of hysterical. Yes the BBC has some impartiality problems. But its biggest isn't the one you think.
New piece from me.
open.substack.com/pub/goodalla...
New piece from me.
open.substack.com/pub/goodalla...
The truth about impartiality at the BBC
And the hysteria of the current "crisis"
open.substack.com
November 10, 2025 at 7:22 PM
The reaction to the Panorama edit has been nothing short of hysterical. Yes the BBC has some impartiality problems. But its biggest isn't the one you think.
New piece from me.
open.substack.com/pub/goodalla...
New piece from me.
open.substack.com/pub/goodalla...
Reposted by Steve Walmsley
The fact that the BBC has made serious culpable errors does not negate the point that there is a real and concerted right-wing media campaign to destroy it. Both points can be true at the same time and the campaign would not end even if the errors did.
November 10, 2025 at 1:08 PM
The fact that the BBC has made serious culpable errors does not negate the point that there is a real and concerted right-wing media campaign to destroy it. Both points can be true at the same time and the campaign would not end even if the errors did.
Reposted by Steve Walmsley
It’s ironic but predictable that the BBC duo -who tried so hard to please the right wing papers-are removed by the right wing papers.
November 9, 2025 at 6:46 PM
It’s ironic but predictable that the BBC duo -who tried so hard to please the right wing papers-are removed by the right wing papers.
Reposted by Steve Walmsley
![Cartoon by Stephen Collins for The Guardian. Script as follows:
[scene is Winston Churchill in a bbc studio, giving his 'finest hour' speech]
1
CHURCHILL:
The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us.
2
CHURCHILL:
Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war.
3
CHURCHILL:
If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free
and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sun-
BBC PRESENTER:
Thank you prime minister
4
BBC PRESENTER:
Mr hitler, your response?
5
HITLER [in the studio]:
Vell zis is hysterical woke nonsense as usual from mr Churchill
6
HITLER:
What we are proposing -
CHURCHILL:
Hang on
7
HITLER:
Let me finish - what we are proposing eez a simple power-sharing arrangement -
8
CHURCHILL:
What's he doing here
BBC PRESENTER:
It's important we hear both sides of the debate
9
CHURCHILL:
This isn't a debate
You don't debate fascists
10
HITLER:
Oh here we go with ze Godwins law!
11
HITLER:
Why must you people always compare ze things you don't like to 'fascists, Nazis, Hitler'...
CHURCHILL:
Because you are a fascist Nazi Hit-
12
HITLER [standing up, saluting]:
RAUSS!
BBC PRESENTER:
*Please* Mr Churchill let him speak
[ends]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4m3we4apbjayclzcnhwe3pfp/bafkreibw4ldc3fhslbvxgy2oqrof2oys5kpgh7zu6a5f3usmx3lf4547qm@jpeg)
Reposted by Steve Walmsley
Very good report on Global Progress and Morgan is spot on about the Spanish approach.
I wrote about the lessons the Danish social democrats want to offer Labour last month, and noted a distinct uptick in Denmark Chat at conference. As I discuss in the piece, I am more convinced by the arguments for Spain-as-model.
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/oc...
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/oc...
November 8, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Very good report on Global Progress and Morgan is spot on about the Spanish approach.
Great summary of a well-deserved and much needed win for @hallamfc1860.bsky.social
This is what it's like when it comes together for @hallamfc1860.bsky.social . Hard work and good play all over the pitch deservedly paying off...
www.tumblr.com/sptxx4/79967...
www.tumblr.com/sptxx4/79967...
Post by @sptxx4 · 15 images
💬 0 🔁 0 ❤️ 0 · This is what it's like when it comes together for @HallamFC1860. Hard work and good play all over the pitch deservedly paying off. Hallam almost got in right in the first minute, L…
www.tumblr.com
November 8, 2025 at 7:25 PM
Great summary of a well-deserved and much needed win for @hallamfc1860.bsky.social
A much needed and well-deserved 2-0 win for @hallamfc1860.bsky.social today against Bishop Auckland. Hallam were the best side, but it took a while to get the goals. Ollie Russon capped off an excellent performance with the first goal and Jack Brownell put a great free-kick into the top bin!
November 8, 2025 at 5:27 PM
A much needed and well-deserved 2-0 win for @hallamfc1860.bsky.social today against Bishop Auckland. Hallam were the best side, but it took a while to get the goals. Ollie Russon capped off an excellent performance with the first goal and Jack Brownell put a great free-kick into the top bin!
Reposted by Steve Walmsley
A great story showing the vital role of local journalism - the more so in an age where Tim Davie's BBC has abandoned serious inquiry in quest for populist clickbait. And crushing indictment of City shyster described by judge as follows: "I do not consider him [Milne] to be an honest or credible man"
We’ve made this investigation free to read because so many people in Sheffield are affected by this story.
Our journalists have been knocking on doors for weeks and we’ve had to employ lawyers because of the legal threats made against us.
We can only do this kind of journalism with your support.
Our journalists have been knocking on doors for weeks and we’ve had to employ lawyers because of the legal threats made against us.
We can only do this kind of journalism with your support.
“It broke my heart, that was my savings towards a new car,” one woman who paid Milne tens of thousands of pounds told us. “He has just wiped me out.”
Who is Andrew Milne - the solicitor sending "very aggressive" letters to Sheffield homeowners?
www.sheffieldtribune.co.uk/a-london-law...
Who is Andrew Milne - the solicitor sending "very aggressive" letters to Sheffield homeowners?
www.sheffieldtribune.co.uk/a-london-law...
November 6, 2025 at 9:57 PM
A great story showing the vital role of local journalism - the more so in an age where Tim Davie's BBC has abandoned serious inquiry in quest for populist clickbait. And crushing indictment of City shyster described by judge as follows: "I do not consider him [Milne] to be an honest or credible man"
Reposted by Steve Walmsley
“It broke my heart, that was my savings towards a new car,” one woman who paid Milne tens of thousands of pounds told us. “He has just wiped me out.”
Who is Andrew Milne - the solicitor sending "very aggressive" letters to Sheffield homeowners?
www.sheffieldtribune.co.uk/a-london-law...
Who is Andrew Milne - the solicitor sending "very aggressive" letters to Sheffield homeowners?
www.sheffieldtribune.co.uk/a-london-law...
A London lawyer bought hundreds of Sheffield freeholds. Then the ‘very aggressive’ letters arrived
Exclusive: The Tribune can reveal that Andrew Milne has threatened leaseholders with high court action. It ‘broke my heart’ one woman says
www.sheffieldtribune.co.uk
November 6, 2025 at 3:20 PM
“It broke my heart, that was my savings towards a new car,” one woman who paid Milne tens of thousands of pounds told us. “He has just wiped me out.”
Who is Andrew Milne - the solicitor sending "very aggressive" letters to Sheffield homeowners?
www.sheffieldtribune.co.uk/a-london-law...
Who is Andrew Milne - the solicitor sending "very aggressive" letters to Sheffield homeowners?
www.sheffieldtribune.co.uk/a-london-law...
Reposted by Steve Walmsley
This is what is happening. It is cynical. It is strategic. It is organised. It is well funded.
And we need to pay attention.
The far right - and their cheerleaders, mimics, tribute acts, and handmaidens have identified two presentational frameworks that give them cut-through and traction. 1/7
And we need to pay attention.
The far right - and their cheerleaders, mimics, tribute acts, and handmaidens have identified two presentational frameworks that give them cut-through and traction. 1/7
November 6, 2025 at 1:44 PM
This is what is happening. It is cynical. It is strategic. It is organised. It is well funded.
And we need to pay attention.
The far right - and their cheerleaders, mimics, tribute acts, and handmaidens have identified two presentational frameworks that give them cut-through and traction. 1/7
And we need to pay attention.
The far right - and their cheerleaders, mimics, tribute acts, and handmaidens have identified two presentational frameworks that give them cut-through and traction. 1/7
Reposted by Steve Walmsley
Osborne deserves a lot more condemnation, for not just doing austerity but doing it so cackhandedly:
1. Not borrowing to invest when borrowing costs were at essentially zero
2. Cutting spending by salami slicing every part of the public sector with no real analysis of where could take it
1. Not borrowing to invest when borrowing costs were at essentially zero
2. Cutting spending by salami slicing every part of the public sector with no real analysis of where could take it
Late period Osborne: interest rates at zero and 50-80bn of headroom: and his priority was “don’t invest”.
November 4, 2025 at 9:11 AM
Osborne deserves a lot more condemnation, for not just doing austerity but doing it so cackhandedly:
1. Not borrowing to invest when borrowing costs were at essentially zero
2. Cutting spending by salami slicing every part of the public sector with no real analysis of where could take it
1. Not borrowing to invest when borrowing costs were at essentially zero
2. Cutting spending by salami slicing every part of the public sector with no real analysis of where could take it