Robert Saunders, Discover and Read the Best of Twitter Threads by @redhistorian

Robert Saunders

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A key point that gets missed in some of the cruder takes on the "Red Wall". Tory success here may owe less to a new electoral phenomenon than an old

Universities should indeed offer "value for money" - but how do we measure the value of education? Every test that comes from government is crassly econometric. We need to recapture

When Gladstone reformed the civil service in 1854, abolishing ministerial patronage, critics called it "an immense stride" towards democracy. They were right: which is why scandals like Greensill, and the

Excellent piece by the @ConUnit_UCL on the "shocking" collapse of parliamentary govt over the last year. Five changes, in particular, "amount to a fundamental undermining and exclusion of parliament from

This is a desperately silly question.Polls have to move beyond this childishness.I'd like a party that's inspired by the best of our history while learning from its failings; that builds

One of the biggest dangers to the Union today is the Westminster model at its core: a "winner-takes-all" contest between two overwhelmingly English parties, propped up by an archaic electoral

Every healthy democracy in the world imposes checks & balances on the exercise of power. Those checks may be constitutional, legal, conventional or merely ethical, but they're crucial if democracy

Lord Judge's speech yesterday offered a passionate defence of two constitutional principles: the Rule of Law; and the Sovereignty of Parliament. The Internal Market Bill is a danger to both

Why was Margaret Thatcher so afraid of German reunification? Why did a lifelong anti-Communist turn to the Soviet Union for support? And what lessons might be learned for Brexit Britain?

Good piece, as ever, by @NickCohen4 on the collapse of meritocracy. Though I'd see it slightly differently: I think Cummings passionately believes that he is *constructing* a meritocracy, in a

According to the @Telegraph "Boris Johnson has speeded up plans to curb the judiciary". We must not be fooled by claims that this is about restoring "the sovereignty of Parliament".

This is the next step in the presidentialisation of UK politics: a US-style "Administration," staffed by prime ministerial appointees from outside Parliament, whose authority flows directly from the PM, rather