I joined James Butler and Patrick Maguire to discuss the transition of power in British politics, for the LRB On Politics Podcast.
Author: willdavies
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‘Burnham’s Political Economy’
An online early piece for the next issue of London Review of Books, on the economic constraints that will confront Andy Burnham as Prime Minister.
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‘What training my chaotic dog taught me about power, control – and human beings’
I have a Guardian Long Read on a surprising topic: my dog, and the struggle to train it. I’ve added some further reflections on the philosophical questions that drew me to write it on Substack.
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‘In Britain, the Far Right is setting the agenda’
I’ve written for The New York Times about the mainstreaming of Far Right ideas, policies and narratives.
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‘Looking back on PERC’
This summer sees the closing of the Political Economy Research Centre that I helped found in 2014, and led ever since. In this blogpost, I reflect on the 12 year history of the Centre, and our efforts to analyse the times we were living through.
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‘Easy to join, easy to leave’
I’ve reviewed Anton Jäger’s Hyperpolitics in the latest issue of the London Review of Books.
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‘The state of the state’
Over the last couple of years, I’ve been helping to coordinate members of the Economy & Society Editorial Board to produce a set of reflections on the changing face of ‘the state’. Following an event at UCL in February 2025 to prompt some short contributions, the journal has now published a combination of short pieces, with an Introduction by me and Andrew Barry.
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‘Tactical Voting’
Reflections on Britain’s Gorton & Denton by-election, and the fracturing of party politics in Britain, published in London Review of Books.
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‘Why the right wins online’
I discussed the success of the Right online for the New Economics Foundation podcast, following my London Review of Books article about Farageist Tiktok
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‘Facial recognitions’
A new essay in The Ideas Letter on how the politics of the face has grown more fractious, in context of smartphones, face-covering bans, facial recognition algorithms, ICE agents and protest culture.
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‘A critique of pure stupidity: understanding Trump 2.0’
The Guardian has published an edited version of my N+1 essay on stupidity and Trumpism as a Long Read.
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‘Repeal the 20th century’
I’ve reviewed When the Clock Broke by John Ganz for the latest London Review of Books, asking how the rise of Trump might change what we consider to be a ‘model case’ of a crisis, and its correlates in the UK.
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Interview with Smart Cookies podcast
I discussed the frightening new mutations on the reactionary Right and its economic conditions with the Smart Cookies podcast. Watch on YouTube below or listen on Apple podcasts here.
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‘Stupidology’
I have a (currently paywalled) piece in the new N+1, examining the charge of ‘stupidity’ that has been leveled so frequently against the Trump administration, and asking what are the background conditions of a ‘stupid’ age.
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‘TV meets fruit machine’
An essay in London Review of Books on ‘Faragist TikTok’, which explores the discontents of the algorithmic public sphere.
William Davies 