The Knicks’ long championship drought and famously rabid fan base help explain the euphoria. So does the fact that the team does not fit the caricature of New Yorkers (and of capitalists) as self-obsessed and indifferent to the wants of lesser mortals

The Belgian government first invented the problem of the ‘manosphere’, blaming @Cobratate and myself for young men (migrants, but they’ll never admit that) making our schools and streets unsafe. Now they’ve come up with the solution. The government will provide our youth with ‘better role models’. How? With an €800.000 taxpayer funded podcast with a fat-positive, polyamorous host and a pervert dressed like a caricature of a woman. The podcast has only reached 600 views, meaning it costs more than €1000 per viewer, but I personally wish it would have more viewers because the government doesn’t realise it’s precisely this sort of degeneracy that radicalises our native youth against them. Luckily, they’ll probably make it mandatory viewing in school soon, as part of the lessons they’re already teaching about Adolescence (a fictional Netflix series they don’t realise is fiction) or as part of the lessons about the dangers of listening to Dries Van Langenhove (yes, students actually have to take tests with questions like “why is Van Langenhove’s rhetoric dangerous and false?”).

In the @Specator, I've written about the contrast between the ugly image of America created by the sneering, European Left and the beautiful reality that confronted the Tartan Army -- and fans of other European teams -- when they set foot in the United States. "This was a very different America to the caricature those fans would have been told about by the Trump-hating anti-capitalists who’ve been running Scotland (into the ground) for the past 19 years. Scotland has the most draconian hate speech laws in Europe, having passed the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act in 2021. Yet in Boston, these Scots discovered that living in a country that celebrates the free enterprise system, complete with the First Amendment, isn’t such a nightmare after all. Let’s hope they return to their home country determined to get rid of the tin-pot dictators who’ve been trying to turn the birthplace of the Enlightenment into the North Korea of the North Sea."

This is an impressive newspaper interview by @WilliamClouston, the SDP's candidate in Clacton. William and I would probably disagree on some of the economics, but on everything else he is spot on. Intelligent, sober, grown-up politics. Why would you be a good MP to the people of Clacton? The Social Democratic Party (SDP), is the only national political party with a developed policy platform standing against Reform in Clacton. We’re the party of the patriotic state, which is exactly what Clacton’s electorate demands: we support strong control of the borders and national pride, while also believing in a robust government that nationalises utilities, invests in infrastructure, and brings industry back to Britain. Whereas Reform lacks political direction, we are crystal clear on our plans for government and want to fix the long-term, structural challenges facing our country: migration, under-investment, a degraded public realm, and deindustrialisation. What are the main issues Clacton faces? The caricature we see of Clacton in the press is completely inaccurate – both in terms of the idea of it being economically destitute or socially atomised, and in terms of the idea of there being just one “Clacton”. Clacton-on-Sea is the biggest town in the constituency at 55,500 people, but there are another 30,000 people living in adjacent towns like Frinton-on-Sea, Walton-on-the-Naze, and Jaywick. These are all very distinct towns, with their own needs and issues. In terms of issues common to the whole constituency, I think there’s an underinvestment in the public realm, poor economic connectivity with the rest of the country, and a shortage of consistent, quality social care. Firstly, on the public realm, there’s some real work to be done on making sure public spaces are consistently well-maintained and orderly. The landscapes of the area is stunning, and it has a lot of beautiful housing stock. However, it’s undermined by the road and streets they often lead on to. Often there’s not been too much thought put into the basics like planting trees on the streets for shade and beatification, or on properly planning the road network out to stop congestion. These are subtle things, but for a tourism-heavy constituency it’s critical that Clacton gets this right. Secondly, on economic connectivity, the town is really underserved in terms of road and rail links. If you want to travel to or from Clacton by a main road, your only option is through the A12-A120 junction near Colchester- that means a route that’s usually riddled with delays. On rail, all but a couple of trains a day are the same hourly service to London Liverpool Street. This lack of options makes Clacton too inconvenient for many tourists and commuters – the first resulting in reduced income for the hospitality firms the constituency relies on, and the second resulting in a real shortage of dentists, doctors, and nurses for many of Clacton’s residents. The lack of dentists, doctors, nurses, and carers has been told to me consistently on the street and the doorstep during this campaign. Social care is particularly worrying to many people, given the patchiness in quality and coverage that’s available – Clacton’s would be a great beneficiary for one of the SDP’s proposed policies, a National Care Service that guarantees national resourcing for comprehensive social care. How would you sum up your campaign in three words? “You already agree.” The SDP’s mix of economic and social policies is pretty much bang-on the position of the average Brit. We believe in a strong state that takes on crime and criminals, controls the border, and takes real pride in our country. But we also believe the government must roll up its sleeves and invest in infrastructure, ensure care for the sick and old, and make sure that Britain protects its manufacturing sector and industry. What do you think of Andy Burnham as PM? I have no idea what Andy Burnham wants to achieve as PM. He’s not explained what he wants to do in real terms, and only speaks in terms of fuzzy platitudes and folksy PR spin. I think the Labour party is in a bind, and is incapable of fixing the troubles facing this country. Since 1997, the Migration Observatory has noted that total net migration has stood at 9.5mn people. That’s nearly 1 in 7 of the official population count. Simply put, you can’t have a social democratic state – or a nation-state with a basic sense of a shared culture or trust – if you allow mass migration of this scale to continue. The moment you suggest this, however, you’re met with shrill rage from the Labour backbenches. Open-border utopianism – and seeming contempt for their own constituents – seems to be a prerequisite for the Parliamentary Labour Party. But another prerequisite is an inability to do basic maths. Government debt is on an unsustainable trajectory, and one of the main drivers of this is an exploding entitlements bill. In real terms, the amount spent on the state pension per claimant has soared from £6,000 in 1997 to £10,800 in 2024. Spending on disability and incapacity benefit jumped from 1% of GDP in 1991 to over 2.5% of GDP in 2025. As a result, public sector net debt has exploded from 36% of GDP in 2007 to 95% in 2025 – it’s costing us up to £130bn per year just to service the interest of this higher debt, and that’s going to only grow unless we pull down unsustainable spending. But the Labour Party will not hear this, even if you’re suggesting reallocating this spending to things that will generate growth like railways, roads, or power stations. You can’t govern with such immature, unserious people. How do you differ from other candidates in Clacton? We’re the only national party with a developed political programme who are standing in this election, with a full manifesto at the last general election. We also have fully developed green papers on some of the major political topics of our time, like energy or the state of the public finances. Our main project is to offer real, fully-formed solutions to the challenges facing the country – motivated by our principle that the country should be led by a patriotic state. What are the main policies you would look to implement if you were the MP for Clacton? I’m under no illusion: as a single MP, you can’t really do much in a legislative sense in terms of bills passed. And neither can Nigel Farage, given his party currently has only a handful of MPs in the Commons. My job as MP Clacton would be to champion the policies that the people of Clacton voted for and that are in the SDP manifesto. However, the most important thing as an MP would be to hold the government’s feet to the fire at parliamentary debates, challenging their de facto uncontrolled system of mass migration, failure to invest in infrastructure, spinelessness to our radicalised judiciary, and inability to get the basics right on things like energy, water, and rail. In terms of particular policies, Clacton stands to benefit significantly from the SDP’s proposed National Care Service: a universal, comprehensive care service that will provide access to acute, nurse-led intermediate, and long-term care. For Clacton, with its larger share of older residents, a National Care Service would offer significant peace of mind for many households. What’s the best night out in Clacton? I’ve really enjoyed my meals at the Mangiare Ristorante at Frinton-on-Sea. It’s a great Italian restaurant: the food is fantastic and the team is incredibly friendly. In terms of drinking at the pub, I’ve had a lovely time at the Old Lifeboat House at Clacton-on-Sea. What would you tell President Trump if you could speak to him directly? I think he must ask himself what his priorities are and what he wants to achieve from his presidency. The Iran War is one of the worst disasters in American military history, and it happened entirely because of a complete failure by him to look at his intelligence brief or consider how it might impact the rest of his presidency. His failure and flip-flopping on tariffs is another case in point, as was his idiocy around the Greenland Annexation push. Trump seems to just do things because it feels good in the moment for his ego – if I had his ear for a moment, I’d tell him that if he wants any sort of legacy then he must reign this in immediately. What would your dream role be if you were asked to join the government? I’m campaigning as leader of the SDP party, so my dream role would be to serve as Prime Minister so we had full latitude to implement our policy platform. But if the SDP were asked into a coalition, and if the terms were right, then I would probably choose Housing Minister. I’ve enjoyed a forty-year career in town planning and commercial property development, so Housing would allow me to put my expertise to best possible use – and allow me to ideally oversee a proper resurrection of state housebuilding capacity. If you could change one thing about the UK more broadly, what would it be? An end to short-termism in public life. Building and maintaining a country is hard, and requires you to think in timeframes beyond a single election – it can take decades for the consequences of a decision to be felt. Mass media and social media both have compressed our timelines down to the order of weeks, days, and hours. Many people in public life aren’t interested in making the country better, but in taking part in a vapid never-ending circus of outrage and “gotchas”. These people must go.