Author - The New Snobbery, Little Platoons, The Future Habit. Co-founder Pharos Futures, North Easterner, SAFC, Durham CCC, racing, cricket, darts.
Joined April 2009
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979 Photos and videos
Pinned Tweet
29 Jun 2021
My new book 'The New Snobbery' is published today. You can buy it on Amazon here: amazon.co.uk/New-Snobbery-Da…
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David Skelton 🏴🇺🇦 retweeted
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After losing the 1945 election, a Yugoslav woman reportedly cried, "Poor Mr Churchill, what's going to happen to him now? Is he going to be shot?" On hearing this, Churchill replied, "They've reserved for me a far worse fate than that. I am to be the Leader of the Opposition."
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David Skelton 🏴🇺🇦 retweeted
"IF A GENERAL ELECTION WERE HELD TODAY" PROJECTION @REFORMPARTY_UK WIN
REFORM: 301 ( 296)
LAB: 120 (-292)
LIB: 78 ( 6)
pollingreport.uk
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Spot on from @em_john about the weird Puritanism that has descended on Ben Stokes this week. Listening to some of the cricket podcasts this week is like listening to a temperance meeting. Stokes is an England legend and we should stop the hand wringing. theguardian.com/sport/2026/j…
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Giroud is more interesting and incisive than Rooney and Richards put together. Weird that BBC have let ITV win the pundit game.
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Hard to disagree. Shame that the government is continuing the failed two decade consensus of deindustrialising in pursuit of expensive energy.
Jun 12
Britain spent a decade choosing to be smaller in the world.
Right now the rules on communications, energy and trade are being rewritten. By China. By Russia. By countries that take their own security seriously. We need to be at that table. That's a choice we must make.
Strong countries get cheap energy. Weak countries pay whatever the strong ones decide.
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That Rob Key interview is preposterous in so many ways.
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David Skelton 🏴🇺🇦 retweeted
Jun 11
How did Sunderland go from decades without a World Cup representative to becoming one of the tournament’s most represented clubs? A remarkable international story unfolds…
⬇️ READ MORE ⬇️
rokerreport.sbnation.com/opi…
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David Skelton 🏴🇺🇦 retweeted
Jun 10
Lee Kuan Yew, the first prime minister of Singapore, famously commented on a London newspaper stand as a sign of the highly-civilised society of Great Britain in the 1940s.
His words came to mind when I saw the state of this newspaper stand in a London tube station this afternoon.
It’s remarkable how far we’ve fallen in such a short amount of time.
His words:
“Perhaps the most impressive sight I came upon was when I emerged from the tube station at Piccadilly Circus. I found a little table with a pile of newspapers and a box of coins and notes with nobody in attendance. You take your newspaper, toss in your coin or put in your 10-shilling note and take your change. I took a deep breath - this was a truly civilised people.”
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Reform extend their voting intention lead to 10pts this week, with Labour and the Tories tied for second place.
➡️ REF UK 30% ( 1)
🌹 LAB 20% (-2)
🌳 CON 20% (-1)
🔶 LIB DEM 12% (nc)
🌍 GREEN 11% ( 1)
❓OTH 3% ( 1)
🟡 SNP 3% ( 1)
N = 2,087 | Fieldwork 5-9/6 | Changes w/ 1/6
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Really hope this isn’t the case.
Jun 9
EXCLUSIVE: Ben Stokes 'to step down' as England captain and could retire from cricket talksport.com/sport/4316212/…
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Define recency bias…
Jun 7
Elon UniversityPoll: Who has been the best President in United States history?
• Abraham Lincoln: 26%
• Barack Obama: 17%
• George Washington: 12%
• Donald Trump: 11%
• Franklin D. Roosevelt: 9%
• Ronald Reagan: 9%
• John F. Kennedy: 6%
• Theodore Roosevelt: 2%
• Thomas Jefferson: 1%
• Bill Clinton: 1%
• Other: 25%
——
Democrats
• Obama: 36%
• Lincoln: 27%
• Washington: 7%
• Trump: 0%
---
Republicans
• Trump: 29%
• Lincoln: 25%
• Washington: 14%
• Obama: 2%
---
Independents
• Lincoln: 26%
• Obama: 14%
• Washington: 14%
• Trump: 6%
YouGov | 4/28-5/4
eloncdn.blob.core.windows.ne…
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Can’t help but wonder how much trouble Durham would get in if they hosted a test match with a pitch like the one Lords has served up.
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David Skelton 🏴🇺🇦 retweeted
A piece about Test cricket being off free to air TV for 20 years in the UK. A contentious deal that remains a very raw topic for many telegraph.co.uk/gift/f56e449…
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David Skelton 🏴🇺🇦 retweeted
May 27
Maybe the collective term for ex PMs should be: A Rare Intervention of Former Prime Ministers.
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New piece for @unherd - The elections symbolised the political transformation of former citadels of Labourism, first Durham, now Barnsley. Failure and decline of Labourism long left a political void, which can be replaced with a focus on industry, resilience and economic renewal.
Labourism isn’t working, by David Skelton (@DJSkelton)
At its peak, labourism was not merely a political identity but a complete social world. The pit or the steelworks provided the work, but the union, the cooperative and the chapel provided so much more.
Miners’ institutes housed libraries stocked with improving literature. Choral societies and cricket clubs gave leisure its shape. The workplace was not just where you earned your living — but the hub around which an entire network of community institutions revolved.
To be working class in Durham or Barnsley was not simply an economic condition, but an identity, a set of loyalties. Together, it encompassed, in David Marquand’s memorable phrase, a civilisation as much as a politics.
Read more below ⬇️
buff.ly/NAETM5M
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Blair might not be providing the right answers. But, unlike most of our political class, he’s at least asking the right questions. It’s a fascinating piece.
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David Skelton 🏴🇺🇦 retweeted
Crowds snake down the Wellington Road waiting to get in to Lord's on the first day of the 2nd Ashes Test, June 24th 1948 (C)
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David Skelton 🏴🇺🇦 retweeted
May 26
... but surely the best value-for-money, most impactful signing is Granit Xhaka, Sunderland’s £13m recruit from Bayer Leverkusen. Instant authority. Assists. Led Sunderland to seventh. Column. 2/2 #SAFC open.substack.com/pub/henryw…
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David Skelton 🏴🇺🇦 retweeted
May 25
A good FT piece from Martin Wolf arguing, rightly imv, that at root of UK's political woes is a 20 yr long slowdown in productivity growth
"a good economy — one with widely shared economic growth — is a necessary condition for political stability in a liberal democracy"...
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