A Short Summer Update

I’m on holiday so my next proper post will be next week. But I wanted to do a short update on the substack. Some of you may have noticed I stopped doing the monthly updates – they didn’t get as much engagement as other posts, and there are other UK substackers who do good weekly lists of links (Ian Leslie, Helen Lewis, Ed West, Alex Massie are some of my favourites).

I will, however, do occasional updates on how things are going. It’s been quite an eventful few months. Lawrence got sanctioned by Russia, though very annoyingly they cited his pieces for the Sunday Times and didn’t mention Comment is Freed. I still think we can claim to be the first substack to be sanctioned by Putin. Lawrence was also listed by Prospect Magazine as one of their top 50 global thinkers, and they did cite the Substack. (You can vote for him to help his placing in the final list here). My last piece on the Tory leadership race was quoted on the front page of the Sunday Times.

Most importantly Lawrence’s new book is coming out soon – it’s called Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine – and it’s released on 8th September. You can pre-order it here and we’ll be doing some content around it for paid subscribers once it’s out. They’ll also be another Ukraine focused Q+A for those of you paying at some point.

As for upcoming pieces over the next month or so, Lawrence will continue to focus on the war in Ukraine as it moves into what looks like a dynamic phase over the coming weeks, with the Ukrainians attempting to retake Kherson in the south. I’ve been, rather more parochially, preoccupied with the fall of Boris Johnson and the Tory leadership race in recent posts, but will take the opportunity of the lengthy membership stage of the contest to write about some other things. This will include a piece on the problems I have with “centrist” as a definition of political beliefs; my delayed guide to getting the most out of twitter; and an analysis of the mistakes I made when I was a Government adviser.

I’ll refocus on the policy challenges for the new Prime Minister as we get into September, and will also do some posts on the intriguing US midterms as we go through the autumn. For now my only update on the Tory leadership race is that Liz Truss is undoubtedly becoming a stronger favourite. Rishi Sunak has failed to capitalise on his electability argument, due to an overly aggressive BBC debate performance, and a campaign that has undershot even my low expectations. Truss has managed to avoid any serious scrutiny. If this pattern holds for the next few weeks, it seems likely she’ll win. I remain bothered, though, that we only have one proper poll of the Tory membership who are making this decision, from YouGov. Last time their final poll said Boris Johnson would win by 48 points and he won by 33. This time they have Truss winning by 24 points, so it remains possible the contest is a lot closer than everyone thinks it is.  

Anyway, as ever a huge thanks to subscribers, especially those of you paying, as it allows us to justify spending time on these posts. I’ve also come to a special subscription arrangement with a school that I’d like to make more widely available – for a founder fee (£100) we’re happy to add a whole politics A-level group or undergraduate group to the paid subscriber list. Email me via the site or DM me on twitter (@samfr) to arrange if interested.