Bearly Admin: Four Months In, A Small Pause for Breath (and Thanks)

What Bearly Politics actually is, how the subscriptions work, and why I keep shouting into the void anyway.

Afternoon All,

It feels like it’s been a little while since I’ve done an adminny post - and that’s largely been due to a distinct lack of time and the fact that life has semi caught fire around me a bit over the past few weeks or so.

As anyone who works with me in the NHS knows (I know there are a bunch of you guys, hello!), we are now entering that time of year where everything is urgent(er), the hospitals start getting prepped for the buckles that are to come and in general, I’m just running around like a blue arsed bear desperately trying to keep ahead of everything. Last week was a particularly bad one, but, I made it through(ish).

The reason for this adminny post is that it’s been just about four months since I decided to move all my long form writing over to Bearly Politics and started writing a bit more “professionally” (very heavy air quotes implied here). Back in June when I started doing so, I had about 2,500 people who were happy to hear me ramble on for thousands of words at a time - this has now positively ballooned to 5,700 readers and my rambles being read at a rate of about 150,000 times a month.

Those numbers still blow my mind every time I see them - I am, boiling it all down, just a guy with a MacBook and an unfortunate habit of turning every minor political annoyance into a 2,000 word polemic, typing furiously away in the evenings and on the front upper seat of buses while I’m making my way between site visits or squished onto a train desperately avoiding anyone making physical contact with me, so the fact that Bearly Politics has grown the way it has is both thrilling and, I’ll be very honest, mildly terrifying.

The main reason I made the decision at the time to move all my writing over to Bearly Politics from my erstwhile habit of doing so on X was to create a space where we could talk about politics like actual adults - with a bit of humour, a lot of honesty and actual context - without the performative outrage, algorithmic manipulation and without being called a “filthy commie” fifteen times a day by a guy with a bunch of numbers in his handle. It’s grown into something genuinely a lot bigger than I expected, a small but growing, funny, sometimes fiery community of people who care about how power works, why it fails and how we can possibly make sense of it all without repeatedly banging our heads against a wall.

For people who are new here, and there have been about a thousand of you guys since my last adminny post last month, it might also help understanding what Bearly Politics is and, slightly less importantly, who I am.

Bearly Politics is, in the main, meant to be a small act of rebellion against the way we’ve started talking about politics over the years, which is pretty much all outrage and zero substance.

It’s not meant to be a breaking news outlet or a gossip mill for Westminster-watchers. It exists to provide context on issues and clarity where it’s possible and where I can let ideas stretch their legs (hence the high word counts). I mainly try to write about politics in the way it actually feels when you live with its impacts - the absurdity, the exhaustion and occasionally the flickers of hope - and to do so with at least some compassion.

As for the who I am - I am, first and foremost, not a journalist. I’m a healthcare strategist by trade, a writer sort of by accident¹ and a happily married homosexual immigrant by choice.

By day I work for the Health Service which involves spreadsheets, governance boards, lots of strategies, patient pathways and generally seeing what I can do to make healthcare just a bit more accessible and modern - the glamorous stuff.

By night (and very often from very early in the morning²), I sit down with far too much coffee and translate the political insanity we’re currently living through into something readable, truthful and - if we’re lucky - occasionally funny.

There is, as it stands, no team - there’s no intern, editor, brand partner or mysterious billionaire benefactor³, it’s just me, a second-hand MacBook, the world’s most judgemental cat and a mind that will not shut up until I’ve got everything that’s swirling around inside it down on the proverbial paper.

I have also started recording myself talking at my computer about once a month or so (I’m nearly forty and male, it was bound to happen) and publishing it as a part of the subscription model. Yes, it’s as incredibly cringe as you may imagine for everyone involved; I forget my notes, I go on tangents about things and occasionally lose my train of thought mid-sentence leaving me staring blankly at a screen and willing myself to please, for the love of god just say something (anything!?)

Not-a-Podcast: The Bear Speaks at his Laptop Again

Somehow though, it has, become a thing. A few of you have said you enjoy listening to me die a bit inside, so I’ll keep it going and it’ll serve as a bit of a fireside chat, where the fire is a bit of political despair and the host is very clearly winging it (and possibly having a mild anxiety attack about speaking in public).

It’s also worth addressing something - barring last week, I know that I can be somewhat… prolific. If your inbox looks like I’ve personally declared a one-man war on your unread count, I sincerely apologise.

In my defence, however, every time I promise myself to post less, someone from Reform UK says something and there I am, finding myself hammering away at my keyboard at 5 o’clock in the morning. Yes, I am working on pacing myself⁴.

I thought this would also be a good reminder of the subscription model, how it came to be and why it’s there, what you get for it and how it works.

The main reason I started charging for subscriptions (even though it made me cringe so hard I nearly fell off my desk chair when I first floated the idea because I get very uncomfortable when I have to talk about money) is that my long-term ambition is to start doing this properly professionally - as in without the heavy air quotes.

My biggest goal is to build something that people can view as trustworthy, accurate and worth people’s time - a publication that can stand on its own two legs without having to live off the scraps of whatever fresh hell social media decides to serve up that week. To do that, I will eventually need to dedicate more time to this project than I currently can (which, as it stands, works out to around about one full day a week, usually stolen from what people call “rest”), and, eventually, to even expand it a bit.

I would love nothing more than for Bearly Politics to grow not just in numbers - these are already, frankly, ridiculous in my mind - but in influence and trust as well. To really and truly become a space that people can instinctively turn to when they need context over just rhetoric and honesty over performance. That, is the long game.

The subscription is part of how I get there - it keeps my work independent, ad-free and as far away as humanly possible from sponsored nonsense. At the moment, it covers a few of my costs, but I’m hoping that eventually it will allow me to rope in the occasional editor⁵, researcher, sound person who actually has a clue of how microphones work (so it stops sounding like I’m sitting on the loo while talking at my computer) or even to commission someone to write a few pieces for Bearly Politics who has actually qualified in journalism and being able to pay them for this.

In terms of the mechanics of the situation, here’s how the paid subscription works:

• Every post is free for seven days from the day of publication, so there’s always a window for people to read, share and discuss, and, because it goes out via email, a personal for your keeping.

• After seven days, it moves behind the paywall and becomes a part of what is now becoming known as the “archive”.

• Paid subscribers (£3.99 a month or £40.00 a year) get full access to the “archive” and the monthly verbal chat I have at my computer along with the warm fuzzy knowledge that they are literally incubating Bearly Politics into what I hope it will someday become.

If you have already upgraded, I want to say a huge thank you, and I do mean that sincerely. You’re funding something that I honestly believe has the legs (or paws) to make political writing accessible and useful again.

If you haven’t, please don’t feel pressured to do so. I know how hard times are, and I will make every attempt possible to never put essential political commentary behind a paywall on principle. The rule since starting the paid subscription model remains firmly in place:

If you are a pensioner, student, on UC or just having a rough time of it, just email me at iratusursusmajor@gmail.com with “SUBSCRIPTION” in the subject line and I’ll make sure you’re added with full access. I will never ask for an explanation, proof or for any forms - just trust.

Ultimately I would love for Bearly Politics to be an antidote to the widespread cynicism that feels like it’s infected how we talk about politics - a space where complexity isn’t the enemy and laughter isn’t a luxury which.

It’s a simple mission - to make sense of power and politics without losing our sense of humour. To tell the truth plainly (if sometimes with a bit of bite) and maybe even help people feel just a little bit less helpless in the process.

So, again - thank you. For reading, for sharing, for subscribing, for commenting and for occasionally sending me a gentle message that says “maybe take a nap.” All of your contributions have made this exceptionally real, and I’m genuinely grateful.

With all that said, I’m going to try and finish editing my piece for tomorrow before another minister resigns, another Tory is disgraced or another Reform member/MP/adjacency says something unspeakably racist - so statistically speaking that gives me about 12 minutes or so.

Before I head off though, I’ll leave you with this thought:

Bearly Politics exists because enough of you out there still believe that truth, wit and decency matter.

And if that’s not worth building on, I honestly don’t know what is.

All the best,
Bear.

1. All of this seriously kicked off when in July of 2023 I opened an account on Twitter to shout “CROTCHGOBLIN” at Jacob Rees Mogg from behind a picture of a Bear.

2. Brought on by a combination of not always needing that much sleep and a fur daemon who demands food from anywhere between 04:00 and 06:00 in the morning.

3. I have reached out to a certain Mr Soros, but have not heard anything back. I’ll keep everyone updated.

4. It hasn’t worked yet, but I’ll be damned if I stop trying.

5. And until I do, you all will have to deal with a few typos now and then. Sorry!