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YouTube channels spreading fake, anti-Labour videos viewed 1.2bn times in 2025
More than 150 anonymous channels using cheap AI tools to spread false stories about Keir Starmer, study finds
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/dec/13/fake-anti-labour-video-billion-views-youtube-2025

I've got to the stage where I don't believe anything.

Which is, of course, the precise goal of the subversion of the media. So many lies that in the end we do not know what the truth is.

It is extraordinarily corrosive and why I often express deep contempt for those media outlets and individuals who look for what is convenient for their world view, rather than what is true.

The disease that began in Russia, then spread to America is now infecting British media too- KGB News and Liz Truss are already late stage symptoms. Meanwhile the tsunami of guff on social media is an even more virulent poison.

In Australia the social media ban for kids is a step that could seriously be considered, though my preferred option is the Estonian one- teach kids, and adults, how to work out what is most likely to be true.

Some action is certainly needed- at the very least preventing further American control of British media channels.

First

The slight problem here is that it’s Andy Burnham.

Vs Starmer

I forsee the following -

1) Starmer tries to impose an all women shortlist to block Burnham.
2) this ends up in the Supreme Court
3) Burham stands and loses to Count Binface.

Speaking as the last remaining member of the Labour Party, if Burnham tries this in my constituency I am voting for Count Binface or whoever the most viable non-fascist not-Burnham candidate is.

Probably turn out that Count Binface is actually the defrosted Adolf Hitler from that episode of the New Avengers.

No, I’m not a fan of this timeline.

Unlikely; better sense of humour than Hitler.
More likely it's just Darth Vader cosplaying a British politician for a bit of fun.

You'd never get the Death Star built with our planning regulations and Nimbyism.

Quite right too Alderaan had a major problem with global warming.

1) Vader was go to guy for getting construction projects sorted (cutting red tape) - “You may dispense with the pleasantries, Commander. I'm here to put you back on schedule".
2) Vader’s progressive leadership style - making senior staff fuckups choke on their ambitions, as opposed to victimising rank and file - is to be commended.
3) Vader fixed unemployment, reoffending rates and just about every other stat on Alderan
4) Vader was known for getting stuck in on a project himself.

#VaderForPM

What nonsensical drivel from Truss. Presumably she has simply seen how her like-minded Americans are grifting away and wants a piece of the action?

Anyhow, in happier news, the sun just set has sunk below the horizon at its earliest time of the year, tonight. From tomorrow, if extremely slowly at first, we are headed back towards lighter evenings!

Not in the UK we are not, 22nd December is the shortest day

The earliest sunset is a couple of weeks before the latest sunrise. One of those oddities.

The earth's orbit is slightly ovoid, not circular, and the earth moves quicker around the sun when we're in the closest parts of the orbit, in December (and June). Hence this month the earth is moving slightly more than 1/365th around its orbit each day, and so the 'real' astronomical day length during December is some seconds longer than 24 hours (the extra time needed for the earth to spin back around to the same position relative to the sun as it was yesterday). Because our clocks are set to a fixed 24 hours, this means that both sunrise and sunset occur some seconds later, by our clock time, each day during December than the day before (similarly in June, and some seconds earlier each day in March and September). Normally these small changes are swamped by the daily change as we move through the seasons, but when - as now - the daily change due to the seasons has almost stalled, the change due to the orbit is the greater, advancing earliest sunset (by our clocks) to mid-December and pushing latest sunrise back to the end of the month.

"Election Maps UK
@ElectionMapsUK

Westminster Voting Intention:

RFM: 31% (=)
LAB: 20% (-1)
CON: 18% (+1)
LDM: 13% (+2)
GRN: 12% (-1)
SNP: 3% (=)

Via @OpiniumResearch, 10-12 Dec
Changes w/ 26-28 Nov."

https://x.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1999936388335300724

This is the problem Tory MPs are having.

Kemi Badenoch and her allies are pointing our her improving ratings yet the Tories are doing worse than 2024 (which was their worst general election defeat ever).

She was an insane choice given the situation the tories found themselves in after the GE.

She was the sane choice when the alternative was Robert Jenrick.