Best Of

Oh, for fuck's sake. I thought this was a satire of Lab Operation Patriot, but no.

Saul Staniforth
@SaulStaniforth
Asked if she's got a flag on display in her home, the Home Secretary says she has Union Jack bunting, St Georges flags, St Georges bunting, and Union Jack flags and tablecloths.

https://x.com/SaulStaniforth/status/1962774325435494899

What's the problem with this?

Nothing wrong with it in itself but it doesn't sound authentic. It's as if Jacob Rees-Mogg expressed admiration for Pink Floyd or a fondness for standing on the terraces at Accrington Stanley.

'Popular' broadcaster Ed Balls is now fully and authentically on board with Project Patriot.

https://x.com/stuzi_pants/status/1962808377370636318

It’s getting both silly and sinister. There’s a chilling effect on public discourse when there is only one permitted view on a topic as seems to be the case with immigration - the permitted view being it’s too high and very concerning. If you don’t share this concern you’d better keep quiet about it or risk being labelled a limp anti-patriot who doesn’t believe in Britain and can’t see a Union or a St George without pointing and laughing. Of course there are people like that, but it’s a tiny minority. Most of those being bullied out of the national conversation simply have legitimate lack of concerns about the numbers of people coming to the country.

It is not (yet) illegal to express this view – thank god – but the sociocultural pressure to go along with the ‘correct’ sentiment is strong. Too strong for many, so they bottle it up, their lack of concern, only let it out in safe spaces where they know they won’t be shouted down and called names. If you push valid opinion underground in this way we know what happens. It festers there and becomes exactly the thing it was being smeared as in the first place. So in time we’ll get millions of ordinary decent Britons who started out just not that bothered about immigration ending up angry and radicalised and demanding the complete dismantling of our borders. That’s where all the presumptuous policing of the debate leads and why it must be resisted. I’d hope even the most ardent holders of the ‘right-think’ position realise this.

Unheard article on Trump and architecture

https://unherd.com/newsroom/trump-will-make-penn-station-beautiful-again/

Those who reflexively dislike Trump will all now be writing opinion pieces on how traditional-looking buildings are horrible, and how modernist glass-and-concrete building is a sign of a wonderful future.

I don't think most people reflexively dislike Trump. No, they dislike Trump based on his actions and words, on his selling out of Ukraine, on his deranged economic theories, on his multiple reliably attested cases of sexual assault, on his habitual law-breaking, on how he used his charity to enrich himself, and many, many other examples. It's a considered dislike of Trump. An evidence-based disdain.

Like IDS' statement he was educated at the University of Perugia, Badenoch's statement she was educated at Stanford if not entirely true won't inspire confidence in her with Tory MPs.

However it is her party's poll rating that will be the biggest factor and her performance at PMQs, which like IDS is not magnificent.

She is shifting to the right, promising Milei style spending cuts, scrapping net zero by 2050 and withdrawal from the ECHR. If that still does not win back voters from Reform then expect her to be removed after likely poor local elections next Spring. Cleverly would likely be her replacement to try and hold to Sunak 2024 vote

She’s finished. She’s not going to get any better. She’ll probably get worse as she sinks below the waves and panics

Cleverly is a suicide note. It’s saying “yes we’re crap and irrelevant but please give us 13% of the vote so we can be like the Lib Dem’s”. Who votes for this centrist rubbish? No one. Or, about 13% of voters. Which will reduce you to about 30 MPs and that’s the end of you

Your only hope is Jenrick or Lam. Someone stridently right wing but with the heft of “a sensible Tory when it comes to economics”. That’s what may swing it your way from reform. People want populist hard right policies on migration and the rest but they don’t trust Reform on economics

There is still time for you to save yourselves. Undeservedly

I did read today that Jenrick's constituency of Newark is actually an anagram.

This is a notable result from an observational study of those on the new obesity drugs.

GLP-1 receptor agonists will transform mental health over the next five years:

» Suicide: 58% reduction
» Depression: 37% reduction
» Substance use disorder: 42% reduction

n=174,000 obese adults who initiated GLP-1RAs in a target trial emulation published yesterday.
https://x.com/therealRYC/status/1962213801635569738

I'm always slightly sceptical of these kind of results, because all too often people who are depressed come off their meds, and therefore are not included in the numbers.

Though there's a very plausible mechanism here; anything that breaks the "I eat too much because I'm depressed" > "I'm depressed because I'm obese" feedback loop is likely to have pretty strong positive MH effects.

If you arrive here from France, you are not fleeing persecution.

So either piss off somewhere else, or live destitute on the street. Your choice.

Ultimately this is the issue for many, many people. Legally the applicant does not have to claim asylum in the first safe country. Morally people in this country think that they should.

If you are being attacked in your home and you flee, where do you go for help? The closest door or the one with the nicest furniture?

Because those in France are asylum shopping, to many it diminishes the strength of the claim.

Now PB'ers will no doubt now reel off a list of things why this post is wrong (factually, morally, legally) but to the person on the Clapham omnibus this is what they think. And its why my next door neighbour, unprovoked, told me he was listening to Farage "because he's right".

I don't think that we can ethically say that because we happen to be further from (e.g.) Afghanistan than (e.g.) France, all Afghani refugees should go to France. In practice, most refugees already end up in countries close to where they started - the boats stand out as the obvious exception, but it is an exception.

Rather, we should announce stricter criteria, probably including some connection with Britain (language, relatives) but allow applications to the nearest British Embassy. Having relaxed criteria but applying them only to people who cross the Channel invites the boats issue.