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Can somebody explain Taylor Swift to me? I get she's really "nice" and works hard and all that, but she seems slightly robotic to me.

In fact, maybe someone should explain Americans more broadly since I don't get their general need for whooping and jeering at everything:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cedv5dy9v8lo

She is targeting daughters of soccer moms - girls with parents with a bit of money. Wholesome fun etc.

She realised that the parents would be taking the children to gigs - so made sure that her work appealed to them, to an extent. Same thing as children’s films needing something for the adults who will sit through them as well.

This is a vast, and growing market, around the world. Add in some genuine talent and a carefully crafted pubic image - billions of dollars flow.

Thanks. So it's essentially Kidzbopz for older girls.

Got it.

I would say there is more depth to her work than that - hence the enduring appeal as her earlier fans get older. Which is why she is in the big money category.

It'll be interesting to see if she joins the ranks of musicians such as Madonna or Kylie (and Bowie...) who can constantly reinvent themselves and their music to appeal to a new generation - and still keep the old fans onside. Or whether she'll just be like Dolly Parton - a excellent musician who found it hard to get widespread musical appeal outside her genre, but became very influential in other ways, as well as becoming a cultural icon.

I cannot name a single Taylor Swift song, despite having heard a few over the years. None has caught me in the same way (say) "Stand by your man" or "Jolene" have. Perhaps that's just me and my ignorant musical tastes...

“Stand by your man” Being a Tammy Wynette song suggests Dolly’s affects on you are as deep as Taylor Swift’s.

@stodge makes a great point about Reform and the likelihood of nobody wanting to work with them. I like Reform in that they are asking the right questions - why are things broken?

The problem is that they have decided that there are two evils - foreigners and windfarms. Its hard to find mainstream politicians wanting to work with people allied to "send the brown people home before they rape my daughter" brigade. Which is a pity.

If Reform could detach the racist far right and see them off into a Yaxley-Lennon party they would do much better.

IMV Reform don't seem to be asking "why are things broken?"

Instead, they have decided the causes: as you say, things like foreigners and windfarms, and are constructing a narrative that the 'broken' is caused by those two things. In other words, as is sadly common in politics, their narrative is based around ideology, not reality.

When in reality, much that is 'broken' might be down to people like them. Or even, in the case of people like Farage, them directly.

The new Guilty Men.

I can see the perspective. Even there it is refreshing to actually recognise things are broken.

The Tories heavily damaged the economy and services and society. And are now whining that Labour is doing the things they did, or hasn't done the things they didn't do. And people are laughing at them. They can't admit they - Badenoch and Truss in particular - did anything wrong. Labour are the same - no mistakes here, no lack of vision, no lack of a clue what to do. Just blame the Tories for all the things we are now doing.

Like an alcoholic needing to admit they are one, British politicians need to accept that things are broken, look at the macro not the micro and start proposing ways to change. For all that Farage gets attacked for attacking the NHS, he's right. The NHSes are bonfires - the more money we thrown on top the more ash lands at the bottom to create crises in delivery. We need to change the system not burn more money. Same with UC. Same with housing. Same with energy. Same with planning.

We can't go on as we are and we can't just fiddle around with micro edge policies. Lunch clubs are important Labour, but the bigger problem is a lack of teachers and assistants and that the existing ones are exhausted and quitting.

Can somebody explain Taylor Swift to me? I get she's really "nice" and works hard and all that, but she seems slightly robotic to me.

In fact, maybe someone should explain Americans more broadly since I don't get their general need for whooping and jeering at everything:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cedv5dy9v8lo

There's loads of modern culture - in fact, culture more widely - I don't understand. Why Mrs Browns Boys is popular? How Ricky Gervais ever got a career? Who the **** goes to the opera? Why does anyone find cricket appealing, when they could watch some paint drying instead? I just cannot understand it.

Then again, I love running and (currently...) triathlon. I was a long-distance walker. I used to find F1 riveting. I love heavy engineering of all sorts, and especially railways and tunnelling. I love reading. All of which others might find hard to understand or, dare I say it, weird.

We are not all the same, and most of us have different interests and things that appeal. Mrs J's a Prog Rock chick. I'm an electropop devotee. It'd be boring if we both liked exactly the same things. Vive la difference!

FPT:

I'll believe it when I see it delivered.
If I live that long.

Labour to revive Northern Powerhouse Rail project
Exclusive: Starmer and Reeves expected to announce move before Labour conference, with aim of boosting backbench morale
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/aug/13/labour-to-revive-northern-powerhouse-rail-project-trains

"With the aim of boosting backbench morale..." doesn't exactly fill me with confidence.

I thought they had already re-re-re-anounced it?

They announced it without any money being attached - this time there appears to be some money attached...

Now they just need to work out how to sort out a train network because if you are building 1 tunnel you may as well keep them around and build another couple of tunnels at the same time for local trains.

If you finish a tunnel project one week the next tunnel project should be ready to go the following week. Look at how it was done in Norway and the Faroes.

Instead we dither for a couple of years until the contractors get bored and wander off, then wonder why everything now costs 3x as much.

Also look at Copenhagen where a lot of metro has been built over the past 10 years..

That's not really the entire status imo wrt Metros. It's also a failed national politics.

Very little has been built here because we have had 10-15 years of short-termist slash and burn Government, and if funding is not for example finalised until have way through the spending period - then of course it is chaos, chaos imposed from the centre.

Exceptions are where we have longer term political structures with real funding over a period, or Govt involvement. We had that from under Thatcher, Major, Blair, in measure.

And we have a whole series of metro and tram systems in major cities, and London. Just not in the South. Where's the Portsmouth or Southampton Metro, for example? They could have done that whilst Nottingham, Sheffield and Manchester were building their light. Why did they not?

But if local and regional government is slashed by a third or so across the board, wtf do you expect to happen?

That's why imo the current version of the Conservative Party needs to die, or to recreate itself as something that's fit to be in our society.

The planning system is not working? Well for years the rhetoric was that such is bad, and it was left to wither on the vine, so of course it is broken. No shit, Sherlock. And they have just had another 15 years and wrecked it all.

Is there a single area of national life that was not flat on its back in July 2024?

When I lived in Stockton on Tees the local Tories were endlessly knocking the town down. The Labour-led council had a clear vision for regeneration, bitterly opposed by the Tories. Redoing the high street? Waste of money! Refurbishing and reopening the only mid-size theatre between Leeds and Newcastle? A white elephant! Building a council owned hotel? Nobody will stay there! Buying and bulldozing empty shops to make a smaller busier high street? Madness!

Every single thing has worked. Stockton Globe is a huge success as is the Hampton by Hilton. Stockton hosts its annual Riverside festival which pulls in performers from around the globe. The shuttered shops have been flattened and a riverside park is going in.

The key word is *investment*. Tories don't understand that the part the broke the most in the UK is that they turned investment into a dirty word. Persuaded people that the state can't invest, can't own, is incompetent. As other states sold us electricity and ran transport and delivered parcels here in the UK. Persuaded business that investment would be a waste of time - why spend money on a foreign-owned UK asset when speculation will see it rise in value anyway? Go look at who owns so many shuttered high street properties. And crippled the public sector and national and local level so that we can't afford teachers and can't afford your operation and can't afford to fill in pot holes or get rid of the weeds growing through the cracks in the pavement.

The Tories literally broke this country. Whilst slamming us with record peacetime taxes to boot. Its no wonder that people are laughing at their attempts this week to claim that their mess is actually Labour's mess actually. Then again Labour have fallen into the same "can't afford it" trap and are continuing the misery.

@stodge makes a great point about Reform and the likelihood of nobody wanting to work with them. I like Reform in that they are asking the right questions - why are things broken?

The problem is that they have decided that there are two evils - foreigners and windfarms. Its hard to find mainstream politicians wanting to work with people allied to "send the brown people home before they rape my daughter" brigade. Which is a pity.

If Reform could detach the racist far right and see them off into a Yaxley-Lennon party they would do much better.

Don't forget the main thrust of why Britain is broken leads us back to Nigel Farage's big moment in the sun, namely Brexit. All the things he doesn't like such as small boats and darker skinned doctors and nurses came about from collateral damage done by Brexit.

He broke Britain and now he's blaming everyone else.

Brexit happened *because* Britain was *already* broken.

It accelerated the decline, but the decline was already there. Whole communities / towns / regions. Where the security of good jobs which pay the bills had gone. Where public services were crumbling. Where the social fabric binding them together was fraying. Farage blamed the decline on Europe. The decline was already there.

Can somebody explain Taylor Swift to me? I get she's really "nice" and works hard and all that, but she seems slightly robotic to me.

In fact, maybe someone should explain Americans more broadly since I don't get their general need for whooping and jeering at everything:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cedv5dy9v8lo

I guess we are not the target audience. I have listened to some of her songs,, and they are pleasant enough if rather bland.

She is a consumate professional, with strong work ethic and knows her business inside out. Getting and staying at the top of such a competitive field is quite some achievement. Just not my cup of tea.

Suspect "pleasant if rather bland" is part of the point. In a world of a million niches, la Swift has cut through to be broadly liked. That's quite an achievement these days.

Can somebody explain Taylor Swift to me? I get she's really "nice" and works hard and all that, but she seems slightly robotic to me.

In fact, maybe someone should explain Americans more broadly since I don't get their general need for whooping and jeering at everything:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cedv5dy9v8lo

Sure. She writes and sings loads of songs that cut through to people and impart deeper meaning. She understands the music industry and has structured her business so that she maximises control and revenues.

I'm sure I have heard her stuff but it doesn't resonate with me. I'm not a fan. But the joy of music is that it's entirely subjective - what rocks for one sucks for another, and she seems to be a huge success story.

Morning all

Do I see some slightly less disastrous economic news this morning? Welcome if so. I can only see what I see but I've noted racecourse attendances have been improving in the summer so there' still some discretionary income out there. Haydock's three day Rose of Lancaster meeting last weekend had its best figures since the pandemic.

As for Wales, with a new electoral system in place, it's very hard to call especially as the last seat projection I saw for the new Senedd had Plaid, Reform and Labour almost level between 27 and 29 seats each leaving the Conservatives, LDs and Greens to the scraps from the table.

Either way, it seems improbable any of the three main parties can find a majority themselves and any majority permutation seems to involve two of them so Plaid-Labour (in some form) looks favourite given, I imagine, no one will want to deal with Reform. I can foresee the latter winning most seats, trying to form a Government, failing and then spending the next four years or so whingeing about it.

The strange thing is, the more you try to break the system, the more the system fights to regain its cohesion. Thats why, contrary to many on here, I could foresee the Conservatives supporting a minority Labour Government rather than a minority Reform administration. Going in with Reform would likely ensure a similar result for the Conservatives in 2034 as the LDs "enjoyed" in 2015.