Best Of

He didn't say "They think it's all over - it is now!"

Yes he did. It's not a 'play it again Sam' or 'one small step for man'.

I saw the third Hurst goal just now, and the commentator didn't say it.

Well he did for me. You need the one with Kenneth Wolstenhome.

They didn't use Wolstenholme on C4 apparently.

Wokery gone mad. Ridiculous organisation.

Justice for Hugh Johns at last.

The legend.

Star Soccer with Huge Honds 2pm Sunday

Davenports Beer At Home Addvert every break.

Happy Days

The Black Country goalkeeper - Huge Honds.

Beer at Home Means Davenports, that’s the beer, lots of cheer.

The following was posted in Another Place. Do PB's finance types concur or dissent?

"The FT is a paper read by people who don't work in finance assuming that people in finance read it. It hasn't been relevant in finance or even business for many years now. You can also tell this from the comments section which has, like the paper, turned into establishment/"centrist dad" central.

WSJ and Bloomberg took a lot of the top markets/companies people almost a decade ago now (Andrea Felstead was one, genuinely someone who knew UK retail very well). The majority of the remaining columnists either worked in politics or are politics-adjacent. There is almost no detailed finance market coverage. The UK companies stuff was spun out into the Shares magazine 20 years ago.

The FT reflects British society, nothing could be more grubby than becoming involved in commerce. Many of the people who moved up and out go into political journalism because that is high status (i.e. Peston). The FT also has a nasty habit of creating special jobs for people if they are high status enough (Kuper is one, Keynes is the new one, there are many more). The FT is a basically unreformed backwater that is a bit like it was 80s, nothing has really changed. I know a few people who work there in undemanding roles (every couple of weeks attending an expenses paid dinner with a celebrity) and got their job through nepotism. It isn't like anywhere else in UK business or even journalism because of the corporate subscription revenue, the editor is able to run it like a fief.

To give specific examples: Chris Giles is somewhat notorious for being a complete hack. If you are somewhat familiar with how news is made, you should be able to read his stories and work out exactly what conversations led to that story being written. In many cases it is Giles talking to someone adjacent to or in politics. Martin Wolf is a complete dinosaur, if he writes a column you can predict exactly what his take will be because he hasn't had a new idea since 1990. JBM is probably the only journalist who actually writes interesting things, these things however often seem to be conflicted with his personal interests/conversations with civil servants. Stuart Kirk...how does he have a column? Barely worked in markets, somehow the markets guy. Shrimsley, politics guy. Cavendish, worked for Cameron. Beattie, basically a Martin Wolf-lite. Pilita Clark, Lidl Kellaway. It goes on and on. Ineffectual posh people with the most anodyne, pro-establishment positions boring everyone to death with their thoughts."

(Continued below)

I never really read it, would give it a cursory flick through in the morning but when you had Bloomberg terminals on your desk churning out news and data by the second the FT was not a lot more use than the Times etc. I read Barrons and a few other industry papers but found the FT to be something people bought to look like they were in the markets. Their biggest plus point was probably the “How to spend it” supplement.

Edit to add, I did work with Peston for a bit but didn’t have to interact much, just read his screed and had the odd meeting in house. Find it odd that he became the journalist he is as obviously thought of him as a financial data chap.

Blimey, makes me wonder about the Bedchamber Crisis now

Revealed: cover-up of attempted rape that let Lord Palmerston into No 10

The Victorian leader told a woman that no one would believe her if she told anyone of the attack in 1837, a memo in the Royal Archives has shown

He is lionised as one of Britain’s greatest prime ministers, but a 185-year-old memo reveals Lord Palmerston was involved in a scandal that could have stopped him ever getting to Downing Street.

In 1837, Palmerston, 52, who was then foreign secretary, was visiting Queen Victoria when he attempted to rape one of her ladies-in-waiting, Susan Brand, 22.

The memo, which was recently discovered in the Royal Archives and will be published in a new book this month, reveals for the first time the extraordinary operation that swung into action to cover up the incident.

Victoria’s adviser, Baron Stockmar, and her first prime minister, Lord Melbourne, feared the ensuing scandal would “damage” the character of the Queen, who was then 18. She had acceded to the throne just three months earlier and had not yet been crowned. They also anticipated that it would cause the “immediate break-up” of Melbourne’s administration, in which Palmerston held a key position.

Their decision to suppress the incident — the memo describes them persuading and bribing eyewitnesses into “silence” — meant that Palmerston, an Anglo-Irish viscount, never faced any consequences for the assault. He remained in office with his reputation intact and in 1855 became a popular prime minister.

Jehanne Wake, the historian and biographer, stumbled across the memo on a visit to the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle while she and her daughter, Katie, were researching their upcoming book The Countess: Seduction, Power and the Extraordinary Life of Emily Cowper, which will be published on June 25.

Countess Cowper, Melbourne’s sister, was at the time of the assault Palmerston’s long-term mistress. They married two years later. Wake found the memo among Cowper’s papers, some of which are held at Windsor.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/history/article/revealed-cover-up-of-attempted-rape-that-let-lord-palmerston-into-no-10-n2znw5tlh

Can I ask how on earth they think any of that is news or a new discovery? I was taught about it at A-level nearly thirty years ago.

"Middle-class white men banned from public sector internship
National Audit Office’s six-week paid programme only accepts female, black heritage or lower socio-economic applicants" (£)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06/06/middle-class-white-men-banned-from-public-sector-internship/

Are white, middle-class heterosexual men the most put upon cohort in UK society?

@Mexicanpete defending DEI to the hilt!

Give over Sunil. Is that the time?

The details of my life are quite inconsequential...

Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving corner shop owner from Zanzibar with low-grade lethargy and a penchant for psephology. My mother was a 20-year-old newsreader named Gargi with gap-teeth.

My father would plagiarize; he would snigger. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the opinion poll. Sometimes, he would accuse free-range eggs of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the insane possess and the genius lament...

My childhood was typical: summers in Penarth... sudoku lessons... In the spring, we'd make Quorn helmets... When I was insolent I was placed in a Sinclair C5 and beaten with Tory Party leaflets - pretty standard, really. At the age of 12, I received my first Coelacanth.

At the age of 14, a Bristolian named Brenda ritualistically shaved my buttocks. There really is nothing like a shorn bottom - it's breathtaking... I suggest you try it!

I genuinely understand none of this.

It’s a riff on the Dr Evil speech from Austin Powers.

Thanks. Still absolutely no idea of the context.

Austin Powers is the main character from the Austin Powers movie series, which is a parody of James Bond movies. The character Dr Evil, who is a parody of Blofeld, who was the main (but not only) villain from said movies, makes the speech that Sunil quotes in the first movie.

Errr, no.

Dr No gives the speech in the first James Bond film.

I was in a pub quiz team with someone who knew the actor who played Dr No. Extraordinary. If anyone knows it without Googling (I don't - I've already forgotten), I'll be impressed.

I don't - which is disappointing for a Bond fan. What I can say, however, is when I was a student in South Ken I often came across the chap who played Blofeld in some of the films. He was perhaps the only person who spent more time in the local pubs than me.

Charles Gray ?
(He has that look.)

Didn't Donald Pleasance play Blofeld too?

Indeed, but I don't think he was a piss artist.

One of my favourite actors. Seeing him as the saintly Mr Harding in The Barchester Chronicles was quite the revelation.

The following was posted in Another Place. Do PB's finance types concur or dissent?

"The FT is a paper read by people who don't work in finance assuming that people in finance read it. It hasn't been relevant in finance or even business for many years now. You can also tell this from the comments section which has, like the paper, turned into establishment/"centrist dad" central.

WSJ and Bloomberg took a lot of the top markets/companies people almost a decade ago now (Andrea Felstead was one, genuinely someone who knew UK retail very well). The majority of the remaining columnists either worked in politics or are politics-adjacent. There is almost no detailed finance market coverage. The UK companies stuff was spun out into the Shares magazine 20 years ago.

The FT reflects British society, nothing could be more grubby than becoming involved in commerce. Many of the people who moved up and out go into political journalism because that is high status (i.e. Peston). The FT also has a nasty habit of creating special jobs for people if they are high status enough (Kuper is one, Keynes is the new one, there are many more). The FT is a basically unreformed backwater that is a bit like it was 80s, nothing has really changed. I know a few people who work there in undemanding roles (every couple of weeks attending an expenses paid dinner with a celebrity) and got their job through nepotism. It isn't like anywhere else in UK business or even journalism because of the corporate subscription revenue, the editor is able to run it like a fief.

To give specific examples: Chris Giles is somewhat notorious for being a complete hack. If you are somewhat familiar with how news is made, you should be able to read his stories and work out exactly what conversations led to that story being written. In many cases it is Giles talking to someone adjacent to or in politics. Martin Wolf is a complete dinosaur, if he writes a column you can predict exactly what his take will be because he hasn't had a new idea since 1990. JBM is probably the only journalist who actually writes interesting things, these things however often seem to be conflicted with his personal interests/conversations with civil servants. Stuart Kirk...how does he have a column? Barely worked in markets, somehow the markets guy. Shrimsley, politics guy. Cavendish, worked for Cameron. Beattie, basically a Martin Wolf-lite. Pilita Clark, Lidl Kellaway. It goes on and on. Ineffectual posh people with the most anodyne, pro-establishment positions boring everyone to death with their thoughts."

(Continued below)

I work in finance and read the FT. So do most of my colleagues.

Now obviously you have Bloomberg and dedicated research pieces for more detailed info and analysis in your area of specialism. But the FT is very good for the highlights of the financial and business world.

But it is fair to say it grounded in the British political centre in its opinion pieces.

He didn't say "They think it's all over - it is now!"

Yes he did. It's not a 'play it again Sam' or 'one small step for man'.

I saw the third Hurst goal just now, and the commentator didn't say it.

Well he did for me. You need the one with Kenneth Wolstenhome.

They didn't use Wolstenholme on C4 apparently.

Wokery gone mad. Ridiculous organisation.

Justice for Hugh Johns at last.

The legend.

Tonight's Opinium

Badenoch gave best response on Henry Nowak case according to the public, Nigel Farage the worst

Following the release of bodycam footage relating to the murder of Henry Nowak, voters are most likely to approve of Kemi Badenoch’s response to the case.

Badenoch records a net approval score of +12 on her handling of the issue. Ed Davey is marginally positive, while Keir Starmer, Zack Polanski and Nigel Farage all receive net negative ratings. Farage receives the weakest assessment overall, with more respondents disapproving than approving of his response.

“For all the debate sparked by Tony Blair and the ‘hot essay summer’, the public still lean towards saying he was a bad rather than a good prime minister. Perhaps more worrying for Labour, they also struggle to see any of the party’s current leadership contenders as offering a markedly better alternative.”

If Starmer knocked every door in the UK and handed over a few grand he'd still have a negative rating.

Let’s face it, he offered everyone a Ming Vase, far more valuable than a few grand, and nobody likes him. Maybe he is the problem?