Very attractive, slightly posh young woman at the bar: "Hellooooo, please can I have a pint of your cheapest lager" Barman: "We've got Fosters at £3.80, or Estrella or Krombacher for five pounds." VASPYW: "I suppose it'll be Estrella then".
Clearly Fosters not even competitive amongst those for whom cheapness is the only criterion.
It's logical.
You can get Fosters for free by drinking straight from the urinal.
Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton · 2h First Conservative lead since launching Blue Wall tracker in Oct
Blue Wall VI (22 May):
Conservative 34% (+2) Labour 33% (-3) Liberal Democrat 22% (-1) Reform 6% (+1) Green 3% (+1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 7 May
Sure. SKS has managed to get the Labour Party within margin of error of leading in a set of constituencies where they came third in 2019. The fact that you need anyone to explain that to you simply marks you as terminally stupid, or that your fanaticism renders you blind to how successful SKS has been. Or likely both. Now piss off and join the Tories or the Trots.
Alternatively...SKS's has hit a bum note with his house building programme.
Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton · 2h First Conservative lead since launching Blue Wall tracker in Oct
Blue Wall VI (22 May):
Conservative 34% (+2) Labour 33% (-3) Liberal Democrat 22% (-1) Reform 6% (+1) Green 3% (+1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 7 May
How did Jezza get on in those constituencies?
Whataboutism
SKS fans have zero arguments and can only resort to Yeah but Corbyn
Yeah but Corbyn is very powerful though.
For the record, I do think Corbyn is a rare breed, a principled politician. He was just a terrible leader.
There is principled and then there is bat shit crazy. Anyone who would rather divorce his wife than see his son go to a Grammar school is utterly bat shit crazy.
Corbyn is a dogmatist.
That's actually the sign of a lack of intelligence: you insist on seeing the world in black & white because you're unable to think through the shades of grey.
But that actually does not answer my question. Are you saying that cannabis, heroin, MDMA, ketamine, etc should all be easily available?
They are easily available, we just pretend they're not.
I know where to go to get some Nurofen or a bottle of whisky. I don't know where to go to score some heroin. So 'easily available' very much depends on context.
(I do know someone who regularly smokes cannabis. But he's a paranoid git, and so probably wouldn't tell me about his dealer even if I asked.
Your circles evidently are rather different to mine.
Oh come on; there'll be a PB expert who will have bought from all your local dealers, and can rank them on various metrics.
Yes, but I haven't seen @SeanT around recently. I think he may have gone abroad for the winter.
Does that mean he's in the southern hemisphere, or is "going abroad for the winter" a reference to some disgusting sexual practice I'm too innocent to know about?
Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton · 2h First Conservative lead since launching Blue Wall tracker in Oct
Blue Wall VI (22 May):
Conservative 34% (+2) Labour 33% (-3) Liberal Democrat 22% (-1) Reform 6% (+1) Green 3% (+1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 7 May
How did Jezza get on in those constituencies?
Whataboutism
SKS fans have zero arguments and can only resort to Yeah but Corbyn
It is a valid argument. Corbyn was unelectable.
Not that unelectable, given that the current Tory Government has implemented tax and spending plans that go further than the ones in the Corbyn manifesto.
It wasn't Corbyn's policies that were unelectable. Many of them were very sensible. It was the man himself.
People are unelectable until they're elected. I don't think he'd have been very good mind.
Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton · 2h First Conservative lead since launching Blue Wall tracker in Oct
Blue Wall VI (22 May):
Conservative 34% (+2) Labour 33% (-3) Liberal Democrat 22% (-1) Reform 6% (+1) Green 3% (+1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 7 May
How did Jezza get on in those constituencies?
Whataboutism
SKS fans have zero arguments and can only resort to Yeah but Corbyn
Yeah but Corbyn is very powerful though.
For the record, I do think Corbyn is a rare breed, a principled politician. He was just a terrible leader.
There is principled and then there is bat shit crazy. Anyone who would rather divorce his wife than see his son go to a Grammar school is utterly bat shit crazy.
Corbyn is a dogmatist.
That's actually the sign of a lack of intelligence: you insist on seeing the world in black & white because you're unable to think through the shades of grey.
Indeed.
Bright people see shades of grey and thrash matters out like adults.
My older daughter turns 17 today. A complex age for any human. And I immediately thought of the Janis Ian song, and found this exquisite live rendition on The Old Grey Whistle Test
Just absolutely spine-tingling. Can you imagine being in that audience and hearing this LIVE for the first time. A cold clear copper bottomed masterpiece of a song. The voice, the guitar work, the immortal tune, the poignant lyrics, everything. Ah, fuck. What 'appened to music?
Great song. Do we always have to include that hangdog 'better in my day' bit at the end though? We're the same age (ish) but my son is double 17. That's 34 (for the non accountants). It's interestingly poised now, our relationship. 62 plays 34. He has a clear edge in almost everything.
Yes, unfortunately, we do have to include the "better in my day" bit because it is interesting. Because, for the first time in many decades, this tired old meme is provably true and says something important about politics
Thus elevating the comment from "Oooh I have a family moment and here's a nice song" to something a shade more interesting that might make a Gazette piece so I'm trying it out from different angles
Hmm, ok. I don't agree with you though. I don't think this 'better in my day' (about music) is any different to the standard one about anything else.
And there's nothing wrong with just sharing the family moment!
In 30 years' time, Leon's daughter will be on here wishing her own son a happy 17th birthday and bemoaning that music isn't as good now as it was back in 2023
Only if the AI running the country tells her it isn't as good.
That reminds me that former Vice-President Al Gore hasn't got back to me on my suggestion he release a Hip-Hop album called AlGoreRhythm. It's a political and musical winner and my cut would only be 30%. I'll follow up with him.
Possibly because it's a gag I made here about 12 years ago....
Oh. Shit. Caught again.
Don't feel too bad. Al Gore didn't get back to me either.....
Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton · 2h First Conservative lead since launching Blue Wall tracker in Oct
Blue Wall VI (22 May):
Conservative 34% (+2) Labour 33% (-3) Liberal Democrat 22% (-1) Reform 6% (+1) Green 3% (+1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 7 May
How did Jezza get on in those constituencies?
Whataboutism
SKS fans have zero arguments and can only resort to Yeah but Corbyn
It is a valid argument. Corbyn was unelectable.
Not that unelectable, given that the current Tory Government has implemented tax and spending plans that go further than the ones in the Corbyn manifesto.
It wasn't Corbyn's policies that were unelectable. Many of them were very sensible. It was the man himself.
People are unelectable until they're elected. I don't think he'd have been very good mind.
Oddly, I think he would have handled the pandemic well.
Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton · 2h First Conservative lead since launching Blue Wall tracker in Oct
Blue Wall VI (22 May):
Conservative 34% (+2) Labour 33% (-3) Liberal Democrat 22% (-1) Reform 6% (+1) Green 3% (+1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 7 May
How did Jezza get on in those constituencies?
Whataboutism
SKS fans have zero arguments and can only resort to Yeah but Corbyn
It is a valid argument. Corbyn was unelectable.
Not that unelectable, given that the current Tory Government has implemented tax and spending plans that go further than the ones in the Corbyn manifesto.
It wasn't Corbyn's policies that were unelectable. Many of them were very sensible. It was the man himself.
Nonsense. His friendship with Israel's enemies was enough in its own right to.make him unelectable.
Well yes but you prove my point. His policies (as per the 2017 and 2019 Labour manifestos) were not unelectable but the man himself - his behaviors, his beliefs - he himself was unelectable.
Very attractive, slightly posh young woman at the bar: "Hellooooo, please can I have a pint of your cheapest lager" Barman: "We've got Fosters at £3.80, or Estrella or Krombacher for five pounds." VASPYW: "I suppose it'll be Estrella then".
Clearly Fosters not even competitive amongst those for whom cheapness is the only criterion.
It's logical.
You can get Fosters for free by drinking straight from the urinal.
As far as I remember, David Lynch took great delight in taking advertising money from Heineken while funding 'Blue Velvet' (in return for the main character drinking it) - but then filmed him having a 'robust' pee in the bar urinal and uttering 'Ah! Heineken!'.
Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton · 2h First Conservative lead since launching Blue Wall tracker in Oct
Blue Wall VI (22 May):
Conservative 34% (+2) Labour 33% (-3) Liberal Democrat 22% (-1) Reform 6% (+1) Green 3% (+1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 7 May
Sure. SKS has managed to get the Labour Party within margin of error of leading in a set of constituencies where they came third in 2019. The fact that you need anyone to explain that to you simply marks you as terminally stupid, or that your fanaticism renders you blind to how successful SKS has been. Or likely both. Now piss off and join the Tories or the Trots.
Alternatively...SKS's has hit a bum note with his house building programme.
As suggested here.
Then why is he polling so well compared to previous leaders?
A guy with a beard and a kufi muttering prayers to himself looking slightly nervous whilst clutching a rucksack on his lap.
Did I say anything? Did I "see it, say it, sorted" ?
No. I got off at the next station and breathed a sigh of relief. Why? Because there was a 99%+ chance he was just religious and praying to himself but a much higher chance of me being bracketed a racist for reporting it.
The Tories are falling apart, according to Sky News. Thoughts with Big G at this time. 10:02 - Jackie Doyle-Price: FFS - who on earth is spouting this bonkersness? Are you determined to turn our party into a skip fire? 10:03 - Anne-Marie Trevelyan: ☝ what Jackie said 10:06 - Sally-Ann Hart: WTF. 10:07 - Kevin Foster: Spot on Jackie 10:15 - Simon Hoare: would the last Tory MP to leave the building please turn off the lights. The nonsense, self-destroying crap has to end or our Party dies. 10:19 - James Sunderland: These emerging groups, leaks and briefings to the media are helping none of us. All of us already belong to the most successful political grouping ever - It's called the Conservative Party. 10:29 - Andrea Jenkyns: I don't like leakers, I prefer to say things to peoples face. However it is interesting some of those commenting were happy to speak out publicly against the Boris and Liz administrations. So maybe less sanctimony and hypocrisy. Clearly many in the party are unhappy. But those at the top are not doing anything about this to bring people together. 10:29 - Robert Goodwill: There are two very simple rules that must be applied in all situations. 1) Does what I say or do make it more or less likely that we will win the General Election? If the answer is yes then do it, if no then don't. 2) Off the record briefings - see above. 10:32 - Craig Mackinlay: Good advice Sir RG. Never do blue on blue no matter how annoyed one might be.
Looks to me like our current approach is the worst of all worlds.
We either need international agreement to go full on war on drugs, or go all in on regulated supply and treatment rooms etc.
You don't necessarily need international agreement to go full on war on drugs, but you do need a societal consensus to implement very tough penalties as in Singapore.
Why penalise people for doing something that they enjoy and harms nobody but (possibly) themselves? I know a guy quite well, let's call him OnlyLovingBoy, who went out to see the Orb in Brixton on Saturday night with a load of other centrist dads, then went to a house party and danced until after 3am, helped along the way by some MDMA - overcoming the male loneliness epidemic, supporting the arts and local venues, and getting well over his 10,000 steps while engaging in some mild cardio exercise. What's not to like about any of that? Sounds better than living in Singapore.
Very attractive, slightly posh young woman at the bar: "Hellooooo, please can I have a pint of your cheapest lager" Barman: "We've got Fosters at £3.80, or Estrella or Krombacher for five pounds." VASPYW: "I suppose it'll be Estrella then".
Clearly Fosters not even competitive amongst those for whom cheapness is the only criterion.
It's logical.
You can get Fosters for free by drinking straight from the urinal.
We had a drinks do at work yesterday where the only beer was Corona. I had to be dissuaded from resigning there and then.
A guy with a beard and a kufi muttering prayers to himself looking slightly nervous whilst clutching a rucksack on his lap.
Did I say anything? Did I "see it, say it, sorted" ?
No. I got off at the next station and breathed a sigh of relief. Why? Because there was a 99%+ chance he was just religious and praying to himself but a much higher chance of me being bracketed a racist for reporting it.
How many others do the same?
I remember back in the late 80s or early 90s being on a train and a guy with a broad Irish accent chatting away about bombs. He got off the train and left his suitcase behind on the seat. We all got off at the next stop.
Pretty sure he was just f**king with us all - but...
A guy with a beard and a kufi muttering prayers to himself looking slightly nervous whilst clutching a rucksack on his lap.
Did I say anything? Did I "see it, say it, sorted" ?
No. I got off at the next station and breathed a sigh of relief. Why? Because there was a 99%+ chance he was just religious and praying to himself but a much higher chance of me being bracketed a racist for reporting it.
How many others do the same?
I do that all the time.
Is the best way to get a seat, in fact I usually get the entire carriage to myself.
Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton · 2h First Conservative lead since launching Blue Wall tracker in Oct
Blue Wall VI (22 May):
Conservative 34% (+2) Labour 33% (-3) Liberal Democrat 22% (-1) Reform 6% (+1) Green 3% (+1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 7 May
How did Jezza get on in those constituencies?
Whataboutism
SKS fans have zero arguments and can only resort to Yeah but Corbyn
It is a valid argument. Corbyn was unelectable.
Not that unelectable, given that the current Tory Government has implemented tax and spending plans that go further than the ones in the Corbyn manifesto.
It wasn't Corbyn's policies that were unelectable. Many of them were very sensible. It was the man himself.
People are unelectable until they're elected. I don't think he'd have been very good mind.
Oddly, I think he would have handled the pandemic well.
The rest I am less sure about.
Why? He refused to say whether he had been vaccinated or not.
And yes, that's a private medical matter. But it was really important to get people vaccinated, and if people saw top politicians not admitting to getting vaccinated, it would have given the anti-vaxxers heavy boxes of ammunition.
"So PM Corbyn, you are saying that everyone should be vaccinated." "Yes." "Have you been vaccinated?" "That's a personal matter."
Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton · 2h First Conservative lead since launching Blue Wall tracker in Oct
Blue Wall VI (22 May):
Conservative 34% (+2) Labour 33% (-3) Liberal Democrat 22% (-1) Reform 6% (+1) Green 3% (+1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 7 May
How did Jezza get on in those constituencies?
Whataboutism
SKS fans have zero arguments and can only resort to Yeah but Corbyn
It is a valid argument. Corbyn was unelectable.
Not that unelectable, given that the current Tory Government has implemented tax and spending plans that go further than the ones in the Corbyn manifesto.
It wasn't Corbyn's policies that were unelectable. Many of them were very sensible. It was the man himself.
Nonsense. His friendship with Israel's enemies was enough in its own right to.make him unelectable.
Well yes but you prove my point. His policies (as per the 2017 and 2019 Labour manifestos) were not unelectable but the man himself - his behaviors, his beliefs - he himself was unelectable.
Funny how the Labour party decided to dump the two points about Israel on p.98 of its 2019 manifesto and the one point on p.99, even after the unelectable man with the beard had been replaced as leader then.
A guy with a beard and a kufi muttering prayers to himself looking slightly nervous whilst clutching a rucksack on his lap.
Did I say anything? Did I "see it, say it, sorted" ?
No. I got off at the next station and breathed a sigh of relief. Why? Because there was a 99%+ chance he was just religious and praying to himself but a much higher chance of me being bracketed a racist for reporting it.
How many others do the same?
I do that all the time.
Is the best way to get a seat, in fact I usually get the entire carriage to myself.
Look, I've decided to let you off for praising Michael Gove. There was no need for you to run up to London and scare CR shitless to avoid me.
A guy with a beard and a kufi muttering prayers to himself looking slightly nervous whilst clutching a rucksack on his lap.
Did I say anything? Did I "see it, say it, sorted" ?
No. I got off at the next station and breathed a sigh of relief. Why? Because there was a 99%+ chance he was just religious and praying to himself but a much higher chance of me being bracketed a racist for reporting it.
How many others do the same?
I do that all the time.
Is the best way to get a seat, in fact I usually get the entire carriage to myself.
Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton · 2h First Conservative lead since launching Blue Wall tracker in Oct
Blue Wall VI (22 May):
Conservative 34% (+2) Labour 33% (-3) Liberal Democrat 22% (-1) Reform 6% (+1) Green 3% (+1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 7 May
How did Jezza get on in those constituencies?
Whataboutism
SKS fans have zero arguments and can only resort to Yeah but Corbyn
It is a valid argument. Corbyn was unelectable.
Not that unelectable, given that the current Tory Government has implemented tax and spending plans that go further than the ones in the Corbyn manifesto.
It wasn't Corbyn's policies that were unelectable. Many of them were very sensible. It was the man himself.
People are unelectable until they're elected. I don't think he'd have been very good mind.
Oddly, I think he would have handled the pandemic well.
The rest I am less sure about.
Why? He refused to say whether he had been vaccinated or not.
And yes, that's a private medical matter. But it was really important to get people vaccinated, and if people saw top politicians not admitting to getting vaccinated, it would have given the anti-vaxxers heavy boxes of ammunition.
"So PM Corbyn, you are saying that everyone should be vaccinated." "Yes." "Have you been vaccinated?" "That's a personal matter."
Well, at least he wouldn't have partied throught it, JJ.
Looks to me like our current approach is the worst of all worlds.
We either need international agreement to go full on war on drugs, or go all in on regulated supply and treatment rooms etc.
You don't necessarily need international agreement to go full on war on drugs, but you do need a societal consensus to implement very tough penalties as in Singapore.
Why penalise people for doing something that they enjoy and harms nobody but (possibly) themselves? I know a guy quite well, let's call him OnlyLovingBoy, who went out to see the Orb in Brixton on Saturday night with a load of other centrist dads, then went to a house party and danced until after 3am, helped along the way by some MDMA - overcoming the male loneliness epidemic, supporting the arts and local venues, and getting well over his 10,000 steps while engaging in some mild cardio exercise. What's not to like about any of that? Sounds better than living in Singapore.
Very attractive, slightly posh young woman at the bar: "Hellooooo, please can I have a pint of your cheapest lager" Barman: "We've got Fosters at £3.80, or Estrella or Krombacher for five pounds." VASPYW: "I suppose it'll be Estrella then".
Clearly Fosters not even competitive amongst those for whom cheapness is the only criterion.
It's logical.
You can get Fosters for free by drinking straight from the urinal.
We had a drinks do at work yesterday where the only beer was Corona. I had to be dissuaded from resigning there and then.
I only stretch to drinking lager when out for a curry or sat on a street bar in the sun in southern Europe, because mostly it tastes like cold, fizzy, bitter piss water.
But I am intrigued that there might actually be a pecking order to lagers. Is there a recognised list of good and bad or is it very much personal preference? If there's an agreed list what makes the 'good' ones good?
(He asks while supping his glass of Butcombe Original. Mmmm, nice)
My older daughter turns 17 today. A complex age for any human. And I immediately thought of the Janis Ian song, and found this exquisite live rendition on The Old Grey Whistle Test
Just absolutely spine-tingling. Can you imagine being in that audience and hearing this LIVE for the first time. A cold clear copper bottomed masterpiece of a song. The voice, the guitar work, the immortal tune, the poignant lyrics, everything. Ah, fuck. What 'appened to music?
Great song. Do we always have to include that hangdog 'better in my day' bit at the end though? We're the same age (ish) but my son is double 17. That's 34 (for the non accountants). It's interestingly poised now, our relationship. 62 plays 34. He has a clear edge in almost everything.
Yes, unfortunately, we do have to include the "better in my day" bit because it is interesting. Because, for the first time in many decades, this tired old meme is provably true and says something important about politics
Thus elevating the comment from "Oooh I have a family moment and here's a nice song" to something a shade more interesting that might make a Gazette piece so I'm trying it out from different angles
Hmm, ok. I don't agree with you though. I don't think this 'better in my day' (about music) is any different to the standard one about anything else.
And there's nothing wrong with just sharing the family moment!
In 30 years' time, Leon's daughter will be on here wishing her own son a happy 17th birthday and bemoaning that music isn't as good now as it was back in 2023
Only if the AI running the country tells her it isn't as good.
That reminds me that former Vice-President Al Gore hasn't got back to me on my suggestion he release a Hip-Hop album called AlGoreRhythm. It's a political and musical winner and my cut would only be 30%. I'll follow up with him.
If you opened up the Elect Al Gore website (whatever it was called) in 2000 and looked at the underlying HTML, in the commented-out code at the top it made a similar joke about algorithm and Al-Gore-rithm. But that was then, in the days when the internet was fun...☹️
Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton · 2h First Conservative lead since launching Blue Wall tracker in Oct
Blue Wall VI (22 May):
Conservative 34% (+2) Labour 33% (-3) Liberal Democrat 22% (-1) Reform 6% (+1) Green 3% (+1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 7 May
How did Jezza get on in those constituencies?
Whataboutism
SKS fans have zero arguments and can only resort to Yeah but Corbyn
It is a valid argument. Corbyn was unelectable.
Not that unelectable, given that the current Tory Government has implemented tax and spending plans that go further than the ones in the Corbyn manifesto.
It wasn't Corbyn's policies that were unelectable. Many of them were very sensible. It was the man himself.
Nonsense. His friendship with Israel's enemies was enough in its own right to.make him unelectable.
And what about the nation that is Israel my right wing friend. It’s behaviour borders on criminality often.
Very attractive, slightly posh young woman at the bar: "Hellooooo, please can I have a pint of your cheapest lager" Barman: "We've got Fosters at £3.80, or Estrella or Krombacher for five pounds." VASPYW: "I suppose it'll be Estrella then".
Clearly Fosters not even competitive amongst those for whom cheapness is the only criterion.
It's logical.
You can get Fosters for free by drinking straight from the urinal.
We had a drinks do at work yesterday where the only beer was Corona. I had to be dissuaded from resigning there and then.
I only stretch to drinking lager when out for a curry or sat on a street bar in the sun in southern Europe, because mostly it tastes like cold, fizzy, bitter piss water.
But I am intrigued that there might actually be a pecking order to lagers. Is there a recognised list of good and bad or is it very much personal preference? If there's an agreed list what makes the 'good' ones good?
(He asks while supping his glass of Butcombe Original. Mmmm, nice)
Im totally with you.
I’ve never been convinced there’s much of a difference between largers. As far as I’m concerned, they’re fungible.
Ale. Now that’s different. It’s the type of beer that tastes like piss. I can identify ale.
Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton · 2h First Conservative lead since launching Blue Wall tracker in Oct
Blue Wall VI (22 May):
Conservative 34% (+2) Labour 33% (-3) Liberal Democrat 22% (-1) Reform 6% (+1) Green 3% (+1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 7 May
How did Jezza get on in those constituencies?
Whataboutism
SKS fans have zero arguments and can only resort to Yeah but Corbyn
It is a valid argument. Corbyn was unelectable.
Not that unelectable, given that the current Tory Government has implemented tax and spending plans that go further than the ones in the Corbyn manifesto.
It wasn't Corbyn's policies that were unelectable. Many of them were very sensible. It was the man himself.
Nonsense. His friendship with Israel's enemies was enough in its own right to.make him unelectable.
And what about the nation that is Israel my right wing friend. It’s behaviour borders on criminality often.
It is perfectly possible to criticise Israel for its many grotesque actions without describing lunatic Nazis like Raed Salah as your friends.
Several of us manage it all the time.
Corbyn apparently could not.
To quote Charles Grey on David Irving, there is a line between legitimate criticism and prejudiced vilification.
A guy with a beard and a kufi muttering prayers to himself looking slightly nervous whilst clutching a rucksack on his lap.
Did I say anything? Did I "see it, say it, sorted" ?
No. I got off at the next station and breathed a sigh of relief. Why? Because there was a 99%+ chance he was just religious and praying to himself but a much higher chance of me being bracketed a racist for reporting it.
How many others do the same?
I do that all the time.
Is the best way to get a seat, in fact I usually get the entire carriage to myself.
Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton · 2h First Conservative lead since launching Blue Wall tracker in Oct
Blue Wall VI (22 May):
Conservative 34% (+2) Labour 33% (-3) Liberal Democrat 22% (-1) Reform 6% (+1) Green 3% (+1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 7 May
How did Jezza get on in those constituencies?
Whataboutism
SKS fans have zero arguments and can only resort to Yeah but Corbyn
It is a valid argument. Corbyn was unelectable.
Not that unelectable, given that the current Tory Government has implemented tax and spending plans that go further than the ones in the Corbyn manifesto.
It wasn't Corbyn's policies that were unelectable. Many of them were very sensible. It was the man himself.
Nonsense. His friendship with Israel's enemies was enough in its own right to.make him unelectable.
Well yes but you prove my point. His policies (as per the 2017 and 2019 Labour manifestos) were not unelectable but the man himself - his behaviors, his beliefs - he himself was unelectable.
Funny how the Labour party decided to dump the two points about Israel on p.98 of its 2019 manifesto and the one point on p.99, even after the unelectable man with the beard had been replaced as leader then.
Once again, none of those policies made Labour unelectable; Corbyn made Labour unelectable.
A guy with a beard and a kufi muttering prayers to himself looking slightly nervous whilst clutching a rucksack on his lap.
Did I say anything? Did I "see it, say it, sorted" ?
No. I got off at the next station and breathed a sigh of relief. Why? Because there was a 99%+ chance he was just religious and praying to himself but a much higher chance of me being bracketed a racist for reporting it.
How many others do the same?
I do that all the time.
Is the best way to get a seat, in fact I usually get the entire carriage to myself.
A guy with a beard and a kufi muttering prayers to himself looking slightly nervous whilst clutching a rucksack on his lap.
Did I say anything? Did I "see it, say it, sorted" ?
No. I got off at the next station and breathed a sigh of relief. Why? Because there was a 99%+ chance he was just religious and praying to himself but a much higher chance of me being bracketed a racist for reporting it.
How many others do the same?
I do that all the time.
Is the best way to get a seat, in fact I usually get the entire carriage to myself.
Looks to me like our current approach is the worst of all worlds.
We either need international agreement to go full on war on drugs, or go all in on regulated supply and treatment rooms etc.
You don't necessarily need international agreement to go full on war on drugs, but you do need a societal consensus to implement very tough penalties as in Singapore.
Why penalise people for doing something that they enjoy and harms nobody but (possibly) themselves? I know a guy quite well, let's call him OnlyLovingBoy, who went out to see the Orb in Brixton on Saturday night with a load of other centrist dads, then went to a house party and danced until after 3am, helped along the way by some MDMA - overcoming the male loneliness epidemic, supporting the arts and local venues, and getting well over his 10,000 steps while engaging in some mild cardio exercise. What's not to like about any of that? Sounds better than living in Singapore.
The problem is that it's a slippery slope. You might start out with the Orb and think you can handle it, but many people can't and end up on really mind-bending stuff like Radiohead.
Very attractive, slightly posh young woman at the bar: "Hellooooo, please can I have a pint of your cheapest lager" Barman: "We've got Fosters at £3.80, or Estrella or Krombacher for five pounds." VASPYW: "I suppose it'll be Estrella then".
Clearly Fosters not even competitive amongst those for whom cheapness is the only criterion.
It's logical.
You can get Fosters for free by drinking straight from the urinal.
We had a drinks do at work yesterday where the only beer was Corona. I had to be dissuaded from resigning there and then.
Corona is weak but at least it has a lime and some level of ritual associated with it.
Fosters is possibly the worst drink ever crafted by man.
Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton · 2h First Conservative lead since launching Blue Wall tracker in Oct
Blue Wall VI (22 May):
Conservative 34% (+2) Labour 33% (-3) Liberal Democrat 22% (-1) Reform 6% (+1) Green 3% (+1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 7 May
How did Jezza get on in those constituencies?
Whataboutism
SKS fans have zero arguments and can only resort to Yeah but Corbyn
It is a valid argument. Corbyn was unelectable.
Not that unelectable, given that the current Tory Government has implemented tax and spending plans that go further than the ones in the Corbyn manifesto.
It wasn't Corbyn's policies that were unelectable. Many of them were very sensible. It was the man himself.
Nonsense. His friendship with Israel's enemies was enough in its own right to.make him unelectable.
Well yes but you prove my point. His policies (as per the 2017 and 2019 Labour manifestos) were not unelectable but the man himself - his behaviors, his beliefs - he himself was unelectable.
Funny how the Labour party decided to dump the two points about Israel on p.98 of its 2019 manifesto and the one point on p.99, even after the unelectable man with the beard had been replaced as leader then.
Once again, none of those policies made Labour unelectable; Corbyn made Labour unelectable.
Since electoral reform has been known to come up here from time to time, bunch of nerds, including when it is and isn't ok to make changes without referenda, I'm surprised I've not seen a suggestion of doing what Greece does, with reforms taking place only several elections down the road, which is quite novel. Context important here: the reason winners ND will push for an election is Greece’s unusual rules for electoral reforms, which are only introduced 2 elections after the reform is enacted. So a second election would be fought under ND’s new system, passed in last Parl https://twitter.com/robfordmancs/status/1660546837550440452?cxt=HHwWiIC9kaCjuYsuAAAA
Looks to me like our current approach is the worst of all worlds.
We either need international agreement to go full on war on drugs, or go all in on regulated supply and treatment rooms etc.
You don't necessarily need international agreement to go full on war on drugs, but you do need a societal consensus to implement very tough penalties as in Singapore.
Why penalise people for doing something that they enjoy and harms nobody but (possibly) themselves? I know a guy quite well, let's call him OnlyLovingBoy, who went out to see the Orb in Brixton on Saturday night with a load of other centrist dads, then went to a house party and danced until after 3am, helped along the way by some MDMA - overcoming the male loneliness epidemic, supporting the arts and local venues, and getting well over his 10,000 steps while engaging in some mild cardio exercise. What's not to like about any of that? Sounds better than living in Singapore.
The problem is that it's a slippery slope. You might start out with the Orb and think you can handle it, but many people can't and end up on really mind-bending stuff like Radiohead.
Indeed. The Orb did a remix of the Doctor Who theme tune. You think you can handle it, but you wake up one day plotting to remove Chris Chibnall's intestines and insert clocks into the steaming cavity whilst screaming "Timeless Child! Geddit! Huh? HUH!" Probably best stop now when you're still in the winsome regard for Delia Derbyshire stage... 😀
Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton · 2h First Conservative lead since launching Blue Wall tracker in Oct
Blue Wall VI (22 May):
Conservative 34% (+2) Labour 33% (-3) Liberal Democrat 22% (-1) Reform 6% (+1) Green 3% (+1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 7 May
How did Jezza get on in those constituencies?
Whataboutism
SKS fans have zero arguments and can only resort to Yeah but Corbyn
Yeah but Corbyn is very powerful though.
For the record, I do think Corbyn is a rare breed, a principled politician. He was just a terrible leader.
There is principled and then there is bat shit crazy. Anyone who would rather divorce his wife than see his son go to a Grammar school is utterly bat shit crazy.
Corbyn is a dogmatist.
That's actually the sign of a lack of intelligence: you insist on seeing the world in black & white because you're unable to think through the shades of grey.
Indeed.
Bright people see shades of grey and thrash matters out like adults.
Surely there is a place in the world for both and the truly great leaders combine the two. There are moments where shades of grey do not cut it.
Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton · 2h First Conservative lead since launching Blue Wall tracker in Oct
Blue Wall VI (22 May):
Conservative 34% (+2) Labour 33% (-3) Liberal Democrat 22% (-1) Reform 6% (+1) Green 3% (+1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 7 May
How did Jezza get on in those constituencies?
Whataboutism
SKS fans have zero arguments and can only resort to Yeah but Corbyn
Yeah but Corbyn is very powerful though.
For the record, I do think Corbyn is a rare breed, a principled politician. He was just a terrible leader.
There is principled and then there is bat shit crazy. Anyone who would rather divorce his wife than see his son go to a Grammar school is utterly bat shit crazy.
Corbyn is a dogmatist.
That's actually the sign of a lack of intelligence: you insist on seeing the world in black & white because you're unable to think through the shades of grey.
Indeed.
Bright people see shades of grey and thrash matters out like adults.
Surely there is a place in the world for both and the truly great leaders combine the two. There are moments where shades of grey do not cut it.
The truly great leaders combine stupidity and intelligence?
Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton · 2h First Conservative lead since launching Blue Wall tracker in Oct
Blue Wall VI (22 May):
Conservative 34% (+2) Labour 33% (-3) Liberal Democrat 22% (-1) Reform 6% (+1) Green 3% (+1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 7 May
How did Jezza get on in those constituencies?
Whataboutism
SKS fans have zero arguments and can only resort to Yeah but Corbyn
Yeah but Corbyn is very powerful though.
For the record, I do think Corbyn is a rare breed, a principled politician. He was just a terrible leader.
There is principled and then there is bat shit crazy. Anyone who would rather divorce his wife than see his son go to a Grammar school is utterly bat shit crazy.
Corbyn is a dogmatist.
That's actually the sign of a lack of intelligence: you insist on seeing the world in black & white because you're unable to think through the shades of grey.
Indeed.
Bright people see shades of grey and thrash matters out like adults.
Surely there is a place in the world for both and the truly great leaders combine the two. There are moments where shades of grey do not cut it.
The truly great leaders combine stupidity and intelligence?
Sometimes compromise is not possible. I am glad Churchill did not seek shades of grey with Hitler, but was able to lead with nuance and compromise elsewhere.
Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton · 2h First Conservative lead since launching Blue Wall tracker in Oct
Blue Wall VI (22 May):
Conservative 34% (+2) Labour 33% (-3) Liberal Democrat 22% (-1) Reform 6% (+1) Green 3% (+1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 7 May
How did Jezza get on in those constituencies?
Whataboutism
SKS fans have zero arguments and can only resort to Yeah but Corbyn
Yeah but Corbyn is very powerful though.
For the record, I do think Corbyn is a rare breed, a principled politician. He was just a terrible leader.
There is principled and then there is bat shit crazy. Anyone who would rather divorce his wife than see his son go to a Grammar school is utterly bat shit crazy.
Corbyn is a dogmatist.
That's actually the sign of a lack of intelligence: you insist on seeing the world in black & white because you're unable to think through the shades of grey.
Some people may be dogmatic without being unintelligent, since we can like not having to think too much about things - it's one reason we go tribal in politics to begin with.
Not saying the answer is lack of any principal whatsoever, but the appeal of dogmatism is clear.
On Corbyn it was interesting when people would complain about past positions and comments coming back to bite him, more than some other politicians, which might have been reasonable, but for the fact that a lot of his biggest fans played up his supposedly unchanging principles as a positive. And if the pitch is this man is right and always has been, even when it was unpopular, then past comments are a lot more relevant than for more flexible politicians.
Something is not right with this issue of Boris and the lawyers he has apparently sacked.
The facts as I understand them:-
- Last year it was revealed that Boris had instructed Peters & Peters, a firm specialising in fraud and David Pannick KC to advise him in relation to the Standards Committee investigation into him. - The government agreed to pay their fees. Why has never been explained. - Peters & Peters and Pannick were present when Johnson gave evidence to the Committee. - Now we are told that Cabinet office lawyers have been advising him. Why? - What happened to Peters & Peters? Government lawyers advise the government not backbench MPs. - If they are advising Boris in his capacity as PM in respect of actions done as PM and the government is paying, it is not for him to sack them. He can refuse to be advised by them but then he should be paying for his own lawyers. But no, apparently we are paying. Again, why?
We are not being told the full story I think.
I thought P&P were handling the Parliamentary inquiry into his lying, but the Cabinet Office lawyers are handling the COVID-19 Inquiry.
Thank you. I knew I must have been missing something.
How can he sack the government lawyers? They are representing the government of which he was the head at the time. It is all a mess.
Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton · 2h First Conservative lead since launching Blue Wall tracker in Oct
Blue Wall VI (22 May):
Conservative 34% (+2) Labour 33% (-3) Liberal Democrat 22% (-1) Reform 6% (+1) Green 3% (+1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 7 May
How did Jezza get on in those constituencies?
Whataboutism
SKS fans have zero arguments and can only resort to Yeah but Corbyn
Yeah but Corbyn is very powerful though.
For the record, I do think Corbyn is a rare breed, a principled politician. He was just a terrible leader.
There is principled and then there is bat shit crazy. Anyone who would rather divorce his wife than see his son go to a Grammar school is utterly bat shit crazy.
Corbyn is a dogmatist.
That's actually the sign of a lack of intelligence: you insist on seeing the world in black & white because you're unable to think through the shades of grey.
Indeed.
Bright people see shades of grey and thrash matters out like adults.
Surely there is a place in the world for both and the truly great leaders combine the two. There are moments where shades of grey do not cut it.
The truly great leaders combine stupidity and intelligence?
Sometimes compromise is not possible. I am glad Churchill did not seek shades of grey with Hitler, but was able to lead with nuance and compromise elsewhere.
This is quite relevant today in the Ukraine situation with Russia, because cold pragmatic compromise is definitely a thing in international relations, it is realist, but some ostensible realists are not actually proposing pragmatic compromises when, for instance, suggesting very early on to give Russia what it wanted, since acceptance of such with Crimea helped lead to the current crisis. So what might appear to be shades of grey realism is in fact directly aligned with one side.
Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton · 2h First Conservative lead since launching Blue Wall tracker in Oct
Blue Wall VI (22 May):
Conservative 34% (+2) Labour 33% (-3) Liberal Democrat 22% (-1) Reform 6% (+1) Green 3% (+1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 7 May
How did Jezza get on in those constituencies?
Whataboutism
SKS fans have zero arguments and can only resort to Yeah but Corbyn
Yeah but Corbyn is very powerful though.
For the record, I do think Corbyn is a rare breed, a principled politician. He was just a terrible leader.
There is principled and then there is bat shit crazy. Anyone who would rather divorce his wife than see his son go to a Grammar school is utterly bat shit crazy.
Corbyn is a dogmatist.
That's actually the sign of a lack of intelligence: you insist on seeing the world in black & white because you're unable to think through the shades of grey.
Indeed.
Bright people see shades of grey and thrash matters out like adults.
Surely there is a place in the world for both and the truly great leaders combine the two. There are moments where shades of grey do not cut it.
The truly great leaders combine stupidity and intelligence?
Sometimes compromise is not possible. I am glad Churchill did not seek shades of grey with Hitler, but was able to lead with nuance and compromise elsewhere.
This is quite relevant today in the Ukraine situation with Russia, because cold pragmatic compromise is definitely a thing in international relations, it is realist, but some ostensible realists are not actually proposing pragmatic compromises when, for instance, suggesting very early on to give Russia what it wanted, as since acceptance of such with Crimea helped lead to the current crisis. So what might appear to be shades of grey realism is in fact directly aligned with one side.
The US has released Covid into the world, killing more people than the Nazis, because its scientists wanted to see what a more deadly coronavirus would look like, and when GOF research was banned in the US, decided to do so in collaboration with China. Our shade of grey on that is to smile politely and look the other way as if dining with a flatulent Duchess.
Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton · 2h First Conservative lead since launching Blue Wall tracker in Oct
Blue Wall VI (22 May):
Conservative 34% (+2) Labour 33% (-3) Liberal Democrat 22% (-1) Reform 6% (+1) Green 3% (+1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 7 May
How did Jezza get on in those constituencies?
Whataboutism
SKS fans have zero arguments and can only resort to Yeah but Corbyn
Yeah but Corbyn is very powerful though.
For the record, I do think Corbyn is a rare breed, a principled politician. He was just a terrible leader.
There is principled and then there is bat shit crazy. Anyone who would rather divorce his wife than see his son go to a Grammar school is utterly bat shit crazy.
Corbyn is a dogmatist.
That's actually the sign of a lack of intelligence: you insist on seeing the world in black & white because you're unable to think through the shades of grey.
Indeed.
Bright people see shades of grey and thrash matters out like adults.
Surely there is a place in the world for both and the truly great leaders combine the two. There are moments where shades of grey do not cut it.
The truly great leaders combine stupidity and intelligence?
Sometimes compromise is not possible. I am glad Churchill did not seek shades of grey with Hitler, but was able to lead with nuance and compromise elsewhere.
You mean, by supporting the aggressors over Abyssinia and Manchuria?
Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton · 2h First Conservative lead since launching Blue Wall tracker in Oct
Blue Wall VI (22 May):
Conservative 34% (+2) Labour 33% (-3) Liberal Democrat 22% (-1) Reform 6% (+1) Green 3% (+1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 7 May
How did Jezza get on in those constituencies?
Whataboutism
SKS fans have zero arguments and can only resort to Yeah but Corbyn
Yeah but Corbyn is very powerful though.
For the record, I do think Corbyn is a rare breed, a principled politician. He was just a terrible leader.
There is principled and then there is bat shit crazy. Anyone who would rather divorce his wife than see his son go to a Grammar school is utterly bat shit crazy.
Corbyn is a dogmatist.
That's actually the sign of a lack of intelligence: you insist on seeing the world in black & white because you're unable to think through the shades of grey.
Indeed.
Bright people see shades of grey and thrash matters out like adults.
Surely there is a place in the world for both and the truly great leaders combine the two. There are moments where shades of grey do not cut it.
The truly great leaders combine stupidity and intelligence?
Sometimes compromise is not possible. I am glad Churchill did not seek shades of grey with Hitler, but was able to lead with nuance and compromise elsewhere.
This is quite relevant today in the Ukraine situation with Russia, because cold pragmatic compromise is definitely a thing in international relations, it is realist, but some ostensible realists are not actually proposing pragmatic compromises when, for instance, suggesting very early on to give Russia what it wanted, as since acceptance of such with Crimea helped lead to the current crisis. So what might appear to be shades of grey realism is in fact directly aligned with one side.
The US has released Covid into the world, killing more people than the Nazis, because its scientists wanted to see what a more deadly coronavirus would look like, and when GOF research was banned in the US, decided to do so in collaboration with China. Our shade of grey on that is to smile politely and look the other way as if dining with a flatulent Duchess.
Well no, because I suspect most people don't believe that to be the case so they do not see themselves as looking the other way about it, which is a deliberate action when we know or believe something is going on.
Now, you may think more people should believe it to be the case, but until they do I don't think the comparison holds water. With Russia-Ukraine we know what Russia did in Crimea and the Donbas, and that ignoring it/accepting it, however realist and pragmatic it may have seemed, did not work as a long term solution, as the last year shows. Therefore anyone proposing repeating doing it now would work is being provably irrational.
But that actually does not answer my question. Are you saying that cannabis, heroin, MDMA, ketamine, etc should all be easily available?
They are easily available, we just pretend they're not.
I know where to go to get some Nurofen or a bottle of whisky. I don't know where to go to score some heroin. So 'easily available' very much depends on context.
You could buy gear in any town in England in about 15 minutes just by asking the scraggiest people you can find on the street.
The bus station in Uttoxeter was always *allegedly* the place when I was a teenager. But I don't know of the place around here - yet I know there are some, as there was a murder by a drug dealer five or so years ago.
But I fear if I was to go up to the scraggiest person I can find on the street to ask them for some gear, they'll probably think I'm police...
(On several occasions I've had people ask me if I'm police. Once in Slough when on a hike, with rucksack, once in Stepney Green where my crime was wearing a white shirt, and another outside March. I guess I just have the air. I'm unconvinced this is a good thing ...)
The bar at SOAS was always a winner but now I rock up to lectures at Birkbeck after work in my suit I’d likely get some funny looks.
The SOAS bar was not for buying eighths of hash. The amounts traded there were several orders of magnitude higher.
A guy with a beard and a kufi muttering prayers to himself looking slightly nervous whilst clutching a rucksack on his lap.
Did I say anything? Did I "see it, say it, sorted" ?
No. I got off at the next station and breathed a sigh of relief. Why? Because there was a 99%+ chance he was just religious and praying to himself but a much higher chance of me being bracketed a racist for reporting it.
How many others do the same?
I do that all the time.
Is the best way to get a seat, in fact I usually get the entire carriage to myself.
Reminds me of my favourite post 7/7 bombings joke
Agreeable young white man gets on Tube train heading north. Seems nice, smiles, is likeable, then gives his seat to a young pregnant woman, and smiles again at everyone
A heavily bearded older Muslim man looks at him, and leans across and says:
"A word of advice my friend. Don't go to Luton, any time soon. Avoid Luton station"
Something is not right with this issue of Boris and the lawyers he has apparently sacked.
The facts as I understand them:-
- Last year it was revealed that Boris had instructed Peters & Peters, a firm specialising in fraud and David Pannick KC to advise him in relation to the Standards Committee investigation into him. - The government agreed to pay their fees. Why has never been explained. - Peters & Peters and Pannick were present when Johnson gave evidence to the Committee. - Now we are told that Cabinet office lawyers have been advising him. Why? - What happened to Peters & Peters? Government lawyers advise the government not backbench MPs. - If they are advising Boris in his capacity as PM in respect of actions done as PM and the government is paying, it is not for him to sack them. He can refuse to be advised by them but then he should be paying for his own lawyers. But no, apparently we are paying. Again, why?
We are not being told the full story I think.
I thought P&P were handling the Parliamentary inquiry into his lying, but the Cabinet Office lawyers are handling the COVID-19 Inquiry.
Thank you. I knew I must have been missing something.
How can he sack the government lawyers? They are representing the government of which he was the head at the time. It is all a mess.
He can tell them to stop working on his behalf, presumably?
But that actually does not answer my question. Are you saying that cannabis, heroin, MDMA, ketamine, etc should all be easily available?
They are easily available, we just pretend they're not.
I know where to go to get some Nurofen or a bottle of whisky. I don't know where to go to score some heroin. So 'easily available' very much depends on context.
You could buy gear in any town in England in about 15 minutes just by asking the scraggiest people you can find on the street.
The bus station in Uttoxeter was always *allegedly* the place when I was a teenager. But I don't know of the place around here - yet I know there are some, as there was a murder by a drug dealer five or so years ago.
But I fear if I was to go up to the scraggiest person I can find on the street to ask them for some gear, they'll probably think I'm police...
(On several occasions I've had people ask me if I'm police. Once in Slough when on a hike, with rucksack, once in Stepney Green where my crime was wearing a white shirt, and another outside March. I guess I just have the air. I'm unconvinced this is a good thing ...)
The bar at SOAS was always a winner but now I rock up to lectures at Birkbeck after work in my suit I’d likely get some funny looks.
The SOAS bar was not for buying eighths of hash. The amounts traded there were several orders of magnitude higher.
Not any more. Mt ex wife went to SOAS within the last decade. It is now extremely Woke and jihadi
You won't get drugs there. You might recruited into ISIS
But that actually does not answer my question. Are you saying that cannabis, heroin, MDMA, ketamine, etc should all be easily available?
They are easily available, we just pretend they're not.
I know where to go to get some Nurofen or a bottle of whisky. I don't know where to go to score some heroin. So 'easily available' very much depends on context.
You could buy gear in any town in England in about 15 minutes just by asking the scraggiest people you can find on the street.
The bus station in Uttoxeter was always *allegedly* the place when I was a teenager. But I don't know of the place around here - yet I know there are some, as there was a murder by a drug dealer five or so years ago.
But I fear if I was to go up to the scraggiest person I can find on the street to ask them for some gear, they'll probably think I'm police...
(On several occasions I've had people ask me if I'm police. Once in Slough when on a hike, with rucksack, once in Stepney Green where my crime was wearing a white shirt, and another outside March. I guess I just have the air. I'm unconvinced this is a good thing ...)
The bar at SOAS was always a winner but now I rock up to lectures at Birkbeck after work in my suit I’d likely get some funny looks.
The SOAS bar was not for buying eighths of hash. The amounts traded there were several orders of magnitude higher.
Not any more. Mt ex wife went to SOAS within the last decade. It is now extremely Woke and jihadi
Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton · 2h First Conservative lead since launching Blue Wall tracker in Oct
Blue Wall VI (22 May):
Conservative 34% (+2) Labour 33% (-3) Liberal Democrat 22% (-1) Reform 6% (+1) Green 3% (+1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 7 May
How did Jezza get on in those constituencies?
Whataboutism
SKS fans have zero arguments and can only resort to Yeah but Corbyn
It is a valid argument. Corbyn was unelectable.
Not that unelectable, given that the current Tory Government has implemented tax and spending plans that go further than the ones in the Corbyn manifesto.
It wasn't Corbyn's policies that were unelectable. Many of them were very sensible. It was the man himself.
Nonsense. His friendship with Israel's enemies was enough in its own right to.make him unelectable.
Well yes but you prove my point. His policies (as per the 2017 and 2019 Labour manifestos) were not unelectable but the man himself - his behaviors, his beliefs - he himself was unelectable.
Funny how the Labour party decided to dump the two points about Israel on p.98 of its 2019 manifesto and the one point on p.99, even after the unelectable man with the beard had been replaced as leader then.
Once again, none of those policies made Labour unelectable; Corbyn made Labour unelectable.
Why didn't they keep them then?
How do you know they haven't - have you seen the 2024 manifesto?
Currently the draft policy framework includes:
"Support the recognition of the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel, as part of efforts to contribute to securing a negotiated two state solution"
Maybe that will make the final manifesto, maybe it won't. Either way it will hardly be defining for their chances of winning.
Something is not right with this issue of Boris and the lawyers he has apparently sacked.
The facts as I understand them:-
- Last year it was revealed that Boris had instructed Peters & Peters, a firm specialising in fraud and David Pannick KC to advise him in relation to the Standards Committee investigation into him. - The government agreed to pay their fees. Why has never been explained. - Peters & Peters and Pannick were present when Johnson gave evidence to the Committee. - Now we are told that Cabinet office lawyers have been advising him. Why? - What happened to Peters & Peters? Government lawyers advise the government not backbench MPs. - If they are advising Boris in his capacity as PM in respect of actions done as PM and the government is paying, it is not for him to sack them. He can refuse to be advised by them but then he should be paying for his own lawyers. But no, apparently we are paying. Again, why?
We are not being told the full story I think.
I thought P&P were handling the Parliamentary inquiry into his lying, but the Cabinet Office lawyers are handling the COVID-19 Inquiry.
Thank you. I knew I must have been missing something.
How can he sack the government lawyers? They are representing the government of which he was the head at the time. It is all a mess.
He can tell them to stop working on his behalf, presumably?
It still does not make sense. He was the PM. It is in that capacity - not in a personal one - that he is being interviewed. Unless he is arguing that there is now a conflict of interest between him and the government he led and that what he was doing during Covid as PM was not somehow the actions of the government. How can the government put its case if it cannot rely on the evidence of the PM?
If he needs additional lawyers for his private interests I can see that but in addition to not instead of government lawyers.
As I say it is a mess. As most things involving Johnson are.
But that actually does not answer my question. Are you saying that cannabis, heroin, MDMA, ketamine, etc should all be easily available?
They are easily available, we just pretend they're not.
I know where to go to get some Nurofen or a bottle of whisky. I don't know where to go to score some heroin. So 'easily available' very much depends on context.
You could buy gear in any town in England in about 15 minutes just by asking the scraggiest people you can find on the street.
The bus station in Uttoxeter was always *allegedly* the place when I was a teenager. But I don't know of the place around here - yet I know there are some, as there was a murder by a drug dealer five or so years ago.
But I fear if I was to go up to the scraggiest person I can find on the street to ask them for some gear, they'll probably think I'm police...
(On several occasions I've had people ask me if I'm police. Once in Slough when on a hike, with rucksack, once in Stepney Green where my crime was wearing a white shirt, and another outside March. I guess I just have the air. I'm unconvinced this is a good thing ...)
The bar at SOAS was always a winner but now I rock up to lectures at Birkbeck after work in my suit I’d likely get some funny looks.
The SOAS bar was not for buying eighths of hash. The amounts traded there were several orders of magnitude higher.
Not any more. Mt ex wife went to SOAS within the last decade. It is now extremely Woke and jihadi
Interesting combination.
If you think Wokeism and Islamism are contradictory you don't get out much
My older daughter turns 17 today. A complex age for any human. And I immediately thought of the Janis Ian song, and found this exquisite live rendition on The Old Grey Whistle Test
Just absolutely spine-tingling. Can you imagine being in that audience and hearing this LIVE for the first time. A cold clear copper bottomed masterpiece of a song. The voice, the guitar work, the immortal tune, the poignant lyrics, everything. Ah, fuck. What 'appened to music?
Great song. Do we always have to include that hangdog 'better in my day' bit at the end though? We're the same age (ish) but my son is double 17. That's 34 (for the non accountants). It's interestingly poised now, our relationship. 62 plays 34. He has a clear edge in almost everything.
Yes, unfortunately, we do have to include the "better in my day" bit because it is interesting. Because, for the first time in many decades, this tired old meme is provably true and says something important about politics
Thus elevating the comment from "Oooh I have a family moment and here's a nice song" to something a shade more interesting that might make a Gazette piece so I'm trying it out from different angles
Hmm, ok. I don't agree with you though. I don't think this 'better in my day' (about music) is any different to the standard one about anything else.
And there's nothing wrong with just sharing the family moment!
Where is the equivalent - post, say, 2010 - of a pop song as exquisite, delicate and moving as "At 17"? It does not exist
Amy Winehouse is much missed. She was the very last of the Golden Age. The Tintoretto of the Pop Music Renaissance
I've dropped off tracking new releases (being 62) and in any case there's so much product these days on so many platforms you can't get your arms around it as you once could. It used to be that if you were into music and there was a great song released you'd be bound to hear it. The corollary was if you didn't hear something it can't have been that good. This is no longer the case. There's tons of high quality new music now that unless you devote yourself to seeking it out (which you won't at your age) you will not discover. But it's there.
Eg what I've noticed is when I do random deep dives into recent music, or catch it on soundtracks for tv dramas, I come across plenty of absolutely terrific songs. Songs just as good as those on my familiar playlists. Songs whereby I know that if I listened to them a lot, and could associate them with my younger life, thus generating a sweet nostalgia hit, could take their place as 'classics' (for me). I don't have the time or inclination to do this now, so they don't, but they could. They are objectively good enough, is my point.
So although I'd like to agree that the stuff I've curated and love from many moons ago constitutes a 'Golden Age' (because it's nice to believe that), I kind of know that it isn't. It's another heart v head thing, this. Heart says you're right that music used to be better. Head says it's nonsense.
And yet I have a friend whose job is music reviewing and critiquing. He lives for this. And he LOVES discovering new talent
And he says it simply isn’t there any more. He goes to two gigs a week. Indeed it’s his theory that Winehouse was the last of the greats (I borrowed it)
He has various theories why
There is also factual evidence that music has got more simplistic, crude and lyrically vulgar and coarse
Read Ted Gioia’s substack if you want to find new music. He’s older than you and finds plenty of good stuff. Best music critic currently writing.
My older daughter turns 17 today. A complex age for any human. And I immediately thought of the Janis Ian song, and found this exquisite live rendition on The Old Grey Whistle Test
Just absolutely spine-tingling. Can you imagine being in that audience and hearing this LIVE for the first time. A cold clear copper bottomed masterpiece of a song. The voice, the guitar work, the immortal tune, the poignant lyrics, everything. Ah, fuck. What 'appened to music?
Great song. Do we always have to include that hangdog 'better in my day' bit at the end though? We're the same age (ish) but my son is double 17. That's 34 (for the non accountants). It's interestingly poised now, our relationship. 62 plays 34. He has a clear edge in almost everything.
Yes, unfortunately, we do have to include the "better in my day" bit because it is interesting. Because, for the first time in many decades, this tired old meme is provably true and says something important about politics
Thus elevating the comment from "Oooh I have a family moment and here's a nice song" to something a shade more interesting that might make a Gazette piece so I'm trying it out from different angles
Hmm, ok. I don't agree with you though. I don't think this 'better in my day' (about music) is any different to the standard one about anything else.
And there's nothing wrong with just sharing the family moment!
Where is the equivalent - post, say, 2010 - of a pop song as exquisite, delicate and moving as "At 17"? It does not exist
Amy Winehouse is much missed. She was the very last of the Golden Age. The Tintoretto of the Pop Music Renaissance
I've dropped off tracking new releases (being 62) and in any case there's so much product these days on so many platforms you can't get your arms around it as you once could. It used to be that if you were into music and there was a great song released you'd be bound to hear it. The corollary was if you didn't hear something it can't have been that good. This is no longer the case. There's tons of high quality new music now that unless you devote yourself to seeking it out (which you won't at your age) you will not discover. But it's there.
Eg what I've noticed is when I do random deep dives into recent music, or catch it on soundtracks for tv dramas, I come across plenty of absolutely terrific songs. Songs just as good as those on my familiar playlists. Songs whereby I know that if I listened to them a lot, and could associate them with my younger life, thus generating a sweet nostalgia hit, could take their place as 'classics' (for me). I don't have the time or inclination to do this now, so they don't, but they could. They are objectively good enough, is my point.
So although I'd like to agree that the stuff I've curated and love from many moons ago constitutes a 'Golden Age' (because it's nice to believe that), I kind of know that it isn't. It's another heart v head thing, this. Heart says you're right that music used to be better. Head says it's nonsense.
And yet I have a friend whose job is music reviewing and critiquing. He lives for this. And he LOVES discovering new talent
And he says it simply isn’t there any more. He goes to two gigs a week. Indeed it’s his theory that Winehouse was the last of the greats (I borrowed it)
He has various theories why
There is also factual evidence that music has got more simplistic, crude and lyrically vulgar and coarse
Read Ted Gioia’s substack if you want to find new music. He’s older than you and finds plenty of good stuff. Best music critic currently writing.
Something is not right with this issue of Boris and the lawyers he has apparently sacked.
The facts as I understand them:-
- Last year it was revealed that Boris had instructed Peters & Peters, a firm specialising in fraud and David Pannick KC to advise him in relation to the Standards Committee investigation into him. - The government agreed to pay their fees. Why has never been explained. - Peters & Peters and Pannick were present when Johnson gave evidence to the Committee. - Now we are told that Cabinet office lawyers have been advising him. Why? - What happened to Peters & Peters? Government lawyers advise the government not backbench MPs. - If they are advising Boris in his capacity as PM in respect of actions done as PM and the government is paying, it is not for him to sack them. He can refuse to be advised by them but then he should be paying for his own lawyers. But no, apparently we are paying. Again, why?
We are not being told the full story I think.
I thought P&P were handling the Parliamentary inquiry into his lying, but the Cabinet Office lawyers are handling the COVID-19 Inquiry.
Thank you. I knew I must have been missing something.
How can he sack the government lawyers? They are representing the government of which he was the head at the time. It is all a mess.
He can tell them to stop working on his behalf, presumably?
It still does not make sense. He was the PM. It is in that capacity - not in a personal one - that he is being interviewed. Unless he is arguing that there is now a conflict of interest between him and the government he led and that what he was doing during Covid as PM was not somehow the actions of the government. How can the government put its case if it cannot rely on the evidence of the PM?
If he needs additional lawyers for his private interests I can see that but in addition to not instead of government lawyers.
As I say it is a mess. As most things involving Johnson are.
Hate to be flippant, but when did his actions ever make sense? Pique and spite are better guides.
There no one more stupid than someone who thinks they are clever.
Exhibit A - Dominic Cummings.
This meme is ridiculous. Cummings is obviously and genuinely clever
He may be a nasty bully, absurd Brexiteer, misguided loon, and whatever, but all the available evidence says he is obviously a bright spark.
I detest this tendency to demean the intelligence of those we politically oppose
I disagree with these people entirely - sometimes almost violently - but I can recognise the intelligence on the British Left of:
Owen Jones John McDonnell Marina Hyde Nicola Sturgeon NPXMPX3
The issue is not necessarily a lack of intelligence as not recognising when, however smart they might be, they don't actually know things about something.
Of course, we need confident, bold people to push boundaries and achieve things sometimes, disrupt areas which need disrupting. But we all know people who are really intelligent, and so think they are being very intelligent on some issue which they actually know nothing about - the classic examples would be something like a reknowned geologist on twitter suddenly presenting as some expert on endochrinology, or a tax lawyer confidently talking nonsense about economic data or psychology or something.
Both might be very smart, yet very dumb, at the same time.
Let's pick someone uncontroversial - Maybe the worse Piers, Piers Corbyn, is a really good weather forecaster, I don't know, but is it unfair based on the majority of what he talks about now to consider him an idiot even if he is a great forecaster?
But that actually does not answer my question. Are you saying that cannabis, heroin, MDMA, ketamine, etc should all be easily available?
They are easily available, we just pretend they're not.
I know where to go to get some Nurofen or a bottle of whisky. I don't know where to go to score some heroin. So 'easily available' very much depends on context.
You could buy gear in any town in England in about 15 minutes just by asking the scraggiest people you can find on the street.
The bus station in Uttoxeter was always *allegedly* the place when I was a teenager. But I don't know of the place around here - yet I know there are some, as there was a murder by a drug dealer five or so years ago.
But I fear if I was to go up to the scraggiest person I can find on the street to ask them for some gear, they'll probably think I'm police...
(On several occasions I've had people ask me if I'm police. Once in Slough when on a hike, with rucksack, once in Stepney Green where my crime was wearing a white shirt, and another outside March. I guess I just have the air. I'm unconvinced this is a good thing ...)
The bar at SOAS was always a winner but now I rock up to lectures at Birkbeck after work in my suit I’d likely get some funny looks.
The SOAS bar was not for buying eighths of hash. The amounts traded there were several orders of magnitude higher.
Not any more. Mt ex wife went to SOAS within the last decade. It is now extremely Woke and jihadi
Interesting combination.
If you think Wokeism and Islamism are contradictory you don't get out much
I am happy to avoid both of those, never mind in combination, so you could be right about that.
But that actually does not answer my question. Are you saying that cannabis, heroin, MDMA, ketamine, etc should all be easily available?
They are easily available, we just pretend they're not.
I know where to go to get some Nurofen or a bottle of whisky. I don't know where to go to score some heroin. So 'easily available' very much depends on context.
You could buy gear in any town in England in about 15 minutes just by asking the scraggiest people you can find on the street.
The bus station in Uttoxeter was always *allegedly* the place when I was a teenager. But I don't know of the place around here - yet I know there are some, as there was a murder by a drug dealer five or so years ago.
But I fear if I was to go up to the scraggiest person I can find on the street to ask them for some gear, they'll probably think I'm police...
(On several occasions I've had people ask me if I'm police. Once in Slough when on a hike, with rucksack, once in Stepney Green where my crime was wearing a white shirt, and another outside March. I guess I just have the air. I'm unconvinced this is a good thing ...)
The bar at SOAS was always a winner but now I rock up to lectures at Birkbeck after work in my suit I’d likely get some funny looks.
The SOAS bar was not for buying eighths of hash. The amounts traded there were several orders of magnitude higher.
Not any more. Mt ex wife went to SOAS within the last decade. It is now extremely Woke and jihadi
Interesting combination.
If you think Wokeism and Islamism are contradictory you don't get out much
There is a fascinating juxtaposition (convergence?) between Ayatollah Khomeini’s jurisprudence on transgender people and the contemporary pro-trans movement.
There no one more stupid than someone who thinks they are clever.
Exhibit A - Dominic Cummings.
This meme is ridiculous. Cummings is obviously and genuinely clever
He may be a nasty bully, absurd Brexiteer, misguided loon, and whatever, but all the available evidence says he is obviously a bright spark.
I detest this tendency to demean the intelligence of those we politically oppose
I disagree with these people entirely - sometimes almost violently - but I can recognise the intelligence on the British Left of:
Owen Jones John McDonnell Marina Hyde Nicola Sturgeon NPXMPX3
He does... what he does... Very well. As Noel Coward said to Liberace.
But his genius in 2016 and 2019-20 was to play the game of politics as if it were a single shot, no comebacks. And then go further, harder and faster than anyone else.
That works brilliantly for a single shot campaign. But life isn't like that; the game never ends and what was done yesterday feeds into what can happen tomorrow. Cummings never seemed to grasp that. His pretend to be a madman theory of negotiations doesn't work after the first time the other side has made you blink.
But that actually does not answer my question. Are you saying that cannabis, heroin, MDMA, ketamine, etc should all be easily available?
They are easily available, we just pretend they're not.
I know where to go to get some Nurofen or a bottle of whisky. I don't know where to go to score some heroin. So 'easily available' very much depends on context.
You could buy gear in any town in England in about 15 minutes just by asking the scraggiest people you can find on the street.
The bus station in Uttoxeter was always *allegedly* the place when I was a teenager. But I don't know of the place around here - yet I know there are some, as there was a murder by a drug dealer five or so years ago.
But I fear if I was to go up to the scraggiest person I can find on the street to ask them for some gear, they'll probably think I'm police...
(On several occasions I've had people ask me if I'm police. Once in Slough when on a hike, with rucksack, once in Stepney Green where my crime was wearing a white shirt, and another outside March. I guess I just have the air. I'm unconvinced this is a good thing ...)
The bar at SOAS was always a winner but now I rock up to lectures at Birkbeck after work in my suit I’d likely get some funny looks.
The SOAS bar was not for buying eighths of hash. The amounts traded there were several orders of magnitude higher.
Not any more. Mt ex wife went to SOAS within the last decade. It is now extremely Woke and jihadi
Interesting combination.
If you think Wokeism and Islamism are contradictory you don't get out much
There is a fascinating juxtaposition (convergence?) between Ayatollah Khomeni’s jurisprudence on transgender people and the contemporary pro-trans movement.
That's absolutely right
From what I have heard (from insiders) a surprising number of referrals to the Tavistock trans-gender clinic come from fundamentalist Muslims parents, who would rather have a trans child than a gay child. The latter is haram, the former is barely covered in the Koran. So, trans is better
And Iran is "weirdly" tolerant of trans people but executes gays
"Iran is the only Islamic country where the sex reassignment surgery (SRS) is recognized"
There no one more stupid than someone who thinks they are clever.
Exhibit A - Dominic Cummings.
This meme is ridiculous. Cummings is obviously and genuinely clever
He may be a nasty bully, absurd Brexiteer, misguided loon, and whatever, but all the available evidence says he is obviously a bright spark.
I detest this tendency to demean the intelligence of those we politically oppose
I disagree with these people entirely - sometimes almost violently - but I can recognise the intelligence on the British Left of:
Owen Jones John McDonnell Marina Hyde Nicola Sturgeon NPXMPX3
He does... what he does... Very well. As Noel Coward said to Liberace.
But his genius in 2016 and 2019-20 was to play the game of politics as if it were a single shot, no comebacks. And then go further, harder and faster than anyone else.
That works brilliantly for a single shot campaign. But life isn't like that; the game never ends and what was done yesterday feeds into what can happen tomorrow. Cummings never seemed to grasp that. His pretend to be a madman theory of negotiations doesn't work after the first time the other side has made you blink.
So yes, clever. But also dumb.
That probably describes 100% of people on PB, including me. If not 100% of clever people everywhere
My older daughter turns 17 today. A complex age for any human. And I immediately thought of the Janis Ian song, and found this exquisite live rendition on The Old Grey Whistle Test
Just absolutely spine-tingling. Can you imagine being in that audience and hearing this LIVE for the first time. A cold clear copper bottomed masterpiece of a song. The voice, the guitar work, the immortal tune, the poignant lyrics, everything. Ah, fuck. What 'appened to music?
Great song. Do we always have to include that hangdog 'better in my day' bit at the end though? We're the same age (ish) but my son is double 17. That's 34 (for the non accountants). It's interestingly poised now, our relationship. 62 plays 34. He has a clear edge in almost everything.
Yes, unfortunately, we do have to include the "better in my day" bit because it is interesting. Because, for the first time in many decades, this tired old meme is provably true and says something important about politics
Thus elevating the comment from "Oooh I have a family moment and here's a nice song" to something a shade more interesting that might make a Gazette piece so I'm trying it out from different angles
Hmm, ok. I don't agree with you though. I don't think this 'better in my day' (about music) is any different to the standard one about anything else.
And there's nothing wrong with just sharing the family moment!
In 30 years' time, Leon's daughter will be on here wishing her own son a happy 17th birthday and bemoaning that music isn't as good now as it was back in 2023
Only if the AI running the country tells her it isn't as good.
That reminds me that former Vice-President Al Gore hasn't got back to me on my suggestion he release a Hip-Hop album called AlGoreRhythm. It's a political and musical winner and my cut would only be 30%. I'll follow up with him.
There no one more stupid than someone who thinks they are clever.
Exhibit A - Dominic Cummings.
This meme is ridiculous. Cummings is obviously and genuinely clever
He may be a nasty bully, absurd Brexiteer, misguided loon, and whatever, but all the available evidence says he is obviously a bright spark.
I detest this tendency to demean the intelligence of those we politically oppose
I disagree with these people entirely - sometimes almost violently - but I can recognise the intelligence on the British Left of:
Owen Jones John McDonnell Marina Hyde Nicola Sturgeon NPXMPX3
He really, really isn't.
And that's based on observing him and his mistakes, incompetence and lack of ability to grasp any concept beyond a very basic level over many years in several areas.
He gives the impression to the uninitiated of great intellect because of his smoothness and verbosity, but strip it away and there's never any substance.
This is of course why he's been a failure in every role he's had.
He's not alone. Tristram Hunt is similarly lightweight but fools many who are even stupider with his urbanity.
There no one more stupid than someone who thinks they are clever.
Exhibit A - Dominic Cummings.
This meme is ridiculous. Cummings is obviously and genuinely clever
He may be a nasty bully, absurd Brexiteer, misguided loon, and whatever, but all the available evidence says he is obviously a bright spark.
I detest this tendency to demean the intelligence of those we politically oppose
I disagree with these people entirely - sometimes almost violently - but I can recognise the intelligence on the British Left of:
Owen Jones John McDonnell Marina Hyde Nicola Sturgeon NPXMPX3
He does... what he does... Very well. As Noel Coward said to Liberace.
But his genius in 2016 and 2019-20 was to play the game of politics as if it were a single shot, no comebacks. And then go further, harder and faster than anyone else.
That works brilliantly for a single shot campaign. But life isn't like that; the game never ends and what was done yesterday feeds into what can happen tomorrow. Cummings never seemed to grasp that. His pretend to be a madman theory of negotiations doesn't work after the first time the other side has made you blink.
So yes, clever. But also dumb.
That probably describes 100% of people on PB, including me. If not 100% of clever people everywhere
"Clever but also dumb"
So it is merely axiomatic
If that is so then he cannot be attacked as especially dumb, but also not really praised as a 'bright spark' either.
There no one more stupid than someone who thinks they are clever.
Exhibit A - Dominic Cummings.
This meme is ridiculous. Cummings is obviously and genuinely clever
He may be a nasty bully, absurd Brexiteer, misguided loon, and whatever, but all the available evidence says he is obviously a bright spark.
I detest this tendency to demean the intelligence of those we politically oppose
I disagree with these people entirely - sometimes almost violently - but I can recognise the intelligence on the British Left of:
Owen Jones John McDonnell Marina Hyde Nicola Sturgeon NPXMPX3
He does... what he does... Very well. As Noel Coward said to Liberace.
But his genius in 2016 and 2019-20 was to play the game of politics as if it were a single shot, no comebacks. And then go further, harder and faster than anyone else.
That works brilliantly for a single shot campaign. But life isn't like that; the game never ends and what was done yesterday feeds into what can happen tomorrow. Cummings never seemed to grasp that. His pretend to be a madman theory of negotiations doesn't work after the first time the other side has made you blink.
So yes, clever. But also dumb.
What he does is empty sloganising.
Which is precisely because he lacks the intellectual firepower to analyse issues in any sort of depth.
He is living proof of the dictum 'every problem has a solution that's simple, easily understood and wrong.'
But that actually does not answer my question. Are you saying that cannabis, heroin, MDMA, ketamine, etc should all be easily available?
They are easily available, we just pretend they're not.
I know where to go to get some Nurofen or a bottle of whisky. I don't know where to go to score some heroin. So 'easily available' very much depends on context.
You could buy gear in any town in England in about 15 minutes just by asking the scraggiest people you can find on the street.
The bus station in Uttoxeter was always *allegedly* the place when I was a teenager. But I don't know of the place around here - yet I know there are some, as there was a murder by a drug dealer five or so years ago.
But I fear if I was to go up to the scraggiest person I can find on the street to ask them for some gear, they'll probably think I'm police...
(On several occasions I've had people ask me if I'm police. Once in Slough when on a hike, with rucksack, once in Stepney Green where my crime was wearing a white shirt, and another outside March. I guess I just have the air. I'm unconvinced this is a good thing ...)
The bar at SOAS was always a winner but now I rock up to lectures at Birkbeck after work in my suit I’d likely get some funny looks.
Buying weed is the SOAS basement bar always struck me as pointless. The fog was often down to about 3 feet off the floor.
But that actually does not answer my question. Are you saying that cannabis, heroin, MDMA, ketamine, etc should all be easily available?
They are easily available, we just pretend they're not.
I know where to go to get some Nurofen or a bottle of whisky. I don't know where to go to score some heroin. So 'easily available' very much depends on context.
(I do know someone who regularly smokes cannabis. But he's a paranoid git, and so probably wouldn't tell me about his dealer even if I asked.
Your circles evidently are rather different to mine.
Oh come on; there'll be a PB expert who will have bought from all your local dealers, and can rank them on various metrics.
Yes, but I haven't seen @SeanT around recently. I think he may have gone abroad for the winter.
Someone ought to do a travelogue 'Britain's Best Dealers' or somesuch. A journey through the country's underworld (although I guess it might be able to do it in a very middle-class way).
Chunks of the Spectator Low Life column.
I think I drank in the same pub he did, in Wiltshire.
There no one more stupid than someone who thinks they are clever.
Exhibit A - Dominic Cummings.
This meme is ridiculous. Cummings is obviously and genuinely clever
He may be a nasty bully, absurd Brexiteer, misguided loon, and whatever, but all the available evidence says he is obviously a bright spark.
I detest this tendency to demean the intelligence of those we politically oppose
I disagree with these people entirely - sometimes almost violently - but I can recognise the intelligence on the British Left of:
Owen Jones John McDonnell Marina Hyde Nicola Sturgeon NPXMPX3
He does... what he does... Very well. As Noel Coward said to Liberace.
But his genius in 2016 and 2019-20 was to play the game of politics as if it were a single shot, no comebacks. And then go further, harder and faster than anyone else.
That works brilliantly for a single shot campaign. But life isn't like that; the game never ends and what was done yesterday feeds into what can happen tomorrow. Cummings never seemed to grasp that. His pretend to be a madman theory of negotiations doesn't work after the first time the other side has made you blink.
So yes, clever. But also dumb.
What he does is empty sloganising.
Which is precisely because he lacks the intellectual firepower to analyse issues in any sort of depth.
He is living proof of the dictum 'every problem has a solution that's simple, easily understood and wrong.'
But if all you're planning to do is win a vote, that solution is more than enough.
There no one more stupid than someone who thinks they are clever.
Exhibit A - Dominic Cummings.
This meme is ridiculous. Cummings is obviously and genuinely clever
He may be a nasty bully, absurd Brexiteer, misguided loon, and whatever, but all the available evidence says he is obviously a bright spark.
I detest this tendency to demean the intelligence of those we politically oppose
I disagree with these people entirely - sometimes almost violently - but I can recognise the intelligence on the British Left of:
Owen Jones John McDonnell Marina Hyde Nicola Sturgeon NPXMPX3
He really, really isn't.
And that's based on observing him and his mistakes, incompetence and lack of ability to grasp any concept beyond a very basic level over many years in several areas.
He gives the impression to the uninitiated of great intellect because of his smoothness and verbosity, but strip it away and there's never any substance.
This is of course why he's been a failure in every role he's had.
He's not alone. Tristram Hunt is similarly lightweight but fools many who are even stupider with his urbanity.
This is bloody absurd
He won
The Northen indy referendum The campaign against the euro The EU referendum The 2019 election which, with its big Boris majority, confirmed Brexit
His ability to identify memes and themes, slogans and logos, has literally changed the world. Brexit was and is a big change for the West, and the Rest
I get that you dislike him, but diminishing his achievements is farcical and juvenile. It is also boringly dim
It's like me denying the role of Alistair Campbell and claiming he is just a "tabloid journo and drunk pornographer". Well, yeah Campbell was those things, but he was also hugely instrumental in the 13 year success of New Labour. He is a clever and successful man, who was superbly good at the job given him by Blair: Tame and Terrify the Tory press
Tristram Hunt is an utterly ridiculous comparison. Who the fuck is Tristram Hunt. ZZZZ
A guy with a beard and a kufi muttering prayers to himself looking slightly nervous whilst clutching a rucksack on his lap.
Did I say anything? Did I "see it, say it, sorted" ?
No. I got off at the next station and breathed a sigh of relief. Why? Because there was a 99%+ chance he was just religious and praying to himself but a much higher chance of me being bracketed a racist for reporting it.
How many others do the same?
I do that all the time.
Is the best way to get a seat, in fact I usually get the entire carriage to myself.
Look, I've decided to let you off for praising Michael Gove. There was no need for you to run up to London and scare CR shitless to avoid me.
What's Gove got to do got to do with it? What's Gove but a second-hand demotion?
But that actually does not answer my question. Are you saying that cannabis, heroin, MDMA, ketamine, etc should all be easily available?
They are easily available, we just pretend they're not.
I know where to go to get some Nurofen or a bottle of whisky. I don't know where to go to score some heroin. So 'easily available' very much depends on context.
You could buy gear in any town in England in about 15 minutes just by asking the scraggiest people you can find on the street.
The bus station in Uttoxeter was always *allegedly* the place when I was a teenager. But I don't know of the place around here - yet I know there are some, as there was a murder by a drug dealer five or so years ago.
But I fear if I was to go up to the scraggiest person I can find on the street to ask them for some gear, they'll probably think I'm police...
(On several occasions I've had people ask me if I'm police. Once in Slough when on a hike, with rucksack, once in Stepney Green where my crime was wearing a white shirt, and another outside March. I guess I just have the air. I'm unconvinced this is a good thing ...)
The bar at SOAS was always a winner but now I rock up to lectures at Birkbeck after work in my suit I’d likely get some funny looks.
Buying weed is the SOAS basement bar always struck me as pointless. The fog was often down to about 3 feet off the floor.
You could be sober and rational about your choice of pool shot. But when you bent down to play it, the thought of "just smash em up, that'll be fun and look pretty" was never far away.
There no one more stupid than someone who thinks they are clever.
Exhibit A - Dominic Cummings.
This meme is ridiculous. Cummings is obviously and genuinely clever
He may be a nasty bully, absurd Brexiteer, misguided loon, and whatever, but all the available evidence says he is obviously a bright spark.
I detest this tendency to demean the intelligence of those we politically oppose
I disagree with these people entirely - sometimes almost violently - but I can recognise the intelligence on the British Left of:
Owen Jones John McDonnell Marina Hyde Nicola Sturgeon NPXMPX3
He does... what he does... Very well. As Noel Coward said to Liberace.
But his genius in 2016 and 2019-20 was to play the game of politics as if it were a single shot, no comebacks. And then go further, harder and faster than anyone else.
That works brilliantly for a single shot campaign. But life isn't like that; the game never ends and what was done yesterday feeds into what can happen tomorrow. Cummings never seemed to grasp that. His pretend to be a madman theory of negotiations doesn't work after the first time the other side has made you blink.
So yes, clever. But also dumb.
What he does is empty sloganising.
Which is precisely because he lacks the intellectual firepower to analyse issues in any sort of depth.
He is living proof of the dictum 'every problem has a solution that's simple, easily understood and wrong.'
But if all you're planning to do is win a vote, that solution is more than enough.
Utterly hopeless as a mode of governing, natch.
Spot on. These are my thoughts about Cummings and his techniques, also.
He’s a million times better than CrosbyTextor et al. Who seem to me, to be little more than leaches on various credulous centre/right political parties in the democratic world.
Cummings knows, better than almost anyone else, how to win votes. That is the limit of his skills.
There no one more stupid than someone who thinks they are clever.
Exhibit A - Dominic Cummings.
This meme is ridiculous. Cummings is obviously and genuinely clever
He may be a nasty bully, absurd Brexiteer, misguided loon, and whatever, but all the available evidence says he is obviously a bright spark.
I detest this tendency to demean the intelligence of those we politically oppose
I disagree with these people entirely - sometimes almost violently - but I can recognise the intelligence on the British Left of:
Owen Jones John McDonnell Marina Hyde Nicola Sturgeon NPXMPX3
He really, really isn't.
And that's based on observing him and his mistakes, incompetence and lack of ability to grasp any concept beyond a very basic level over many years in several areas.
He gives the impression to the uninitiated of great intellect because of his smoothness and verbosity, but strip it away and there's never any substance.
This is of course why he's been a failure in every role he's had.
He's not alone. Tristram Hunt is similarly lightweight but fools many who are even stupider with his urbanity.
This is bloody absurd
He won
The Northen indy referendum The campaign against the euro The EU referendum The 2019 election which, with its big Boris majority, confirmed Brexit
His ability to identify memes and themes, slogans and logos, has literally changed the world. Brexit was and is a big change for the West, and the Rest
I get that you dislike him, but diminishing his achievements is farcical and juvenile. It is also boringly dim
It's like me denying the role of Alistair Campbell and claiming he is just a "tabloid journo and drunk pornographer". Well, yeah Campbell was those things, but he was also hugely instrumental in the 13 year success of New Labour. He is a clever and successful man, who was superbly good at the job given him by Blair: Tame and Terrify the Tory press
Tristram Hunt is an utterly ridiculous comparison. Who the fuck is Tristram Hunt. ZZZZ
He was on my corridor in my first year of college.
But that actually does not answer my question. Are you saying that cannabis, heroin, MDMA, ketamine, etc should all be easily available?
They are easily available, we just pretend they're not.
I know where to go to get some Nurofen or a bottle of whisky. I don't know where to go to score some heroin. So 'easily available' very much depends on context.
You could buy gear in any town in England in about 15 minutes just by asking the scraggiest people you can find on the street.
The bus station in Uttoxeter was always *allegedly* the place when I was a teenager. But I don't know of the place around here - yet I know there are some, as there was a murder by a drug dealer five or so years ago.
But I fear if I was to go up to the scraggiest person I can find on the street to ask them for some gear, they'll probably think I'm police...
(On several occasions I've had people ask me if I'm police. Once in Slough when on a hike, with rucksack, once in Stepney Green where my crime was wearing a white shirt, and another outside March. I guess I just have the air. I'm unconvinced this is a good thing ...)
The bar at SOAS was always a winner but now I rock up to lectures at Birkbeck after work in my suit I’d likely get some funny looks.
The SOAS bar was not for buying eighths of hash. The amounts traded there were several orders of magnitude higher.
Not any more. Mt ex wife went to SOAS within the last decade. It is now extremely Woke and jihadi
You won't get drugs there. You might recruited into ISIS
My information is, I'm sure, thirty years out of date.
But that actually does not answer my question. Are you saying that cannabis, heroin, MDMA, ketamine, etc should all be easily available?
They are easily available, we just pretend they're not.
I know where to go to get some Nurofen or a bottle of whisky. I don't know where to go to score some heroin. So 'easily available' very much depends on context.
You could buy gear in any town in England in about 15 minutes just by asking the scraggiest people you can find on the street.
The bus station in Uttoxeter was always *allegedly* the place when I was a teenager. But I don't know of the place around here - yet I know there are some, as there was a murder by a drug dealer five or so years ago.
But I fear if I was to go up to the scraggiest person I can find on the street to ask them for some gear, they'll probably think I'm police...
(On several occasions I've had people ask me if I'm police. Once in Slough when on a hike, with rucksack, once in Stepney Green where my crime was wearing a white shirt, and another outside March. I guess I just have the air. I'm unconvinced this is a good thing ...)
The bar at SOAS was always a winner but now I rock up to lectures at Birkbeck after work in my suit I’d likely get some funny looks.
The SOAS bar was not for buying eighths of hash. The amounts traded there were several orders of magnitude higher.
My older daughter turns 17 today. A complex age for any human. And I immediately thought of the Janis Ian song, and found this exquisite live rendition on The Old Grey Whistle Test
Just absolutely spine-tingling. Can you imagine being in that audience and hearing this LIVE for the first time. A cold clear copper bottomed masterpiece of a song. The voice, the guitar work, the immortal tune, the poignant lyrics, everything. Ah, fuck. What 'appened to music?
Great song. Do we always have to include that hangdog 'better in my day' bit at the end though? We're the same age (ish) but my son is double 17. That's 34 (for the non accountants). It's interestingly poised now, our relationship. 62 plays 34. He has a clear edge in almost everything.
Yes, unfortunately, we do have to include the "better in my day" bit because it is interesting. Because, for the first time in many decades, this tired old meme is provably true and says something important about politics
Thus elevating the comment from "Oooh I have a family moment and here's a nice song" to something a shade more interesting that might make a Gazette piece so I'm trying it out from different angles
Hmm, ok. I don't agree with you though. I don't think this 'better in my day' (about music) is any different to the standard one about anything else.
And there's nothing wrong with just sharing the family moment!
Where is the equivalent - post, say, 2010 - of a pop song as exquisite, delicate and moving as "At 17"? It does not exist
Amy Winehouse is much missed. She was the very last of the Golden Age. The Tintoretto of the Pop Music Renaissance
I've dropped off tracking new releases (being 62) and in any case there's so much product these days on so many platforms you can't get your arms around it as you once could. It used to be that if you were into music and there was a great song released you'd be bound to hear it. The corollary was if you didn't hear something it can't have been that good. This is no longer the case. There's tons of high quality new music now that unless you devote yourself to seeking it out (which you won't at your age) you will not discover. But it's there.
Eg what I've noticed is when I do random deep dives into recent music, or catch it on soundtracks for tv dramas, I come across plenty of absolutely terrific songs. Songs just as good as those on my familiar playlists. Songs whereby I know that if I listened to them a lot, and could associate them with my younger life, thus generating a sweet nostalgia hit, could take their place as 'classics' (for me). I don't have the time or inclination to do this now, so they don't, but they could. They are objectively good enough, is my point.
So although I'd like to agree that the stuff I've curated and love from many moons ago constitutes a 'Golden Age' (because it's nice to believe that), I kind of know that it isn't. It's another heart v head thing, this. Heart says you're right that music used to be better. Head says it's nonsense.
And yet I have a friend whose job is music reviewing and critiquing. He lives for this. And he LOVES discovering new talent
And he says it simply isn’t there any more. He goes to two gigs a week. Indeed it’s his theory that Winehouse was the last of the greats (I borrowed it)
He has various theories why
There is also factual evidence that music has got more simplistic, crude and lyrically vulgar and coarse
Read Ted Gioia’s substack if you want to find new music. He’s older than you and finds plenty of good stuff. Best music critic currently writing.
OK, Boomer
Man, I get that you’re jaded with modern pop music. If truth be told, so am I. There are no new fucking essential bands coming through. Last one was probably, what, Nirvana? A group that straddled the mainstream and received critical acclaim, globally.
Yeah there’s plenty of pop behemoths, but they all leave me cold, your Beyoncés, Coldplays, fucking Sheeran (lovely guy, but Jesus fuck his music is shite).
But times have changed. The internet has fragmented everything. Music’s fragmented. The charts are full of shite (but, to an extent, they always have been).
But there’s always good music out there. I’ve been obsessed, obsessed with music since I was about 10. All times, all genres, from bluegrass and the swing bands, the blues, into the all conquering rock from the Beatles on. Zeppelin. Punk. Post-punk. Grunge. Indie. Britpop. Electronica. Hip hop. Turntablism. Fucking act after act, genre after genre.
When someone asks me what music I like after 15 seconds their eyeballs are glassy and they’re slowly edging away, desperate to escape.
And you know how much I know about music, really? Despite all the music I’ve listened to, the books I’ve read, the magazines I bought? The square root of fuck all.
I get sad when I think about all the great music I’ll never listen to, like all the amazing books I’ll never read.
There’s endless good music, you’re just not looking hard enough. The media, the scenes themselves, are so fragmented now, the charts are meaningless, you’ve got to work a bit harder. The acts might not necessarily be new - Paul Weller’s latest is very good, as it the recent album by Steve Mason, former Beta Band frontman - but by God there’s a torrent of good music coming out. So much it overwhelms me.
6music have just recruited a new DJ called Deb Grant, her new show starts soon but she sat in for someone last week on the 9 to midnight slot and she just fucking smashed it out of the park. Great tune after great tune, all eras, genres, and I’d heard maybe 1 in 20 of them, if that.
You’re an intrepid explorer, explore music. Go backwards, go outwards, go up and down and round about. It’s there, just waiting to be discovered. Isn’t that exciting?
But that actually does not answer my question. Are you saying that cannabis, heroin, MDMA, ketamine, etc should all be easily available?
They are easily available, we just pretend they're not.
I know where to go to get some Nurofen or a bottle of whisky. I don't know where to go to score some heroin. So 'easily available' very much depends on context.
You could buy gear in any town in England in about 15 minutes just by asking the scraggiest people you can find on the street.
The bus station in Uttoxeter was always *allegedly* the place when I was a teenager. But I don't know of the place around here - yet I know there are some, as there was a murder by a drug dealer five or so years ago.
But I fear if I was to go up to the scraggiest person I can find on the street to ask them for some gear, they'll probably think I'm police...
(On several occasions I've had people ask me if I'm police. Once in Slough when on a hike, with rucksack, once in Stepney Green where my crime was wearing a white shirt, and another outside March. I guess I just have the air. I'm unconvinced this is a good thing ...)
The bar at SOAS was always a winner but now I rock up to lectures at Birkbeck after work in my suit I’d likely get some funny looks.
The SOAS bar was not for buying eighths of hash. The amounts traded there were several orders of magnitude higher.
Not any more. Mt ex wife went to SOAS within the last decade. It is now extremely Woke and jihadi
Interesting combination.
If you think Wokeism and Islamism are contradictory you don't get out much
There is a fascinating juxtaposition (convergence?) between Ayatollah Khomeni’s jurisprudence on transgender people and the contemporary pro-trans movement.
That's absolutely right
From what I have heard (from insiders) a surprising number of referrals to the Tavistock trans-gender clinic come from fundamentalist Muslims parents, who would rather have a trans child than a gay child. The latter is haram, the former is barely covered in the Koran. So, trans is better
And Iran is "weirdly" tolerant of trans people but executes gays
"Iran is the only Islamic country where the sex reassignment surgery (SRS) is recognized"
There is nothing about transgender people (mukannathun/مُخَنَّثون) in the Glorious Quran. They are mentioned in the hadith sharif (al-Bukhari) in which the Prophet Muhammed (sallallahu 'alayhi wa sallam) orders them into exile
But that actually does not answer my question. Are you saying that cannabis, heroin, MDMA, ketamine, etc should all be easily available?
They are easily available, we just pretend they're not.
I know where to go to get some Nurofen or a bottle of whisky. I don't know where to go to score some heroin. So 'easily available' very much depends on context.
You could buy gear in any town in England in about 15 minutes just by asking the scraggiest people you can find on the street.
The bus station in Uttoxeter was always *allegedly* the place when I was a teenager. But I don't know of the place around here - yet I know there are some, as there was a murder by a drug dealer five or so years ago.
But I fear if I was to go up to the scraggiest person I can find on the street to ask them for some gear, they'll probably think I'm police...
(On several occasions I've had people ask me if I'm police. Once in Slough when on a hike, with rucksack, once in Stepney Green where my crime was wearing a white shirt, and another outside March. I guess I just have the air. I'm unconvinced this is a good thing ...)
The bar at SOAS was always a winner but now I rock up to lectures at Birkbeck after work in my suit I’d likely get some funny looks.
The SOAS bar was not for buying eighths of hash. The amounts traded there were several orders of magnitude higher.
Not any more. Mt ex wife went to SOAS within the last decade. It is now extremely Woke and jihadi
Interesting combination.
If you think Wokeism and Islamism are contradictory you don't get out much
There is a fascinating juxtaposition (convergence?) between Ayatollah Khomeni’s jurisprudence on transgender people and the contemporary pro-trans movement.
That's absolutely right
From what I have heard (from insiders) a surprising number of referrals to the Tavistock trans-gender clinic come from fundamentalist Muslims parents, who would rather have a trans child than a gay child. The latter is haram, the former is barely covered in the Koran. So, trans is better
And Iran is "weirdly" tolerant of trans people but executes gays
"Iran is the only Islamic country where the sex reassignment surgery (SRS) is recognized"
There is nothing about transgender people (mukannathun/مُخَنَّثون) in the Glorious Quran. They are mentioned in the hadith sharif (al-Bukhari) in which the Prophet Muhammed (sallallahu 'alayhi wa sallam) orders them into exile
Can I just take this moment to thank you for being the most outrageous, obnoxious, amusing and interesting contributor to PB?
You’re the only poster who manages to surprise me with every post.
Your opinions, anecdotes and references are utterly unpredictable.
Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton · 2h First Conservative lead since launching Blue Wall tracker in Oct
Blue Wall VI (22 May):
Conservative 34% (+2) Labour 33% (-3) Liberal Democrat 22% (-1) Reform 6% (+1) Green 3% (+1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 7 May
How did Jezza get on in those constituencies?
Whataboutism
SKS fans have zero arguments and can only resort to Yeah but Corbyn
It is a valid argument. Corbyn was unelectable.
Not that unelectable, given that the current Tory Government has implemented tax and spending plans that go further than the ones in the Corbyn manifesto.
It wasn't Corbyn's policies that were unelectable. Many of them were very sensible. It was the man himself.
Nonsense. His friendship with Israel's enemies was enough in its own right to.make him unelectable.
Well yes but you prove my point. His policies (as per the 2017 and 2019 Labour manifestos) were not unelectable but the man himself - his behaviors, his beliefs - he himself was unelectable.
Funny how the Labour party decided to dump the two points about Israel on p.98 of its 2019 manifesto and the one point on p.99, even after the unelectable man with the beard had been replaced as leader then.
Once again, none of those policies made Labour unelectable; Corbyn made Labour unelectable.
Why didn't they keep them then?
How do you know they haven't - have you seen the 2024 manifesto?
Currently the draft policy framework includes:
"Support the recognition of the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel, as part of efforts to contribute to securing a negotiated two state solution"
Maybe that will make the final manifesto, maybe it won't. Either way it will hardly be defining for their chances of winning.
That's a good question. No I haven't seen the next manifesto, but I'd be willing to wager none of the three points from 2019 are in it. Here they are
"We will:
Immediately suspend the sale of arms to (...) Israel for arms used in violation of the human rights of Palestinian civilians, and conduct a root-and-branch reform of our arms exports regime so ministers can never again turn a blind eye to British-made weapons being used to target innocent civilians"
"Reform the international rules-based order to secure justice and accountability for breaches of human rights and international law, such as (...) the illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip"
"A Labour government will immediately recognise the state of Palestine"
My older daughter turns 17 today. A complex age for any human. And I immediately thought of the Janis Ian song, and found this exquisite live rendition on The Old Grey Whistle Test
Just absolutely spine-tingling. Can you imagine being in that audience and hearing this LIVE for the first time. A cold clear copper bottomed masterpiece of a song. The voice, the guitar work, the immortal tune, the poignant lyrics, everything. Ah, fuck. What 'appened to music?
Great song. Do we always have to include that hangdog 'better in my day' bit at the end though? We're the same age (ish) but my son is double 17. That's 34 (for the non accountants). It's interestingly poised now, our relationship. 62 plays 34. He has a clear edge in almost everything.
Yes, unfortunately, we do have to include the "better in my day" bit because it is interesting. Because, for the first time in many decades, this tired old meme is provably true and says something important about politics
Thus elevating the comment from "Oooh I have a family moment and here's a nice song" to something a shade more interesting that might make a Gazette piece so I'm trying it out from different angles
Hmm, ok. I don't agree with you though. I don't think this 'better in my day' (about music) is any different to the standard one about anything else.
And there's nothing wrong with just sharing the family moment!
Where is the equivalent - post, say, 2010 - of a pop song as exquisite, delicate and moving as "At 17"? It does not exist
Amy Winehouse is much missed. She was the very last of the Golden Age. The Tintoretto of the Pop Music Renaissance
I've dropped off tracking new releases (being 62) and in any case there's so much product these days on so many platforms you can't get your arms around it as you once could. It used to be that if you were into music and there was a great song released you'd be bound to hear it. The corollary was if you didn't hear something it can't have been that good. This is no longer the case. There's tons of high quality new music now that unless you devote yourself to seeking it out (which you won't at your age) you will not discover. But it's there.
Eg what I've noticed is when I do random deep dives into recent music, or catch it on soundtracks for tv dramas, I come across plenty of absolutely terrific songs. Songs just as good as those on my familiar playlists. Songs whereby I know that if I listened to them a lot, and could associate them with my younger life, thus generating a sweet nostalgia hit, could take their place as 'classics' (for me). I don't have the time or inclination to do this now, so they don't, but they could. They are objectively good enough, is my point.
So although I'd like to agree that the stuff I've curated and love from many moons ago constitutes a 'Golden Age' (because it's nice to believe that), I kind of know that it isn't. It's another heart v head thing, this. Heart says you're right that music used to be better. Head says it's nonsense.
And yet I have a friend whose job is music reviewing and critiquing. He lives for this. And he LOVES discovering new talent
And he says it simply isn’t there any more. He goes to two gigs a week. Indeed it’s his theory that Winehouse was the last of the greats (I borrowed it)
He has various theories why
There is also factual evidence that music has got more simplistic, crude and lyrically vulgar and coarse
Read Ted Gioia’s substack if you want to find new music. He’s older than you and finds plenty of good stuff. Best music critic currently writing.
OK, Boomer
Man, I get that you’re jaded with modern pop music. If truth be told, so am I. There are no new fucking essential bands coming through. Last one was probably, what, Nirvana? A group that straddled the mainstream and received critical acclaim, globally.
Yeah there’s plenty of pop behemoths, but they all leave me cold, your Beyoncés, Coldplays, fucking Sheeran (lovely guy, but Jesus fuck his music is shite).
But times have changed. The internet has fragmented everything. Music’s fragmented. The charts are full of shite (but, to an extent, they always have been).
But there’s always good music out there. I’ve been obsessed, obsessed with music since I was about 10. All times, all genres, from bluegrass and the swing bands, the blues, into the all conquering rock from the Beatles on. Zeppelin. Punk. Post-punk. Grunge. Indie. Britpop. Electronica. Hip hop. Turntablism. Fucking act after act, genre after genre.
When someone asks me what music I like after 15 seconds their eyeballs are glassy and they’re slowly edging away, desperate to escape.
And you know how much I know about music, really? Despite all the music I’ve listened to, the books I’ve read, the magazines I bought? The square root of fuck all.
I get sad when I think about all the great music I’ll never listen to, like all the amazing books I’ll never read.
Th’s endless good music, you’re just not looking hard enough. The media, the scenes themselves, are so fragmented now, the charts are meaningless, you’ve got to work a bit harder. The acts might not necessarily be new - Paul Weller’s latest is very good, as it the recent album by Steve Mason, former Beta Band frontman - but by God there’s a torrent of good music coming out. So much it overwhelms me.
6music have just recruited a new DJ called Deb Grant, her new show starts soon but she sat in for someone last week on the 9 to midnight slot and she just fucking smashed it out of the park. Great tune after great tune, all eras, genres, and I’d heard maybe 1 in 20 of them, if that.
You’re an intrepid explorer, explore music. Go backwards, go outwards, go up and down and round about. It’s there, just waiting to be discovered. Isn’t that exciting?
I explore all the time, believe me. The sensation of discovering a great new sound is addictive, and it still occasionally happens
But it is now NOT happening to an extent where I believe there has been a discernible decline, and this tendency is firming not slowing
It doesn't really matter in the wider scheme. There was a marvellous period of continuous brilliance in the West, the Golden age of western pop music - 1960-2010. Great for us, we got lucky, but for our kids? Soz
But this is not unexpected. It is just the same as the Italian Renaissance which shone for about 200-250 years or the Chinese peak in porcelain which lasted for a couple of generations or the great era of opera which lasted about a century or.... and so on, and so on. Art forms rise and fall. This is a known thing. It is happening to us. Other art forms will - we hope - rise and replace "popular music"
But that actually does not answer my question. Are you saying that cannabis, heroin, MDMA, ketamine, etc should all be easily available?
They are easily available, we just pretend they're not.
I know where to go to get some Nurofen or a bottle of whisky. I don't know where to go to score some heroin. So 'easily available' very much depends on context.
You could buy gear in any town in England in about 15 minutes just by asking the scraggiest people you can find on the street.
The bus station in Uttoxeter was always *allegedly* the place when I was a teenager. But I don't know of the place around here - yet I know there are some, as there was a murder by a drug dealer five or so years ago.
But I fear if I was to go up to the scraggiest person I can find on the street to ask them for some gear, they'll probably think I'm police...
(On several occasions I've had people ask me if I'm police. Once in Slough when on a hike, with rucksack, once in Stepney Green where my crime was wearing a white shirt, and another outside March. I guess I just have the air. I'm unconvinced this is a good thing ...)
The bar at SOAS was always a winner but now I rock up to lectures at Birkbeck after work in my suit I’d likely get some funny looks.
The SOAS bar was not for buying eighths of hash. The amounts traded there were several orders of magnitude higher.
Not any more. Mt ex wife went to SOAS within the last decade. It is now extremely Woke and jihadi
You won't get drugs there. You might recruited into ISIS
My information is, I'm sure, thirty years out of date.
Comments
You can get Fosters for free by drinking straight from the urinal.
As suggested here.
That's actually the sign of a lack of intelligence: you insist on seeing the world in black & white because you're unable to think through the shades of grey.
Bright people see shades of grey and thrash matters out like adults.
The rest I am less sure about.
A guy with a beard and a kufi muttering prayers to himself looking slightly nervous whilst clutching a rucksack on his lap.
Did I say anything? Did I "see it, say it, sorted" ?
No. I got off at the next station and breathed a sigh of relief. Why? Because there was a 99%+ chance he was just religious and praying to himself but a much higher chance of me being bracketed a racist for reporting it.
How many others do the same?
https://www.flgov.com/meet-governor-desantis/
I know a guy quite well, let's call him OnlyLovingBoy, who went out to see the Orb in Brixton on Saturday night with a load of other centrist dads, then went to a house party and danced until after 3am, helped along the way by some MDMA - overcoming the male loneliness epidemic, supporting the arts and local venues, and getting well over his 10,000 steps while engaging in some mild cardio exercise. What's not to like about any of that? Sounds better than living in Singapore.
Pretty sure he was just f**king with us all - but...
Is the best way to get a seat, in fact I usually get the entire carriage to myself.
And yes, that's a private medical matter. But it was really important to get people vaccinated, and if people saw top politicians not admitting to getting vaccinated, it would have given the anti-vaxxers heavy boxes of ammunition.
"So PM Corbyn, you are saying that everyone should be vaccinated."
"Yes."
"Have you been vaccinated?"
"That's a personal matter."
Have a like.
But I am intrigued that there might actually be a pecking order to lagers. Is there a recognised list of good and bad or is it very much personal preference? If there's an agreed list what makes the 'good' ones good?
(He asks while supping his glass of Butcombe Original. Mmmm, nice)
I’ve never been convinced there’s much of a difference between largers. As far as I’m concerned, they’re fungible.
Ale. Now that’s different. It’s the type of beer that tastes like piss. I can identify ale.
Several of us manage it all the time.
Corbyn apparently could not.
To quote Charles Grey on David Irving, there is a line between legitimate criticism and prejudiced vilification.
Once again, none of those policies made Labour unelectable; Corbyn made Labour unelectable.
Fosters is possibly the worst drink ever crafted by man.
For the Tories.
Context important here: the reason winners ND will push for an election is Greece’s unusual rules for electoral reforms, which are only introduced 2 elections after the reform is enacted. So a second election would be fought under ND’s new system, passed in last Parl
https://twitter.com/robfordmancs/status/1660546837550440452?cxt=HHwWiIC9kaCjuYsuAAAA
Courthouse News Service - Scientists find beer byproduct used in famous Danish art
Scientists found rye, wheat, buckwheat and barley in works by the "father of Danish painting."
https://www.courthousenews.com/scientists-find-beer-byproduct-used-in-famous-danish-art/
Nick Palmer, please explain?
Not saying the answer is lack of any principal whatsoever, but the appeal of dogmatism is clear.
On Corbyn it was interesting when people would complain about past positions and comments coming back to bite him, more than some other politicians, which might have been reasonable, but for the fact that a lot of his biggest fans played up his supposedly unchanging principles as a positive. And if the pitch is this man is right and always has been, even when it was unpopular, then past comments are a lot more relevant than for more flexible politicians.
How can he sack the government lawyers? They are representing the government of which he was the head at the time. It is all a mess.
Now, you may think more people should believe it to be the case, but until they do I don't think the comparison holds water. With Russia-Ukraine we know what Russia did in Crimea and the Donbas, and that ignoring it/accepting it, however realist and pragmatic it may have seemed, did not work as a long term solution, as the last year shows. Therefore anyone proposing repeating doing it now would work is being provably irrational.
Agreeable young white man gets on Tube train heading north. Seems nice, smiles, is likeable, then gives his seat to a young pregnant woman, and smiles again at everyone
A heavily bearded older Muslim man looks at him, and leans across and says:
"A word of advice my friend. Don't go to Luton, any time soon. Avoid Luton station"
The man says
"What? Why??? Is there going to be a bomb??"
The Muslim man looks mildly affronted and says
"No. Luton is just a total shit-hole."
You won't get drugs there. You might recruited into ISIS
Currently the draft policy framework includes:
"Support the recognition of the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel, as part of efforts to contribute to securing a negotiated two state solution"
Maybe that will make the final manifesto, maybe it won't. Either way it will hardly be defining for their chances of winning.
He may be a nasty bully, absurd Brexiteer, misguided loon, and whatever, but all the available evidence says he is obviously a bright spark.
I detest this tendency to demean the intelligence of those we politically oppose
I disagree with these people entirely - sometimes almost violently - but I can recognise the intelligence on the British Left of:
Owen Jones
John McDonnell
Marina Hyde
Nicola Sturgeon
NPXMPX3
If he needs additional lawyers for his private interests I can see that but in addition to not instead of government lawyers.
As I say it is a mess. As most things involving Johnson are.
He’s older than you and finds plenty of good stuff. Best music critic currently writing.
Of course, we need confident, bold people to push boundaries and achieve things sometimes, disrupt areas which need disrupting. But we all know people who are really intelligent, and so think they are being very intelligent on some issue which they actually know nothing about - the classic examples would be something like a reknowned geologist on twitter suddenly presenting as some expert on endochrinology, or a tax lawyer confidently talking nonsense about economic data or psychology or something.
Both might be very smart, yet very dumb, at the same time.
Let's pick someone uncontroversial - Maybe the worse Piers, Piers Corbyn, is a really good weather forecaster, I don't know, but is it unfair based on the majority of what he talks about now to consider him an idiot even if he is a great forecaster?
But his genius in 2016 and 2019-20 was to play the game of politics as if it were a single shot, no comebacks. And then go further, harder and faster than anyone else.
That works brilliantly for a single shot campaign. But life isn't like that; the game never ends and what was done yesterday feeds into what can happen tomorrow. Cummings never seemed to grasp that. His pretend to be a madman theory of negotiations doesn't work after the first time the other side has made you blink.
So yes, clever. But also dumb.
From what I have heard (from insiders) a surprising number of referrals to the Tavistock trans-gender clinic come from fundamentalist Muslims parents, who would rather have a trans child than a gay child. The latter is haram, the former is barely covered in the Koran. So, trans is better
And Iran is "weirdly" tolerant of trans people but executes gays
"Iran is the only Islamic country where the sex reassignment surgery (SRS) is recognized"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9745420/
"Clever but also dumb"
So it is merely axiomatic
And that's based on observing him and his mistakes, incompetence and lack of ability to grasp any concept beyond a very basic level over many years in several areas.
He gives the impression to the uninitiated of great intellect because of his smoothness and verbosity, but strip it away and there's never any substance.
This is of course why he's been a failure in every role he's had.
He's not alone. Tristram Hunt is similarly lightweight but fools many who are even stupider with his urbanity.
Which is precisely because he lacks the intellectual firepower to analyse issues in any sort of depth.
He is living proof of the dictum 'every problem has a solution that's simple, easily understood and wrong.'
I think I drank in the same pub he did, in Wiltshire.
Utterly hopeless as a mode of governing, natch.
He won
The Northen indy referendum
The campaign against the euro
The EU referendum
The 2019 election which, with its big Boris majority, confirmed Brexit
His ability to identify memes and themes, slogans and logos, has literally changed the world. Brexit was and is a big change for the West, and the Rest
I get that you dislike him, but diminishing his achievements is farcical and juvenile. It is also boringly dim
It's like me denying the role of Alistair Campbell and claiming he is just a "tabloid journo and drunk pornographer". Well, yeah Campbell was those things, but he was also hugely instrumental in the 13 year success of New Labour. He is a clever and successful man, who was superbly good at the job given him by Blair: Tame and Terrify the Tory press
Tristram Hunt is an utterly ridiculous comparison. Who the fuck is Tristram Hunt. ZZZZ
What's Gove but a second-hand demotion?
But when you bent down to play it, the thought of "just smash em up, that'll be fun and look pretty" was never far away.
He’s a million times better than CrosbyTextor et al. Who seem to me, to be little more than leaches on various credulous centre/right political parties in the democratic world.
Cummings knows, better than almost anyone else, how to win votes. That is the limit of his skills.
They have done virtually nothing to politically prepare the ground for them.
I often seemed to manage just that.
Yeah there’s plenty of pop behemoths, but they all leave me cold, your Beyoncés, Coldplays, fucking Sheeran (lovely guy, but Jesus fuck his music is shite).
But times have changed. The internet has fragmented everything. Music’s fragmented. The charts are full of shite (but, to an extent, they always have been).
But there’s always good music out there. I’ve been obsessed, obsessed with music since I was about 10. All times, all genres, from bluegrass and the swing bands, the blues, into the all conquering rock from the Beatles on. Zeppelin. Punk. Post-punk. Grunge. Indie. Britpop. Electronica. Hip hop. Turntablism. Fucking act after act, genre after genre.
When someone asks me what music I like after 15 seconds their eyeballs are glassy and they’re slowly edging away, desperate to escape.
And you know how much I know about music, really? Despite all the music I’ve listened to, the books I’ve read, the magazines I bought? The square root of fuck all.
I get sad when I think about all the great music I’ll never listen to, like all the amazing books I’ll never read.
There’s endless good music, you’re just not looking hard enough. The media, the scenes themselves, are so fragmented now, the charts are meaningless, you’ve got to work a bit harder. The acts might not necessarily be new - Paul Weller’s latest is very good, as it the recent album by Steve Mason, former Beta Band frontman - but by God there’s a torrent of good music coming out. So much it overwhelms me.
6music have just recruited a new DJ called Deb Grant, her new show starts soon but she sat in for someone last week on the 9 to midnight slot and she just fucking smashed it out of the park. Great tune after great tune, all eras, genres, and I’d heard maybe 1 in 20 of them, if that.
You’re an intrepid explorer, explore music. Go backwards, go outwards, go up and down and round about. It’s there, just waiting to be discovered. Isn’t that exciting?
Surely there's an interesting social history documentary to be made about the place?
Was it used to paint a triptych?
You’re the only poster who manages to surprise me with every post.
Your opinions, anecdotes and references are utterly unpredictable.
Well done, sir, for keeping this site fresh!
"We will:
Immediately suspend the sale of arms to (...) Israel for arms used in violation of the human rights of Palestinian civilians, and conduct a root-and-branch reform of our arms exports regime so ministers can never again turn a blind eye to British-made weapons being used to target innocent civilians"
"Reform the international rules-based order to secure justice and accountability for breaches of human rights and international law, such as (...) the illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip"
"A Labour government will immediately recognise the state of Palestine"
But it is now NOT happening to an extent where I believe there has been a discernible decline, and this tendency is firming not slowing
It doesn't really matter in the wider scheme. There was a marvellous period of continuous brilliance in the West, the Golden age of western pop music - 1960-2010. Great for us, we got lucky, but for our kids? Soz
But this is not unexpected. It is just the same as the Italian Renaissance which shone for about 200-250 years or the Chinese peak in porcelain which lasted for a couple of generations or the great era of opera which lasted about a century or.... and so on, and so on. Art forms rise and fall. This is a known thing. It is happening to us. Other art forms will - we hope - rise and replace "popular music"
That is my take. Others are available
And can you really not buy hash there anymore? (Asking for a friend)
And all my favourite albums were commercial flops, on release.
“The holy bible” by the manics is a particular classic, imo, that has aged like a fine wine.