If this is true then serious questions need to be asked of Starmer and Davey:
Explosive claim in the Sunday Times:
Source claims Paula Vennells was recommended for CBE by Business Department for "bending her conscience and holding the line" to keep cost of scandal down.
Who? Starmer. Or Davey. Depends which seat the Tories are worried about. Either way, wasn’t a Tory, no siree.
cf Ian Hislop handing “Sir” Jake Berry his arse on Peston.
Never mind the gong, who put her forward for her posts at Imperial College and The Cabinet Office? We are talking 2019 here, long after the Horizon fiasco was public knowledge.
I think we start to see exactly why the Tories have been so desperate to muck spread this one. In reality they are in it up to their eyeballs. Best approach is try and make others look guilty first out of the blocks, so that any story about them has less impact.
Watch Hislop skewer the Tory line where it’s supposedly all Starmer and Davey. He isn’t just mocking it, he is furious.
Hislop hasn’t successfully skewered anything since the late 1900s
Private Eye has been covering this story prominently for over a decade.
Amid the jokes and satire it is one of the few places with serious investigative reporting in our press. I think much comes from journalists unable to get published in more mainstream press.
I am old enough to remember @leonadamus saying this is a boring and tedious story that no one should bother with.
Oh I’ve no doubt about that. Well done them - and Computer Weekly. My kvetch is with Hislop. He’s smug, self satisfied and hasn’t been funny for at least three decades. HIGNFY is achingly cringe - it should have been put to sleep in about 2002
Nah it’s simply left of centre people being funny. Which is extremely rare, usually we’re far too earnest.
Merton in particular is outstanding imo.
Paul Merton is the nearest thing we have to (former Private Eye owner) Peter Cook in that he can just reel off humour almost as stream of consciousness. Is he political though? Ian Hislop is small-c Conservative, not left-wing.
Picture quiz. There is something deeply jarring about this photo. What is it?
Ashtray? Glass that changes shape halfway down? No sign of life outside?
A tiny balcony for such an important guest?
Final clue. Look at the washing. The clothes being dried
Cooling the car interior with a towel over the window? We older Brits have specialist equipment from Halfords to serve that function. Was that your revelation?
Well done @Benpointer - I didn’t enter coz I can’t win (don’t care enough to think about some of the questions) but it looks mighty impressive when tabulated
Interestingly the Biden/Trump dichotomy divides really predictably on political grounds. Nearly all of the few people predicting a Trump victory are on “the right” as far as I can see, and FWIW
This makes me suspect hopecasting, not forecasting
Most people forecast by taking present day trends and projecting them into the future, with a tiny bit of variation around the mean if they're feeling daring. The peripheral stuff is very easily missed.
I don't do it because I simply don't know and I change my mind on betting and forecasts all the time. I don't want to have a position that I feel obligated to defend because I'm a sage if I happen to be right or a Roger/Leondamus if I don't, neither of which would be true.
I know it's boring and a bit of a cop out but i prefer absolute flexibility.
I reserve the right to change my mind and disown my earlier predictions whenever.
But seriously you are not alone among prominent Peers who decided not to enter, and that's absolutely fine of course.
That said, the one thing I do feel confident on predicting is a Labour majority and I'm betting accordingly.
Unless Starmer falls under a bus, and Corbyn comes back, that's happening.
If this is true then serious questions need to be asked of Starmer and Davey:
Explosive claim in the Sunday Times:
Source claims Paula Vennells was recommended for CBE by Business Department for "bending her conscience and holding the line" to keep cost of scandal down.
Who? Starmer. Or Davey. Depends which seat the Tories are worried about. Either way, wasn’t a Tory, no siree.
cf Ian Hislop handing “Sir” Jake Berry his arse on Peston.
Never mind the gong, who put her forward for her posts at Imperial College and The Cabinet Office? We are talking 2019 here, long after the Horizon fiasco was public knowledge.
I think we start to see exactly why the Tories have been so desperate to muck spread this one. In reality they are in it up to their eyeballs. Best approach is try and make others look guilty first out of the blocks, so that any story about them has less impact.
Watch Hislop skewer the Tory line where it’s supposedly all Starmer and Davey. He isn’t just mocking it, he is furious.
Hislop hasn’t successfully skewered anything since the late 1900s
Michael Deacon wrote in the Telegraph about that sketch, saying it was such a total, cruel, skilful evisceration of HIGNFY that he was sure the show would get canned. Yet, not
For me it is the TV equivalent of Radio 4 "comedy". This stuff sometimes makes me despair of Britain
I don’t think I have ever watched a whole episode of HIGNFY, maybe once or twice when it started, but then again I don’t watch any other panel shows either
Here is what Deacon wrote.
“ Incredibly, Have I Got News for You is now approaching its 600th episode. To keep getting recommissioned every year since its debut in 1990 truly is a remarkable achievement.
Especially when you bear in mind that, for over 20 years now, the show has been almost unalleviated rubbish.
For its first decade, it was the sharpest thing on British TV. The decline began in 2002, after the departure of Angus Deayton. Never has the programme seemed more complacently predictable, however, than it does at present. Take the following joke, scripted for its most recent guest host, Naga Munchetty.
“Boris Johnson told the [Covid] inquiry that ‘abusive messages are part of the creative process’. I’m buying into this, OK. So, Boris, you’re a useless tosser! Make of that what you will!”
Obviously I have no problem with jokes that make fun of Boris Johnson. My problem with this particular joke is that it barely qualifies as a joke at all. It just isn’t trying. You’d find more imaginative insults on the wall of the pub gents’.
Whatever it is, though, it isn’t satire. The role of satire, or so the old saying has it, is to afflict the comfortable. Have I Got News for You doesn’t do that. Instead, it flatters the comfortable – by which I mean the type of liberal-left graduate professionals who all share exactly the same opinion of Boris Johnson, as well as of Brexit, Rwanda, Trump and just about everything else.
As it happens, the last piece of truly great satire I recall seeing on the BBC was not a clip from Have I Got News for You. It was a parody of it. In 2014, Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse performed a humiliatingly accurate spoof featuring Ian Hislop barking, “Errrr, total c**k-up! Errrrrrrrrrrr, the Government!”, Paul Merton endlessly asking, “Is it a dolphin in a bathtub?”, and identikit panellists taking turns to yelp, “Oh my God the Daily Mail!!!!”
As a work of satire, it was so crushing that I thought Have I Got News for You couldn’t possibly survive. But it did, of course. Because, as every satirist knows, satire changes nothing.”
If this is true then serious questions need to be asked of Starmer and Davey:
Explosive claim in the Sunday Times:
Source claims Paula Vennells was recommended for CBE by Business Department for "bending her conscience and holding the line" to keep cost of scandal down.
Who? Starmer. Or Davey. Depends which seat the Tories are worried about. Either way, wasn’t a Tory, no siree.
cf Ian Hislop handing “Sir” Jake Berry his arse on Peston.
Never mind the gong, who put her forward for her posts at Imperial College and The Cabinet Office? We are talking 2019 here, long after the Horizon fiasco was public knowledge.
I think we start to see exactly why the Tories have been so desperate to muck spread this one. In reality they are in it up to their eyeballs. Best approach is try and make others look guilty first out of the blocks, so that any story about them has less impact.
Watch Hislop skewer the Tory line where it’s supposedly all Starmer and Davey. He isn’t just mocking it, he is furious.
Hislop hasn’t successfully skewered anything since the late 1900s
Private Eye has been covering this story prominently for over a decade.
Amid the jokes and satire it is one of the few places with serious investigative reporting in our press. I think much comes from journalists unable to get published in more mainstream press.
I am old enough to remember @leonadamus saying this is a boring and tedious story that no one should bother with.
Oh I’ve no doubt about that. Well done them - and Computer Weekly. My kvetch is with Hislop. He’s smug, self satisfied and hasn’t been funny for at least three decades. HIGNFY is achingly cringe - it should have been put to sleep in about 2002
Nah it’s simply left of centre people being funny. Which is extremely rare, usually we’re far too earnest.
Merton in particular is outstanding imo.
While I don't find HIGNFY consistently hilarious, I think it's just that we've got to that stage of Conservative government where Tories lose their sense of humour.
It's not a question of funny, it's beyond that. HIGNFY is execrable dreck, spoonfed to stupid people who yearn to believe they are intelligent. Liking it is a symptom of cognitive deficit
It was hilarious in the 90s, with the Tub of Lard and Sperm of the Devil episodes - arguably the funniest show on TV. But Hislop and Merton are tired and Angus Deayton doesn't seem to be around to host any more for some reason (actually when they skewered him it was pretty funny too), so it's incredibly stale. Yes Minister went out on a high, but they should have put HIGNFY out of its misery about 20 years ago.
Odd feeling, but I'm beginning to nee a teeny bit sorry for Paula Vennels! If she ever gets to the Inquiry, and especially if those guilty go to trial the public will be screaming for her to be dragged to the hearing in chains. Whereas, so far as I'm aware, other board members haven't been subject to the same degree of public excoriation.
If this is true then serious questions need to be asked of Starmer and Davey:
Explosive claim in the Sunday Times:
Source claims Paula Vennells was recommended for CBE by Business Department for "bending her conscience and holding the line" to keep cost of scandal down.
Who? Starmer. Or Davey. Depends which seat the Tories are worried about. Either way, wasn’t a Tory, no siree.
cf Ian Hislop handing “Sir” Jake Berry his arse on Peston.
Never mind the gong, who put her forward for her posts at Imperial College and The Cabinet Office? We are talking 2019 here, long after the Horizon fiasco was public knowledge.
I think we start to see exactly why the Tories have been so desperate to muck spread this one. In reality they are in it up to their eyeballs. Best approach is try and make others look guilty first out of the blocks, so that any story about them has less impact.
Watch Hislop skewer the Tory line where it’s supposedly all Starmer and Davey. He isn’t just mocking it, he is furious.
Hislop hasn’t successfully skewered anything since the late 1900s
Private Eye has been covering this story prominently for over a decade.
Amid the jokes and satire it is one of the few places with serious investigative reporting in our press. I think much comes from journalists unable to get published in more mainstream press.
I am old enough to remember @leonadamus saying this is a boring and tedious story that no one should bother with.
Oh I’ve no doubt about that. Well done them - and Computer Weekly. My kvetch is with Hislop. He’s smug, self satisfied and hasn’t been funny for at least three decades. HIGNFY is achingly cringe - it should have been put to sleep in about 2002
Nah it’s simply left of centre people being funny. Which is extremely rare, usually we’re far too earnest.
Merton in particular is outstanding imo.
While I don't find HIGNFY consistently hilarious, I think it's just that we've got to that stage of Conservative government where Tories lose their sense of humour.
It's not a question of funny, it's beyond that. HIGNFY is execrable dreck, spoonfed to stupid people who yearn to believe they are intelligent. Liking it is a symptom of cognitive deficit
I too find it rather tiresome; though your view is somewhat compromised by your declaration above that you "hadn't watched it for YEARS".
If this is true then serious questions need to be asked of Starmer and Davey:
Explosive claim in the Sunday Times:
Source claims Paula Vennells was recommended for CBE by Business Department for "bending her conscience and holding the line" to keep cost of scandal down.
Who? Starmer. Or Davey. Depends which seat the Tories are worried about. Either way, wasn’t a Tory, no siree.
cf Ian Hislop handing “Sir” Jake Berry his arse on Peston.
Never mind the gong, who put her forward for her posts at Imperial College and The Cabinet Office? We are talking 2019 here, long after the Horizon fiasco was public knowledge.
I think we start to see exactly why the Tories have been so desperate to muck spread this one. In reality they are in it up to their eyeballs. Best approach is try and make others look guilty first out of the blocks, so that any story about them has less impact.
Watch Hislop skewer the Tory line where it’s supposedly all Starmer and Davey. He isn’t just mocking it, he is furious.
Hislop hasn’t successfully skewered anything since the late 1900s
Private Eye has been covering this story prominently for over a decade.
Amid the jokes and satire it is one of the few places with serious investigative reporting in our press. I think much comes from journalists unable to get published in more mainstream press.
I am old enough to remember @leonadamus saying this is a boring and tedious story that no one should bother with.
Oh I’ve no doubt about that. Well done them - and Computer Weekly. My kvetch is with Hislop. He’s smug, self satisfied and hasn’t been funny for at least three decades. HIGNFY is achingly cringe - it should have been put to sleep in about 2002
Nah it’s simply left of centre people being funny. Which is extremely rare, usually we’re far too earnest.
Merton in particular is outstanding imo.
Paul Merton is the nearest thing we have to (former Private Eye owner) Peter Cook in that he can just reel off humour almost as stream of consciousness. Is he political though? Ian Hislop is small-c Conservative, not left-wing.
you do know they have scripts?
HIGNFY teams are not scripted but the host is reading an autocue.
If this is true then serious questions need to be asked of Starmer and Davey:
Explosive claim in the Sunday Times:
Source claims Paula Vennells was recommended for CBE by Business Department for "bending her conscience and holding the line" to keep cost of scandal down.
Who? Starmer. Or Davey. Depends which seat the Tories are worried about. Either way, wasn’t a Tory, no siree.
cf Ian Hislop handing “Sir” Jake Berry his arse on Peston.
Never mind the gong, who put her forward for her posts at Imperial College and The Cabinet Office? We are talking 2019 here, long after the Horizon fiasco was public knowledge.
I think we start to see exactly why the Tories have been so desperate to muck spread this one. In reality they are in it up to their eyeballs. Best approach is try and make others look guilty first out of the blocks, so that any story about them has less impact.
Watch Hislop skewer the Tory line where it’s supposedly all Starmer and Davey. He isn’t just mocking it, he is furious.
Hislop hasn’t successfully skewered anything since the late 1900s
Private Eye has been covering this story prominently for over a decade.
Amid the jokes and satire it is one of the few places with serious investigative reporting in our press. I think much comes from journalists unable to get published in more mainstream press.
I am old enough to remember @leonadamus saying this is a boring and tedious story that no one should bother with.
Oh I’ve no doubt about that. Well done them - and Computer Weekly. My kvetch is with Hislop. He’s smug, self satisfied and hasn’t been funny for at least three decades. HIGNFY is achingly cringe - it should have been put to sleep in about 2002
Nah it’s simply left of centre people being funny. Which is extremely rare, usually we’re far too earnest.
Merton in particular is outstanding imo.
While I don't find HIGNFY consistently hilarious, I think it's just that we've got to that stage of Conservative government where Tories lose their sense of humour.
It's not a question of funny, it's beyond that. HIGNFY is execrable dreck, spoonfed to stupid people who yearn to believe they are intelligent. Liking it is a symptom of cognitive deficit
It was hilarious in the 90s, with the Tub of Lard and Sperm of the Devil episodes - arguably the funniest show on TV. But Hislop and Merton are tired and Angus Deayton doesn't seem to be around to host any more for some reason (actually when they skewered him it was pretty funny too), so it's incredibly stale. Yes Minister went out on a high, but they should have put HIGNFY out of its misery about 20 years ago.
When I catch HIGNFY, it can still be quite funny. But it suffers from a similar problem to Private Eye. I use to subscribe to PE from when I was about 25 to 40; I loved it. But after that many years, the stories were all the same, even if the names were different. It got boring.
If this is true then serious questions need to be asked of Starmer and Davey:
Explosive claim in the Sunday Times:
Source claims Paula Vennells was recommended for CBE by Business Department for "bending her conscience and holding the line" to keep cost of scandal down.
Who? Starmer. Or Davey. Depends which seat the Tories are worried about. Either way, wasn’t a Tory, no siree.
cf Ian Hislop handing “Sir” Jake Berry his arse on Peston.
Never mind the gong, who put her forward for her posts at Imperial College and The Cabinet Office? We are talking 2019 here, long after the Horizon fiasco was public knowledge.
I think we start to see exactly why the Tories have been so desperate to muck spread this one. In reality they are in it up to their eyeballs. Best approach is try and make others look guilty first out of the blocks, so that any story about them has less impact.
Watch Hislop skewer the Tory line where it’s supposedly all Starmer and Davey. He isn’t just mocking it, he is furious.
Hislop hasn’t successfully skewered anything since the late 1900s
Private Eye has been covering this story prominently for over a decade.
Amid the jokes and satire it is one of the few places with serious investigative reporting in our press. I think much comes from journalists unable to get published in more mainstream press.
I am old enough to remember @leonadamus saying this is a boring and tedious story that no one should bother with.
Oh I’ve no doubt about that. Well done them - and Computer Weekly. My kvetch is with Hislop. He’s smug, self satisfied and hasn’t been funny for at least three decades. HIGNFY is achingly cringe - it should have been put to sleep in about 2002
Nah it’s simply left of centre people being funny. Which is extremely rare, usually we’re far too earnest.
Merton in particular is outstanding imo.
Paul Merton is the nearest thing we have to (former Private Eye owner) Peter Cook in that he can just reel off humour almost as stream of consciousness. Is he political though? Ian Hislop is small-c Conservative, not left-wing.
I honestly cannot remember the last time either Merton or Hislop made me laugh. However, and to be fair, I haven't watched HIGNFY in YEARS as the last few times I did it was so scrotum-tighteningly cringeworthy, middle brow, laboured, AND tumour-inducingly smug I nearly stoved in the TV with a clawhammer
I'm with Leon on this. HIGNFY hasn't been funny for about twenty years, it should have been replaced by something better a long time ago. There are plenty of people out there who can do satire well, like Charlie Brooker, Nish Kumar and Frankie Boyle, off the top of my head. The problem for the BBC is that genuinely good satire is threatening for politicians so they can't put it on a primetime slot on BBC1 without inviting all kinds of problems for themselves. So we're stuck with the utterly unthreatening and unfunny HIGNFY instead.
If this is true then serious questions need to be asked of Starmer and Davey:
Explosive claim in the Sunday Times:
Source claims Paula Vennells was recommended for CBE by Business Department for "bending her conscience and holding the line" to keep cost of scandal down.
Who? Starmer. Or Davey. Depends which seat the Tories are worried about. Either way, wasn’t a Tory, no siree.
cf Ian Hislop handing “Sir” Jake Berry his arse on Peston.
Never mind the gong, who put her forward for her posts at Imperial College and The Cabinet Office? We are talking 2019 here, long after the Horizon fiasco was public knowledge.
I think we start to see exactly why the Tories have been so desperate to muck spread this one. In reality they are in it up to their eyeballs. Best approach is try and make others look guilty first out of the blocks, so that any story about them has less impact.
Watch Hislop skewer the Tory line where it’s supposedly all Starmer and Davey. He isn’t just mocking it, he is furious.
Hislop hasn’t successfully skewered anything since the late 1900s
Private Eye has been covering this story prominently for over a decade.
Amid the jokes and satire it is one of the few places with serious investigative reporting in our press. I think much comes from journalists unable to get published in more mainstream press.
I am old enough to remember @leonadamus saying this is a boring and tedious story that no one should bother with.
Oh I’ve no doubt about that. Well done them - and Computer Weekly. My kvetch is with Hislop. He’s smug, self satisfied and hasn’t been funny for at least three decades. HIGNFY is achingly cringe - it should have been put to sleep in about 2002
Nah it’s simply left of centre people being funny. Which is extremely rare, usually we’re far too earnest.
Merton in particular is outstanding imo.
Paul Merton is the nearest thing we have to (former Private Eye owner) Peter Cook in that he can just reel off humour almost as stream of consciousness. Is he political though? Ian Hislop is small-c Conservative, not left-wing.
you do know they have scripts?
HIGNFY teams are not scripted but the host is reading an autocue.
If this is true then serious questions need to be asked of Starmer and Davey:
Explosive claim in the Sunday Times:
Source claims Paula Vennells was recommended for CBE by Business Department for "bending her conscience and holding the line" to keep cost of scandal down.
Who? Starmer. Or Davey. Depends which seat the Tories are worried about. Either way, wasn’t a Tory, no siree.
cf Ian Hislop handing “Sir” Jake Berry his arse on Peston.
Never mind the gong, who put her forward for her posts at Imperial College and The Cabinet Office? We are talking 2019 here, long after the Horizon fiasco was public knowledge.
I think we start to see exactly why the Tories have been so desperate to muck spread this one. In reality they are in it up to their eyeballs. Best approach is try and make others look guilty first out of the blocks, so that any story about them has less impact.
Watch Hislop skewer the Tory line where it’s supposedly all Starmer and Davey. He isn’t just mocking it, he is furious.
Hislop hasn’t successfully skewered anything since the late 1900s
Private Eye has been covering this story prominently for over a decade.
Amid the jokes and satire it is one of the few places with serious investigative reporting in our press. I think much comes from journalists unable to get published in more mainstream press.
I am old enough to remember @leonadamus saying this is a boring and tedious story that no one should bother with.
Oh I’ve no doubt about that. Well done them - and Computer Weekly. My kvetch is with Hislop. He’s smug, self satisfied and hasn’t been funny for at least three decades. HIGNFY is achingly cringe - it should have been put to sleep in about 2002
Nah it’s simply left of centre people being funny. Which is extremely rare, usually we’re far too earnest.
Merton in particular is outstanding imo.
Paul Merton is the nearest thing we have to (former Private Eye owner) Peter Cook in that he can just reel off humour almost as stream of consciousness. Is he political though? Ian Hislop is small-c Conservative, not left-wing.
you do know they have scripts?
HIGNFY teams are not scripted but the host is reading an autocue.
I have seen Merton live at the Leicester Comedy Festival, doing a completely improvised show. He is very good at impro. Incidentally I don't think him particularly left wing or woke, he seems more apolitical than that, and it isn't his style of comedy.
All comedy is patchy and we only remember the good bits, HIGNFY as much as any other show. The whole "celebrity panel show" format is a very tired one, just survives as pretty dirt cheap to make.
Question for PBers: 100 days on, has anyone significantly changed their views on the situation in Gaza?
For my own part, I started out with quite a bit of sympathy for Israel but an underlying concern that an emotionally driven response would be counterproductive to their long term interests.
Over the past 100 days and seeing the indiscriminate nature of their response I find myself very firmly on the side of Palestinians, even to the extent that I can understand (whilst not morally condoning) widespread support for Hamas. It is also contributing a little to my view that the USA may no longer be a force for good in the world and realistically the least worst set of coattails for UK to hang onto for the next century might be China’s.
That's been largely my evolution on Israel/Gaza too, though I'm not sure about the last sentence - in general I think that attaching to anyone's coattails is a recipe for disaster, sooner or later..
Odd feeling, but I'm beginning to nee a teeny bit sorry for Paula Vennels! If she ever gets to the Inquiry, and especially if those guilty go to trial the public will be screaming for her to be dragged to the hearing in chains. Whereas, so far as I'm aware, other board members haven't been subject to the same degree of public excoriation.
She certainly has many questions to answer, but there is an unhealthy appetite for a witch hunt at present. They rarely are very good at delivering justice.
Question for PBers: 100 days on, has anyone significantly changed their views on the situation in Gaza?
For my own part, I started out with quite a bit of sympathy for Israel but an underlying concern that an emotionally driven response would be counterproductive to their long term interests.
Over the past 100 days and seeing the indiscriminate nature of their response I find myself very firmly on the side of Palestinians, even to the extent that I can understand (whilst not morally condoning) widespread support for Hamas. It is also contributing a little to my view that the USA may no longer be a force for good in the world and realistically the least worst set of coattails for UK to hang onto for the next century might be China’s.
That's been largely my evolution on Israel/Gaza too, though I'm not sure about the last sentence - in general I think that attaching to anyone's coattails is a recipe for disaster, sooner or later..
I remember reading a long, long time ago, that the Chinese governments, of whatever political colour had very long memories indeed, and we should not be surprised if the Opium Wars still rankled.
Question for PBers: 100 days on, has anyone significantly changed their views on the situation in Gaza?
For my own part, I started out with quite a bit of sympathy for Israel but an underlying concern that an emotionally driven response would be counterproductive to their long term interests.
Over the past 100 days and seeing the indiscriminate nature of their response I find myself very firmly on the side of Palestinians, even to the extent that I can understand (whilst not morally condoning) widespread support for Hamas. It is also contributing a little to my view that the USA may no longer be a force for good in the world and realistically the least worst set of coattails for UK to hang onto for the next century might be China’s.
That's been largely my evolution on Israel/Gaza too, though I'm not sure about the last sentence - in general I think that attaching to anyone's coattails is a recipe for disaster, sooner or later..
I remember reading a long, long time ago, that the Chinese governments, of whatever political colour had very long memories indeed, and we should not be surprised if the Opium Wars still rankled.
If this is true then serious questions need to be asked of Starmer and Davey:
Explosive claim in the Sunday Times:
Source claims Paula Vennells was recommended for CBE by Business Department for "bending her conscience and holding the line" to keep cost of scandal down.
Who? Starmer. Or Davey. Depends which seat the Tories are worried about. Either way, wasn’t a Tory, no siree.
cf Ian Hislop handing “Sir” Jake Berry his arse on Peston.
Never mind the gong, who put her forward for her posts at Imperial College and The Cabinet Office? We are talking 2019 here, long after the Horizon fiasco was public knowledge.
I think we start to see exactly why the Tories have been so desperate to muck spread this one. In reality they are in it up to their eyeballs. Best approach is try and make others look guilty first out of the blocks, so that any story about them has less impact.
Watch Hislop skewer the Tory line where it’s supposedly all Starmer and Davey. He isn’t just mocking it, he is furious.
Hislop hasn’t successfully skewered anything since the late 1900s
Private Eye has been covering this story prominently for over a decade.
Amid the jokes and satire it is one of the few places with serious investigative reporting in our press. I think much comes from journalists unable to get published in more mainstream press.
I am old enough to remember @leonadamus saying this is a boring and tedious story that no one should bother with.
Oh I’ve no doubt about that. Well done them - and Computer Weekly. My kvetch is with Hislop. He’s smug, self satisfied and hasn’t been funny for at least three decades. HIGNFY is achingly cringe - it should have been put to sleep in about 2002
Nah it’s simply left of centre people being funny. Which is extremely rare, usually we’re far too earnest.
Merton in particular is outstanding imo.
While I don't find HIGNFY consistently hilarious, I think it's just that we've got to that stage of Conservative government where Tories lose their sense of humour.
It's not a question of funny, it's beyond that. HIGNFY is execrable dreck, spoonfed to stupid people who yearn to believe they are intelligent. Liking it is a symptom of cognitive deficit
As I said.
What does being funny have to do with it? Hislop was on there as a journalist, and his primary expression was anger, not comedy.
Funny is subjective. We all find different things funny. But park comedy and what you think of Hislop doing a funny turn on the telly and look at PE for what it is - a campaigning news magazine. They have been on this story for years, long before anyone else cared. So what does Hislop's politics / humour and your opinions of them matter? Or mine?
We can't dismiss stories because we dislike the journalist or the outlet. Be skeptical if they have a history of lying and exaggerating. Which PE doesn't.
As has been pointed out above, the main objection seems to be from Tories and fellow travellers who have a humour bypass because all their side's bad shit is being exposed. Same with Teesport. Keep watching that one - another huge scandal being uncovered.
I think Ian Hislop has adopted the position of a latter day court jester whose job is to continually poke fun at the great and the good as a means of trying to keep them in check and try to avoid getting his head cut off for it. What is interesting is the genuine, raging, righteous anger that (justifiably in my opinion) bubbles just below the surface of everything he does. My own view is that he is a great asset to our society and culture and, for all it might sometimes be a bit scattergun, the work that Private Eye has done under his stewardship has been vital in keeping the malevolent actions of Government in the public eye.
Well done @Benpointer - I didn’t enter coz I can’t win (don’t care enough to think about some of the questions) but it looks mighty impressive when tabulated
Interestingly the Biden/Trump dichotomy divides really predictably on political grounds. Nearly all of the few people predicting a Trump victory are on “the right” as far as I can see, and FWIW
This makes me suspect hopecasting, not forecasting
Most people forecast by taking present day trends and projecting them into the future, with a tiny bit of variation around the mean if they're feeling daring. The peripheral stuff is very easily missed.
I don't do it because I simply don't know and I change my mind on betting and forecasts all the time. I don't want to have a position that I feel obligated to defend because I'm a sage if I happen to be right or a Roger/Leondamus if I don't, neither of which would be true.
I know it's boring and a bit of a cop out but i prefer absolute flexibility.
I reserve the right to change my mind and disown my earlier predictions whenever.
But seriously you are not alone among prominent Peers who decided not to enter, and that's absolutely fine of course.
That said, the one thing I do feel confident on predicting is a Labour majority and I'm betting accordingly.
Unless Starmer falls under a bus, and Corbyn comes back, that's happening.
Well depends on who is driving the bus.
Return to Moscow, please.
Corbyn has been much more critical of Putin than any many Tory for years.While they copied up he was calling for an end to the influence Johnson Blair et al were encouraging.
Question for PBers: 100 days on, has anyone significantly changed their views on the situation in Gaza?
For my own part, I started out with quite a bit of sympathy for Israel but an underlying concern that an emotionally driven response would be counterproductive to their long term interests.
Over the past 100 days and seeing the indiscriminate nature of their response I find myself very firmly on the side of Palestinians, even to the extent that I can understand (whilst not morally condoning) widespread support for Hamas. It is also contributing a little to my view that the USA may no longer be a force for good in the world and realistically the least worst set of coattails for UK to hang onto for the next century might be China’s.
Being imprisoned for simply questioning the severity of attacks on Gaza is not a mark of a free country. I note many Arab Israelis have been locked up too.
A complete tangent but I was struck by the ‘if you don’t like these posts unfriend me.’ I know we all live in echo chambers but actively creating your own as a pro-Palestinian Israeli seems…counterproductive.
Well done @Benpointer - I didn’t enter coz I can’t win (don’t care enough to think about some of the questions) but it looks mighty impressive when tabulated
Interestingly the Biden/Trump dichotomy divides really predictably on political grounds. Nearly all of the few people predicting a Trump victory are on “the right” as far as I can see, and FWIW
This makes me suspect hopecasting, not forecasting
Most people forecast by taking present day trends and projecting them into the future, with a tiny bit of variation around the mean if they're feeling daring. The peripheral stuff is very easily missed.
I don't do it because I simply don't know and I change my mind on betting and forecasts all the time. I don't want to have a position that I feel obligated to defend because I'm a sage if I happen to be right or a Roger/Leondamus if I don't, neither of which would be true.
I know it's boring and a bit of a cop out but i prefer absolute flexibility.
I reserve the right to change my mind and disown my earlier predictions whenever.
But seriously you are not alone among prominent Peers who decided not to enter, and that's absolutely fine of course.
That said, the one thing I do feel confident on predicting is a Labour majority and I'm betting accordingly.
Unless Starmer falls under a bus, and Corbyn comes back, that's happening.
Well depends on who is driving the bus.
Return to Moscow, please.
Corbyn has been much more critical of Putin than any many Tory for years.While they copied up he was calling for an end to the influence Johnson Blair et al were encouraging.
Yeah, so much that he wanted the government to give Putin samples of the Salisbury poison for verification...
If this is true then serious questions need to be asked of Starmer and Davey:
Explosive claim in the Sunday Times:
Source claims Paula Vennells was recommended for CBE by Business Department for "bending her conscience and holding the line" to keep cost of scandal down.
Who? Starmer. Or Davey. Depends which seat the Tories are worried about. Either way, wasn’t a Tory, no siree.
cf Ian Hislop handing “Sir” Jake Berry his arse on Peston.
Never mind the gong, who put her forward for her posts at Imperial College and The Cabinet Office? We are talking 2019 here, long after the Horizon fiasco was public knowledge.
I think we start to see exactly why the Tories have been so desperate to muck spread this one. In reality they are in it up to their eyeballs. Best approach is try and make others look guilty first out of the blocks, so that any story about them has less impact.
Watch Hislop skewer the Tory line where it’s supposedly all Starmer and Davey. He isn’t just mocking it, he is furious.
Hislop hasn’t successfully skewered anything since the late 1900s
Private Eye has been covering this story prominently for over a decade.
Amid the jokes and satire it is one of the few places with serious investigative reporting in our press. I think much comes from journalists unable to get published in more mainstream press.
I am old enough to remember @leonadamus saying this is a boring and tedious story that no one should bother with.
Oh I’ve no doubt about that. Well done them - and Computer Weekly. My kvetch is with Hislop. He’s smug, self satisfied and hasn’t been funny for at least three decades. HIGNFY is achingly cringe - it should have been put to sleep in about 2002
Nah it’s simply left of centre people being funny. Which is extremely rare, usually we’re far too earnest.
Merton in particular is outstanding imo.
While I don't find HIGNFY consistently hilarious, I think it's just that we've got to that stage of Conservative government where Tories lose their sense of humour.
It's not a question of funny, it's beyond that. HIGNFY is execrable dreck, spoonfed to stupid people who yearn to believe they are intelligent. Liking it is a symptom of cognitive deficit
As I said.
What does being funny have to do with it? Hislop was on there as a journalist, and his primary expression was anger, not comedy.
Funny is subjective. We all find different things funny. But park comedy and what you think of Hislop doing a funny turn on the telly and look at PE for what it is - a campaigning news magazine. They have been on this story for years, long before anyone else cared. So what does Hislop's politics / humour and your opinions of them matter? Or mine?
We can't dismiss stories because we dislike the journalist or the outlet. Be skeptical if they have a history of lying and exaggerating. Which PE doesn't.
As has been pointed out above, the main objection seems to be from Tories and fellow travellers who have a humour bypass because all their side's bad shit is being exposed. Same with Teesport. Keep watching that one - another huge scandal being uncovered.
It's not a sense of humour bypass to think that an angry man is angry, not funny.
Ed Davey’s approval rating takes a big hit from the Post Office scandal
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/13/ed-daveys-approval-rating-takes-a-big-hit-from-the-post-office-scandal ...“The Lib Dems will be worried that the first time their leader has cut through to voters is for his connection to a huge scandal. But, while Labour and the Tories may be relieved that fingers aren’t being pointed at them, they and the rest of us should be concerned if important questions about how national institutions operate devolve into yet another edition of ‘which politician you’ve never heard of is going to resign?’”
Question for PBers: 100 days on, has anyone significantly changed their views on the situation in Gaza?
For my own part, I started out with quite a bit of sympathy for Israel but an underlying concern that an emotionally driven response would be counterproductive to their long term interests.
Over the past 100 days and seeing the indiscriminate nature of their response I find myself very firmly on the side of Palestinians, even to the extent that I can understand (whilst not morally condoning) widespread support for Hamas. It is also contributing a little to my view that the USA may no longer be a force for good in the world and realistically the least worst set of coattails for UK to hang onto for the next century might be China’s.
I think Israel consistently overreacts than rather just reacts, and its loss of sense of proportion can lose it the sympathy it initially starts with. They end up being too binary. The Gaza War needs to be brought to a close, quickly, and then Israel should fund reconstruction and aid to maintain support.
I am very concerned by your final sentence. The USA is far from perfect but it's a free democracy and the only serious Western power checking the expansionism of repressive autocracies in Russia, Iran and China in Ukraine, the Middle East, and Taiwan respectively. And we've seen what happens to people that fall under its wing.
If this is true then serious questions need to be asked of Starmer and Davey:
Explosive claim in the Sunday Times:
Source claims Paula Vennells was recommended for CBE by Business Department for "bending her conscience and holding the line" to keep cost of scandal down.
Who? Starmer. Or Davey. Depends which seat the Tories are worried about. Either way, wasn’t a Tory, no siree.
cf Ian Hislop handing “Sir” Jake Berry his arse on Peston.
Never mind the gong, who put her forward for her posts at Imperial College and The Cabinet Office? We are talking 2019 here, long after the Horizon fiasco was public knowledge.
I think we start to see exactly why the Tories have been so desperate to muck spread this one. In reality they are in it up to their eyeballs. Best approach is try and make others look guilty first out of the blocks, so that any story about them has less impact.
Watch Hislop skewer the Tory line where it’s supposedly all Starmer and Davey. He isn’t just mocking it, he is furious.
Hislop hasn’t successfully skewered anything since the late 1900s
Private Eye has been covering this story prominently for over a decade.
Amid the jokes and satire it is one of the few places with serious investigative reporting in our press. I think much comes from journalists unable to get published in more mainstream press.
I am old enough to remember @leonadamus saying this is a boring and tedious story that no one should bother with.
Oh I’ve no doubt about that. Well done them - and Computer Weekly. My kvetch is with Hislop. He’s smug, self satisfied and hasn’t been funny for at least three decades. HIGNFY is achingly cringe - it should have been put to sleep in about 2002
Nah it’s simply left of centre people being funny. Which is extremely rare, usually we’re far too earnest.
Merton in particular is outstanding imo.
While I don't find HIGNFY consistently hilarious, I think it's just that we've got to that stage of Conservative government where Tories lose their sense of humour.
It's not a question of funny, it's beyond that. HIGNFY is execrable dreck, spoonfed to stupid people who yearn to believe they are intelligent. Liking it is a symptom of cognitive deficit
As I said.
What does being funny have to do with it? Hislop was on there as a journalist, and his primary expression was anger, not comedy.
Funny is subjective. We all find different things funny. But park comedy and what you think of Hislop doing a funny turn on the telly and look at PE for what it is - a campaigning news magazine. They have been on this story for years, long before anyone else cared. So what does Hislop's politics / humour and your opinions of them matter? Or mine?
We can't dismiss stories because we dislike the journalist or the outlet. Be skeptical if they have a history of lying and exaggerating. Which PE doesn't.
As has been pointed out above, the main objection seems to be from Tories and fellow travellers who have a humour bypass because all their side's bad shit is being exposed. Same with Teesport. Keep watching that one - another huge scandal being uncovered.
I think Ian Hislop has adopted the position of a latter day court jester whose job is to continually poke fun at the great and the good as a means of trying to keep them in check and try to avoid getting his head cut off for it. What is interesting is the genuine, raging, righteous anger that (justifiably in my opinion) bubbles just below the surface of everything he does. My own view is that he is a great asset to our society and culture and, for all it might sometimes be a bit scattergun, the work that Private Eye has done under his stewardship has been vital in keeping the malevolent actions of Government in the public eye.
But, you skewer such abuses far better through ridicule and empathy that you do by spitting venom.
I think Hislop is another one who's let social media get the better of him.
Question for PBers: 100 days on, has anyone significantly changed their views on the situation in Gaza?
For my own part, I started out with quite a bit of sympathy for Israel but an underlying concern that an emotionally driven response would be counterproductive to their long term interests.
Over the past 100 days and seeing the indiscriminate nature of their response I find myself very firmly on the side of Palestinians, even to the extent that I can understand (whilst not morally condoning) widespread support for Hamas. It is also contributing a little to my view that the USA may no longer be a force for good in the world and realistically the least worst set of coattails for UK to hang onto for the next century might be China’s.
Being imprisoned for simply questioning the severity of attacks on Gaza is not a mark of a free country. I note many Arab Israelis have been locked up too.
A complete tangent but I was struck by the ‘if you don’t like these posts unfriend me.’ I know we all live in echo chambers but actively creating your own as a pro-Palestinian Israeli seems…counterproductive.
I understand that some of his posts might be unpopular, but imprisoning him seems way OTT.
On the PO scandal, I wouldn't be surprised if the attempts by the Tories and their press to apportion historical blame to Davey, Starmer, Mandelson, Blair or, in fact, anybody but the Tories, backfire on them.
The vast majority of Joe Public first heard about the scandal following the ITV drama. That same public don't engage in the sort of forensic analysis we see on here, and are only dimly aware that this has been going on for years. When asked "who's to blame?", it seems to me quite likely that they will point the finger at the people who have been in power for the last 14 years. And even if they recognise that the problem predates 2010, they could well conclude "well, the Tories have had 14 years to sort it out. Why haven't they?".
The basis on which the CBE nomination was made for Vennells shows to me the mindset of the government all too well. The reason that this has not been sorted out is that sorting it was going to cost serious amounts of public money. The government are not impartial arbitrators of this. They, and the PO, are a party.
Finding £1bn to sort this was never going to be a priority for a government struggling to finance Health, Social Care and Education. I can’t imagine a government that would have thought differently to this if I am honest.
And many who now claim to be shocked are just hypocrites or naive. It’s what governments do.
I think only an excellent government would have proactively taken this on I think. I do think some of our past governments, particularly had the right minister been in charge for long enough to address this issue, would have worked to resolve this, or at least accepted responsibility under less public pressure.
IMO best way of stopping this kind of thing happening again I think is changing the incentives for chief executives/people at the top. If they actually thought there was a risk of them being prosecuted - I suspect there would have been a very different attitude on display.
Since we're talking about humour this morning btw, here is some which maybe shows my current, rather dark, mood on Ukraine:
- what do you call a thousand dead Russian soldiers? A good start
- what do you call a Russian barracks destroyed before the troops get there? Premature annihilation
- how is Putin like a sperm? They both have a one in a billion chance of becoming a human being
Etc etc etc.
I'm getting a little perverse pleasure out of the power cuts some parts of Russia are currently suffering from, given the "Europe will freeze!" sh*t Russian media was broadcasting last winter. No heating in -20 deg C temperatures cannot be fun.
Well done @Benpointer - I didn’t enter coz I can’t win (don’t care enough to think about some of the questions) but it looks mighty impressive when tabulated
Interestingly the Biden/Trump dichotomy divides really predictably on political grounds. Nearly all of the few people predicting a Trump victory are on “the right” as far as I can see, and FWIW
This makes me suspect hopecasting, not forecasting
Most people forecast by taking present day trends and projecting them into the future, with a tiny bit of variation around the mean if they're feeling daring. The peripheral stuff is very easily missed.
I don't do it because I simply don't know and I change my mind on betting and forecasts all the time. I don't want to have a position that I feel obligated to defend because I'm a sage if I happen to be right or a Roger/Leondamus if I don't, neither of which would be true.
I know it's boring and a bit of a cop out but i prefer absolute flexibility.
I reserve the right to change my mind and disown my earlier predictions whenever.
But seriously you are not alone among prominent Peers who decided not to enter, and that's absolutely fine of course.
That said, the one thing I do feel confident on predicting is a Labour majority and I'm betting accordingly.
Unless Starmer falls under a bus, and Corbyn comes back, that's happening.
Well depends on who is driving the bus.
Return to Moscow, please.
Corbyn has been much more critical of Putin than any many Tory for years.While they copied up he was calling for an end to the influence Johnson Blair et al were encouraging.
Yeah, so much that he wanted the government to give Putin samples of the Salisbury poison for verification...
Well, if anyone would know where the poison came from it would be Putin!
On the PO scandal, I wouldn't be surprised if the attempts by the Tories and their press to apportion historical blame to Davey, Starmer, Mandelson, Blair or, in fact, anybody but the Tories, backfire on them.
The vast majority of Joe Public first heard about the scandal following the ITV drama. That same public don't engage in the sort of forensic analysis we see on here, and are only dimly aware that this has been going on for years. When asked "who's to blame?", it seems to me quite likely that they will point the finger at the people who have been in power for the last 14 years. And even if they recognise that the problem predates 2010, they could well conclude "well, the Tories have had 14 years to sort it out. Why haven't they?".
The basis on which the CBE nomination was made for Vennells shows to me the mindset of the government all too well. The reason that this has not been sorted out is that sorting it was going to cost serious amounts of public money. The government are not impartial arbitrators of this. They, and the PO, are a party.
Finding £1bn to sort this was never going to be a priority for a government struggling to finance Health, Social Care and Education. I can’t imagine a government that would have thought differently to this if I am honest.
And many who now claim to be shocked are just hypocrites or naive. It’s what governments do.
I think only an excellent government would have proactively taken this on I think. I do think some of our past governments, particularly had the right minister been in charge for long enough to address this issue, would have worked to resolve this, or at least accepted responsibility under less public pressure.
IMO best way of stopping this kind of thing happening again I think is changing the incentives for chief executives/people at the top. If they actually thought there was a risk of them being prosecuted - I suspect there would have been a very different attitude on display.
It rather looks as though board members appearances in front of the inquiry will be during the run-up to a general election. Therefore, the responsibility for not taking action is quite likely to be hung on the present government, or at the very least will be discussed in a heightened political atmosphere. It's quite likely, therefore, that an incoming government will have promised to prosecute those responsible. Actually, I'm rather looking forward to the board members appearance before the enquiry; I think there'll be a lot of people, desperately trying to dodge questioning!
Question for PBers: 100 days on, has anyone significantly changed their views on the situation in Gaza?
For my own part, I started out with quite a bit of sympathy for Israel but an underlying concern that an emotionally driven response would be counterproductive to their long term interests.
Over the past 100 days and seeing the indiscriminate nature of their response I find myself very firmly on the side of Palestinians, even to the extent that I can understand (whilst not morally condoning) widespread support for Hamas. It is also contributing a little to my view that the USA may no longer be a force for good in the world and realistically the least worst set of coattails for UK to hang onto for the next century might be China’s.
No change for me. The situation is complicated both diplomatically and morally (amazingly even though one side glorifies the murder of babies). US policy on Israel is unique in that it goes strongly against its own strategic interest. This is the real "special relationship". The US doesn't do this for anyone else
Totally off topic, but yesterday we went down to our local pub for lunch, and I had a steak and mushroom pie, a proper one with a top on the bottom and sides. And it was full of meat and mushrooms. Very filling, and the beer was good too!
What current humour on TV do we think will still be lauded in twenty years?
Really struggling.
From the last decade?
Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, Mum, Motherland, Inside No 9 (although a bit hit and miss)Toast of London/Hollywood, What we do in the Shadows, Ted Lasso. There is rather a lot, but off the top of my head I can't think. I also quite like Upstart Crow, but I am not going to tell anyone.
A couple of good calls from Isam: Detectorists and The Trip. Car Share was OK too.
Totally off topic, but yesterday we went down to our local pub for lunch, and I had a steak and mushroom pie, a proper one with a top on the bottom and sides. And it was full of meat and mushrooms. Very filling, and the beer was good too!
I resent the fact that mushrooms have been coming over here, stealing the jobs that used to be done by traditional British kidneys.
On the PO scandal, I wouldn't be surprised if the attempts by the Tories and their press to apportion historical blame to Davey, Starmer, Mandelson, Blair or, in fact, anybody but the Tories, backfire on them.
The vast majority of Joe Public first heard about the scandal following the ITV drama. That same public don't engage in the sort of forensic analysis we see on here, and are only dimly aware that this has been going on for years. When asked "who's to blame?", it seems to me quite likely that they will point the finger at the people who have been in power for the last 14 years. And even if they recognise that the problem predates 2010, they could well conclude "well, the Tories have had 14 years to sort it out. Why haven't they?".
The basis on which the CBE nomination was made for Vennells shows to me the mindset of the government all too well. The reason that this has not been sorted out is that sorting it was going to cost serious amounts of public money. The government are not impartial arbitrators of this. They, and the PO, are a party.
Finding £1bn to sort this was never going to be a priority for a government struggling to finance Health, Social Care and Education. I can’t imagine a government that would have thought differently to this if I am honest.
And many who now claim to be shocked are just hypocrites or naive. It’s what governments do.
I think only an excellent government would have proactively taken this on I think. I do think some of our past governments, particularly had the right minister been in charge for long enough to address this issue, would have worked to resolve this, or at least accepted responsibility under less public pressure.
IMO best way of stopping this kind of thing happening again I think is changing the incentives for chief executives/people at the top. If they actually thought there was a risk of them being prosecuted - I suspect there would have been a very different attitude on display.
It rather looks as though board members appearances in front of the inquiry will be during the run-up to a general election. Therefore, the responsibility for not taking action is quite likely to be hung on the present government, or at the very least will be discussed in a heightened political atmosphere. It's quite likely, therefore, that an incoming government will have promised to prosecute those responsible. Actually, I'm rather looking forward to the board members appearance before the enquiry; I think there'll be a lot of people, desperately trying to dodge questioning!
Would an inquiry be something that is postponed as part of pre-election purdah?
Question for PBers: 100 days on, has anyone significantly changed their views on the situation in Gaza?
For my own part, I started out with quite a bit of sympathy for Israel but an underlying concern that an emotionally driven response would be counterproductive to their long term interests.
Over the past 100 days and seeing the indiscriminate nature of their response I find myself very firmly on the side of Palestinians, even to the extent that I can understand (whilst not morally condoning) widespread support for Hamas. It is also contributing a little to my view that the USA may no longer be a force for good in the world and realistically the least worst set of coattails for UK to hang onto for the next century might be China’s.
The temptation with this conflict is to try and interpret in a 'light v dark, good v evil' way, but I don't think that applies here. Obviously though various actors will try and appeal to this set of emotions to try and further their own interests through the use of propoganda, ie dramatic pictures of dead babies. It is interesting how someone can arrive at the conclusion 'China is less evil than America' as a result of a possibly disproportionate response to a terrorist attack. I would personally say that the stuff that has gone on in Xinjiang is objectively far worse than the situation in Gaza, and far closer to an actual genocide, if a 'good v evil' analysis is applied to world affairs.
There are also some questions that persist about Gaza, ie aren't some of the Muslim countries 'at fault' for not taking in refugees, if there is an attempt to attribute responsibility for the bad humanitarian situation.
Agree that good v evil analysis is futile.
But I think an analysis that looks with open eyes at how isolated the USA and the West is becoming is important. I’m not cheerleading this btw, but I do think the choice by the USA to not put the brakes on Israel when they so easily could do so is a very poor strategic choice.
Add into the mix the instability of the USA currently, and I think we (i.e. Europe) seriously need to think about which of the major powers we hitch ourselves to.
As for not taking in more refugees, I think the argument against enabling ethnic cleansing of Gaza is compelling.
What current humour on TV do we think will still be lauded in twenty years?
Really struggling.
From the last decade?
Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, Mum, Motherland, Inside No 9 (although a bit hit and miss)Toast of London/Hollywood, What we do in the Shadows, Ted Lasso. There is rather a lot, but off the top of my head I can't think. I also quite like Upstart Crow, but I am not going to tell anyone.
A couple of good calls from Isam: Detectorists and The Trip.
Motherland is easily the best comedy in years.
Will it have the same effect in twenty years is a moot point. To a certain extent it captures the times and is of its time and milieu (n london motherhood). But then so did Dad's Army and it is repeated weekly and will be for the rest of time.
When I catch HIGNFY, it can still be quite funny. But it suffers from a similar problem to Private Eye. I use to subscribe to PE from when I was about 25 to 40; I loved it. But after that many years, the stories were all the same, even if the names were different. It got boring.
On several occasions where I knew something about what Private Eye was satirising, they were usuallly off-target - typically taking something out of context because it fitted their "the powers that be are corrupt and laughable" agenda. Their covers are usually great, but the content is so slanted to cynicism that it's an unreliable guide to what's actually happening. When they do expose something serious like the PO scandal, it gets lost in the general pool of random muck-raking. I suspect that's why their revelations weren't taken seriously.
Question for PBers: 100 days on, has anyone significantly changed their views on the situation in Gaza?
For my own part, I started out with quite a bit of sympathy for Israel but an underlying concern that an emotionally driven response would be counterproductive to their long term interests.
Over the past 100 days and seeing the indiscriminate nature of their response I find myself very firmly on the side of Palestinians, even to the extent that I can understand (whilst not morally condoning) widespread support for Hamas. It is also contributing a little to my view that the USA may no longer be a force for good in the world and realistically the least worst set of coattails for UK to hang onto for the next century might be China’s.
The temptation with this conflict is to try and interpret in a 'light v dark, good v evil' way, but I don't think that applies here. Obviously though various actors will try and appeal to this set of emotions to try and further their own interests through the use of propoganda, ie dramatic pictures of dead babies. It is interesting how someone can arrive at the conclusion 'China is less evil than America' as a result of a possibly disproportionate response to a terrorist attack. I would personally say that the stuff that has gone on in Xinjiang is objectively far worse than the situation in Gaza, and far closer to an actual genocide, if a 'good v evil' analysis is applied to world affairs.
There are also some questions that persist about Gaza, ie aren't some of the Muslim countries 'at fault' for not taking in refugees, if there is an attempt to attribute responsibility for the bad humanitarian situation.
Agree that good v evil analysis is futile.
But I think an analysis that looks with open eyes at how isolated the USA and the West is becoming is important. I’m not cheerleading this btw, but I do think the choice by the USA to not put the brakes on Israel when they so easily could do so is a very poor strategic choice.
Add into the mix the instability of the USA currently, and I think we (i.e. Europe) seriously need to think about which of the major powers we hitch ourselves to.
As for not taking in more refugees, I think the argument against enabling ethnic cleansing of Gaza is compelling.
I started out thinking we should ignore both sides, and I had zero f***s to give about any of them. I am very pleased to say that my complete lack of interest has been more than vindicated in the event.
What current humour on TV do we think will still be lauded in twenty years?
Really struggling.
From the last decade?
Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, Mum, Motherland, Inside No 9 (although a bit hit and miss)Toast of London/Hollywood, What we do in the Shadows, Ted Lasso. There is rather a lot, but off the top of my head I can't think. I also quite like Upstart Crow, but I am not going to tell anyone.
A couple of good calls from Isam: Detectorists and The Trip.
Motherland is easily the best comedy in years.
Will it have the same effect in twenty years is a moot point. To a certain extent it captures the times and is of its time and milieu (n london motherhood). But then so did Dad's Army and it is repeated weekly and will be for the rest of time.
Remarkably quite a few are BBC commissioned.
In my first year at High School the must watch, discussed at length sitcom of the day was Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads. Fifty years on it still stands the test of time. If Bob was driving an electric Astra rather than a Viva it would work today.
Question for PBers: 100 days on, has anyone significantly changed their views on the situation in Gaza?
For my own part, I started out with quite a bit of sympathy for Israel but an underlying concern that an emotionally driven response would be counterproductive to their long term interests.
Over the past 100 days and seeing the indiscriminate nature of their response I find myself very firmly on the side of Palestinians, even to the extent that I can understand (whilst not morally condoning) widespread support for Hamas. It is also contributing a little to my view that the USA may no longer be a force for good in the world and realistically the least worst set of coattails for UK to hang onto for the next century might be China’s.
The temptation with this conflict is to try and interpret in a 'light v dark, good v evil' way, but I don't think that applies here. Obviously though various actors will try and appeal to this set of emotions to try and further their own interests through the use of propoganda, ie dramatic pictures of dead babies. It is interesting how someone can arrive at the conclusion 'China is less evil than America' as a result of a possibly disproportionate response to a terrorist attack. I would personally say that the stuff that has gone on in Xinjiang is objectively far worse than the situation in Gaza, and far closer to an actual genocide, if a 'good v evil' analysis is applied to world affairs.
There are also some questions that persist about Gaza, ie aren't some of the Muslim countries 'at fault' for not taking in refugees, if there is an attempt to attribute responsibility for the bad humanitarian situation.
Agree that good v evil analysis is futile.
But I think an analysis that looks with open eyes at how isolated the USA and the West is becoming is important. I’m not cheerleading this btw, but I do think the choice by the USA to not put the brakes on Israel when they so easily could do so is a very poor strategic choice.
Add into the mix the instability of the USA currently, and I think we (i.e. Europe) seriously need to think about which of the major powers we hitch ourselves to.
As for not taking in more refugees, I think the argument against enabling ethnic cleansing of Gaza is compelling.
I think what your post does underline, however, is how quickly most small & medium-sized countries will fall under the aegis of China if the USA does ever falter.
It will be about survival and bread & butter will come first, and values a very distant second.
That's why Europe and the UK must both re-arm and, also, do their best to buttress and reinforce the USA.
Totally off topic, but yesterday we went down to our local pub for lunch, and I had a steak and mushroom pie, a proper one with a top on the bottom and sides. And it was full of meat and mushrooms. Very filling, and the beer was good too!
I resent the fact that mushrooms have been coming over here, stealing the jobs that used to be done by traditional British kidneys.
What current humour on TV do we think will still be lauded in twenty years?
Really struggling.
From the last decade?
Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, Mum, Motherland, Inside No 9 (although a bit hit and miss)Toast of London/Hollywood, What we do in the Shadows, Ted Lasso. There is rather a lot, but off the top of my head I can't think. I also quite like Upstart Crow, but I am not going to tell anyone.
A couple of good calls from Isam: Detectorists and The Trip.
Motherland is easily the best comedy in years.
Will it have the same effect in twenty years is a moot point. To a certain extent it captures the times and is of its time and milieu (n london motherhood). But then so did Dad's Army and it is repeated weekly and will be for the rest of time.
Remarkably quite a few are BBC commissioned.
In my first year at High School the must watch, discussed at length sitcom of the day was Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads. Fifty years on it still stands the test of time. If Bob was driving an electric Astra rather than a Viva it would work today.
Before my time, but the theme tune was one of Jack Dee’s Desert Island Discs so I watched a bit of one on YouTube the other day. I got interrupted and didn’t finish it but will give it another go
If this is true then serious questions need to be asked of Starmer and Davey:
Explosive claim in the Sunday Times:
Source claims Paula Vennells was recommended for CBE by Business Department for "bending her conscience and holding the line" to keep cost of scandal down.
Who? Starmer. Or Davey. Depends which seat the Tories are worried about. Either way, wasn’t a Tory, no siree.
cf Ian Hislop handing “Sir” Jake Berry his arse on Peston.
Never mind the gong, who put her forward for her posts at Imperial College and The Cabinet Office? We are talking 2019 here, long after the Horizon fiasco was public knowledge.
I think we start to see exactly why the Tories have been so desperate to muck spread this one. In reality they are in it up to their eyeballs. Best approach is try and make others look guilty first out of the blocks, so that any story about them has less impact.
Watch Hislop skewer the Tory line where it’s supposedly all Starmer and Davey. He isn’t just mocking it, he is furious.
Hislop hasn’t successfully skewered anything since the late 1900s
Michael Deacon wrote in the Telegraph about that sketch, saying it was such a total, cruel, skilful evisceration of HIGNFY that he was sure the show would get canned. Yet, not
For me it is the TV equivalent of Radio 4 "comedy". This stuff sometimes makes me despair of Britain
I thought it considerably more feeble than the show it purports to 'skewer'.
As for R4 comedy it's always been crap, except on the odd occasion when it isn't.
There are some great Radio 4 comedies. John Finnemore's Souvenier Programme, Ed Reardon's Week, The Unbelievable Truth, The Skewer etc.
There are some pretty weak sitcoms too, and the one person shows only work sometimes, but that's also the case on TV, and some of that is personal taste. Overall, I think they do an amazing job.
If this is true then serious questions need to be asked of Starmer and Davey:
Explosive claim in the Sunday Times:
Source claims Paula Vennells was recommended for CBE by Business Department for "bending her conscience and holding the line" to keep cost of scandal down.
Who? Starmer. Or Davey. Depends which seat the Tories are worried about. Either way, wasn’t a Tory, no siree.
cf Ian Hislop handing “Sir” Jake Berry his arse on Peston.
Never mind the gong, who put her forward for her posts at Imperial College and The Cabinet Office? We are talking 2019 here, long after the Horizon fiasco was public knowledge.
I think we start to see exactly why the Tories have been so desperate to muck spread this one. In reality they are in it up to their eyeballs. Best approach is try and make others look guilty first out of the blocks, so that any story about them has less impact.
Watch Hislop skewer the Tory line where it’s supposedly all Starmer and Davey. He isn’t just mocking it, he is furious.
Hislop hasn’t successfully skewered anything since the late 1900s
Private Eye has been covering this story prominently for over a decade.
Amid the jokes and satire it is one of the few places with serious investigative reporting in our press. I think much comes from journalists unable to get published in more mainstream press.
I am old enough to remember @leonadamus saying this is a boring and tedious story that no one should bother with.
Oh I’ve no doubt about that. Well done them - and Computer Weekly. My kvetch is with Hislop. He’s smug, self satisfied and hasn’t been funny for at least three decades. HIGNFY is achingly cringe - it should have been put to sleep in about 2002
Nah it’s simply left of centre people being funny. Which is extremely rare, usually we’re far too earnest.
Merton in particular is outstanding imo.
While I don't find HIGNFY consistently hilarious, I think it's just that we've got to that stage of Conservative government where Tories lose their sense of humour.
It's not a question of funny, it's beyond that. HIGNFY is execrable dreck, spoonfed to stupid people who yearn to believe they are intelligent. Liking it is a symptom of cognitive deficit
What current humour on TV do we think will still be lauded in twenty years?
Really struggling.
From the last decade?
Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, Mum, Motherland, Inside No 9 (although a bit hit and miss)Toast of London/Hollywood, What we do in the Shadows, Ted Lasso. There is rather a lot, but off the top of my head I can't think. I also quite like Upstart Crow, but I am not going to tell anyone.
A couple of good calls from Isam: Detectorists and The Trip.
Motherland is easily the best comedy in years.
Will it have the same effect in twenty years is a moot point. To a certain extent it captures the times and is of its time and milieu (n london motherhood). But then so did Dad's Army and it is repeated weekly and will be for the rest of time.
Remarkably quite a few are BBC commissioned.
In my first year at High School the must watch, discussed at length sitcom of the day was Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads. Fifty years on it still stands the test of time. If Bob was driving an electric Astra rather than a Viva it would work today.
Before my time, but the theme tune was one of Jack Dee’s Desert Island Discs so I watched a bit of one on YouTube the other day. I got interrupted and didn’t finish it but will give it another go
When I catch HIGNFY, it can still be quite funny. But it suffers from a similar problem to Private Eye. I use to subscribe to PE from when I was about 25 to 40; I loved it. But after that many years, the stories were all the same, even if the names were different. It got boring.
On several occasions where I knew something about what Private Eye was satirising, they were usuallly off-target - typically taking something out of context because it fitted their "the powers that be are corrupt and laughable" agenda. Their covers are usually great, but the content is so slanted to cynicism that it's an unreliable guide to what's actually happening. When they do expose something serious like the PO scandal, it gets lost in the general pool of random muck-raking. I suspect that's why their revelations weren't taken seriously.
I think I agree with that, but it's just what I expect from journalism. It seems whenever a story's printed in a paper that I know a little about, there will be some detail wrong.
The best was one where the Derby Evening Telegraph put a large fire on the wrong side of the town, when it was a few streets away from their offices.
Another problem with PE is that it's unremittingly negative. An occasional 'well done!' story without cynicism would go down a treat. Governments and councils do occasionally get things right.
Totally off topic, but yesterday we went down to our local pub for lunch, and I had a steak and mushroom pie, a proper one with a top on the bottom and sides. And it was full of meat and mushrooms. Very filling, and the beer was good too!
I resent the fact that mushrooms have been coming over here, stealing the jobs that used to be done by traditional British kidneys.
THIS COUNTRY IS FULL!! (Not mush room at all).
Will be needing my coat in this weather.
I did consider going down the kidney line, 'you taking the piss' etc. but decided not to. Well done to you for sallying forth.
What current humour on TV do we think will still be lauded in twenty years?
Really struggling.
From the last decade?
Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, Mum, Motherland, Inside No 9 (although a bit hit and miss)Toast of London/Hollywood, What we do in the Shadows, Ted Lasso. There is rather a lot, but off the top of my head I can't think. I also quite like Upstart Crow, but I am not going to tell anyone.
A couple of good calls from Isam: Detectorists and The Trip.
Motherland is easily the best comedy in years.
Will it have the same effect in twenty years is a moot point. To a certain extent it captures the times and is of its time and milieu (n london motherhood). But then so did Dad's Army and it is repeated weekly and will be for the rest of time.
Remarkably quite a few are BBC commissioned.
In my first year at High School the must watch, discussed at length sitcom of the day was Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads. Fifty years on it still stands the test of time. If Bob was driving an electric Astra rather than a Viva it would work today.
Before my time, but the theme tune was one of Jack Dee’s Desert Island Discs so I watched a bit of one on YouTube the other day. I got interrupted and didn’t finish it but will give it another go
Definitely one of the best ever BBC sitcoms, and though most were wiped the original "The Likely Lads" has aged well too. Obviously the details have dated a little, but the core of the comedy is the triangle of Bob, Thelma and Terry and still works well.
What current humour on TV do we think will still be lauded in twenty years?
Really struggling.
Although it has now ended with last year's Christmas Special, The Detectorists.
Yes. It will be remembered because it went through the gears very nicely. Laugh out loud funny at times, but often gentler, and sometimes genuinely moving. Similar with Derry Girls.
Someone else mentioned Ghosts. That's a well made sitcom - a nice idea, broad appeal, well-performed, commercially successful (with a popular US version). But does it have enough to it to stick in the mind years later? I'm not sure, really - it has affectionate moments with the backstories of some of the characters, but the premise makes it hard to get beyond being just a bit of silly fun.
I'll be interested in the second series of Everyone Else Burns. The first one perhaps didn't create the buzz it deserved but it could well take off.
If this is true then serious questions need to be asked of Starmer and Davey:
Explosive claim in the Sunday Times:
Source claims Paula Vennells was recommended for CBE by Business Department for "bending her conscience and holding the line" to keep cost of scandal down.
Who? Starmer. Or Davey. Depends which seat the Tories are worried about. Either way, wasn’t a Tory, no siree.
cf Ian Hislop handing “Sir” Jake Berry his arse on Peston.
Never mind the gong, who put her forward for her posts at Imperial College and The Cabinet Office? We are talking 2019 here, long after the Horizon fiasco was public knowledge.
I think we start to see exactly why the Tories have been so desperate to muck spread this one. In reality they are in it up to their eyeballs. Best approach is try and make others look guilty first out of the blocks, so that any story about them has less impact.
Watch Hislop skewer the Tory line where it’s supposedly all Starmer and Davey. He isn’t just mocking it, he is furious.
Hislop hasn’t successfully skewered anything since the late 1900s
Private Eye has been covering this story prominently for over a decade.
Amid the jokes and satire it is one of the few places with serious investigative reporting in our press. I think much comes from journalists unable to get published in more mainstream press.
I am old enough to remember @leonadamus saying this is a boring and tedious story that no one should bother with.
Oh I’ve no doubt about that. Well done them - and Computer Weekly. My kvetch is with Hislop. He’s smug, self satisfied and hasn’t been funny for at least three decades. HIGNFY is achingly cringe - it should have been put to sleep in about 2002
Nah it’s simply left of centre people being funny. Which is extremely rare, usually we’re far too earnest.
Merton in particular is outstanding imo.
Paul Merton is the nearest thing we have to (former Private Eye owner) Peter Cook in that he can just reel off humour almost as stream of consciousness. Is he political though? Ian Hislop is small-c Conservative, not left-wing.
I honestly cannot remember the last time either Merton or Hislop made me laugh. However, and to be fair, I haven't watched HIGNFY in YEARS as the last few times I did it was so scrotum-tighteningly cringeworthy, middle brow, laboured, AND tumour-inducingly smug I nearly stoved in the TV with a clawhammer
I'm with Leon on this. HIGNFY hasn't been funny for about twenty years, it should have been replaced by something better a long time ago. There are plenty of people out there who can do satire well, like Charlie Brooker, Nish Kumar and Frankie Boyle, off the top of my head. The problem for the BBC is that genuinely good satire is threatening for politicians so they can't put it on a primetime slot on BBC1 without inviting all kinds of problems for themselves. So we're stuck with the utterly unthreatening and unfunny HIGNFY instead.
Frankie Boyle is no longer really funny. Time was when he was both edgy and funny. Now he’s sometimes edgy and usually unfunny.
If this is true then serious questions need to be asked of Starmer and Davey:
Explosive claim in the Sunday Times:
Source claims Paula Vennells was recommended for CBE by Business Department for "bending her conscience and holding the line" to keep cost of scandal down.
Who? Starmer. Or Davey. Depends which seat the Tories are worried about. Either way, wasn’t a Tory, no siree.
cf Ian Hislop handing “Sir” Jake Berry his arse on Peston.
Never mind the gong, who put her forward for her posts at Imperial College and The Cabinet Office? We are talking 2019 here, long after the Horizon fiasco was public knowledge.
I think we start to see exactly why the Tories have been so desperate to muck spread this one. In reality they are in it up to their eyeballs. Best approach is try and make others look guilty first out of the blocks, so that any story about them has less impact.
Watch Hislop skewer the Tory line where it’s supposedly all Starmer and Davey. He isn’t just mocking it, he is furious.
Hislop hasn’t successfully skewered anything since the late 1900s
Private Eye has been covering this story prominently for over a decade.
Amid the jokes and satire it is one of the few places with serious investigative reporting in our press. I think much comes from journalists unable to get published in more mainstream press.
I am old enough to remember @leonadamus saying this is a boring and tedious story that no one should bother with.
Oh I’ve no doubt about that. Well done them - and Computer Weekly. My kvetch is with Hislop. He’s smug, self satisfied and hasn’t been funny for at least three decades. HIGNFY is achingly cringe - it should have been put to sleep in about 2002
Nah it’s simply left of centre people being funny. Which is extremely rare, usually we’re far too earnest.
Merton in particular is outstanding imo.
While I don't find HIGNFY consistently hilarious, I think it's just that we've got to that stage of Conservative government where Tories lose their sense of humour.
It's not a question of funny, it's beyond that. HIGNFY is execrable dreck, spoonfed to stupid people who yearn to believe they are intelligent. Liking it is a symptom of cognitive deficit
I too find it rather tiresome; though your view is somewhat compromised by your declaration above that you "hadn't watched it for YEARS".
I have to admit when I called it not consistently hilarious, that was on the basis if seeing it maybe three or four times in the last couple of years.
"100% attendance has become the obsession of all the political parties, what that distracts from is the issue of whether education – and the environment in which it operates – is fit for purpose."
If this is true then serious questions need to be asked of Starmer and Davey:
Explosive claim in the Sunday Times:
Source claims Paula Vennells was recommended for CBE by Business Department for "bending her conscience and holding the line" to keep cost of scandal down.
Who? Starmer. Or Davey. Depends which seat the Tories are worried about. Either way, wasn’t a Tory, no siree.
cf Ian Hislop handing “Sir” Jake Berry his arse on Peston.
Never mind the gong, who put her forward for her posts at Imperial College and The Cabinet Office? We are talking 2019 here, long after the Horizon fiasco was public knowledge.
I think we start to see exactly why the Tories have been so desperate to muck spread this one. In reality they are in it up to their eyeballs. Best approach is try and make others look guilty first out of the blocks, so that any story about them has less impact.
Watch Hislop skewer the Tory line where it’s supposedly all Starmer and Davey. He isn’t just mocking it, he is furious.
Hislop hasn’t successfully skewered anything since the late 1900s
Michael Deacon wrote in the Telegraph about that sketch, saying it was such a total, cruel, skilful evisceration of HIGNFY that he was sure the show would get canned. Yet, not
For me it is the TV equivalent of Radio 4 "comedy". This stuff sometimes makes me despair of Britain
I thought it considerably more feeble than the show it purports to 'skewer'.
As for R4 comedy it's always been crap, except on the odd occasion when it isn't.
There are some great Radio 4 comedies. John Finnemore's Souvenier Programme, Ed Reardon's Week, The Unbelievable Truth, The Skewer etc.
There are some pretty weak sitcoms too, and the one person shows only work sometimes, but that's also the case on TV, and some of that is personal taste. Overall, I think they do an amazing job.
They do OK. Some have actually improved. I used to switch off The News Quiz as soon as it came on, but Andy Zaltzman has improved it considerably.
@Peter_the_Punter: Actually no I hadn't read Vilfredo Pareto, although I know his name in a statistical context. @Cleitophon: fair enough. I'll try to do a piece on the 2024 Finnish presidential election later this month @Jim_Miller: I shall try to read C. Wright Mills' "The Power Elite" and Robert Dahl's "Who Governs" @Northern_Al, @bondegezou: My article and @Malmesbury's were written independently and ignorant of each other and I could not include your comments to that article as mine had already gone off. I apologise for making you repeat. @Sunil_Prasannan: I think he's given a name in the novelization. @slade: is your PhD published? I would like to read it. @kyf_100: You might like to read "End Times" https://www.waterstones.com/book/end-times/peter-turchin//9780141999289 @rottenborough: thatnk you for: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/18/books/review/the-99-percent-matthew-stewart.html @MoonRabbit: I checked my underpants and am not Philomena Cunk. Somebody once wrote a children's book which started "Big Bear was a big bear. Little Bear was a little bear". My sentence “...focussed on the new elite which he calls the New Elite" was a deliberate joke based on that. @MoonRabbit: "Hasn’t taught me anything yet though". Fair enough. The intent was to present different definitions of "the elite". Given the size of the task it was obviously too short and covered too little. Best I could do in the time and size, apologies
This article was submitted as an early draft and unsourced. Illustrations, diagrams and points from your comments will be added and this expanded version presented to you backstage at a later date.
Once again, thank you: your contributions will make the work much better and has hopefully engaged your interest. Thanks again to @TSE and @rcs1000 for publishing it.
I’m so sorry Viewcode, the not learnt anything yet was when I’d only read two sections in half hour by watching the Toon game at same time and getting distracted, I did learn from it! Apart from calling you a woman, I think I made two relevant points, and I couldn’t have made them if not learning something from all this discussion. Firstly, how can there be any discussion or theory about elites which doesn’t include education systems. There was the joke in Ghosts when Julian said he wasn’t first day nervous entering parliament because all his friends from university were there too, and he wan’t nervous about going to university because all his friends from school were there too. Secondly, whilst we use word “new”for elites, are they not “old elites in a modern setting”. After Yes Minister we shouldn’t think it’s politicians who come up with cultural changes. For a long time power was centralised, I made reference to British empire run by centralised civil service, but if the culture is to decentralise that power, what would have been career civil servants can now pop in and out of different type of decentralised landscape, raking up even more money and gongs than ever before - with zero accountability, that it being unrelated to performance comes direct from past too.
What current humour on TV do we think will still be lauded in twenty years?
Really struggling.
From the last decade?
Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, Mum, Motherland, Inside No 9 (although a bit hit and miss)Toast of London/Hollywood, What we do in the Shadows, Ted Lasso. There is rather a lot, but off the top of my head I can't think. I also quite like Upstart Crow, but I am not going to tell anyone.
A couple of good calls from Isam: Detectorists and The Trip.
Motherland is easily the best comedy in years.
Will it have the same effect in twenty years is a moot point. To a certain extent it captures the times and is of its time and milieu (n london motherhood). But then so did Dad's Army and it is repeated weekly and will be for the rest of time.
Remarkably quite a few are BBC commissioned.
In my first year at High School the must watch, discussed at length sitcom of the day was Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads. Fifty years on it still stands the test of time. If Bob was driving an electric Astra rather than a Viva it would work today.
Before my time, but the theme tune was one of Jack Dee’s Desert Island Discs so I watched a bit of one on YouTube the other day. I got interrupted and didn’t finish it but will give it another go
Question for PBers: 100 days on, has anyone significantly changed their views on the situation in Gaza?
For my own part, I started out with quite a bit of sympathy for Israel but an underlying concern that an emotionally driven response would be counterproductive to their long term interests.
Over the past 100 days and seeing the indiscriminate nature of their response I find myself very firmly on the side of Palestinians, even to the extent that I can understand (whilst not morally condoning) widespread support for Hamas. It is also contributing a little to my view that the USA may no longer be a force for good in the world and realistically the least worst set of coattails for UK to hang onto for the next century might be China’s.
That's been largely my evolution on Israel/Gaza too, though I'm not sure about the last sentence - in general I think that attaching to anyone's coattails is a recipe for disaster, sooner or later..
It’s been rather upsetting seeing Israel seemingly abandoning any pretence of following international law and acting as thuggishly as we’ve got used to from Russia and some of its Middle East neighbours.
What I can never stand though is the enemy’s enemy is my friend attitude of some in the West, who have taken to lauding some pretty ugly organisations including Iran’s proxies and even the Syrian regime.
"100% attendance has become the obsession of all the political parties, what that distracts from is the issue of whether education – and the environment in which it operates – is fit for purpose."
That’s not really the story, though. The erosion of provision and squeeze on resources in primary schools - particularly for children from poor families - is the real problem.
If Blair’s Labour did one thing pretty well, it was primary education. Gove fucked up a lot of that with his desire to make everyone have a pastiche of his own schooldays.
"100% attendance has become the obsession of all the political parties, what that distracts from is the issue of whether education – and the environment in which it operates – is fit for purpose."
As I've said before, one of my son's friends is often off school. The lad seems to quite enjoy school, and is quite bright, but IMV the problem is his mum. They have to cycle about a mile into school; mostly off-road along good tracks, but apparently she sleeps late or is ill.
I've offered to drive him in if she's ill, but she's refused. Instead, the lad misses another day of school.
That article goes on a lot about what the state can do, and should be doing, but IMV not enough about parents. If the parents don't care about school, their kids will struggle in life.
What current humour on TV do we think will still be lauded in twenty years?
Really struggling.
From the last decade?
Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, Mum, Motherland, Inside No 9 (although a bit hit and miss)Toast of London/Hollywood, What we do in the Shadows, Ted Lasso. There is rather a lot, but off the top of my head I can't think. I also quite like Upstart Crow, but I am not going to tell anyone.
A couple of good calls from Isam: Detectorists and The Trip.
Motherland is easily the best comedy in years.
Will it have the same effect in twenty years is a moot point. To a certain extent it captures the times and is of its time and milieu (n london motherhood). But then so did Dad's Army and it is repeated weekly and will be for the rest of time.
Remarkably quite a few are BBC commissioned.
In my first year at High School the must watch, discussed at length sitcom of the day was Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads. Fifty years on it still stands the test of time. If Bob was driving an electric Astra rather than a Viva it would work today.
Had had a pre-facelift Chevette in the second series, though regrettably not a HSR.
What current humour on TV do we think will still be lauded in twenty years?
Really struggling.
From the last decade?
Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, Mum, Motherland, Inside No 9 (although a bit hit and miss)Toast of London/Hollywood, What we do in the Shadows, Ted Lasso. There is rather a lot, but off the top of my head I can't think. I also quite like Upstart Crow, but I am not going to tell anyone.
A couple of good calls from Isam: Detectorists and The Trip.
Motherland is easily the best comedy in years.
Will it have the same effect in twenty years is a moot point. To a certain extent it captures the times and is of its time and milieu (n london motherhood). But then so did Dad's Army and it is repeated weekly and will be for the rest of time.
Remarkably quite a few are BBC commissioned.
In my first year at High School the must watch, discussed at length sitcom of the day was Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads. Fifty years on it still stands the test of time. If Bob was driving an electric Astra rather than a Viva it would work today.
Before my time, but the theme tune was one of Jack Dee’s Desert Island Discs so I watched a bit of one on YouTube the other day. I got interrupted and didn’t finish it but will give it another go
It's predecessor, The Likely Lads was good, too.
Is it essential to watch the Likely Lads first?
No, the relationship between Bob and Terry starts afresh. I only saw the original series much later.
Question for PBers: 100 days on, has anyone significantly changed their views on the situation in Gaza?
I was Team Hamas from Day 1 of the Semitic Military Operation so I haven't changed but I do think it's turning into a bit of a "Are we the baddies?" moment for the countries that have slavishly fallen in line with the US position on Israel.
"100% attendance has become the obsession of all the political parties, what that distracts from is the issue of whether education – and the environment in which it operates – is fit for purpose."
As I've said before, one of my son's friends is often off school. The lad seems to quite enjoy school, and is quite bright, but IMV the problem is his mum. They have to cycle about a mile into school; mostly off-road along good tracks, but apparently she sleeps late or is ill.
I've offered to drive him in if she's ill, but she's refused. Instead, the lad misses another day of school.
That article goes on a lot about what the state can do, and should be doing, but IMV not enough about parents. If the parents don't care about school, their kids will struggle in life.
The absences are quite varied, between children and parents who don't see the point of school to those who do but feel unsafe there.
It's a stark figure that 88% of exclusions are from 10% of schools.
What current humour on TV do we think will still be lauded in twenty years?
Really struggling.
From the last decade?
Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, Mum, Motherland, Inside No 9 (although a bit hit and miss)Toast of London/Hollywood, What we do in the Shadows, Ted Lasso. There is rather a lot, but off the top of my head I can't think. I also quite like Upstart Crow, but I am not going to tell anyone.
A couple of good calls from Isam: Detectorists and The Trip.
Motherland is easily the best comedy in years.
Will it have the same effect in twenty years is a moot point. To a certain extent it captures the times and is of its time and milieu (n london motherhood). But then so did Dad's Army and it is repeated weekly and will be for the rest of time.
Remarkably quite a few are BBC commissioned.
In my first year at High School the must watch, discussed at length sitcom of the day was Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads. Fifty years on it still stands the test of time. If Bob was driving an electric Astra rather than a Viva it would work today.
Before my time, but the theme tune was one of Jack Dee’s Desert Island Discs so I watched a bit of one on YouTube the other day. I got interrupted and didn’t finish it but will give it another go
It's predecessor, The Likely Lads was good, too.
Is it essential to watch the Likely Lads first?
No, I watched them years after. They were rawer and less polished than the revival show but good nonetheless.
Best to watch Season 1 before 2 and then the Christmas Special. The film is OK, but not up to the TV show.
"100% attendance has become the obsession of all the political parties, what that distracts from is the issue of whether education – and the environment in which it operates – is fit for purpose."
As I've said before, one of my son's friends is often off school. The lad seems to quite enjoy school, and is quite bright, but IMV the problem is his mum. They have to cycle about a mile into school; mostly off-road along good tracks, but apparently she sleeps late or is ill.
I've offered to drive him in if she's ill, but she's refused. Instead, the lad misses another day of school.
That article goes on a lot about what the state can do, and should be doing, but IMV not enough about parents. If the parents don't care about school, their kids will struggle in life.
Yes, but. Who, and at what threshold, should the state be intervening with poor parenting such as that? A child shouldn't just be written off because the parents can't be arsed. We are storing up huge problems. The parent has a right to refuse help from you. But the child has rights, too. And they can only be enforced by the State. We've become over focussed on parental rights wrt education.
For anyone that has not been to Cambodia in a decade. That remembers Phnom Penh from maybe 2005 or 2011 it is literally stupefying that significant parts of it now look like this
Question for PBers: 100 days on, has anyone significantly changed their views on the situation in Gaza?
I was Team Hamas from Day 1 of the Semitic Military Operation so I haven't changed but I do think it's turning into a bit of a "Are we the baddies?" moment for the countries that have slavishly fallen in line with the US position on Israel.
I was team ceasfire need a negotiated sttlement still am. Get ever more angry at the Genocide Enablers trying to make themselves the victims When they have needed the are we the baddies moment for at least 2 months now.
If this is true then serious questions need to be asked of Starmer and Davey:
Explosive claim in the Sunday Times:
Source claims Paula Vennells was recommended for CBE by Business Department for "bending her conscience and holding the line" to keep cost of scandal down.
Who? Starmer. Or Davey. Depends which seat the Tories are worried about. Either way, wasn’t a Tory, no siree.
cf Ian Hislop handing “Sir” Jake Berry his arse on Peston.
Never mind the gong, who put her forward for her posts at Imperial College and The Cabinet Office? We are talking 2019 here, long after the Horizon fiasco was public knowledge.
I think we start to see exactly why the Tories have been so desperate to muck spread this one. In reality they are in it up to their eyeballs. Best approach is try and make others look guilty first out of the blocks, so that any story about them has less impact.
Watch Hislop skewer the Tory line where it’s supposedly all Starmer and Davey. He isn’t just mocking it, he is furious.
Hislop hasn’t successfully skewered anything since the late 1900s
Private Eye has been covering this story prominently for over a decade.
Amid the jokes and satire it is one of the few places with serious investigative reporting in our press. I think much comes from journalists unable to get published in more mainstream press.
I am old enough to remember @leonadamus saying this is a boring and tedious story that no one should bother with.
Oh I’ve no doubt about that. Well done them - and Computer Weekly. My kvetch is with Hislop. He’s smug, self satisfied and hasn’t been funny for at least three decades. HIGNFY is achingly cringe - it should have been put to sleep in about 2002
Nah it’s simply left of centre people being funny. Which is extremely rare, usually we’re far too earnest.
Merton in particular is outstanding imo.
Paul Merton is the nearest thing we have to (former Private Eye owner) Peter Cook in that he can just reel off humour almost as stream of consciousness. Is he political though? Ian Hislop is small-c Conservative, not left-wing.
And that's one of the reasons for hating Hislop- he ought to be a Tory but isn't. Nobody likes a traitor.
Worse than that, he's been right about a lot of stuff. Not everything (MMR was a low), but he's got many of the Big Calls right. (The Eye's coverage of COVID has been remarkably sane.) Nobody likes a smartarse, either.
Wikipedia agrees Ian Hislop ought to be a Tory. Head boy at his public school then Oxford, like Boris and Rishi.
To be fair on that basis I ought to be a Tory too, but am far from it.
Question for PBers: 100 days on, has anyone significantly changed their views on the situation in Gaza?
For my own part, I started out with quite a bit of sympathy for Israel but an underlying concern that an emotionally driven response would be counterproductive to their long term interests.
Over the past 100 days and seeing the indiscriminate nature of their response I find myself very firmly on the side of Palestinians, even to the extent that I can understand (whilst not morally condoning) widespread support for Hamas. It is also contributing a little to my view that the USA may no longer be a force for good in the world and realistically the least worst set of coattails for UK to hang onto for the next century might be China’s.
The temptation with this conflict is to try and interpret in a 'light v dark, good v evil' way, but I don't think that applies here. Obviously though various actors will try and appeal to this set of emotions to try and further their own interests through the use of propoganda, ie dramatic pictures of dead babies. It is interesting how someone can arrive at the conclusion 'China is less evil than America' as a result of a possibly disproportionate response to a terrorist attack. I would personally say that the stuff that has gone on in Xinjiang is objectively far worse than the situation in Gaza, and far closer to an actual genocide, if a 'good v evil' analysis is applied to world affairs.
There are also some questions that persist about Gaza, ie aren't some of the Muslim more that the USA is becoming increasingly isolated
Question for PBers: 100 days on, has anyone significantly changed their views on the situation in Gaza?
For my own part, I started out with quite a bit of sympathy for Israel but an underlying concern that an emotionally driven response would be counterproductive to their long term interests.
Over the past 100 days and seeing the indiscriminate nature of their response I find myself very firmly on the side of Palestinians, even to the extent that I can understand (whilst not morally condoning) widespread support for Hamas. It is also contributing a little to my view that the USA may no longer be a force for good in the world and realistically the least worst set of coattails for UK to hang onto for the next century might be China’s.
Being imprisoned for simply questioning the severity of attacks on Gaza is not a mark of a free country. I note many Arab Israelis have been locked up too.
A complete tangent but I was struck by the ‘if you don’t like these posts unfriend me.’ I know we all live in echo chambers but actively creating your own as a pro-Palestinian Israeli seems…counterproductive.
I understand that some of his posts might be unpopular, but imprisoning him seems way OTT.
"100% attendance has become the obsession of all the political parties, what that distracts from is the issue of whether education – and the environment in which it operates – is fit for purpose."
As I've said before, one of my son's friends is often off school. The lad seems to quite enjoy school, and is quite bright, but IMV the problem is his mum. They have to cycle about a mile into school; mostly off-road along good tracks, but apparently she sleeps late or is ill.
I've offered to drive him in if she's ill, but she's refused. Instead, the lad misses another day of school.
That article goes on a lot about what the state can do, and should be doing, but IMV not enough about parents. If the parents don't care about school, their kids will struggle in life.
The absences are quite varied, between children and parents who don't see the point of school to those who do but feel unsafe there.
It's a stark figure that 88% of exclusions are from 10% of schools.
in my view there are many feckless parents about who started off giving in too easily in the early years. If you give in too early in year 5,6 or 7 then the school and parent has no chance in yr10 or yr11.
Ed Davey’s approval rating takes a big hit from the Post Office scandal
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/13/ed-daveys-approval-rating-takes-a-big-hit-from-the-post-office-scandal ...“The Lib Dems will be worried that the first time their leader has cut through to voters is for his connection to a huge scandal. But, while Labour and the Tories may be relieved that fingers aren’t being pointed at them, they and the rest of us should be concerned if important questions about how national institutions operate devolve into yet another edition of ‘which politician you’ve never heard of is going to resign?’”
You quite rightly put it in quotes and italics, but just to reiterate, that is a comment opinion piece, it doesn’t naturally flow Lib Dem’s are worried or even should be worried, because temporary v permanent, what happens when it’s no longer big news everywhere? My opinion piece is Labour dropped in polling since conference season because how copying Tory Gaza war position was exposed among their own support in left. Now war 100 days in, still going on, but no longer all over news, that Labour slump seems to be recovering. Proving me right. Maybe.
Question for PBers: 100 days on, has anyone significantly changed their views on the situation in Gaza?
I was Team Hamas from Day 1 of the Semitic Military Operation so I haven't changed but I do think it's turning into a bit of a "Are we the baddies?" moment for the countries that have slavishly fallen in line with the US position on Israel.
I was team ceasfire need a negotiated sttlement still am. Get ever more angry at the Genocide Enablers trying to make themselves the victims When they have needed the are we the baddies moment for at least 2 months now.
The problem in Gaza/Israel is much the same as Ukraine/Russia. For a long term ceasefire to work both sides have to want to stop, and occupying forces to accept that they have no right to control another state.
In neither case is that likely in the near future, so calls for ceasefire are just hot air at best, calls for surrender at worst.
Comments
I don’t think I have ever watched a whole episode of HIGNFY, maybe once or twice when it started, but then again I don’t watch any other panel shows either
Here is what Deacon wrote.
“ Incredibly, Have I Got News for You is now approaching its 600th episode. To keep getting recommissioned every year since its debut in 1990 truly is a remarkable achievement.
Especially when you bear in mind that, for over 20 years now, the show has been almost unalleviated rubbish.
For its first decade, it was the sharpest thing on British TV. The decline began in 2002, after the departure of Angus Deayton. Never has the programme seemed more complacently predictable, however, than it does at present. Take the following joke, scripted for its most recent guest host, Naga Munchetty.
“Boris Johnson told the [Covid] inquiry that ‘abusive messages are part of the creative process’. I’m buying into this, OK. So, Boris, you’re a useless tosser! Make of that what you will!”
Obviously I have no problem with jokes that make fun of Boris Johnson. My problem with this particular joke is that it barely qualifies as a joke at all. It just isn’t trying. You’d find more imaginative insults on the wall of the pub gents’.
Whatever it is, though, it isn’t satire. The role of satire, or so the old saying has it, is to afflict the comfortable. Have I Got News for You doesn’t do that. Instead, it flatters the comfortable – by which I mean the type of liberal-left graduate professionals who all share exactly the same opinion of Boris Johnson, as well as of Brexit, Rwanda, Trump and just about everything else.
As it happens, the last piece of truly great satire I recall seeing on the BBC was not a clip from Have I Got News for You. It was a parody of it. In 2014, Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse performed a humiliatingly accurate spoof featuring Ian Hislop barking, “Errrr, total c**k-up! Errrrrrrrrrrr, the Government!”, Paul Merton endlessly asking, “Is it a dolphin in a bathtub?”, and identikit panellists taking turns to yelp, “Oh my God the Daily Mail!!!!”
As a work of satire, it was so crushing that I thought Have I Got News for You couldn’t possibly survive. But it did, of course. Because, as every satirist knows, satire changes nothing.”
Whereas, so far as I'm aware, other board members haven't been subject to the same degree of public excoriation.
All comedy is patchy and we only remember the good bits, HIGNFY as much as any other show. The whole "celebrity panel show" format is a very tired one, just survives as pretty dirt cheap to make.
Really struggling.
It's Australian, but could really be set anywhere, and on the BBC iplayer.
Succession? Nope, that's drama.
https://www.ft.com/content/6e9a0243-87f2-445e-b563-e8f67082b3da
- what do you call a thousand dead Russian soldiers?
A good start
- what do you call a Russian barracks destroyed before the troops get there?
Premature annihilation
- how is Putin like a sperm?
They both have a one in a billion chance of becoming a human being
Etc etc etc.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/13/ed-daveys-approval-rating-takes-a-big-hit-from-the-post-office-scandal
...“The Lib Dems will be worried that the first time their leader has cut through to voters is for his connection to a huge scandal. But, while Labour and the Tories may be relieved that fingers aren’t being pointed at them, they and the rest of us should be concerned if important questions about how national institutions operate devolve into yet another edition of ‘which politician you’ve never heard of is going to resign?’”
I am very concerned by your final sentence. The USA is far from perfect but it's a free democracy and the only serious Western power checking the expansionism of repressive autocracies in Russia, Iran and China in Ukraine, the Middle East, and Taiwan respectively. And we've seen what happens to people that fall under its wing.
I hope you revisit your view.
I think Hislop is another one who's let social media get the better of him.
I do think some of our past governments, particularly had the right minister been in charge for long enough to address this issue, would have worked to resolve this, or at least accepted responsibility under less public pressure.
IMO best way of stopping this kind of thing happening again I think is changing the incentives for chief executives/people at the top. If they actually thought there was a risk of them being prosecuted - I suspect there would have been a very different attitude on display.
“It was supposed to be choreographed. That was about as choreographed as a dog getting fucked on rollerskates.”
And
“You don’t hear much about syphilis these days. Very much the Myspace of STDs.”
And
“The Logan Roy school of journalism. What’s next? The Jack the Ripper Women’s Health Clinic?”
These next four lines made me laugh out so loud tribes in the Amazon heard me.
“He ate my fucking chicken. What’s next? Stick his cock in my potato salad?”
And
“So sue me. My lawyer used to work for the justice department. Who’s your lawyer? Mr Fucking Magoo?”
And
“Karl, if your hands are clean, it’s only because your whorehouse also does manicures.”
And
“Smells like the cheesemonger died and left his dick in the brie.”
It's quite likely, therefore, that an incoming government will have promised to prosecute those responsible.
Actually, I'm rather looking forward to the board members appearance before the enquiry; I think there'll be a lot of people, desperately trying to dodge questioning!
But the funniest thing I’ve seen on tv in the last ten years or so was Jam’ie Private Schoolgirl
Very filling, and the beer was good too!
Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, Mum, Motherland, Inside No 9 (although a bit hit and miss)Toast of London/Hollywood, What we do in the Shadows, Ted Lasso. There is rather a lot, but off the top of my head I can't think. I also quite like Upstart Crow, but I am not going to tell anyone.
A couple of good calls from Isam: Detectorists and The Trip. Car Share was OK too.
But I think an analysis that looks with open eyes at how isolated the USA and the West is becoming is important. I’m not cheerleading this btw, but I do think the choice by the USA to not put the brakes on Israel when they so easily could do so is a very poor strategic choice.
Add into the mix the instability of the USA currently, and I think we (i.e. Europe) seriously need to think about which of the major powers we hitch ourselves to.
As for not taking in more refugees, I think the argument against enabling ethnic cleansing of Gaza is compelling.
Will it have the same effect in twenty years is a moot point. To a certain extent it captures the times and is of its time and milieu (n london motherhood). But then so did Dad's Army and it is repeated weekly and will be for the rest of time.
In my first year at High School the must watch, discussed at length sitcom of the day was Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads. Fifty years on it still stands the test of time. If Bob was driving an electric Astra rather than a Viva it would work today.
It will be about survival and bread & butter will come first, and values a very distant second.
That's why Europe and the UK must both re-arm and, also, do their best to buttress and reinforce the USA.
(Not mush room at all).
Will be needing my coat in this weather.
There are some pretty weak sitcoms too, and the one person shows only work sometimes, but that's also the case on TV, and some of that is personal taste. Overall, I think they do an amazing job.
The best was one where the Derby Evening Telegraph put a large fire on the wrong side of the town, when it was a few streets away from their offices.
Another problem with PE is that it's unremittingly negative. An occasional 'well done!' story without cynicism would go down a treat. Governments and councils do occasionally get things right.
Someone else mentioned Ghosts. That's a well made sitcom - a nice idea, broad appeal, well-performed, commercially successful (with a popular US version). But does it have enough to it to stick in the mind years later? I'm not sure, really - it has affectionate moments with the backstories of some of the characters, but the premise makes it hard to get beyond being just a bit of silly fun.
I'll be interested in the second series of Everyone Else Burns. The first one perhaps didn't create the buzz it deserved but it could well take off.
I want to die in my sleep like my Grandad, not screaming in terror like his passengers.
I probably watch more Korean than BBC comedy.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/jan/14/why-140000-pupils-are-severely-absent-from-school-in-england-and-what-we-can-do-about-it
Key sentence for me.
"100% attendance has become the obsession of all the political parties, what that distracts from is the issue of whether education – and the environment in which it operates – is fit for purpose."
Some have actually improved. I used to switch off The News Quiz as soon as it came on, but Andy Zaltzman has improved it considerably.
Apart from calling you a woman, I think I made two relevant points, and I couldn’t have made them if not learning something from all this discussion. Firstly, how can there be any discussion or theory about elites which doesn’t include education systems. There was the joke in Ghosts when Julian said he wasn’t first day nervous entering parliament because all his friends from university were there too, and he wan’t nervous about going to university because all his friends from school were there too.
Secondly, whilst we use word “new”for elites, are they not “old elites in a modern setting”. After Yes Minister we shouldn’t think it’s politicians who come up with cultural changes. For a long time power was centralised, I made reference to British empire run by centralised civil service, but if the culture is to decentralise that power, what would have been career civil servants can now pop in and out of different type of decentralised landscape, raking up even more money and gongs than ever before - with zero accountability, that it being unrelated to performance comes direct from past too.
What I can never stand though is the enemy’s enemy is my friend attitude of some in the West, who have taken to lauding some pretty ugly organisations including Iran’s proxies and even the Syrian regime.
As for China…nope.
The erosion of provision and squeeze on resources in primary schools - particularly for children from poor families - is the real problem.
If Blair’s Labour did one thing pretty well, it was primary education. Gove fucked up a lot of that with his desire to make everyone have a pastiche of his own schooldays.
I've offered to drive him in if she's ill, but she's refused. Instead, the lad misses another day of school.
That article goes on a lot about what the state can do, and should be doing, but IMV not enough about parents. If the parents don't care about school, their kids will struggle in life.
No.one's laughing now.
I agree with @TheScreamingEagles that Succession could also be very very funny, despite being essentially a drama. That was its genius
Dave Chapelle is a properly funny stand up who takes genuine risks
Stewart Lee is the best British stand up, tho he is probably now in decline (from great heights)
It's a stark figure that 88% of exclusions are from 10% of schools.
Best to watch Season 1 before 2 and then the Christmas Special. The film is OK, but not up to the TV show.
The one with Brian Glover is my favourite.
Who, and at what threshold, should the state be intervening with poor parenting such as that?
A child shouldn't just be written off because the parents can't be arsed.
We are storing up huge problems.
The parent has a right to refuse help from you. But the child has rights, too. And they can only be enforced by the State.
We've become over focussed on parental rights wrt education.
v evil' analysis is applied to world affairs.
There are also some questions that persist about Gaza, ie aren't some of the Muslim more that the USA is becoming increasingly isolated Oh I fully agree!
That is the best possible revenge on Pol Pot and all his sicko fucktard Maoist commie friends
I still enjoy sex at 67. It's no great distance - I live at 71.
I don’t find most stand ups funny, but that’s probably just me.
In neither case is that likely in the near future, so calls for ceasefire are just hot air at best, calls for surrender at worst.