?NEW West Mids Mayoral Voting Intention for @TheNewsAgents ?Narrow 2pt Andy Street lead?Con 40 (-9)?Lab 38 (-2)??Reform 7 (+5)?LD 6 (+2)?Green 5 (-1)??Independent 5 (NEW)1,018 in WMCA, 11-17 April(chg vs 2021 result (1st prefs)) pic.twitter.com/XLhyTCYMId
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Suck it up buttercup. Own it.
(Certainly, the headlines around Menzies and Nunn won’t be helping.)
Writer boasts of prostitute visit after arousal at Kant lecture
Lloyd Evans said in Spectator piece that an academic’s ‘blonde hair’ distracted him from her lecture on the philosopher at Cambridge
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/writer-boasts-prostitute-visit-spectator-kant-lecture-0lz5g8vn0
Contrast with that lying tosser the Lord Houchen of Teesport. Who also tried to distance himself from the party despite being at the leading edge of its grifting efforts...
Does this mean the race is a big test of how to poll for Reform support?
BTW Her book is an excellent rumination on freedom, set as Communist Albania falls apart. I really enjoyed it.
https://twitter.com/lea_ypi/status/1780875319735411088?t=gMy5X4EXw6O-UqJtLWNBnA&s=19
Such rampant misogyny needs to end.
Not sure that Street is a particularly notable version of this.
Service cuts and tax rises - which are not entirely down to government policies.
Well if Street wins in some pretty exceptional circumstances, at least it'll be enough to keep the Conservatives' trump card Rishi Sunak in place for the general election.
I think it's the first Tu-22 that's been lost in the war that wasn't destroyed on the ground.
I think there's reason to hope that the Russian air force will go the same way as the Russian navy this year.
Regardless, is it commercially successful? If so, then there's your answer how they came to dominate.
It’s remarkable that Russian Su-25 jets can operate so frequently and seemingly uncontested over western Bakhmut, Ivanivske, Khromove and the open fields between those and Chasiv Yar, especially when Chasiv Yar’s elevation is higher and these jets would be in clear sight of Ukrainian air defenses — if they had any stingers etc there to use. They are flying within 1.5-2 miles of Chasiv Yar’s eastern district...
https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1781189653002858968
Jon Snow said something similar but he gets away with it because he's liberal left-wing.
Praise be, if that is the case. Tho the Gazans might feel differently
Lab 50
Con 25
LD 9
Ref 10
Green 4
Other 1
That said no one can dispute the quality of the writing - v funny indeed. Which makes it all the more irritating.
It's a mash-up of stiff from Kant, Hegel and I'm not entirely onboard with that (nostalgia and 'it was better in the old days' is a big chunk of it) but it's nice to get a proper perspective from someone who had the full Stalinist experience.
Basically, the complete opposite of the modern-day Conservative Party.
My only criticism of him would be backing down over his opposition to HS2 being scrapped but I guess he felt his city was still getting most of what it needed.
I imagine the back channels are buzzing as we speak.
She has a recent podcast series on the subject too.
https://twitter.com/PPFIdeas/status/1780838673195684302?t=arTxKhNq8EMQRAZVVVfeoA&s=19
I’m not sure he will get it but at those odds this is real value. Pb at its best!
I know. I know.
Meanwhile, this is a great spot. Showing a remarkable disconnection between the national voting intention and a particular local vote.
There is value to be had seeking out this and other places where, for local reasons, a tory may outpoll the otherwise dire national picture.
And, of course, afterwards the tories will seize on such moments (including I’m afraid to say Big John owls) and completely miss the point.
As it objectifies women we are at the intersection of offence and abuse but the bigger the outcry the more minded I am too defend it even though it's the hated Speccie.
But on the third hand I am an old(er) white bloke so perhaps my time as leader of the western world is over.
Too rapt attention to the content is probably bad, though, although not necessarily if the important stuff works more subliminally rather than less.
Then factor in that the "content" is probably pushing some shit or other too, not necessarily a specific brand but they want people to continue to borrow money, buy cars, buy alcohol and smartphones, etc., and nobody will get far in "journalism" if they say all that stuff is a load of wank, i.e. if they call a spade a spade.
That's how the media works, sonny.
Obviously Steve Rotherham on Merseyside remains a massive whingeing bellend.
History might have been very different had people like Jeffrey Sachs had a bit less hubris.
Hence the competition to buy it. I believe Uncle Rupert sees it as the final jewel in his crown. He’s desperate to purchase it as the last move of his long career
Iran also know that the Israelis just showed what they can do so far inland in Iran, near sensitive nuclear sites, in a very limited attack and so “next time” it could be a lot worse.
So honour restored and the phoney war can continue through proxies.
https://x.com/oliverkamm/status/1781209617537610071?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
So far they're pretending it wasn't even significant enough to be called an attack.
But Britain is a free country, and people are allowed to be rude and stupid, and unless it was to develop into a campaign of harassment, where this writer followed the academic around the country, then I think social disapproval is the limit of a legitimate response.
https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1780951361968021560?t=JN5dzqrgMEiwZDRpMzgmhw&s=19
I do hope the publicity benefits Ypi and boosts sales of her book and increases listenership of her podcast. Her family experience of persecution under Hoxha and the growing pains of the new Albania is a very interesting perspective, she seems to be on the leading edge of new left wing thought.
Jones's first article said that "The Defence Select Committee concluded..." and now as you show it has been amended to what actually happened which is that "Greenpeace's evidence to the defence select committee concluded..."
And Jones is blaming the error on a trip to the dentist making him groggy.
Honestly though, some lecherous old scroat oversharing his sexual inadequacy is not exactly healthy. I don´t think it is that prudish to find the whole thing fairly sordid. If that is the best of modern, cutting edge journalism, I don´t think we have to look far to find the sources of the coarsening of our culture and our current general national malaise.
Just because you can, does not mean that you should.
Too much blatant pervery devalues that.
Centrist Dadism (whether that's social democracy or one nation conservatism) for the win.
Listen you and I are both men d'un age certain. Are we saying that no one is allowed to comment on a person's looks any more.
I'm having an off topic day, with a nod to Street Life later.
Interesting short video about the history of the factory roof test track at FIAT in Turin, and what it has become.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=holD8Gmgkgc
Another bit of road that needs to be dedicated to walking and cycling, like the back road along Thirlmere (there: horse riders too) where Cumberland Council were trying to be patsies for the water company who have a legal obligation to maintain it.
Then another female academic - “mine was even worse, I had ten men talking non stop about my beautiful breasts even as I taught them about Socratic irony”
“Well I had a zoom call where 700 different guys looked at my cleavage for nine hours…”
Hilarious. All subtly - or not so subtly - boasting about how hot they are
The truth is that the Iranian leadership has done very little to assist Palestine so far. That may or may not continue when the 'cide is stepped up in Gaza. Fascist pogroms are surging on the West Bank right now too.
If Netanyahu didn't have Ben Gvir he'd probably want to invent him.
The IRGC in Iran are swearing blind they didn't damage the Israeli nuclear site at Dimona, saying the notion that they did is just psywar. Complaining about the opponent's psywar always makes a power look weak.
The purpose is to drive engagement, though that engagement is very likely to be to chuck them out.
https://x.com/LondonNewLibs/status/1781224153221407084
There is an opportunity for an incoming government to use our awful demographics to achieve some decent results here. The fall in school pupils, which has started at primary level and will then feed into secondary and finally into higher education means that the DoE can potentially do a lot to improve the quality of education provision while potentially seeing year on year declines in funding.
It doesn't happen overnight because a lot of education is fixed costs, and a class with 28 in it doesn't cost any less than a class of 30. But longer term it's an opportunity. Not only for school age education but also early years childcare. While it's sad we're not having enough children it does mean government can afford to be more generous in policies to help people get back into the workforce.
Meanwhile at the other end of the age range of course the pipeline looks bleak. We've long since passed the event horizon into the dependency ratio black hole where health and social care gravitational force becomes so strong that not even light can escape.
Neither sounds particularly ennobling or emancipating.
Another example would be someone on twatter, or in the Spectator, or wherever, saying "The Guardian says...", when in fact they are quoting some op-ed writing nutter (*) whom the Guardian have let through the door for reasons of "diversity of opinion".
* Any resemblance to Corporal Jones may or may not be entirely coincidental.
Here is another example from TwiX
“New Statesman "here's 12 heterodox post liberal thinkers who could help shape Starmerism"
Spectator "have you ever had a poo and a wank at the same time"”
https://x.com/robpalkwriter/status/1780989748078686423?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
This jibe doesn’t really have the effect intended because it makes you think “Yeah, no, I’d rather read that Spectator article”
Labour will clearly win under FPTP.
The writer is clearly a dirty old man. I am glad I'm not a dirty old man and what he describes is rather sordid and sad. But as an article it's well written and honest. It gives us quite an interesting insight into what dirty old men of a certain sort think and how they act. I am better informed about the internal workings of both this individual (and doubtless many more) and what happens in Cambridge massage parlours than I was before.
Sure this is not a great work of literature, but we were talking about Ulysses yesterday. Well much of the storyline revolves around the narrator visiting a prostitute. One of the most famous works of French literature is essentially "I shot an Arab because I was bored. Get over it".
Better out than in. If the Spectator is giving Britain an insight into the sometimes sordid inner world of the middle aged male mind then it's a service, of sorts.
This epic fails occurs at just the time that the right and centre right is collapsing in contradictions and when the former contrarian sanity of the Spectator is needed. Contrarian insanity won't really do.
(also I'm convinced you shouldn't average polls anyway: the only change that matters is the change between two polls from the same company)
And indeed talking about "everyone" it is not of course everyone. It is a rare gift to be able to pull off the old (white) bloke, incisive, funny, well-written schtick. Very few people can do it.
It is different from Charles Moore or Taki who are simply small-minded or nasty take your pick.
These people have a self-awareness and know exactly what they are doing. It is analogous to Ricky Gervais needing to point out the difference (because it sadly needs pointing out) between something offensive and a joke about something offensive.
I might renew my Speccie subscription at this rate.
A magazine can be a kind of Loaded-without-the-pictures. Or it can be a journal of ideas on the right. The trouble comes when you try to do both at once, so that the ideas on the right boil down to Loaded-without-the-pictures.
In which case you get... roughly what's happening.