I am, as you know and love to mock, a lawyer. I mostly do employment law but had a bit of a sideline in business visas for my clients. Became a big earner post-Brexit. I ran a really anodyne, boring, Twitter account advertising myself as an “Employment and Business Immigration Lawyer” as the Marketing Dept got keen on social media. Nothing political, stupefyingly dull, updates on legal changes, I got to a measly 500 followers - mostly other lawyers. My big moment was being retweeted by Joshua Rosenberg. I tweeted really dull stuff the PR team suggested, avoiding politics.
However, starting in about 2014 or 2015, I started getting abuse. Snide comments at first, then over time they started to get more personal, and then, in 2022, I became of of these lawyers -
The worst actual DM a threat of comedy death, the guy had imagination, but it directly referenced Rwanda. Others referenced Patel’s speeches. Eventually I closed the account anyway - before Braverman. I don’t do any asylum work, the immigration practice I had was visas for complained and HNWI’s, the sort of people “Global Britain” was supposed to be attracting, but nevertheless I was clearly an enemy of the people.
Tories also hate me because I’m married to a foreigner. My specific foreigner is a white Irish-American New Englander but, nevertheless, the hoops we have had to jump through regarding her immigration status have grown increasingly tighter. Now she’s just taken dual nationality the issues will have stopped but we met when I was a student and we would not be allowed to get married now.
So, if not me, then the Tories don’t want “people like me” to vote for them. So I won’t.
I’m not really a “victim”. Others have it far worse than me. The list of people Tories hate is long. But you can see why I can’t see myself as the the sort of person they’re gunning for.
You are a good person Doug and I am glad to have you posting here. I am sorry for the way you have been treated.
Good for you. Until enough of us stand together and say "No more, this far and no more, there can be no more slightly mad and weird threats on social media against wealthy people" then these slightly mad and weird threats on social media against wealthy people will inexorably continue and possibly WORSEN until millionaire lawyers with their rich Boston born wives become slightly anxious before lunch. And the people in Ukraine think they have it bad?
This, this here. This is where we must finally stand, and turn, and FIGHT
DEFEND THE WEALTHY IMMIGRATION LAWYERS
IIRC it was you who pointed out that most people live their lives online these days. I don't like it but that's how it's gone. We used to believe that we lived in a country where most people thought like us, for any given definition of "us". But now we have access to social media and now we know that for any given definition of "us" there will be people who hate us and want us dead, and that there are people in other countries who think more like "us" than our compatriots. This leads to a loosening of the nation-state and a growth in anxiety, both of which I hate.
Well yes maybe whatever: but the last people I will feel sorry for, in this context, is very wealthy lefty immigration lawyers
I do not personally wish ill on @dougseal, of course, but I cannot find it in me to feel deep sinks of sympathy
In which case, why bother commenting? Unless, of course, you are a troublemaking arsehole. You should get a job with some right wing rag like the Spectator.
Sadly, writing for the world's most prestigious and longest running English language magazine - the Spectator - is very much out of my league. I leave that to its various famous contributors, like Graham Greene, George Orwell, @SeanT, Alexander Pope, Sylvia Plath, sundry Prime Ministers and Chancellors, and Lionel Shriver. And Taki. For me it is the humble Knapper's Gazette, but maybe one day. Who knows?
There are some pretty inferior names on your list, notably the more recent ones.
Confession: I have never seen Aliens. Even though I loved Alien.
A pleasure to come.
It’s very different film. And masterclass in purposeful cinematic storytelling. Not a moment wasted. Yes it’s an action film in a science fiction setting, but demonstrates how a simple, popular theme can still be a vehicle for artistic achievement.
Quite a few movies in the 80s managed to walk this line; entertaining, artistically credible, popular and often quite original.
Personally, I expect the polls to move soon. The Conservatives have been dominating the campaign so far with a very Trumpian approach. The more their campaign is mocked, the happier they will be I reckon.
It amplifies the message every time someone does it.
Yes, but that's only a good thing if the message is is a good one.
Personally I'm the kind of voter you should be getting, but Sunak's messaging is pushing me further and further away, not closer.
Edit: Which is a shame as Jeremy Hunt's messaging lately has been one I really support, so if that had been the Tory agenda I could have been won back, but the opposite is happening with this.
Fair enough, and my only caution is be careful what you wish for.
I don't think you'll enjoy a Labour government.
Have you been enjoying this Conservative one? Really?
I've been critical of it, embarrassed about it and, at times, held my head in both my hands. A handful of them are only interested in lining their own pockets, and indulging in vomit-inducing sexual peccadillos. They've failed to deliver several core areas of their policy platform and, at times, displayed breathtaking incompetence. It's not a great record.
But, they have delivered important reforms on pensions, education and welfare, they have reduced unemployment, they have delivered a reset of our relationship with the EU, they have moved us a little way to sensible market-based decarbonisation, and are putting up at least some opposition to the idiocies of identity politics. Their foreign policy is sensible and logical.
Perhaps most importantly, fundamentally, the Conservatives leave me and my family alone. They don't look to nanny me, regulate me, or come after my rights, choices or money. They at least aspire to keep tax low, and look to balance the books, and there have been some truly horrid events in the world in the last few years that have made that much much harder. Now, we're almost out the woods. There is some light - some.
I know Labour will be coming for me, and I don't think it will do either me or the country much good. So, it's a slightly sheepish vote for the Tories for me - but still a vote.
So, with the likelihood that that will force unwilling adults to pick fruit at a minimum stipend, you still say they “leave you and your family alone”? You have no teenaged relatives I suppose?
Your problem is you treat politics like sport. You ignore the fact that the Tories do, in fact, micromanage people’s lives, mock them for their lifestyle choices, so that you can cheer on “your” team.
I and my family have suffered badly as a result of this government and I am a white middle aged man. Not only am I bled white with taxes I am mocked every time a HS wants a cheap laugh. Tell me, what crime have I committed that your party hates people like me so much? What have I done? My taxes not good enough for you? Why do you hate so many people?
Why on God's green earth are you "hated"?
I’ve mentioned this before.
I am, as you know and love to mock, a lawyer. I mostly do employment law but had a bit of a sideline in business visas for my clients. Became a big earner post-Brexit. I ran a really anodyne, boring, Twitter account advertising myself as an “Employment and Business Immigration Lawyer” as the Marketing Dept got keen on social media. Nothing political, stupefyingly dull, updates on legal changes, I got to a measly 500 followers - mostly other lawyers. My big moment was being retweeted by Joshua Rosenberg. I tweeted really dull stuff the PR team suggested, avoiding politics.
However, starting in about 2014 or 2015, I started getting abuse. Snide comments at first, then over time they started to get more personal, and then, in 2022, I became of of these lawyers -
The worst actual DM a threat of comedy death, the guy had imagination, but it directly referenced Rwanda. Others referenced Patel’s speeches. Eventually I closed the account anyway - before Braverman. I don’t do any asylum work, the immigration practice I had was visas for complained and HNWI’s, the sort of people “Global Britain” was supposed to be attracting, but nevertheless I was clearly an enemy of the people.
Tories also hate me because I’m married to a foreigner. My specific foreigner is a white Irish-American New Englander but, nevertheless, the hoops we have had to jump through regarding her immigration status have grown increasingly tighter. Now she’s just taken dual nationality the issues will have stopped but we met when I was a student and we would not be allowed to get married now.
So, if not me, then the Tories don’t want “people like me” to vote for them. So I won’t.
I’m not really a “victim”. Others have it far worse than me. The list of people Tories hate is long. But you can see why I can’t see myself as the the sort of person they’re gunning for.
I'm married to a foreigner mate. Who also happens to be a Tory.
Not everything (in fact, hardly anything) is a slight against you personally.
It’s fine. Your party doesn’t want my vote. It’s not good enough for you. So I’ll vote for someone else. Perhaps I’ll reconsider when I’m a pensioner - who you really love
It's similar to why I am so fervently anti-Brexit. Brexit was driven by anti-immigrant feeling, and many of my friends and colleagues were from the EU. It was a deliberate and calculated statement that they were not wanted, and I really don't like my friends being insulted.
The Tories decided they didn't need my vote, so they are not getting it.
The Tories decided to implement the decision of the voters.
That’s all.
You didn’t like losing so you want to punish the people who did as instructed rather than listening to you and your friends
I was a Brexit voter. I think it a bit much to ignore the influence of those pushing for it among the Tory party as being a factor, and once done it did not mean every choice had to be the ones they chose, but I do agree ultimately the mistake (and personally I do regard it as a mistake now) was the fault of the voters. We were told not to do it by plenty of people.
Obviously it's not as simple as the Tories didn't just "implement the decision of the voters" but advocated for it. Without Boris, Gove, Cummings, Farage et al the 'Leave' vote itself doesn't happen. Without advocating for specific self-harming forms of Brexit to satisfy parts of the Tory Party post-vote, they don't happen.
If you think Brexit was/is a terrible idea - as lots (even more than in 2019) do now. Then regardless of what comes next, or whether you understand why some ordinary voters voted the way they did. You're not going to forgive, trust, or easily vote for the people who were its chief advocates. Not least when one of their chief political tactics since 2016 has been insulting you.
It's in some ways the same problem as Jeremy Corbyn. People are reticent to vote for people who make it seem like they don't like them very much. In his case it was British institutions, symbols and those who put value in them.
In the case of the Tories that's quite a large swathe of the country that they have spent much of the past decade insulting and portraying as "not real Britain" because they happen to hold liberal views, think leaving the EU is a shit idea, or this week, merely have the temerity to be young.
Novel idea. But maybe if the Tories tried to understand why they've become so hated among parts of the electorate they never used to be quite so decisively disliked in, they might not be in this mess.
Personally, I expect the polls to move soon. The Conservatives have been dominating the campaign so far with a very Trumpian approach. The more their campaign is mocked, the happier they will be I reckon.
It amplifies the message every time someone does it.
Yes, but that's only a good thing if the message is is a good one.
Personally I'm the kind of voter you should be getting, but Sunak's messaging is pushing me further and further away, not closer.
Edit: Which is a shame as Jeremy Hunt's messaging lately has been one I really support, so if that had been the Tory agenda I could have been won back, but the opposite is happening with this.
Fair enough, and my only caution is be careful what you wish for.
I don't think you'll enjoy a Labour government.
Have you been enjoying this Conservative one? Really?
I've been critical of it, embarrassed about it and, at times, held my head in both my hands. A handful of them are only interested in lining their own pockets, and indulging in vomit-inducing sexual peccadillos. They've failed to deliver several core areas of their policy platform and, at times, displayed breathtaking incompetence. It's not a great record.
But, they have delivered important reforms on pensions, education and welfare, they have reduced unemployment, they have delivered a reset of our relationship with the EU, they have moved us a little way to sensible market-based decarbonisation, and are putting up at least some opposition to the idiocies of identity politics. Their foreign policy is sensible and logical.
Perhaps most importantly, fundamentally, the Conservatives leave me and my family alone. They don't look to nanny me, regulate me, or come after my rights, choices or money. They at least aspire to keep tax low, and look to balance the books, and there have been some truly horrid events in the world in the last few years that have made that much much harder. Now, we're almost out the woods. There is some light - some.
I know Labour will be coming for me, and I don't think it will do either me or the country much good. So, it's a slightly sheepish vote for the Tories for me - but still a vote.
That's actually about as good a defence of this government as I think it's possible to write, congratulations. I mean, I'm not sure it's entirely factually accurate, but it's certainly a better attempt at defending their record than I've heard any member of the government make.
They created the biggest chasm in most of our lifetimes by taking us out of the EU. It dwarfs everything else that has happened. The above is just a detail of useless baubles. For goodness sake get a grip.
I am genuinely mystified why this so distresses you, STILL
I get that it was a shock, at first. Most people were astonished, and then followed a period of chaos which was equally bewildering. But Brexit is now a done deed, I doubt, extremely, we will ever return (whatever your opinion, the political/referendum ducks will never line up). So what have you lost, long term, that so anguishes you?
This is a genuine question. You have a house in France so you must have French residency. If you don't and you are determined to get EU residency rights, you are self employed and you can get a digital nomad visa. At the same time you are free to come and go, showing your passport- that hasn't changed, we were never in Schenghen
So what is it? What is it about Brexit that so enrages you, eight years later?
Most people have adapted, most europhiles have accepted that the best bet is to get closer to Europe without seeking membership: that is wise. Why are you so energised and angry, after so much time?
It's also madness - utter madness - to claim that taking the EU out of the UK dwarves everything else that has happened. Compared to the horrorshows of covid and the war in Ukraine, membership of the EU or otherwise is a rounding error.
Yes, I am genuinely intrigued why this SO distresses @Roger
He is a wealthy man with a house in France, OK he went to Millfield but he's still probably got an IQ over 98, he can work out that he's entitled to residency in France. So what has he lost?
He's still a British subject, he still has EU Residency. What is it that personally irks him? I don't believe he is a small scale exporter of eerily computerised shellfish so what is it?
It must be the combo of being a British subject AND an EU citizen that he misses, which is perhaps and maybe understandable, but relatively very tiny in the wider circs, as you say
Rishi Sunak has long gone on about to his love of the exercise brand Peloton, appealing to the healthier, fitter spectrum of the population. In keeping with his fitness-freak image, he revealed to the Daily Mail that he starts of with a 6am Peloton session to Britney Spears songs. What Rishi doesn’t realise however, is that Peloton recently changed its privacy policy to allow registered users to search for any other user by name. A co-conspirator happened to come across Sunak’s profile…
In reality, Rishi Sunak hardly uses the treadmill or the bike – just 34 times since he joined. And none of those workouts have been before 8am, preferring instead to exercise just before a leisurely 9am. He hasn’t been quite so successful in the “achievements” section either. The only Peloton workout he’s done since calling the election? A 5km scenic run along the Californian coast at Big Sur, naturally. Getting homesick…?
One good thing if Labour wins is hopefully having Guido Fawkes back to form. The team there was great at digging out things Labour were doing wrong in the Blair/Brown years but they have been a shadow of their former self in the Tory years, following the pack rather than leading it. It's good for everyone for any corruption or hypocrisy in the new Government to be called out and dragged into the open.
Didn't Guido sign on as a paid subsidiary of CCHQ which might explain a loss of form in the Tory years?
I would love for chat logs of the hacker teams of the Chinese, Russian and North Koreans. I bet they absolutely wet themselves on a daily basis over how piss poor Western politicians are in terms of basic cyber security.
Whilst Moobs is obviously bollocks it does sort of illustrate just how a Starmer government could be checked if Reform didn't come along and wilfully shit the bed.
Just realised that anyone turning up in a few hours time is going to be deeply confused by this post.
However, it is more seriously yet another example that our politicians have zero idea about tech security. All these kind of profiles should be anonymous / hidden.
It has been highlighted in the recent past how hostile regimes are tracking people like apps like Strava etc. Now you could say, well Peleton is just indoor biking, but you are again adding to these regimes ability to work out your daily routine, and from that it has been shown then they are able to work out all sorts of other things about you e.g. famously they worked out who worked at various security services by looking at the routes taken on regular basis of a massive load of different phones.
It's really quite amazing that nobody in the security service or JIC has explained that he needs to delete or at least make such stuff private, and if he ignored them he's a fool.
I recall reading about similar issues with US cabinet members, the only person who followed all the procedures and security rules was Condoleezza Rice.
I think the comedy is that the "I trust this poll and only this poll - all other polls must be wrong" angle is hopium for a poll which drops the Tories to 170 seats.
There it is boys and girls. The "I believe in fairies" fantasy is to only be reduced to 170 seats. Though to be fair, 170 is better than 70 seats. Or 17 seats...
I’m nobody’s idea of a Tory but I reckon they’ll be round the 200 mark in the end.
Its possible - everything is in todays politics. But at the moment the polls do not show that. So if the Tories end up near the 200 mark then its a cataclysmic failure of the entire polling industry.
Confession: I have never seen Aliens. Even though I loved Alien.
A pleasure to come.
Good God man, next you’ll be telling us you have watched Star Wars but not The Empire Strikes Back…
I have seen only the original Star Wars, and fragments of the others but never in their entirety.
I have seen Aliens though and it is nearly as good as the original, but lacking in the shock factor of the first viewing of Alien.
Certainly the initial shock(s) in Alien are amazing, but I do recall watching Aliens one night at home when my parents were out. They came back just in time to see Bishop ripped apart by the Alien queen, completely out of context. ‘‘Twas funny.
I am, as you know and love to mock, a lawyer. I mostly do employment law but had a bit of a sideline in business visas for my clients. Became a big earner post-Brexit. I ran a really anodyne, boring, Twitter account advertising myself as an “Employment and Business Immigration Lawyer” as the Marketing Dept got keen on social media. Nothing political, stupefyingly dull, updates on legal changes, I got to a measly 500 followers - mostly other lawyers. My big moment was being retweeted by Joshua Rosenberg. I tweeted really dull stuff the PR team suggested, avoiding politics.
However, starting in about 2014 or 2015, I started getting abuse. Snide comments at first, then over time they started to get more personal, and then, in 2022, I became of of these lawyers -
The worst actual DM a threat of comedy death, the guy had imagination, but it directly referenced Rwanda. Others referenced Patel’s speeches. Eventually I closed the account anyway - before Braverman. I don’t do any asylum work, the immigration practice I had was visas for complained and HNWI’s, the sort of people “Global Britain” was supposed to be attracting, but nevertheless I was clearly an enemy of the people.
Tories also hate me because I’m married to a foreigner. My specific foreigner is a white Irish-American New Englander but, nevertheless, the hoops we have had to jump through regarding her immigration status have grown increasingly tighter. Now she’s just taken dual nationality the issues will have stopped but we met when I was a student and we would not be allowed to get married now.
So, if not me, then the Tories don’t want “people like me” to vote for them. So I won’t.
I’m not really a “victim”. Others have it far worse than me. The list of people Tories hate is long. But you can see why I can’t see myself as the the sort of person they’re gunning for.
You are a good person Doug and I am glad to have you posting here. I am sorry for the way you have been treated.
Good for you. Until enough of us stand together and say "No more, this far and no more, there can be no more slightly mad and weird threats on social media against wealthy people" then these slightly mad and weird threats on social media against wealthy people will inexorably continue and possibly WORSEN until millionaire lawyers with their rich Boston born wives become slightly anxious before lunch. And the people in Ukraine think they have it bad?
This, this here. This is where we must finally stand, and turn, and FIGHT
DEFEND THE WEALTHY IMMIGRATION LAWYERS
IIRC it was you who pointed out that most people live their lives online these days. I don't like it but that's how it's gone. We used to believe that we lived in a country where most people thought like us, for any given definition of "us". But now we have access to social media and now we know that for any given definition of "us" there will be people who hate us and want us dead, and that there are people in other countries who think more like "us" than our compatriots. This leads to a loosening of the nation-state and a growth in anxiety, both of which I hate.
Well yes maybe whatever: but the last people I will feel sorry for, in this context, is very wealthy lefty immigration lawyers
I do not personally wish ill on @dougseal, of course, but I cannot find it in me to feel deep sinks of sympathy
I don’t want your sympathy. You asked why I thought the Tories hated me. I answered. In specifically said at the end of the post I was not a victim. I am flattered you think I am “wealthy”.
When I was on my year out in India I developed condom dermatitis. I think I had an allergy to whatever they treated the latex with. My penis itched 24/7. and I developed dermatitis down to my scrotum and inner thighs. It lasted weeks and I didn’t have sex, couldn’t even masturbate, for several months. You can imagine how fucking irritating it was. Nevertheless, the whole experience was still considerably less annoying, and (for me) far more amusing, than reading you.
I think I might take a little step back from this site for a bit. It’s getting just a trifle silly when respected posters are leaping on 1% or 2% movements either way, especially when in the process they are breaking Mike Smithson’s Golden Rule.
The fact is that so far nothing has happened.
There's nothing more exciting than PB on election night.
I am ready, man! Ready to GET IT ON!
17 days?! I've got news for you, pal, our poll lead ain't gonna last 17 hours!!
Royale. ROYALE. This little Prime Minister survived longer than that with no weapons and no training, amirite?
Affirmative.
Hey, Casino. Don't worry! Me and my squad of ultimate Starmer Fans will protect you! Check it out! Independently targeting particle beam phalanx. VWAP! Fry half a Parliamentary constituency with this puppy! We got tactical smart missiles, phased plasma pulse rifles, RPGs, we got sonic electronic ball breakers! We got nukes, we got knives, sharp sticks, leaflets with dodgy bar charts...
Shit. That movie. I just googled the 17 day 17 hour thing and in the 5 seconds clip, 5 actors put in an oscar winning performance.
First film, I just don't see it. I imagine I was amazed by the bit where the (spoiler) thing bursts out of his thing, first time round, but what else has it got?
⁶
Nah, you watch the whole film - the whole film - just for the sentry guns.
Best moment in cinema history.
Outstanding post. Now all we need is a deck of cards.
But the best thing is, the whole film is so good they could afford to leave that bit out. No sentry guns in the cinema release, they are only in the directors cut. Ditto the incredibly moving bit where Ripley is told what happened to her daughter (without which her relationship with newt makes much less sense)
It must be one of the very few sequels which, in my view, is better than the original.
Alien really drags on, and out.
My favourite bit is where Next slips into the water following Gorman exploding. I just think it’s a clever bit of writing. I know films don’t bind their successors ( a bit like parliaments) but the tragedy of Alien 3 rendering everything that had been achieved in Aliens void was awful. And don’t get me started on Alien Resurrection.
Rishi Sunak has long gone on about to his love of the exercise brand Peloton, appealing to the healthier, fitter spectrum of the population. In keeping with his fitness-freak image, he revealed to the Daily Mail that he starts of with a 6am Peloton session to Britney Spears songs. What Rishi doesn’t realise however, is that Peloton recently changed its privacy policy to allow registered users to search for any other user by name. A co-conspirator happened to come across Sunak’s profile…
In reality, Rishi Sunak hardly uses the treadmill or the bike – just 34 times since he joined. And none of those workouts have been before 8am, preferring instead to exercise just before a leisurely 9am. He hasn’t been quite so successful in the “achievements” section either. The only Peloton workout he’s done since calling the election? A 5km scenic run along the Californian coast at Big Sur, naturally. Getting homesick…?
I am, as you know and love to mock, a lawyer. I mostly do employment law but had a bit of a sideline in business visas for my clients. Became a big earner post-Brexit. I ran a really anodyne, boring, Twitter account advertising myself as an “Employment and Business Immigration Lawyer” as the Marketing Dept got keen on social media. Nothing political, stupefyingly dull, updates on legal changes, I got to a measly 500 followers - mostly other lawyers. My big moment was being retweeted by Joshua Rosenberg. I tweeted really dull stuff the PR team suggested, avoiding politics.
However, starting in about 2014 or 2015, I started getting abuse. Snide comments at first, then over time they started to get more personal, and then, in 2022, I became of of these lawyers -
The worst actual DM a threat of comedy death, the guy had imagination, but it directly referenced Rwanda. Others referenced Patel’s speeches. Eventually I closed the account anyway - before Braverman. I don’t do any asylum work, the immigration practice I had was visas for complained and HNWI’s, the sort of people “Global Britain” was supposed to be attracting, but nevertheless I was clearly an enemy of the people.
Tories also hate me because I’m married to a foreigner. My specific foreigner is a white Irish-American New Englander but, nevertheless, the hoops we have had to jump through regarding her immigration status have grown increasingly tighter. Now she’s just taken dual nationality the issues will have stopped but we met when I was a student and we would not be allowed to get married now.
So, if not me, then the Tories don’t want “people like me” to vote for them. So I won’t.
I’m not really a “victim”. Others have it far worse than me. The list of people Tories hate is long. But you can see why I can’t see myself as the the sort of person they’re gunning for.
You are a good person Doug and I am glad to have you posting here. I am sorry for the way you have been treated.
Good for you. Until enough of us stand together and say "No more, this far and no more, there can be no more slightly mad and weird threats on social media against wealthy people" then these slightly mad and weird threats on social media against wealthy people will inexorably continue and possibly WORSEN until millionaire lawyers with their rich Boston born wives become slightly anxious before lunch. And the people in Ukraine think they have it bad?
This, this here. This is where we must finally stand, and turn, and FIGHT
DEFEND THE WEALTHY IMMIGRATION LAWYERS
IIRC it was you who pointed out that most people live their lives online these days. I don't like it but that's how it's gone. We used to believe that we lived in a country where most people thought like us, for any given definition of "us". But now we have access to social media and now we know that for any given definition of "us" there will be people who hate us and want us dead, and that there are people in other countries who think more like "us" than our compatriots. This leads to a loosening of the nation-state and a growth in anxiety, both of which I hate.
Well yes maybe whatever: but the last people I will feel sorry for, in this context, is very wealthy lefty immigration lawyers
I do not personally wish ill on @dougseal, of course, but I cannot find it in me to feel deep sinks of sympathy
In which case, why bother commenting? Unless, of course, you are a troublemaking arsehole. You should get a job with some right wing rag like the Spectator.
Sadly, writing for the world's most prestigious and longest running English language magazine - the Spectator - is very much out of my league. I leave that to its various famous contributors, like Graham Greene, George Orwell, @SeanT, Alexander Pope, Sylvia Plath, sundry Prime Ministers and Chancellors, and Lionel Shriver. And Taki. For me it is the humble Knapper's Gazette, but maybe one day. Who knows?
There are some pretty inferior names on your list, notably the more recent ones.
It was never the same since Mr Addison carked it. Now that chap knew how to write.
Personally, I expect the polls to move soon. The Conservatives have been dominating the campaign so far with a very Trumpian approach. The more their campaign is mocked, the happier they will be I reckon.
It amplifies the message every time someone does it.
Yes, but that's only a good thing if the message is is a good one.
Personally I'm the kind of voter you should be getting, but Sunak's messaging is pushing me further and further away, not closer.
Edit: Which is a shame as Jeremy Hunt's messaging lately has been one I really support, so if that had been the Tory agenda I could have been won back, but the opposite is happening with this.
Fair enough, and my only caution is be careful what you wish for.
I don't think you'll enjoy a Labour government.
Have you been enjoying this Conservative one? Really?
I've been critical of it, embarrassed about it and, at times, held my head in both my hands. A handful of them are only interested in lining their own pockets, and indulging in vomit-inducing sexual peccadillos. They've failed to deliver several core areas of their policy platform and, at times, displayed breathtaking incompetence. It's not a great record.
But, they have delivered important reforms on pensions, education and welfare, they have reduced unemployment, they have delivered a reset of our relationship with the EU, they have moved us a little way to sensible market-based decarbonisation, and are putting up at least some opposition to the idiocies of identity politics. Their foreign policy is sensible and logical.
Perhaps most importantly, fundamentally, the Conservatives leave me and my family alone. They don't look to nanny me, regulate me, or come after my rights, choices or money. They at least aspire to keep tax low, and look to balance the books, and there have been some truly horrid events in the world in the last few years that have made that much much harder. Now, we're almost out the woods. There is some light - some.
I know Labour will be coming for me, and I don't think it will do either me or the country much good. So, it's a slightly sheepish vote for the Tories for me - but still a vote.
So, with the likelihood that that will force unwilling adults to pick fruit at a minimum stipend, you still say they “leave you and your family alone”? You have no teenaged relatives I suppose?
Your problem is you treat politics like sport. You ignore the fact that the Tories do, in fact, micromanage people’s lives, mock them for their lifestyle choices, so that you can cheer on “your” team.
I and my family have suffered badly as a result of this government and I am a white middle aged man. Not only am I bled white with taxes I am mocked every time a HS wants a cheap laugh. Tell me, what crime have I committed that your party hates people like me so much? What have I done? My taxes not good enough for you? Why do you hate so many people?
Why on God's green earth are you "hated"?
I’ve mentioned this before.
I am, as you know and love to mock, a lawyer. I mostly do employment law but had a bit of a sideline in business visas for my clients. Became a big earner post-Brexit. I ran a really anodyne, boring, Twitter account advertising myself as an “Employment and Business Immigration Lawyer” as the Marketing Dept got keen on social media. Nothing political, stupefyingly dull, updates on legal changes, I got to a measly 500 followers - mostly other lawyers. My big moment was being retweeted by Joshua Rosenberg. I tweeted really dull stuff the PR team suggested, avoiding politics.
However, starting in about 2014 or 2015, I started getting abuse. Snide comments at first, then over time they started to get more personal, and then, in 2022, I became of of these lawyers -
The worst actual DM a threat of comedy death, the guy had imagination, but it directly referenced Rwanda. Others referenced Patel’s speeches. Eventually I closed the account anyway - before Braverman. I don’t do any asylum work, the immigration practice I had was visas for complained and HNWI’s, the sort of people “Global Britain” was supposed to be attracting, but nevertheless I was clearly an enemy of the people.
Tories also hate me because I’m married to a foreigner. My specific foreigner is a white Irish-American New Englander but, nevertheless, the hoops we have had to jump through regarding her immigration status have grown increasingly tighter. Now she’s just taken dual nationality the issues will have stopped but we met when I was a student and we would not be allowed to get married now.
So, if not me, then the Tories don’t want “people like me” to vote for them. So I won’t.
I’m not really a “victim”. Others have it far worse than me. The list of people Tories hate is long. But you can see why I can’t see myself as the the sort of person they’re gunning for.
I'm married to a foreigner mate. Who also happens to be a Tory.
Not everything (in fact, hardly anything) is a slight against you personally.
It’s fine. Your party doesn’t want my vote. It’s not good enough for you. So I’ll vote for someone else. Perhaps I’ll reconsider when I’m a pensioner - who you really love
It's similar to why I am so fervently anti-Brexit. Brexit was driven by anti-immigrant feeling, and many of my friends and colleagues were from the EU. It was a deliberate and calculated statement that they were not wanted, and I really don't like my friends being insulted.
The Tories decided they didn't need my vote, so they are not getting it.
The Tories decided to implement the decision of the voters.
That’s all.
You didn’t like losing so you want to punish the people who did as instructed rather than listening to you and your friends
I was a Brexit voter. I think it a bit much to ignore the influence of those pushing for it among the Tory party as being a factor, and once done it did not mean every choice had to be the ones they chose, but I do agree ultimately the mistake (and personally I do regard it as a mistake now) was the fault of the voters. We were told not to do it by plenty of people.
Obviously it's not as simple as the Tories didn't just "implement the decision of the voters" but advocated for it. Without Boris, Gove, Cummings, Farage et al the 'Leave' vote itself doesn't happen. Without advocating for specific self-harming forms of Brexit to satisfy parts of the Tory Party post-vote, they don't happen.
If you think Brexit was/is a terrible idea - as lots (even more than in 2019) do now. Then regardless of what comes next, or whether you understand why some ordinary voters voted the way they did. You're not going to forgive, trust, or easily vote for the people who were its chief advocates. Not least when one of their chief political tactics since 2016 has been insulting you.
It's in some ways the same problem as Jeremy Corbyn. People are reticent to vote for people who make it seem like they don't like them very much. In his case it was British institutions, symbols and those who put value in them.
In the case of the Tories that's quite a large swathe of the country that they have spent much of the past decade insulting and portraying as "not real Britain" because they happen to hold liberal views, think leaving the EU is a shit idea, or this week, merely have the temerity to be young.
Novel idea. But maybe if the Tories tried to understand why they've become so hated among parts of the electorate they never used to be quite so decisively disliked in, they might not be in this mess.
It's more than that though. There are many in the Tory Party who are still fervently convinced they speak for the "silent majority". Brexit vote re-inforced that belief. The unfiltered common sense of Middle England. They think they are Centrists. And that if it wasn't for lefty, liberal blobs and luvvies nowt they do could possibly go wrong. Until they are firmly and finally disabused of that notion, then there can be no self-reflection. They need to lose big time. How insufferable and downright bizarre, corrupt, incompetent and brazen would they be with five more years?
I think the comedy is that the "I trust this poll and only this poll - all other polls must be wrong" angle is hopium for a poll which drops the Tories to 170 seats.
There it is boys and girls. The "I believe in fairies" fantasy is to only be reduced to 170 seats. Though to be fair, 170 is better than 70 seats. Or 17 seats...
I’m nobody’s idea of a Tory but I reckon they’ll be round the 200 mark in the end.
Its possible - everything is in todays politics. But at the moment the polls do not show that. So if the Tories end up near the 200 mark then its a cataclysmic failure of the entire polling industry.
More likely a massive slip on the shiny floor that SKS is currently carrying the Ming vase over.
After all, we also have the recent by-elections and the results of the locals, which are all telling roughly the same story. To get to 200 seats, the Conservatives have to hold on in places like Swindon North, places that fall on a thirteen percent swing. (Apols, can't subtract 200 from 370.)
It's a future event, it's possible, but chinny reckon.
I am, as you know and love to mock, a lawyer. I mostly do employment law but had a bit of a sideline in business visas for my clients. Became a big earner post-Brexit. I ran a really anodyne, boring, Twitter account advertising myself as an “Employment and Business Immigration Lawyer” as the Marketing Dept got keen on social media. Nothing political, stupefyingly dull, updates on legal changes, I got to a measly 500 followers - mostly other lawyers. My big moment was being retweeted by Joshua Rosenberg. I tweeted really dull stuff the PR team suggested, avoiding politics.
However, starting in about 2014 or 2015, I started getting abuse. Snide comments at first, then over time they started to get more personal, and then, in 2022, I became of of these lawyers -
The worst actual DM a threat of comedy death, the guy had imagination, but it directly referenced Rwanda. Others referenced Patel’s speeches. Eventually I closed the account anyway - before Braverman. I don’t do any asylum work, the immigration practice I had was visas for complained and HNWI’s, the sort of people “Global Britain” was supposed to be attracting, but nevertheless I was clearly an enemy of the people.
Tories also hate me because I’m married to a foreigner. My specific foreigner is a white Irish-American New Englander but, nevertheless, the hoops we have had to jump through regarding her immigration status have grown increasingly tighter. Now she’s just taken dual nationality the issues will have stopped but we met when I was a student and we would not be allowed to get married now.
So, if not me, then the Tories don’t want “people like me” to vote for them. So I won’t.
I’m not really a “victim”. Others have it far worse than me. The list of people Tories hate is long. But you can see why I can’t see myself as the the sort of person they’re gunning for.
You are a good person Doug and I am glad to have you posting here. I am sorry for the way you have been treated.
Good for you. Until enough of us stand together and say "No more, this far and no more, there can be no more slightly mad and weird threats on social media against wealthy people" then these slightly mad and weird threats on social media against wealthy people will inexorably continue and possibly WORSEN until millionaire lawyers with their rich Boston born wives become slightly anxious before lunch. And the people in Ukraine think they have it bad?
This, this here. This is where we must finally stand, and turn, and FIGHT
DEFEND THE WEALTHY IMMIGRATION LAWYERS
IIRC it was you who pointed out that most people live their lives online these days. I don't like it but that's how it's gone. We used to believe that we lived in a country where most people thought like us, for any given definition of "us". But now we have access to social media and now we know that for any given definition of "us" there will be people who hate us and want us dead, and that there are people in other countries who think more like "us" than our compatriots. This leads to a loosening of the nation-state and a growth in anxiety, both of which I hate.
Well yes maybe whatever: but the last people I will feel sorry for, in this context, is very wealthy lefty immigration lawyers
I do not personally wish ill on @dougseal, of course, but I cannot find it in me to feel deep sinks of sympathy
In which case, why bother commenting? Unless, of course, you are a troublemaking arsehole. You should get a job with some right wing rag like the Spectator.
Sadly, writing for the world's most prestigious and longest running English language magazine - the Spectator - is very much out of my league. I leave that to its various famous contributors, like Graham Greene, George Orwell, @SeanT, Alexander Pope, Sylvia Plath, sundry Prime Ministers and Chancellors, and Lionel Shriver. And Taki. For me it is the humble Knapper's Gazette, but maybe one day. Who knows?
It's a shitty rag wherein 87.4% of its writers are pretty standard journeymen churning out pedestrian prose which panders to and stokes the prejudices of the red cord-wearing rural types you enjoy making fun of so much yet of whom for some unaccountable reason you are in awe.
12.6% of its writers get the joke and manage to turn out great prose which laughs at that demographic without it being obvious.
Despite your huge self-regard in particular when you come onto PB to parade your supposed sophistication to the yokels, you are comfortably in the former group.
Rishi Sunak has long gone on about to his love of the exercise brand Peloton, appealing to the healthier, fitter spectrum of the population. In keeping with his fitness-freak image, he revealed to the Daily Mail that he starts of with a 6am Peloton session to Britney Spears songs. What Rishi doesn’t realise however, is that Peloton recently changed its privacy policy to allow registered users to search for any other user by name. A co-conspirator happened to come across Sunak’s profile…
In reality, Rishi Sunak hardly uses the treadmill or the bike – just 34 times since he joined. And none of those workouts have been before 8am, preferring instead to exercise just before a leisurely 9am. He hasn’t been quite so successful in the “achievements” section either. The only Peloton workout he’s done since calling the election? A 5km scenic run along the Californian coast at Big Sur, naturally. Getting homesick…?
I think I might take a little step back from this site for a bit. It’s getting just a trifle silly when respected posters are leaping on 1% or 2% movements either way, especially when in the process they are breaking Mike Smithson’s Golden Rule.
The fact is that so far nothing has happened.
There's nothing more exciting than PB on election night.
I am ready, man! Ready to GET IT ON!
17 days?! I've got news for you, pal, our poll lead ain't gonna last 17 hours!!
Royale. ROYALE. This little Prime Minister survived longer than that with no weapons and no training, amirite?
Affirmative.
Hey, Casino. Don't worry! Me and my squad of ultimate Starmer Fans will protect you! Check it out! Independently targeting particle beam phalanx. VWAP! Fry half a Parliamentary constituency with this puppy! We got tactical smart missiles, phased plasma pulse rifles, RPGs, we got sonic electronic ball breakers! We got nukes, we got knives, sharp sticks, leaflets with dodgy bar charts...
Shit. That movie. I just googled the 17 day 17 hour thing and in the 5 seconds clip, 5 actors put in an oscar winning performance.
First film, I just don't see it. I imagine I was amazed by the bit where the (spoiler) thing bursts out of his thing, first time round, but what else has it got?
⁶
Nah, you watch the whole film - the whole film - just for the sentry guns.
Best moment in cinema history.
Outstanding post. Now all we need is a deck of cards.
But the best thing is, the whole film is so good they could afford to leave that bit out. No sentry guns in the cinema release, they are only in the directors cut. Ditto the incredibly moving bit where Ripley is told what happened to her daughter (without which her relationship with newt makes much less sense)
It must be one of the very few sequels which, in my view, is better than the original.
Alien really drags on, and out.
My favourite bit is where Next slips into the water following Gorman exploding. I just think it’s a clever bit of writing. I know films don’t bind their successors ( a bit like parliaments) but the tragedy of Alien 3 rendering everything that had been achieved in Aliens void was awful. And don’t get me started on Alien Resurrection.
Both Alien and Aliens were great films. Different genres in the same universe. When they started trying to make remakes (the rest of the series) it failed.
I think I might take a little step back from this site for a bit. It’s getting just a trifle silly when respected posters are leaping on 1% or 2% movements either way, especially when in the process they are breaking Mike Smithson’s Golden Rule.
The fact is that so far nothing has happened.
There's nothing more exciting than PB on election night.
I am ready, man! Ready to GET IT ON!
17 days?! I've got news for you, pal, our poll lead ain't gonna last 17 hours!!
Royale. ROYALE. This little Prime Minister survived longer than that with no weapons and no training, amirite?
Affirmative.
Hey, Casino. Don't worry! Me and my squad of ultimate Starmer Fans will protect you! Check it out! Independently targeting particle beam phalanx. VWAP! Fry half a Parliamentary constituency with this puppy! We got tactical smart missiles, phased plasma pulse rifles, RPGs, we got sonic electronic ball breakers! We got nukes, we got knives, sharp sticks, leaflets with dodgy bar charts...
Shit. That movie. I just googled the 17 day 17 hour thing and in the 5 seconds clip, 5 actors put in an oscar winning performance.
First film, I just don't see it. I imagine I was amazed by the bit where the (spoiler) thing bursts out of his thing, first time round, but what else has it got?
⁶
Nah, you watch the whole film - the whole film - just for the sentry guns.
Best moment in cinema history.
Outstanding post. Now all we need is a deck of cards.
But the best thing is, the whole film is so good they could afford to leave that bit out. No sentry guns in the cinema release, they are only in the directors cut. Ditto the incredibly moving bit where Ripley is told what happened to her daughter (without which her relationship with newt makes much less sense)
It must be one of the very few sequels which, in my view, is better than the original.
Alien really drags on, and out.
My favourite bit is where Next slips into the water following Gorman exploding. I just think it’s a clever bit of writing. I know films don’t bind their successors ( a bit like parliaments) but the tragedy of Alien 3 rendering everything that had been achieved in Aliens void was awful. And don’t get me started on Alien Resurrection.
Both Alien and Aliens were great films. Different genres in the same universe. When they started trying to make remakes (the rest of the series) it failed.
Much like the first two Terminator films.
The Alien|Bladerunner TV show that's in the works is supposed to blend the two 'universes'. We'll see I guess.
I do have a soft spot for Raised by Wolves, I admit. Quite bonkers.
Comments
Quite a few movies in the 80s managed to walk this line; entertaining, artistically credible, popular and often quite original.
If you think Brexit was/is a terrible idea - as lots (even more than in 2019) do now. Then regardless of what comes next, or whether you understand why some ordinary voters voted the way they did. You're not going to forgive, trust, or easily vote for the people who were its chief advocates. Not least when one of their chief political tactics since 2016 has been insulting you.
It's in some ways the same problem as Jeremy Corbyn. People are reticent to vote for people who make it seem like they don't like them very much. In his case it was British institutions, symbols and those who put value in them.
In the case of the Tories that's quite a large swathe of the country that they have spent much of the past decade insulting and portraying as "not real Britain" because they happen to hold liberal views, think leaving the EU is a shit idea, or this week, merely have the temerity to be young.
Novel idea. But maybe if the Tories tried to understand why they've become so hated among parts of the electorate they never used to be quite so decisively disliked in, they might not be in this mess.
He is a wealthy man with a house in France, OK he went to Millfield but he's still probably got an IQ over 98, he can work out that he's entitled to residency in France. So what has he lost?
He's still a British subject, he still has EU Residency. What is it that personally irks him? I don't believe he is a small scale exporter of eerily computerised shellfish so what is it?
It must be the combo of being a British subject AND an EU citizen that he misses, which is perhaps and maybe understandable, but relatively very tiny in the wider circs, as you say
I have seen Aliens though and it is nearly as good as the original, but lacking in the shock factor of the first viewing of Alien.
I recall reading about similar issues with US cabinet members, the only person who followed all the procedures and security rules was Condoleezza Rice.
NEW THREAD
Are you Prince Harry?
It is the right thing to do.
There are many in the Tory Party who are still fervently convinced they speak for the "silent majority". Brexit vote re-inforced that belief. The unfiltered common sense of Middle England. They think they are Centrists.
And that if it wasn't for lefty, liberal blobs and luvvies nowt they do could possibly go wrong.
Until they are firmly and finally disabused of that notion, then there can be no self-reflection.
They need to lose big time.
How insufferable and downright bizarre, corrupt, incompetent and brazen would they be with five more years?
After all, we also have the recent by-elections and the results of the locals, which are all telling roughly the same story. To get to 200 seats, the Conservatives have to hold on in places like Swindon North, places that fall on a thirteen percent swing. (Apols, can't subtract 200 from 370.)
It's a future event, it's possible, but chinny reckon.
A complete change of career could be the making of him.
12.6% of its writers get the joke and manage to turn out great prose which laughs at that demographic without it being obvious.
Despite your huge self-regard in particular when you come onto PB to parade your supposed sophistication to the yokels, you are comfortably in the former group.
Much like the first two Terminator films.
I do have a soft spot for Raised by Wolves, I admit. Quite bonkers.