Patrick O'Flynn @oflynnsocial · 2h A lot of gossip on the Westminster grapevine that the election betting scandal may be about to take a devastating new turn for the Tories. 👀
And 2 hours later... still gossip. To be honest unless Rishi personally told all of CCHQ the election date before he formally announced it and gave them £50 each to put on at the bookies I really don't see what this 'devastating new turn might be' which would have any impact of significance
Do pb-ers genuinely think Starmer is good looking?!
I am surprised. Also encouraged as I’m almost his age. To me he looks like an average slightly tubby quite well preserved north london lawyer. His wife is still striking and must have been an absolute stunner
Macron is not handsome. He was a pretty boy with hints of the epicene but I don’t think it’s going to last
The one seriously good looking world leader is Justin Trudeau. Can’t stand his politics but very very handsome. Great hair
In terms of female leaders then FINLAND RUMOUR KLAXON
I thought you had the hots for Meloni?
I wouldn't be entirely disappointed if I was washed up on a desert island with her.
A very good thread header from a first timer! My compliments.
Ultimately, the neoliberal consensus of the last 40 or so years is thoroughly broken now - the idea that most would do well out of it, and even the worst off would do better out of it than they would in any other system no longer seems to hold. Capitalism is becoming feudalism, with an entrenched 1% and a servant/serf class, unable to ever get out of the debt trap for long enough to accumulate assets of their own. So what comes next - history teaches us either the far left, or the far right, or both.
Where is this idea we are a pure capitalist economy? Over 40% of GDP is taken by the state, we have a tax burden higher than ever before Labour would increase further. Most pupils attend state not private schools and Labour also want to make them even more exclusive by removing the VAT on fees exemption. We have a state funded national health service and one of the most generous welfare states in the world.
You might be able to argue Singapore, Dubai or Monaco or at a push Florida are neoliberal, the UK certainly isn't!
Got to say Scotland have won the anthem competition hands down so far.
Yes, it’s the matches we are finding tricky. 0-0 at half time. No chances created for Scotland again. Shankland really, really needs to come on. He should have started.
Now, I have friends in that party, and I'm fairly sure that their view on billionaires is... take them out to lunch and set them straight? Put them in front of a panel of old women and make them justify their wealth? Tax them fairly through international diplomatic agreement? Help me out here.
The British Communist party has quite a lot of valuable property and is a significant landlord, IIRC.
So probably lunch is paid for by the rents?
All property is theft...oh....
Of course Mr Maomentum was also incredibly wealthy from property.
When parliament reconvenes he's going to get his supporters to protest outside parliament isn't he?
🚨 ELECTION INTERFERENCE ALERT 🚨
Today's Mail on Sunday claimed President Zelensky said that I was personally infected with Putinism. This is totally untrue and I have instructed Carter Ruck to deal with it.
Tomorrow’s Daily Mail are so desperate to smear Reform that they have now contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry and goaded them into a supposed quote from someone in Sergey Lavrov’s office calling me an ‘ally’.
That a UK newspaper group is actively collaborating with the Kremlin to protect their dying Conservative party is an absolute scandal. The British people will see through this act of utter desperation.
The way it reads, it sounds like he's instructed Carter Ruck to deal with Zelensky. Which I would wish them luck with!
No. He's set them on the Mail on the grounds Zelensky said no such thing.
Yes, I know. Just on first reading it didn't sound it. I think NF is quite enjoying this. Like Net Zero, unqualified support for the war in Ukraine has become such a requirement of polite politics that it has left a 'voice of reason' gap for him to step into. The Tories can't and won't follow him there, leaving Reform the only questioners of the blank cheque approach. There must be many people who privately question the wisdom of our Ukraine policy, who aren't just un-served, they're told they're wicked for even thinking it.
Thanks for the article. Fascinating. A couple of thoughts.
It is tempting to find a concept - in this case neo-liberalism and decide it is the problem. It will be more complicated than that.
The treating of people always and everywhere as ends in themselves and not means to an end (the old Kantian language for commodification) is always a moral issue. The matter arises because people don't always act rightly; nor is it obvious in some cultures that the Kantian principle is right. Why should it be. It's highly contestable. Though not by me.
Our society regulates and chooses, and sometimes does so well. It wasn't neo-liberals who created slavery or failed to teach poor children to read and write in 1300.
Specifically on the points: Migration. Commodify for whom? Perhaps all manner of migration allows good personal development for people ill served by the places from which they come.
Opiates: Modern systems regulate all drugs and have the power to do so. Errors in this are caused by people, not neo liberalism.
Smartphones: Nothing in liberalism prevents regulation WRT children. Like alcohol and cigarettes. It's a matter for governance and voters.
Workers' Rights: Are better enforced by wealthy liberal societies than others.
Patrick O'Flynn @oflynnsocial · 2h A lot of gossip on the Westminster grapevine that the election betting scandal may be about to take a devastating new turn for the Tories. 👀
And 2 hours later... still gossip. To be honest unless Rishi personally told all of CCHQ the election date before he formally announced it and gave them £50 each to put on at the bookies I really don't see what this 'devastating new turn might be' which would have any impact of significance
Watch and learn.
Possibly right. Sunday night when the footie is on isn’t the time to break the news. If there is any news.
A key problem facing the advanced western countries is the difficulty in getting anything done due to the legal/bureaucratic state. The solution to every problem is more regulations and process, all of which is inherently imperfect and contradictory. There was a realisation of the problems this was creating in the 1980's but no lasting or meaningful answer was ever settled on. So now most work in the economy is connected to the implementation of process or regulation rather than being productive or creative in its own right.
The conservatives had 14 years and made the situation I have described above worse. Labour will continue this trend. But the whole system needs rapid disruption - perhaps this is inevitable as the rest of the world adapts faster to technological innovation. It feels to me like the centrist parties (IE all the main parties) are just part of the old world and they will be transformed or swept away by something new, it may be called 'far right' but it is not necessarily correct to view it this way.
That is my opinion. Some artists who become big you can sort of see why e.g. Carrot top Sheeran with his cool loop pedal stuff and playing about a billion tiny gigs. Or the people who popularise a totally new genre e.g. Nirvana, Beatles, Stones.
Taylor swift, seems like every other two a penny pop star, but is a billionaire with fans willing to pay crazy money to see her. Each to their own, but is beyond me.
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
And the problem for every government since Thatcher is that it's really hard to see what they can sell/give away to match Council Houses and state-owned industries sold off through privatisation.
Which goes back to my concern about the last 45 years or so. Have we, by treating one-off windfalls as recurrents, created unrealisitic expectations about what we're collectively entitled to? And if so, how do we fix that?
The challenge will be to find nuggets of improvement that don't cost much, and leverage those to fund more. It's not going to be easy.
The UK doesn't do far right, even Farage is closer to the ERG wing of the Tories than Nick Griffin.
I also don't see what use the talking shops of citizens assemblies are? If voters want to change something they can elect a different party in the Commons, the upper house is supposed to be a revising chamber of experts in their fields not Joe and Maureen down the street picked at random from a lottery and obliged to serve for a year in a role that would bore them rigid.
Stakeholder capitalism maybe but we already have John Lewis for that.
On the first point, I hope you're right. We have a good history here. I agree Farage is not far right.
I think the difference citizens assemblies make is that is is not career politicians making decisions on our behalf. Part of our current problem is that politicians don't ever really pass the 'they're like me' test of legitimacy. Added to that, in practice, I've seen them produce nuanced, innovative, effective policy and consensus in areas politicians struggle with.
Notwithstanding John Lewis's struggles I'd say more like that would be a good start.
Why should people who are not elected but picked by lottery make any decisions on our behalf? I do agree though John Lewis is a good corporate model to follow
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
And the problem for every government since Thatcher is that it's really hard to see what they can sell/give away to match Council Houses and state-owned industries sold off through privatisation.
Which goes back to my concern about the last 45 years or so. Have we, by treating one-off windfalls as recurrents, created unrealisitic expectations about what we're collectively entitled to? And if so, how do we fix that?
The challenge will be to find nuggets of improvement that don't cost much, and leverage those to fund more. It's not going to be easy.
We could try working.
Productivity would do wonders to our standard of living.
Do pb-ers genuinely think Starmer is good looking?!
I am surprised. Also encouraged as I’m almost his age. To me he looks like an average slightly tubby quite well preserved north london lawyer. His wife is still striking and must have been an absolute stunner
Macron is not handsome. He was a pretty boy with hints of the epicene but I don’t think it’s going to last
The one seriously good looking world leader is Justin Trudeau. Can’t stand his politics but very very handsome. Great hair
In terms of female leaders then FINLAND RUMOUR KLAXON
I thought you had the hots for Meloni?
I have kinda milfy hots for Meloni. As in, *yes I definitely would, especially after a couple of brunelli*
With sanna marin it was basic omg yes I want her to push her face into the pillow
Sorry if this is too visceral. It’s 10pm in Quiberon and I’ve had a fair few drinks and a BRILLIANT day - and tomorrow I go to the island of Houat!!
I really e joyed this. As noted by another poster it is thoughtful and salient. It strikes me how the feel of your argument aligns with the pollster thread down thread about how May's 'just about managing' had legs. I think the country are looking for a more fundamental alternative and we must avoid the extremes offering a simplistic option. The Conservative Party have an opportunity post-defeat to really reflect on conservatism for this era. Competence, decency and fiscal prudence are all things the party must win back trust for, but it cannot just offer a better Labour party for 10 years time. Personally, I think the party could do a lot worse than look at Nick Timothy for philosophical inspiration.
I realise I and a few others haven’t yet engaged with the excellent header.
Neoliberalism is a funny label. It’s almost always used as a criticism, but without the neo bit, “liberalism” is an important philosophy to cling on to: the scientific method, personal freedom, pluralism, the importance of education and so on.
The issue is the acceleration of the globalised consumer world, but what’s the solution? Surely not a return to a nostalgic past we can’t recreate. Nor a socialist utopia where competition disappears.
This has happened a few times in the past and it’s either led to revolution or reform. Britain has generally got ahead of revolution by reforming and regulating.
Regulation is the unsung hero of the last century and a half. Without it we’d still be sending kids up chimneys, tolerating slums and dumping toxic waste in the city fringes. We’d have no advertising standards, children could easily access violent porn online (I know, I know) and we’d all own semi automatic weapons.
The question being what now needs reforming and regulating most.
Thanks both. Tim I particularly like your point about regulation, though I think that gets more challenging as democracy becomes less deferential - often those regulating believe they know better than the masses (often they are right, but not always).
As a result I think regulation is harder to do these days. But I'd say AI is very, very clearly a place where good regulation is needed - I'd be tempted to go so far as to say it should become a public service like the NHS.
A very good thread header from a first timer! My compliments.
Ultimately, the neoliberal consensus of the last 40 or so years is thoroughly broken now - the idea that most would do well out of it, and even the worst off would do better out of it than they would in any other system no longer seems to hold. Capitalism is becoming feudalism, with an entrenched 1% and a servant/serf class, unable to ever get out of the debt trap for long enough to accumulate assets of their own. So what comes next - history teaches us either the far left, or the far right, or both.
Where is this idea we are a pure capitalist economy? Over 40% of GDP is taken by the state, we have a tax burden higher than ever before Labour would increase further. Most pupils attend state not private schools and Labour also want to make them even more exclusive by removing the VAT on fees exemption. We have a state funded national health service and one of the most generous welfare states in the world.
You might be able to argue Singapore, Dubai or Monaco or at a push Florida are neoliberal, the UK certainly isn't!
Yet the governing party, which you support, has been in charge for 14 years and has failed to significantly redress the balance. Indeed, one might argue we've had 14 years of social democrat rather than conservative government.
At the same time, a lot of people think the "system" doesn't work for them and arguing the case for monetarism and trickledown doesn't work the way it did in the 1970s when it was put up by Keith Joseph and later Margaret Thatcher as the alternative to the Butskellism post-war concensus.
IF you think the current political and economic system is broken, what is the remedy? Reform have nothing to offer but then neither do the Conservatives (or Labour or the Lib Dems or anyone else in truth). It's likely technological innovation will create a new era of economic growth as it has done so often in the past but the demographic changes are the main challenge.
Thanks for the article. Fascinating. A couple of thoughts.
It is tempting to find a concept - in this case neo-liberalism and decide it is the problem. It will be more complicated than that.
The treating of people always and everywhere as ends in themselves and not means to an end (the old Kantian language for commodification) is always a moral issue. The matter arises because people don't always act rightly; nor is it obvious in some cultures that the Kantian principle is right. Why should it be. It's highly contestable. Though not by me.
Our society regulates and chooses, and sometimes does so well. It wasn't neo-liberals who created slavery or failed to teach poor children to read and write in 1300.
Specifically on the points: Migration. Commodify for whom? Perhaps all manner of migration allows good personal development for people ill served by the places from which they come.
Opiates: Modern systems regulate all drugs and have the power to do so. Errors in this are caused by people, not neo liberalism.
Smartphones: Nothing in liberalism prevents regulation WRT children. Like alcohol and cigarettes. It's a matter for governance and voters.
Workers' Rights: Are better enforced by wealthy liberal societies than others.
It is human nature to see a problem, and seek out reasons why something you already don't like is responsible for it.
Plenty of people like that, just not many with a million+ followers on social media.
I pay her the same attention I pay any drooling lunatic at closing time in any local pub.
She's been driven completely insane over the last few years. She should just have written her books and retired quietly. This is no way to live.
I did report some time ago that she doesn't seem with it.
I won't repeat some of the rumours to save the mods' blushes, but there are plenty of reddit threads implying she's gone the full Howard Hughes. DYOR as always. It's sad really, as it's equally applicable to people such as Plato, formerly of this parish, as it is to billionaires holed up in their manors with a laptop and little else to do.
I hope I've changed some of my views and become more moderate as a result of talking to other people from outside my 'world' IRL. But still, I have days where I think I need to stop arguing with people on the internet and touch grass.
She’s mid now but she used to be extremely sexy and lush. She’s now in her 30s. People forget
Also: she has written superb country pop-rock songs. She’s not imaginary. She’s genuinely good
However I wonder how she will evolve. Her whole shtick is being the sexy girl talking about sex and being a neglected cheerleader… she can’t push that into her late 30s
Facebook is currently showing me a sponsored ad from Nigel Farage. It reads "Come and meet me on Monday 24th June in Newton Abbot. Book your tickets now!"
For anyone who wonders about big tech knowing too much of our lives, I am relieved that Facebook (a) thinks I might be interested in seeing Nigel Farage (b) thinks I live within 150 miles of Newton Abbot.
That is my opinion. Some artists who become big you can sort of see why e.g. Carrot top Sheeran with his cool loop pedal stuff and playing about a billion tiny gigs. Or the people who popularise a totally new genre e.g. Nirvana, Beatles, Stones.
Taylor swift, seems like every other two a penny pop star, but is a billionaire with fans willing to pay crazy money to see her. Each to their own, but is beyond me.
She can hold 90,000 people rapt, just her and a guitar, so she's doing something right.
The Eras show is spectacular. A technical tour de force, but again it wouldn't work if nobody liked the songs.
The UK doesn't do far right, even Farage is closer to the ERG wing of the Tories than Nick Griffin.
I also don't see what use the talking shops of citizens assemblies are? If voters want to change something they can elect a different party in the Commons, the upper house is supposed to be a revising chamber of experts in their fields not Joe and Maureen down the street picked at random from a lottery and obliged to serve for a year in a role that would bore them rigid.
Stakeholder capitalism maybe but we already have John Lewis for that.
On the first point, I hope you're right. We have a good history here. I agree Farage is not far right.
I think the difference citizens assemblies make is that is is not career politicians making decisions on our behalf. Part of our current problem is that politicians don't ever really pass the 'they're like me' test of legitimacy. Added to that, in practice, I've seen them produce nuanced, innovative, effective policy and consensus in areas politicians struggle with.
Notwithstanding John Lewis's struggles I'd say more like that would be a good start.
Why should people who are not elected but picked by lottery make any decisions on our behalf? I do agree though John Lewis is a good corporate model to follow
Is the current HoL any more legitimate?
But aside from my own whataboutery, I agree that there is a fairly fine line between citizens assemblies being too tokenistic and being too powerful.
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
Do pb-ers genuinely think Starmer is good looking?!
I am surprised. Also encouraged as I’m almost his age. To me he looks like an average slightly tubby quite well preserved north london lawyer. His wife is still striking and must have been an absolute stunner
Macron is not handsome. He was a pretty boy with hints of the epicene but I don’t think it’s going to last
The one seriously good looking world leader is Justin Trudeau. Can’t stand his politics but very very handsome. Great hair
In terms of female leaders then FINLAND RUMOUR KLAXON
More that he's landed on the right interesction of age/looks/role?
Sometimes, years become a gentleman. Major was probably handsomer with grey hair than black.
Blair didn't get that. Went from 'too young' to 'too old' just like that.
Yes that’s fair and interesting. And, er, encouraging. He definitely looks better now
When my lovely 21 year old corbynite wife married me 8 years ago (when I was in my early 50s) she looked at photos of me age 22 and said “ugh no, no way I would have married you then you looked girly”
Men can age well, more than women. But women have all the sexual power in their teens and 20s.
Plenty of people like that, just not many with a million+ followers on social media.
I pay her the same attention I pay any drooling lunatic at closing time in any local pub.
I am sure she would think the same of you if she even knew you existed.
If I were a billionaire, I would probably find better ways to spend my days than sitting on social media drumming up hatred for oppressed minorities.
But hey-ho.
I've never watched or read any of her fiction, the only reason I know of her existence is because she's a massive [expletive deleted].
This posting shows you might actually be a better writer of fiction than she is.
I've never watched a movie based on her stories or read one of her books. If it weren't for the trans stuff, as far as I'm concerned she'd be no more famous than Leon. I.e. an author who shitposts online far too much and is a bit touched in the head by certain issues.
The difference is I actually like Leon, and think he has a modicum of wit.
I do have to thank the Tories. Just as there was a risk of this election starting to backslide - don't give Labour that supermajority - they do something so dense that it bends even Jonathan Gullis around it.
The betting scandal is so banal, so petty, and yet utterly symbolic of everything wrong with the Tory party. To amplify it, Sunak has handled it in the worst possible way.
Will we *ever* again see an election campaign this bad from a party in government?
Plenty of people like that, just not many with a million+ followers on social media.
I pay her the same attention I pay any drooling lunatic at closing time in any local pub.
I am sure she would think the same of you if she even knew you existed.
If I were a billionaire, I would probably find better ways to spend my days than sitting on social media drumming up hatred for oppressed minorities.
But hey-ho.
I've never watched or read any of her fiction, the only reason I know of her existence is because she's a massive [expletive deleted].
This posting shows you might actually be a better writer of fiction than she is.
I've never watched a movie based on her stories or read one of her books. If it weren't for the trans stuff, as far as I'm concerned she'd be no more famous than Leon. I.e. an author who shitposts online far too much and is a bit touched in the head by certain issues.
The difference is I actually like Leon, and think he has a modicum of wit.
its a bit pathetic trying to compete with Ms Rowling - let me tell you you errr lost. Whatever the arguments about her prose and fiction , she is a world bestseller (ie what people want to read - rather like that other author of massive best sellers ,Dan Brown that prose snobs like to diss)
She’s mid now but she used to be extremely sexy and lush. She’s now in her 30s. People forget
Also: she has written superb country pop-rock songs. She’s not imaginary. She’s genuinely good
However I wonder how she will evolve. Her whole shtick is being the sexy girl talking about sex and being a neglected cheerleader… she can’t push that into her late 30s
The UK doesn't do far right, even Farage is closer to the ERG wing of the Tories than Nick Griffin.
I also don't see what use the talking shops of citizens assemblies are? If voters want to change something they can elect a different party in the Commons, the upper house is supposed to be a revising chamber of experts in their fields not Joe and Maureen down the street picked at random from a lottery and obliged to serve for a year in a role that would bore them rigid.
Stakeholder capitalism maybe but we already have John Lewis for that.
On the first point, I hope you're right. We have a good history here. I agree Farage is not far right.
I think the difference citizens assemblies make is that is is not career politicians making decisions on our behalf. Part of our current problem is that politicians don't ever really pass the 'they're like me' test of legitimacy. Added to that, in practice, I've seen them produce nuanced, innovative, effective policy and consensus in areas politicians struggle with.
Notwithstanding John Lewis's struggles I'd say more like that would be a good start.
Why should people who are not elected but picked by lottery make any decisions on our behalf? I do agree though John Lewis is a good corporate model to follow
Is the current HoL any more legitimate?
But aside from my own whataboutery, I agree that there is a fairly fine line between citizens assemblies being too tokenistic and being too powerful.
Yes at least most in the HofL normally have been leaders in their field whether business, law, academia, science, politics, the arts, sport, religion etc and have some expertise to bring to a revising chamber
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
I really enjoyed the thread header @maxh. I'd add another example to this: the people who died in the Max-8 crashes a few years ago. This is an engineering problem close to my heart. Boeing used to be an engineering forward company. The lawyer who led them realised that the only way you sell thousands of aircraft is to have a bulletproof engineering ethos and to be utterly reliable. They had hit after hit after hit because they didn't skimp on quality and they made airlines pay for it. Shareholders got dividends because the company was successful, not because the company went out of its way to please shareholders.
Meanwhile McDonnell-Douglas produced aircraft with a business-forward mindset. Bluntly their aircraft weren't as good. The DC-10 had a poor safety record on introduction and it took years to get it to a point where it was acceptable to airlines and regulators (this might start to sound familiar). It was cheap though. But the shareholders liked them because they got good returns (despite the dead people).
In the 90s Boeing were being pressured by Airbus and responded by merging with Douglas under Phil Condit and Harry Stonecipher (the McDouglas Boss). Stonecipher took over shortly after and the two of them started buying back Boeing stock. Stonecipher made it clear that Boeing was going to be run like a business, which meant squeezing everything for profit, growth and shareholder value. Which is why Boeing hasn't developed a new plane in 15 years, the current ones are having doors fall out and a couple of hundred people are dead. The focus on quality as a USP that would lead to returns has been lost in order to shortcut a route to shareholder returns, and commensurate wild executive pay.
But the reason they get away with it is because there is a duopoly in the commercial aviation industry. Who else can you buy planes from?bThe only competition are Comac (who only make an A320 size plane), Embraer in the regional market and Tupolev who make rubbish for the CIS market. If the market worked properly then we'd see a US manufacturer making a competitor for the 737 MAX series. But none can survive the cozy deals Boeing have with airlines and the massive subsidies both get from government.
An obsession with shareholder capital and huge players who dominate markets end up with what Cory Doctorrow calls enshittification: Where service quality is good, but then suffers as soon as a service becomes dominant and the easiest way to grow is to offer less for more. Think Amazon adding ads to paid prime content. Boeing enshittified their business model and it killed people. Airbus is only staying the course because it's smart enough to spot when someone gets their pecker caught in the ceiling fan and have stayed away from that particular corner cutting. But they're not really innovating at the moment either. The market dies, you have two corporate aristocrats feuding over the result, and passengers and airlines are the ones that suffer.
His Twitter feed is full of the latest meal he's had.
He singlehandedly disproves that the Labour NEC has rooted out low quality Candidates.
Every time a Lab spokesperson takes that line the interviewer should ask them about Akehurst.
"Do you believe the UN is Antisemitic" No. So why is the Candidate for N Durham still a Candidate.
Do you believe Palestinian Actors are pretending their being slaughtered by Israel
ETC ETC
What is noticeable is how few local party members are campaigning for him. Some councillors and friends from the south but I have seen more local members campaign in my ward in council elections.
Certainly not noticed the last couple of labour candidates in my ward campaigning for him although they have been active in the ward before
I do have to thank the Tories. Just as there was a risk of this election starting to backslide - don't give Labour that supermajority - they do something so dense that it bends even Jonathan Gullis around it.
The betting scandal is so banal, so petty, and yet utterly symbolic of everything wrong with the Tory party. To amplify it, Sunak has handled it in the worst possible way.
Will we *ever* again see an election campaign this bad from a party in government?
I was reflecting earlier today: if the shoe was on the other foot and this was Labour's campaign, I'd be utterly convinced that it was election interference, fake news etc. from Russia.
The only reason I don't think the Tories' campaign is being bombarded with nefarious interference with is I just can't work out who benefits from it.
I just don't understand the global pheononeoononenm of Taylor Swift.
Me neither. She’s just a poundshop Lana del Rey.
Looking from outside - my music challenge is finding a successor to Shostakovich, and what's happened to song writing since the untimely death of George Butterworth - and Taylor Swift isn't the answer to any of that. But I have a daughter who is a Swiftie but is in some other respects normal and reasons there are.
1) Charm 2) Charisma 3) Girl next door 4) Nice 5) Pretty 6) Feminist 7) Decent 8) Words interesting, (though not to me) 9) Personal and personable.
If she could sing Schubert like Elly Ameling I'd go.
That is my opinion. Some artists who become big you can sort of see why e.g. Carrot top Sheeran with his cool loop pedal stuff and playing about a billion tiny gigs. Or the people who popularise a totally new genre e.g. Nirvana, Beatles, Stones.
Taylor swift, seems like every other two a penny pop star, but is a billionaire with fans willing to pay crazy money to see her. Each to their own, but is beyond me.
She can hold 90,000 people rapt, just her and a guitar, so she's doing something right.
The Eras show is spectacular. A technical tour de force, but again it wouldn't work if nobody liked the songs.
Yes exactly. Her songs are REALLY good - as straight up melodic catchy pop. She’s an excellent singer songwriter and she was very pretty and she’s still rather attractive
However that doesn’t explain her enormous global success. The explanation for that is that people like her are now so rare. Music has declined badly. So a star who writes good songs who might once have had a nice career can now have an absurdly successful career by virtue of zero competition
A very good thread header from a first timer! My compliments.
Ultimately, the neoliberal consensus of the last 40 or so years is thoroughly broken now - the idea that most would do well out of it, and even the worst off would do better out of it than they would in any other system no longer seems to hold. Capitalism is becoming feudalism, with an entrenched 1% and a servant/serf class, unable to ever get out of the debt trap for long enough to accumulate assets of their own. So what comes next - history teaches us either the far left, or the far right, or both.
Where is this idea we are a pure capitalist economy? Over 40% of GDP is taken by the state, we have a tax burden higher than ever before Labour would increase further. Most pupils attend state not private schools and Labour also want to make them even more exclusive by removing the VAT on fees exemption. We have a state funded national health service and one of the most generous welfare states in the world.
You might be able to argue Singapore, Dubai or Monaco or at a push Florida are neoliberal, the UK certainly isn't!
Yet the governing party, which you support, has been in charge for 14 years and has failed to significantly redress the balance. Indeed, one might argue we've had 14 years of social democrat rather than conservative government.
At the same time, a lot of people think the "system" doesn't work for them and arguing the case for monetarism and trickledown doesn't work the way it did in the 1970s when it was put up by Keith Joseph and later Margaret Thatcher as the alternative to the Butskellism post-war concensus.
IF you think the current political and economic system is broken, what is the remedy? Reform have nothing to offer but then neither do the Conservatives (or Labour or the Lib Dems or anyone else in truth). It's likely technological innovation will create a new era of economic growth as it has done so often in the past but the demographic changes are the main challenge.
The Coalition, which admittedly included the LDs, did reduce spending as a percentage of gdp and did cut income tax and then Osborne also made the family home exempt from IHT once the Tories had a majority.
Though I agree it might take a full era of high tax, high spend social democratic Labour government for Thatcherism to get a hearing again.
I just don't understand the global pheononeoononenm of Taylor Swift.
Me neither. She’s just a poundshop Lana del Rey.
Looking from outside - my music challenge is finding a successor to Shostakovich, and what's happened to song writing since the untimely death of George Butterworth - and Taylor Swift isn't the answer to any of that. But I have a daughter who is a Swiftie but is in some other respects normal and reasons there are.
1) Charm 2) Charisma 3) Girl next door 4) Nice 5) Pretty 6) Feminist 7) Decent 8) Words interesting, (though not to me) 9) Personal and personable.
If she could sing Schubert like Elly Ameling I'd go.
One reason i have read is Swift has managed to foster this incredibly strong parasocial relationship with her fanbase through carefully crafted social media presence. That has elevated beyond decent pop singer with sone catchy tunes.
Thanks for the article. Fascinating. A couple of thoughts.
It is tempting to find a concept - in this case neo-liberalism and decide it is the problem. It will be more complicated than that.
The treating of people always and everywhere as ends in themselves and not means to an end (the old Kantian language for commodification) is always a moral issue. The matter arises because people don't always act rightly; nor is it obvious in some cultures that the Kantian principle is right. Why should it be. It's highly contestable. Though not by me.
Our society regulates and chooses, and sometimes does so well. It wasn't neo-liberals who created slavery or failed to teach poor children to read and write in 1300.
Specifically on the points: Migration. Commodify for whom? Perhaps all manner of migration allows good personal development for people ill served by the places from which they come.
Opiates: Modern systems regulate all drugs and have the power to do so. Errors in this are caused by people, not neo liberalism.
Smartphones: Nothing in liberalism prevents regulation WRT children. Like alcohol and cigarettes. It's a matter for governance and voters.
Workers' Rights: Are better enforced by wealthy liberal societies than others.
Modern systems can regulate drugs? LOL. There was 35 tonnes of cocaine seized in one European operation last week and the business would not be viable if 90% minimum were not getting through. We can't keep drugs out of high security prisons.
Facebook is currently showing me a sponsored ad from Nigel Farage. It reads "Come and meet me on Monday 24th June in Newton Abbot. Book your tickets now!"
For anyone who wonders about big tech knowing too much of our lives, I am relieved that Facebook (a) thinks I might be interested in seeing Nigel Farage (b) thinks I live within 150 miles of Newton Abbot.
I was on YouTube earlier and a Farage ad selling Gold came up !!!!
Plenty of people like that, just not many with a million+ followers on social media.
I pay her the same attention I pay any drooling lunatic at closing time in any local pub.
I am sure she would think the same of you if she even knew you existed.
If I were a billionaire, I would probably find better ways to spend my days than sitting on social media drumming up hatred for oppressed minorities.
But hey-ho.
I've never watched or read any of her fiction, the only reason I know of her existence is because she's a massive [expletive deleted].
This posting shows you might actually be a better writer of fiction than she is.
I've never watched a movie based on her stories or read one of her books. If it weren't for the trans stuff, as far as I'm concerned she'd be no more famous than Leon. I.e. an author who shitposts online far too much and is a bit touched in the head by certain issues.
The difference is I actually like Leon, and think he has a modicum of wit.
its a bit pathetic trying to compete with Ms Rowling - let me tell you you errr lost. Whatever the arguments about her prose and fiction , she is a world bestseller (ie what people want to read - rather like that other author of massive best sellers ,Dan Brown that prose snobs like to diss)
The 40 shades of grey woman was a world bestseller, one would hardly call her Shakespeare.
Mcdonalds is the world's bestselling food, I still wouldn't eat it, even if Ronald McDonald tried to ram one of his burgers down my throat.
JK Rowling has taken from ramming mediocre fiction down the world's throat to ramming her hatred of LGBTQ people down people's throat with equal vigour. As I say, she's the drunk in the pub at closing time who happens to have a million followers.
Good for her, but forgive me if I don't place any more importance on her words than said aforementioned drunk.
I just don't understand the global pheononeoononenm of Taylor Swift.
Me neither. She’s just a poundshop Lana del Rey.
Looking from outside - my music challenge is finding a successor to Shostakovich, and what's happened to song writing since the untimely death of George Butterworth - and Taylor Swift isn't the answer to any of that. But I have a daughter who is a Swiftie but is in some other respects normal and reasons there are.
1) Charm 2) Charisma 3) Girl next door 4) Nice 5) Pretty 6) Feminist 7) Decent 8) Words interesting, (though not to me) 9) Personal and personable.
If she could sing Schubert like Elly Ameling I'd go.
I'm not sure her world tour would be quite the phenomenon.
JK Rowling needed an editor. The last two or three books are silly.
And the movies she's written are utter trash.
Yes. She is a person I greatly admire. But there's a sort of rule: as she gets longer, she gets worse. Harry Potter, first 4 or so are good fun. Last three deadly dull. The Galbraith stuff - much of which is outstanding, but as she starts writing stuff about 8,000 pages long it loses its way. She's good but she isn't Dickens or Edward Gibbon and should not try.
The UK doesn't do far right, even Farage is closer to the ERG wing of the Tories than Nick Griffin.
I also don't see what use the talking shops of citizens assemblies are? If voters want to change something they can elect a different party in the Commons, the upper house is supposed to be a revising chamber of experts in their fields not Joe and Maureen down the street picked at random from a lottery and obliged to serve for a year in a role that would bore them rigid.
Stakeholder capitalism maybe but we already have John Lewis for that.
On the first point, I hope you're right. We have a good history here. I agree Farage is not far right.
I think the difference citizens assemblies make is that is is not career politicians making decisions on our behalf. Part of our current problem is that politicians don't ever really pass the 'they're like me' test of legitimacy. Added to that, in practice, I've seen them produce nuanced, innovative, effective policy and consensus in areas politicians struggle with.
Notwithstanding John Lewis's struggles I'd say more like that would be a good start.
Why should people who are not elected but picked by lottery make any decisions on our behalf? I do agree though John Lewis is a good corporate model to follow
Is the current HoL any more legitimate?
But aside from my own whataboutery, I agree that there is a fairly fine line between citizens assemblies being too tokenistic and being too powerful.
Yes at least most in the HofL normally have been leaders in their field whether business, law, academia, science, politics, the arts, sport, religion etc and have some expertise to bring to a revising chamber
And here we reach one reason why you're a conservative and I'm not. I agree that expertise is very valuable, but I don't see the Lords playing that role effectively at present. So the value of that expertise is, in my view, worth less than the value you get from visibily breaking the 'they're not like us' problem we currently have by broadening the background of those who play that revising role.
Of course, there is probably a happy medium between our respective positions.
Thanks for the article. Fascinating. A couple of thoughts.
It is tempting to find a concept - in this case neo-liberalism and decide it is the problem. It will be more complicated than that.
The treating of people always and everywhere as ends in themselves and not means to an end (the old Kantian language for commodification) is always a moral issue. The matter arises because people don't always act rightly; nor is it obvious in some cultures that the Kantian principle is right. Why should it be. It's highly contestable. Though not by me.
Our society regulates and chooses, and sometimes does so well. It wasn't neo-liberals who created slavery or failed to teach poor children to read and write in 1300.
Specifically on the points: Migration. Commodify for whom? Perhaps all manner of migration allows good personal development for people ill served by the places from which they come.
Opiates: Modern systems regulate all drugs and have the power to do so. Errors in this are caused by people, not neo liberalism.
Smartphones: Nothing in liberalism prevents regulation WRT children. Like alcohol and cigarettes. It's a matter for governance and voters.
Workers' Rights: Are better enforced by wealthy liberal societies than others.
Modern systems can regulate drugs? LOL. There was 35 tonnes of cocaine seized in one European operation last week and the business would not be viable if 90% minimum were not getting through. We can't keep drugs out of high security prisons.
Isn’t one of the difficulties in regulating drugs the fact they are illegal?
The opioids epidemic in the US is eminently fixable through regulation, because they are legal. It’s a regulatory failure. Whereas the scourge of, say, meth or heroin is a legal and policing failure.
That is my opinion. Some artists who become big you can sort of see why e.g. Carrot top Sheeran with his cool loop pedal stuff and playing about a billion tiny gigs. Or the people who popularise a totally new genre e.g. Nirvana, Beatles, Stones.
Taylor swift, seems like every other two a penny pop star, but is a billionaire with fans willing to pay crazy money to see her. Each to their own, but is beyond me.
She can hold 90,000 people rapt, just her and a guitar, so she's doing something right.
The Eras show is spectacular. A technical tour de force, but again it wouldn't work if nobody liked the songs.
Yes exactly. Her songs are REALLY good - as straight up melodic catchy pop. She’s an excellent singer songwriter and she was very pretty and she’s still rather attractive
However that doesn’t explain her enormous global success. The explanation for that is that people like her are now so rare. Music has declined badly. So a star who writes good songs who might once have had a nice career can now have an absurdly successful career by virtue of zero competition
Meh, there is one in every generation.
The taylor swift superfans are the people who were going mental for "queen bee" beyonce a few years ago, or lady gaga's "little monsters" the gen before that, or "leave britney alone" if you want to go a generation earlier.
Every generation since the bobby soxers has packaged up mediocre pop for teenage girls to scream at and rally round as it's easier than developing an actual personality.
That is my opinion. Some artists who become big you can sort of see why e.g. Carrot top Sheeran with his cool loop pedal stuff and playing about a billion tiny gigs. Or the people who popularise a totally new genre e.g. Nirvana, Beatles, Stones.
Taylor swift, seems like every other two a penny pop star, but is a billionaire with fans willing to pay crazy money to see her. Each to their own, but is beyond me.
She can hold 90,000 people rapt, just her and a guitar, so she's doing something right.
The Eras show is spectacular. A technical tour de force, but again it wouldn't work if nobody liked the songs.
Yes exactly. Her songs are REALLY good - as straight up melodic catchy pop. She’s an excellent singer songwriter and she was very pretty and she’s still rather attractive
However that doesn’t explain her enormous global success. The explanation for that is that people like her are now so rare. Music has declined badly. So a star who writes good songs who might once have had a nice career can now have an absurdly successful career by virtue of zero competition
I think it also helps that she seems to be REALLY smart (or just has the best team around her, or both)
Rerecording her albums to get the copyright back. Genius.
She owns more of the tour than any artist in history. She owns the copyright, the live tour production company, the film rights, the merch
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
That is my opinion. Some artists who become big you can sort of see why e.g. Carrot top Sheeran with his cool loop pedal stuff and playing about a billion tiny gigs. Or the people who popularise a totally new genre e.g. Nirvana, Beatles, Stones.
Taylor swift, seems like every other two a penny pop star, but is a billionaire with fans willing to pay crazy money to see her. Each to their own, but is beyond me.
She can hold 90,000 people rapt, just her and a guitar, so she's doing something right.
The Eras show is spectacular. A technical tour de force, but again it wouldn't work if nobody liked the songs.
Yes exactly. Her songs are REALLY good - as straight up melodic catchy pop. She’s an excellent singer songwriter and she was very pretty and she’s still rather attractive
However that doesn’t explain her enormous global success. The explanation for that is that people like her are now so rare. Music has declined badly. So a star who writes good songs who might once have had a nice career can now have an absurdly successful career by virtue of zero competition
Meh, there is one in every generation.
The taylor swift superfans are the people who were going mental for "queen bee" beyonce a few years ago, or lady gaga's "little monsters" the gen before that, or "leave britney alone" if you want to go a generation earlier.
Every generation since the bobby soxers has packaged up mediocre pop for teenage girls to scream at and rally round as it's easier than developing an actual personality.
No, I don't think that is true. Taylor Swift is the first billionaire musician made from music alone. She is much much bigger than pop stars over the past 10-15 years and seems to only get bigger and bigger rather than fading after the first couple of albums (like most do). Why that is, I don't know.
It’s pretty low level stuff but just feeds into the narrative of the Tories lack of integrity and just thinking they can do whatever they like.
Yes - the crimes, to quote Brass Eye, are small and twatty. But it’s what they say about the Tories; people who see an existential-level election and think ‘fuck it, I can make a few quid off this if I get online quick enough’.
I wonder how much was staked while we were waiting for Sunak to do his soggy announcement.
Thanks for the article. Fascinating. A couple of thoughts.
It is tempting to find a concept - in this case neo-liberalism and decide it is the problem. It will be more complicated than that.
The treating of people always and everywhere as ends in themselves and not means to an end (the old Kantian language for commodification) is always a moral issue. The matter arises because people don't always act rightly; nor is it obvious in some cultures that the Kantian principle is right. Why should it be. It's highly contestable. Though not by me.
Our society regulates and chooses, and sometimes does so well. It wasn't neo-liberals who created slavery or failed to teach poor children to read and write in 1300.
Specifically on the points: Migration. Commodify for whom? Perhaps all manner of migration allows good personal development for people ill served by the places from which they come.
Opiates: Modern systems regulate all drugs and have the power to do so. Errors in this are caused by people, not neo liberalism.
Smartphones: Nothing in liberalism prevents regulation WRT children. Like alcohol and cigarettes. It's a matter for governance and voters.
Workers' Rights: Are better enforced by wealthy liberal societies than others.
Modern systems can regulate drugs? LOL. There was 35 tonnes of cocaine seized in one European operation last week and the business would not be viable if 90% minimum were not getting through. We can't keep drugs out of high security prisons.
Got that. It isn't what I am talking about. I am talking about the regulation of drugs for those who intend prescribe and use them lawfully and usefully. Law breaking as such is not an invention of neo-liberals.
That is my opinion. Some artists who become big you can sort of see why e.g. Carrot top Sheeran with his cool loop pedal stuff and playing about a billion tiny gigs. Or the people who popularise a totally new genre e.g. Nirvana, Beatles, Stones.
Taylor swift, seems like every other two a penny pop star, but is a billionaire with fans willing to pay crazy money to see her. Each to their own, but is beyond me.
She can hold 90,000 people rapt, just her and a guitar, so she's doing something right.
The Eras show is spectacular. A technical tour de force, but again it wouldn't work if nobody liked the songs.
Yes exactly. Her songs are REALLY good - as straight up melodic catchy pop. She’s an excellent singer songwriter and she was very pretty and she’s still rather attractive
However that doesn’t explain her enormous global success. The explanation for that is that people like her are now so rare. Music has declined badly. So a star who writes good songs who might once have had a nice career can now have an absurdly successful career by virtue of zero competition
I think it also helps that she seems to be REALLY smart (or just has the best team around her, or both)
Rerecording her albums to get the copyright back. Genius.
She owns more of the tour than any artist in history. She owns the copyright, the live tour production company, the film rights, the merch
Was that her idea, or very clever legal advice...that said if you do a few weeks work, you can earn $300 million+ by rerecording those tracks. Even Liam Gallagher or Shaun Ryder when presented with such an option would think probably a decent idea.
JK Rowling needed an editor. The last two or three books are silly.
And the movies she's written are utter trash.
Yes. She is a person I greatly admire. But there's a sort of rule: as she gets longer, she gets worse. Harry Potter, first 4 or so are good fun. Last three deadly dull. The Galbraith stuff - much of which is outstanding, but as she starts writing stuff about 8,000 pages long it loses its way. She's good but she isn't Dickens or Edward Gibbon and should not try.
Have you seen the Wizarding World films? They're all terrible and she wrote all of them. It is quite clear to me if she'd written the films they'd have been very unsuccessful.
A key problem facing the advanced western countries is the difficulty in getting anything done due to the legal/bureaucratic state. The solution to every problem is more regulations and process, all of which is inherently imperfect and contradictory. There was a realisation of the problems this was creating in the 1980's but no lasting or meaningful answer was ever settled on. So now most work in the economy is connected to the implementation of process or regulation rather than being productive or creative in its own right.
The conservatives had 14 years and made the situation I have described above worse. Labour will continue this trend. But the whole system needs rapid disruption - perhaps this is inevitable as the rest of the world adapts faster to technological innovation. It feels to me like the centrist parties (IE all the main parties) are just part of the old world and they will be transformed or swept away by something new, it may be called 'far right' but it is not necessarily correct to view it this way.
This is most incisive analysis.
In my own industry I have watched over nearly 40 years the situation has gone from 90% of the cost /time is for doing the work / 10% for "getting permission" and documenting the work, to the exact opposite.
The standards are more and more complex (and often conflict with each other) to the extent that you almost need to be a lawyer to interpret the correct course of action.
Compare and contrast the cost of building a mileof motorway in the 1970s with the cost of doing so now (exponentially greater). This is why.
Most PBers are old like me and too old to remember what a great catchy upbeat pop song does - it sets you up for the night. You’re putting on your make up or adjusting your favourite jacket and you put a Swift song on Sonos or YouTube and it lifts your mood. Gets you in the vibe
Unless the polling is horribly wrong, you'd think they'd be better utilised on a day trip trying to oust Rishi...
Not that lot, they would go down like a lead balloon with the farmers of North Yorkshire.
But the squaddies at Catterick?
Depends how angry people are feeling. The Tories have done egregious damage to the armed forces, to support for serving personnel and veterans, and then we have the D-Day insult...
When parliament reconvenes he's going to get his supporters to protest outside parliament isn't he?
🚨 ELECTION INTERFERENCE ALERT 🚨
Today's Mail on Sunday claimed President Zelensky said that I was personally infected with Putinism. This is totally untrue and I have instructed Carter Ruck to deal with it.
Tomorrow’s Daily Mail are so desperate to smear Reform that they have now contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry and goaded them into a supposed quote from someone in Sergey Lavrov’s office calling me an ‘ally’.
That a UK newspaper group is actively collaborating with the Kremlin to protect their dying Conservative party is an absolute scandal. The British people will see through this act of utter desperation.
My takeaways from this. Farage realises his Ukraine remarks are damaging him and he is concerned the Mail is not onside, so aims to bully it into line.
On topic yes we should look after our young people for reasons of inter generational fairness and national harmony. But the far right are vermin. You should aim to destroy vermin not accommodate them.
That is my opinion. Some artists who become big you can sort of see why e.g. Carrot top Sheeran with his cool loop pedal stuff and playing about a billion tiny gigs. Or the people who popularise a totally new genre e.g. Nirvana, Beatles, Stones.
Taylor swift, seems like every other two a penny pop star, but is a billionaire with fans willing to pay crazy money to see her. Each to their own, but is beyond me.
She can hold 90,000 people rapt, just her and a guitar, so she's doing something right.
The Eras show is spectacular. A technical tour de force, but again it wouldn't work if nobody liked the songs.
Yes exactly. Her songs are REALLY good - as straight up melodic catchy pop. She’s an excellent singer songwriter and she was very pretty and she’s still rather attractive
However that doesn’t explain her enormous global success. The explanation for that is that people like her are now so rare. Music has declined badly. So a star who writes good songs who might once have had a nice career can now have an absurdly successful career by virtue of zero competition
Meh, there is one in every generation.
The taylor swift superfans are the people who were going mental for "queen bee" beyonce a few years ago, or lady gaga's "little monsters" the gen before that, or "leave britney alone" if you want to go a generation earlier.
Every generation since the bobby soxers has packaged up mediocre pop for teenage girls to scream at and rally round as it's easier than developing an actual personality.
No, I don't think that is true. Taylor Swift is the first billionaire musician made from music alone. She is much much bigger than pop stars over the past 10-15 years and seems to only get bigger and bigger rather than fading after the first couple of albums (like most do). Why that is, I don't know.
No she isn't, Madonna became a billionaire 10 years ago. Embarrassing the way grown adults fawn over this girl.
JK Rowling needed an editor. The last two or three books are silly.
And the movies she's written are utter trash.
Yes. She is a person I greatly admire. But there's a sort of rule: as she gets longer, she gets worse. Harry Potter, first 4 or so are good fun. Last three deadly dull. The Galbraith stuff - much of which is outstanding, but as she starts writing stuff about 8,000 pages long it loses its way. She's good but she isn't Dickens or Edward Gibbon and should not try.
Have you seen the Wizarding World films? They're all terrible and she wrote all of them. It is quite clear to me if she'd written the films they'd have been very unsuccessful.
I really enjoyed the thread header @maxh. I'd add another example to this: the people who died in the Max-8 crashes a few years ago. This is an engineering problem close to my heart. Boeing used to be an engineering forward company. The lawyer who led them realised that the only way you sell thousands of aircraft is to have a bulletproof engineering ethos and to be utterly reliable. They had hit after hit after hit because they didn't skimp on quality and they made airlines pay for it. Shareholders got dividends because the company was successful, not because the company went out of its way to please shareholders.
Meanwhile McDonnell-Douglas produced aircraft with a business-forward mindset. Bluntly their aircraft weren't as good. The DC-10 had a poor safety record on introduction and it took years to get it to a point where it was acceptable to airlines and regulators (this might start to sound familiar). It was cheap though. But the shareholders liked them because they got good returns (despite the dead people).
In the 90s Boeing were being pressured by Airbus and responded by merging with Douglas under Phil Condit and Harry Stonecipher (the McDouglas Boss). Stonecipher took over shortly after and the two of them started buying back Boeing stock. Stonecipher made it clear that Boeing was going to be run like a business, which meant squeezing everything for profit, growth and shareholder value. Which is why Boeing hasn't developed a new plane in 15 years, the current ones are having doors fall out and a couple of hundred people are dead. The focus on quality as a USP that would lead to returns has been lost in order to shortcut a route to shareholder returns, and commensurate wild executive pay.
But the reason they get away with it is because there is a duopoly in the commercial aviation industry. Who else can you buy planes from?bThe only competition are Comac (who only make an A320 size plane), Embraer in the regional market and Tupolev who make rubbish for the CIS market. If the market worked properly then we'd see a US manufacturer making a competitor for the 737 MAX series. But none can survive the cozy deals Boeing have with airlines and the massive subsidies both get from government.
An obsession with shareholder capital and huge players who dominate markets end up with what Cory Doctorrow calls enshittification: Where service quality is good, but then suffers as soon as a service becomes dominant and the easiest way to grow is to offer less for more. Think Amazon adding ads to paid prime content. Boeing enshittified their business model and it killed people. Airbus is only staying the course because it's smart enough to spot when someone gets their pecker caught in the ceiling fan and have stayed away from that particular corner cutting. But they're not really innovating at the moment either. The market dies, you have two corporate aristocrats feuding over the result, and passengers and airlines are the ones that suffer.
But as their former CEO almost said, when one door closes another blows open.
I don't get Taylor Swift mania. She isn't Kylie, so what's the fuss about?
I love Kylie . To think she started out in Neighbours and had that awful frizz perm in the 80s !
She looks great into her 50s . I also still love Madonna . And Duran Duran with one of the greatest ever songs Ordinary World .
Once again apologies to members for filling time whilst we wait for the great reveal re Betting Gate ! I’m dubious that the rumours will be proven right , anyhow not long to go now .
The UK doesn't do far right, even Farage is closer to the ERG wing of the Tories than Nick Griffin.
I also don't see what use the talking shops of citizens assemblies are? If voters want to change something they can elect a different party in the Commons, the upper house is supposed to be a revising chamber of experts in their fields not Joe and Maureen down the street picked at random from a lottery and obliged to serve for a year in a role that would bore them rigid.
Stakeholder capitalism maybe but we already have John Lewis for that.
On the first point, I hope you're right. We have a good history here. I agree Farage is not far right.
I think the difference citizens assemblies make is that is is not career politicians making decisions on our behalf. Part of our current problem is that politicians don't ever really pass the 'they're like me' test of legitimacy. Added to that, in practice, I've seen them produce nuanced, innovative, effective policy and consensus in areas politicians struggle with.
Notwithstanding John Lewis's struggles I'd say more like that would be a good start.
Why should people who are not elected but picked by lottery make any decisions on our behalf? I do agree though John Lewis is a good corporate model to follow
Is the current HoL any more legitimate?
But aside from my own whataboutery, I agree that there is a fairly fine line between citizens assemblies being too tokenistic and being too powerful.
Yes at least most in the HofL normally have been leaders in their field whether business, law, academia, science, politics, the arts, sport, religion etc and have some expertise to bring to a revising chamber
And here we reach one reason why you're a conservative and I'm not. I agree that expertise is very valuable, but I don't see the Lords playing that role effectively at present. So the value of that expertise is, in my view, worth less than the value you get from visibily breaking the 'they're not like us' problem we currently have by broadening the background of those who play that revising role.
Of course, there is probably a happy medium between our respective positions.
Scrap the upper house and just have an elected Commons, however the debates in the Lords if you watch them are often of higher quality and more intellectual and less partisan than those in the Commons
That is my opinion. Some artists who become big you can sort of see why e.g. Carrot top Sheeran with his cool loop pedal stuff and playing about a billion tiny gigs. Or the people who popularise a totally new genre e.g. Nirvana, Beatles, Stones.
Taylor swift, seems like every other two a penny pop star, but is a billionaire with fans willing to pay crazy money to see her. Each to their own, but is beyond me.
She can hold 90,000 people rapt, just her and a guitar, so she's doing something right.
The Eras show is spectacular. A technical tour de force, but again it wouldn't work if nobody liked the songs.
Yes exactly. Her songs are REALLY good - as straight up melodic catchy pop. She’s an excellent singer songwriter and she was very pretty and she’s still rather attractive
However that doesn’t explain her enormous global success. The explanation for that is that people like her are now so rare. Music has declined badly. So a star who writes good songs who might once have had a nice career can now have an absurdly successful career by virtue of zero competition
I think it also helps that she seems to be REALLY smart (or just has the best team around her, or both)
Rerecording her albums to get the copyright back. Genius.
She owns more of the tour than any artist in history. She owns the copyright, the live tour production company, the film rights, the merch
Was that her idea, or very clever legal advice...that said if you do a few weeks work, you can earn $300 million+ by rerecording those tracks. Even Liam Gallagher or Shaun Ryder when presented with such an option would think probably a decent idea.
Like I said, either her or her team is really, really switched on. But then she put in the work.
That is my opinion. Some artists who become big you can sort of see why e.g. Carrot top Sheeran with his cool loop pedal stuff and playing about a billion tiny gigs. Or the people who popularise a totally new genre e.g. Nirvana, Beatles, Stones.
Taylor swift, seems like every other two a penny pop star, but is a billionaire with fans willing to pay crazy money to see her. Each to their own, but is beyond me.
She can hold 90,000 people rapt, just her and a guitar, so she's doing something right.
The Eras show is spectacular. A technical tour de force, but again it wouldn't work if nobody liked the songs.
Yes exactly. Her songs are REALLY good - as straight up melodic catchy pop. She’s an excellent singer songwriter and she was very pretty and she’s still rather attractive
However that doesn’t explain her enormous global success. The explanation for that is that people like her are now so rare. Music has declined badly. So a star who writes good songs who might once have had a nice career can now have an absurdly successful career by virtue of zero competition
Meh, there is one in every generation.
The taylor swift superfans are the people who were going mental for "queen bee" beyonce a few years ago, or lady gaga's "little monsters" the gen before that, or "leave britney alone" if you want to go a generation earlier.
Every generation since the bobby soxers has packaged up mediocre pop for teenage girls to scream at and rally round as it's easier than developing an actual personality.
No, I don't think that is true. Taylor Swift is the first billionaire musician made from music alone. She is much much bigger than pop stars over the past 10-15 years and seems to only get bigger and bigger rather than fading after the first couple of albums (like most do). Why that is, I don't know.
No she isn't, Madonna became a billionaire 10 years ago. Embarrassing the way grown adults fawn over this girl.
I said purely from music. I believe all these other artists like Jay-Z are billionaires out of everything they invested in.
Global pop icon Taylor Swift, 34, recently made it to the Forbes billionaire list, becoming the first musician to do so solely through her melodies.
FFS loads of old guys opining about Taylor Swift. It’s like me saying I don’t see the appeal of Enrico Caruso.
There's only one thing more sad than old and middle aged gits complaining that it's not as good as the old days, and that's old and middle aged gits fawning over the newest thing in a desperate bid to cling on to some relevance.
That is my opinion. Some artists who become big you can sort of see why e.g. Carrot top Sheeran with his cool loop pedal stuff and playing about a billion tiny gigs. Or the people who popularise a totally new genre e.g. Nirvana, Beatles, Stones.
Taylor swift, seems like every other two a penny pop star, but is a billionaire with fans willing to pay crazy money to see her. Each to their own, but is beyond me.
She can hold 90,000 people rapt, just her and a guitar, so she's doing something right.
The Eras show is spectacular. A technical tour de force, but again it wouldn't work if nobody liked the songs.
Yes exactly. Her songs are REALLY good - as straight up melodic catchy pop. She’s an excellent singer songwriter and she was very pretty and she’s still rather attractive
However that doesn’t explain her enormous global success. The explanation for that is that people like her are now so rare. Music has declined badly. So a star who writes good songs who might once have had a nice career can now have an absurdly successful career by virtue of zero competition
Meh, there is one in every generation.
The taylor swift superfans are the people who were going mental for "queen bee" beyonce a few years ago, or lady gaga's "little monsters" the gen before that, or "leave britney alone" if you want to go a generation earlier.
Every generation since the bobby soxers has packaged up mediocre pop for teenage girls to scream at and rally round as it's easier than developing an actual personality.
Evening all, back from Sunday with the family. Quite interested in the Richmond poll, an 18% swing, which if replicated across Tory held seats would, conveniently enough, leave about 120 Tories (plus a handful of Scots and Cockneys), so broadly in line with MRP averages and polling extrapolation. That's before any fluttergate fallout of course. They've done it to themselves so no tears in the club. I'm going to have a trawl of the Red Wall sears tomorrow to see if I fancy any Reform surprises
Comments
EDIT: Did I just say that out loud??
You might be able to argue Singapore, Dubai or Monaco or at a push Florida are neoliberal, the UK certainly isn't!
0-0 at half time. No chances created for Scotland again.
Shankland really, really needs to come on. He should have started.
It is tempting to find a concept - in this case neo-liberalism and decide it is the problem. It will be more complicated than that.
The treating of people always and everywhere as ends in themselves and not means to an end (the old Kantian language for commodification) is always a moral issue. The matter arises because people don't always act rightly; nor is it obvious in some cultures that the Kantian principle is right. Why should it be. It's highly contestable. Though not by me.
Our society regulates and chooses, and sometimes does so well. It wasn't neo-liberals who created slavery or failed to teach poor children to read and write in 1300.
Specifically on the points: Migration. Commodify for whom? Perhaps all manner of migration allows good personal development for people ill served by the places from which they come.
Opiates: Modern systems regulate all drugs and have the power to do so. Errors in this are caused by people, not neo liberalism.
Smartphones: Nothing in liberalism prevents regulation WRT children. Like alcohol and cigarettes. It's a matter for governance and voters.
Workers' Rights: Are better enforced by wealthy liberal societies than others.
Ex-Finnish pm Sanna Marin wins the Euros though.
Taylor swift, seems like every other two a penny pop star, but is a billionaire with fans willing to pay crazy money to see her. Each to their own, but is beyond me.
Which goes back to my concern about the last 45 years or so. Have we, by treating one-off windfalls as recurrents, created unrealisitic expectations about what we're collectively entitled to? And if so, how do we fix that?
The challenge will be to find nuggets of improvement that don't cost much, and leverage those to fund more. It's not going to be easy.
Productivity would do wonders to our standard of living.
With sanna marin it was basic omg yes I want her to push her face into the pillow
Sorry if this is too visceral. It’s 10pm in Quiberon and I’ve had a fair few drinks and a BRILLIANT day - and tomorrow I go to the island of Houat!!
Yes, I’ve no idea either
Houat???
As a result I think regulation is harder to do these days. But I'd say AI is very, very clearly a place where good regulation is needed - I'd be tempted to go so far as to say it should become a public service like the NHS.
https://www.communistparty.org.uk/communists-party-announces-final-list-of-candidates-for-4-july-general-election/
At the same time, a lot of people think the "system" doesn't work for them and arguing the case for monetarism and trickledown doesn't work the way it did in the 1970s when it was put up by Keith Joseph and later Margaret Thatcher as the alternative to the Butskellism post-war concensus.
IF you think the current political and economic system is broken, what is the remedy? Reform have nothing to offer but then neither do the Conservatives (or Labour or the Lib Dems or anyone else in truth). It's likely technological innovation will create a new era of economic growth as it has done so often in the past but the demographic changes are the main challenge.
Every time a Lab spokesperson takes that line the interviewer should ask them about Akehurst.
"Do you believe the UN is Antisemitic" No. So why is the Candidate for N Durham still a Candidate.
Do you believe Palestinian Actors are pretending their being slaughtered by Israel
ETC ETC
I hope I've changed some of my views and become more moderate as a result of talking to other people from outside my 'world' IRL. But still, I have days where I think I need to stop arguing with people on the internet and touch grass.
Also: she has written superb country pop-rock songs. She’s not imaginary. She’s genuinely good
However I wonder how she will evolve. Her whole shtick is being the sexy girl talking about sex and being a neglected cheerleader… she can’t push that into her late 30s
Facebook is currently showing me a sponsored ad from Nigel Farage. It reads "Come and meet me on Monday 24th June in Newton Abbot. Book your tickets now!"
For anyone who wonders about big tech knowing too much of our lives, I am relieved that Facebook (a) thinks I might be interested in seeing Nigel Farage (b) thinks I live within 150 miles of Newton Abbot.
The Eras show is spectacular. A technical tour de force, but again it wouldn't work if nobody liked the songs.
But aside from my own whataboutery, I agree that there is a fairly fine line between citizens assemblies being too tokenistic and being too powerful.
https://x.com/MrBenSellers/status/1804578038132162663/photo/1
When my lovely 21 year old corbynite wife married me 8 years ago (when I was in my early 50s) she looked at photos of me age 22 and said “ugh no, no way I would have married you then you looked girly”
Men can age well, more than women. But women have all the sexual power in their teens and 20s.
The difference is I actually like Leon, and think he has a modicum of wit.
The betting scandal is so banal, so petty, and yet utterly symbolic of everything wrong with the Tory party. To amplify it, Sunak has handled it in the worst possible way.
Will we *ever* again see an election campaign this bad from a party in government?
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/en/football/uefa-euro-2024/switzerland-v-germany-betting-33310581
45 mins to qualify
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
Meanwhile McDonnell-Douglas produced aircraft with a business-forward mindset. Bluntly their aircraft weren't as good. The DC-10 had a poor safety record on introduction and it took years to get it to a point where it was acceptable to airlines and regulators (this might start to sound familiar). It was cheap though. But the shareholders liked them because they got good returns (despite the dead people).
In the 90s Boeing were being pressured by Airbus and responded by merging with Douglas under Phil Condit and Harry Stonecipher (the McDouglas Boss). Stonecipher took over shortly after and the two of them started buying back Boeing stock. Stonecipher made it clear that Boeing was going to be run like a business, which meant squeezing everything for profit, growth and shareholder value. Which is why Boeing hasn't developed a new plane in 15 years, the current ones are having doors fall out and a couple of hundred people are dead. The focus on quality as a USP that would lead to returns has been lost in order to shortcut a route to shareholder returns, and commensurate wild executive pay.
But the reason they get away with it is because there is a duopoly in the commercial aviation industry. Who else can you buy planes from?bThe only competition are Comac (who only make an A320 size plane), Embraer in the regional market and Tupolev who make rubbish for the CIS market. If the market worked properly then we'd see a US manufacturer making a competitor for the 737 MAX series. But none can survive the cozy deals Boeing have with airlines and the massive subsidies both get from government.
An obsession with shareholder capital and huge players who dominate markets end up with what Cory Doctorrow calls enshittification: Where service quality is good, but then suffers as soon as a service becomes dominant and the easiest way to grow is to offer less for more. Think Amazon adding ads to paid prime content. Boeing enshittified their business model and it killed people. Airbus is only staying the course because it's smart enough to spot when someone gets their pecker caught in the ceiling fan and have stayed away from that particular corner cutting. But they're not really innovating at the moment either. The market dies, you have two corporate aristocrats feuding over the result, and passengers and airlines are the ones that suffer.
Certainly not noticed the last couple of labour candidates in my ward campaigning for him although they have been active in the ward before
And the movies she's written are utter trash.
The only reason I don't think the Tories' campaign is being bombarded with nefarious interference with is I just can't work out who benefits from it.
1) Charm
2) Charisma
3) Girl next door
4) Nice
5) Pretty
6) Feminist
7) Decent
8) Words interesting, (though not to me)
9) Personal and personable.
If she could sing Schubert like Elly Ameling I'd go.
It’s pretty low level stuff but just feeds into the narrative of the Tories lack of integrity and just thinking they can do whatever they like.
However that doesn’t explain her enormous global success. The explanation for that is that people like her are now so rare. Music has declined badly. So a star who writes good songs who might once have had a nice career can now have an absurdly successful career by virtue of zero competition
Though I agree it might take a full era of high tax, high spend social democratic Labour government for Thatcherism to get a hearing again.
But I cannot really vote for Luke.
Mcdonalds is the world's bestselling food, I still wouldn't eat it, even if Ronald McDonald tried to ram one of his burgers down my throat.
JK Rowling has taken from ramming mediocre fiction down the world's throat to ramming her hatred of LGBTQ people down people's throat with equal vigour. As I say, she's the drunk in the pub at closing time who happens to have a million followers.
Good for her, but forgive me if I don't place any more importance on her words than said aforementioned drunk.
Of course, there is probably a happy medium between our respective positions.
The opioids epidemic in the US is eminently fixable through regulation, because they are legal. It’s a regulatory failure. Whereas the scourge of, say, meth or heroin is a legal and policing failure.
The taylor swift superfans are the people who were going mental for "queen bee" beyonce a few years ago, or lady gaga's "little monsters" the gen before that, or "leave britney alone" if you want to go a generation earlier.
Every generation since the bobby soxers has packaged up mediocre pop for teenage girls to scream at and rally round as it's easier than developing an actual personality.
Rerecording her albums to get the copyright back. Genius.
She owns more of the tour than any artist in history. She owns the copyright, the live tour production company, the film rights, the merch
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I wonder how much was staked while we were waiting for Sunak to do his soggy announcement.
In my own industry I have watched over nearly 40 years the situation has gone from 90% of the cost /time is for doing the work / 10% for "getting permission" and documenting the work, to the exact opposite.
The standards are more and more complex (and often conflict with each other) to the extent that you almost need to be a lawyer to interpret the correct course of action.
Compare and contrast the cost of building a mileof motorway in the 1970s with the cost of doing so now (exponentially greater). This is why.
Most PBers are old like me and too old to remember what a great catchy upbeat pop song does - it sets you up for the night. You’re putting on your make up or adjusting your favourite jacket and you put a Swift song on Sonos or YouTube and it lifts your mood. Gets you in the vibe
https://youtu.be/2JgvVfOfoWI?si=SQ4Vj4covWuRLYqV
And then you head out. Hopeful and happy and maybe up for sex. She captures that
On topic yes we should look after our young people for reasons of inter generational fairness and national harmony. But the far right are vermin. You should aim to destroy vermin not accommodate them.
She looks great into her 50s . I also still love Madonna . And Duran Duran with one of the greatest ever songs Ordinary World .
Once again apologies to members for filling time whilst we wait for the great reveal re Betting Gate ! I’m dubious that the rumours will be proven right , anyhow not long to go now .
Global pop icon Taylor Swift, 34, recently made it to the Forbes billionaire list, becoming the first musician to do so solely through her melodies.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/monicamercuri/2024/04/02/taylor-swift-didnt-need-lucrative-side-hustles-to-become-a-billionaire/
They've done it to themselves so no tears in the club.
I'm going to have a trawl of the Red Wall sears tomorrow to see if I fancy any Reform surprises