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Publish and be Damned? – politicalbetting.com
Publish and be Damned? – politicalbetting.com
2 reports into events long ago: 34 and 26 years. The main protagonists are dead. Should anyone care, as the Today programme put it somewhat indelicately, about one murder so very long ago (Daniel Morgan)? Or even about an interview of a troubled Royal? The latter are two a penny these days. Police competence rather than corruption is a rather more pressing issue. We all know about the press’s dubious and sometimes illegal activities; besides the News of the World is no more. Journalists have always had, in Nicholas Tomalin’s words, to use “rat-like cunning” to get stories.
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Conspiring with Darius Guppy to get a journalist beaten to a pulp.
Falsely attributing incorrect historical statements to his godfather.
Lying to Michael Howard about an affair.
Jennifer Arcuri.
The man really is a political phenomenon. We may never see his like again. Just enjoy it while it lasts!
https://twitter.com/fifisyms/status/1395456727601008642?s=20
The reality, of course, is that Wirecard was a complete fraud.
(And it is one of those strange ironies that Wirecard was one of those few stocks that Zero Hedge used to pump up, rather than dump down on. Now that's a relationship that should be probed.)
Black tea has massive health benefits
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6512146/
"it should be noted that it is recommended that black tea to be consumed without any additives like milk or sugar"
https://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/11-benefits-black-tea.html
Once you get used to black, you never go back
I also cannot forgive them for their wrong-headedness on Boris and Brexit. Just pointing and saying people who support them are idiots is at the level of school newspaper.
Except, it it not November, it is May 20
If you notice with things like the Gruardian stories of a similar nature they are now done by teaming up with a load of other media outlets.
I have always been rather icky about dairy products and can’t stand milk, cream or cheese. The thought of where it comes from/it being slightly off is horrific. Oat/Almond milk on cereal/smoothies is nice. Dash of real milk in tea, no more
We will surely eat less meat in future, everyone’s at it now. ‘Beyond Meat’ burgers are as tasty as the real thing without the guilt when you see a cow grazing. I feel quite guilty giving my toddler meat dishes, particularly mammals which I don’t really eat. Although I eat chicken, turkey and fish, and sometimes other meat maybe once every month or so, I don’t like it when people go on about how lovely/tender their meat dish was - feel like it should be a kind of dirty secret.
Founder of Football Index telling punters to max out their credit cards to invest in his pyramid scheme:
https://twitter.com/josephmdurso/status/1370015026829008909?lang=en-gb
Shame on both the FCA and Gambling Commission.
Now, whether you think he actually believed that or not, he played to a view of that subject that was widely held at the time whether it was accurate or not.
More than twenty years ago, you could see him as "different" from the other Conservative on that week's panel, one Theresa May. He was already working out what the "ordinary bloke" would be thinking on any subject and playing to that. Faced with an actual argument and a valid point, he would retreat onto safer ground.
That's the secret of the success - articulating the viewpoint of the "person in the street" whether that view represents any version of the truth or not. If you say what you think the audience in front of you wants to hear, you won't go far wrong and remember this was 1999 when the Conservative Party was two years on from a huge defeat and he was getting an audience to applaud him.
The question for me is whether he will walk away on his own terms one day or whether he will be the architect of his own misfortune. To say nothing succeeds like success is to forget all political careers end in failure and both Thatcher and Blair ended on a low note.
In choosing Starmer, Labour hoped gravitas would triumph over levitas but politics doesn't work that way. If I were trying to defeat Johnson, I'd be looking at his strengths and seeing how to match and confound them. You have to be confident and show him neither fear nor respect - treat PMQs as though Johnson wasn't there and remember you're talking to a wider audience. Try some humour and the odd self-deprecating comment - the more normal you are, the more you weaken Johnson's strength.
Johnson's weakness is detail - the forensic barb, the witty reposte are like counter-punches and on the occasions when Starmer has come out of his comfort zone, he's managed to get Johnson on edge and uncomfortable.
"New York Times Hits 7 Million Subscribers as Digital Revenue Rises
For the first time, the publisher brought in more revenue from online readers than from its print subscribers."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/business/media/new-york-times-q3-2020-earnings-nyt.html
The Times, FT, Economist, and others have shown that paywalls work in the UK
There is a substantial demand for quality written analysis, journalistic scoops, and articulate opinion. Perhaps a big demand. There will be fewer "newspapers" in the world, but the ones that survive - will thrive
Another blocker to investigative journalism I suspect is the law. You need to be backed by deep pockets I think to take on big business/the super wealthy. That's not good for our society.
Must say it is NOT a good look for (some) Tories to go whistling through the graveyard re this issue.
Esp. when your own Fearless Leader is a famous British "journalist" himself.
Although, of course, it's no coincindence that Greensill Bank, which was at the dodgiest end of the whole dodgy spectrum, was in Germany.
might want to watch those as well of course both sides will be propaganda so you have to work out where the balance of truth is
Indeed, I'd argue that all those firms have demonstrated that you can build a profitable, hard hitting journalistic organisation in this day and age.
FFS
I just want to walk out into warm sun. Once?
It is quite tough for his opponents
https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/private-eye-hits-highest-circulation-in-55-year-history-which-is-quite-something-given-that-print-is-meant-to-be-dead/
This is from 2016, when it was selling around 280,000 every fortnight.
It's around 240,000 now, which is still massive for the UK.
Few tabloids will make it, the Mail for sure, but who else? Maybe the Sun. Even then I'm not certain. That's it
All the others will die or become online ghosts of themselves
But this means the survivors will be able to mop up the remaining gravy, and compete for bigger business. If we end up with five or six varied and thriving news outlets that's good for our democracy
Starmer is basically the Labour IDS at present.
So on that trajectory they need a Howard to make a few gains in 2024, then aim to find a leader to get them back to power in a hung parliament in 2029 and finally get a majority again in 2034
So Boris only needs to say no indyref2
Tifo Football as 1m subs on Youtube were they specalise in talking about detailed tactical approaches of teams.
I see too much slow "suicide by food" in my day job. It doesn't look very enjoyable.
Politics is also about self-confidence and self-belief and that's another asset Johnson brings to the table. Those opposing him have to have those attributes as well.
Or
https://www.booking.com/hotel/gb/mistley-thorn.en-gb.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6IjFdGZHmI
Jimmy Davis - You are My Sunshine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckKeQNCyPBU
FYI, Jimmy Davis served two terms as Governor of Louisiana, from 1944-48 and 1960-64 (when governors were limited to a single consecutive term. He ran again, in 1971 but lost in the Democratic primary.
Among other achievements, the "Singing Governor" spearheaded construction of the Sunshine Bridge over the Mississippi, as well as the current Governor's Mansion. When I was attending LSU he lived next door to the mansion.
At his death in 2000, Jimmy Davis was America's oldest living ex-governor, age 101. This record was not broken until the death of former Washington State Gov. Al Rosellini (yours truly attended his funeral) in 2011. Who was (briefly) older than Davis - by one day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmie_Davis
...you can fill in the rest!
What's worse, the pattern seems set in stone. The promised warm-up STILL recedes
It is just as bad across NW Europe
Amsterdam:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2759794
I think Jess Phillips would do best of the current Labour Party against him. She’s a better fake than Sir Keir could ever be
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/may/20/adam-gemili-warns-ioc-tokyo-olympics-taking-knee-ban
He tried to argue the virtues of organic food and organic food production and was bulldozed by Boris Johnson who rambled on about British beef and how unattractive organic food was in the supermarket and the audience lapped it up.
As a wise man once opined "that was then and this is now".
So you're right and wrong. You're right that no one will buy an actual inky "newspaper". Ridiculous. I haven't bought one in five years at least. Why? It's a waste of trees
But you're wrong in saying they will die. The best brands will survive as "the papers" become online websites with consistently angled journalism with a certain slant and persona. This works. It has been proved
You could argue all three are and were deeply flawed individuals but as entertainers, each was in their own way very successful.
https://twitter.com/timesradio/status/1395497855549333507?s=21
Smaller quantities of well produced meat, and loads of veg is not an expensive diet. The key to me is labelling. I won't be buying Australian or American hormone beef from feedlots for example.
I understand this might be the first Spring ever in London where the highest temperature is recorded in March. Or so I read.
Whatever the data this *feels* like the worst May I can remember, but given that I was completely blitzed from the age of 18 until the mid 90s, and can therefore remember little, your claim of "1996" could be right
This has always been a major Boris strength, he knows how to delegate. He can spot talent. He did it as mayor
This by itself makes him much more than Berlusconi, even as you want him to be an empty Berlusconi
Another of his talents is getting his frantic enemies to under-estimate him. "Clown." "Buffoon". "Berlusconi". Well done for continuing the trend with such fidelity
Has she left the zerovids?
This is one of the problems with people's perceptions of the weather/climate. The only all-time record broken so far is a warm one, and yet the season is perceived as being so extraordinarily cold that to mention that record feels a bit daft.
EDIT: Ooops! Wrong forum!
Which may of course also be an accurate metaphor for BJ's future.
But this is a fucking miserable May in London, especially with lockdown. Eeeesh
I am sitting in my Camden flat listening to the rain and gales assault the windows. It is like that first day, deep in autumn, when you know winter is swiftly coming down the road. In late October or early November.
It is May 20!
Don't underestimate the power of smiles, and the power of optimism. So much of politics and news etc can be negative, especially but not just during a pandemic - but also in general too. The "climate emergency", conflicts in the Middle East, economic difficulties, we never talk about things going right.
Boris's generally unbounded optimism, like Cameron and Blair's before it, can carry people along and help people believe there's better days ahead. It works for policies and not just feelings, while most countries and scientists were pessimistic that vaccines were coming, ours was optimistic that this could be done and did what was needed to get it done.
Keir stands up every Wednesday and he's just grey and dreary. He tries to nitpick and find small problems in things to have a go with - and nobody cares. Why go along with his dreary crap, when you can go along with the optimism that things are going to get better. The bouncy way now he says "Jabs! Jabs! Jabs! to Jobs! Jobs! Jobs" ... that optimism carries people along and I don't see anyone optimistic in Labour.
In one way in 2017 during the this was a strength Corbyn had too. Bouncing along to cheering fans at Prenton Park etc, he was optimistic and positive and it was refreshing - even if he was batshit crazy!
- Andrew Norfolk wrote about the Rochdale grooming gangs for the Times.
- Jennifer Williams has followed up on Operation Augusta , Greater Manchester Police's failure to investigate grooming gangs and cover up of their failures.
- Nick Wallis has been following the Post Office / Horizon scandal since the start. His book on it is due out later this year.
- Chris Jeffreys was the slightly eccentric landlord of the girl murdered in Bristol. His life was made a misery by the press and various newspapers were fined for contempt of court. He had nothing to do with her murder.
- Panorama did two very good undercover films showing appalling abuse of old people in care homes, which led to one being shut down and questions in Parliament.
- Andrew Hosken of the BBC wrote about how poorly defined targets were one of the reasons for the appalling treatment doled out by Stafford Hospital to its patients. It led to the Francis Report and some criticism of Andy Burnham, Health Secretary at the time this appalling treatment was happening.
- Amelia Gentleman of the Guardian (married to Jo Johnson, as it happens) has followed the details of what happened to the individuals caught up in the Windrush scandal and has recently written a book on it.
- Veronica Guerin was an Irish journalist investigating links between the IRA and organised crime and was murdered in 1996, gunned down in her car at traffic lights by 2 men on a motorcycle, as if Dublin had suddenly turned into Palermo.
- Marie Colvin was murdered by pro-Assad forces a few years ago.
- Daphne Caruana Galizia was investigating corruption by senior politicians and others in Malta and had a bomb put under her car.
- Nicholas Tomalin was killed when an Israeli shell hit the car he was travelling in with 2 colleagues as they were reporting on the Yom Kippur attack by Egypt and others in autumn 1973.
- Wirecard: apparently brilliant German fin tech company turned out to be a massive fraud. The founder, an Austrian, is now hiding in Moscow. For years the German authorities sought to attack the FT instead of following up onconcerns. There is an interesting article in today's FT about one of the Wirecard whistleblowers. German regulators are completely bloody useless.
- Greensill: followed up by Gabriel Pogrund and others at the Sunday Times.
Gabriel Pogrund is a friend of my daughter. I was in the same class as Nicholas Tomalin's daughter when her father was killed. Can still remember the shock we all felt at the "news" intruding so brutally.