Anyone who thinks the Tories problems are down to Brexit needs their head examining.
Much of the challenges we and they face today are down to decisions the Coalition did, or didn't, take. And the Tories got virtually nowhere in by-elections or in the opinion polling after 1997 until Gordon Brown took office and the GFC hit.
They just lost confidence and political awareness and slowly atrophied after the early 1990s.
Brexit begat Johnson and Truss. Johnson begat the Boriswave.
Brexit, destroyed any pretence to economic competence, or indeed to actual conservatism as long understood.
Brexit provided a sugar rush of populist support but fatally tarnished the brand. It wasn’t the only factor of course, but it was the coup de grace.
You go on about it because you hate it and you want it to be the answer to any problem that is postulated.
You are intelligent enough to know that simply isn't true.
I was merely responding to your post, not “going on about it”. Your chronology of the Tory party’s decline has a glaring great hole called Brexit.
One doesn’t exactly need to be Sigmund Freud…
Because your position is bullshit.
Brexit if anything postponed the Tories decline and bought them time.
Perhaps ask yourself why this board contains several ex Tories who will never go back.
Once again, I’m astonished you are employed in a job that requires some sort of analysis.
There's a plethora of reasons why, and "Brexit" is just a label embraced by some, not the main reason. And the pro-EU Remainer position is disproportionately popular on this site but not necessarily as widespread nationally.
In fact more domestic concerns are as big, or bigger, an issue than Brexit.
The Conservative Party at its best is a widespread party of aspiration. Unfortunately the party has turned its back on aspiration, which means that there's little reason for many people to vote for them now.
Brexit has bugger all to do with that.
I'd like to postulate another thesis: the Conservative Party does well with aspiration and its message of personal and economic freedom when there is a broader trend of economic growth to tap into.
We haven't had this, really, since 2008 and in its absence people will cling to nurse (the State) because they need security and protection and feel they can't afford to do anything else. See also: tax rises on other people being rather popular.
Conversely, if you have a bit of cash the State is stifling, inefficient and annoying, and you want to be captain of your own boat, and you'll probably be more entrepreneurial and innovative too.
On Starmer’s voice - I’m genuinely surprised that Lord Alli didn’t stump up for surgery and/or training.
Starmer sounds like he’s responsible for health and safety at a model railway convention.
I have repeatedly got shot down on here for saying he reminds me of Gordon Brittas...
It is doubly unfortunate that his personality - peevish, vain, unimaginative, managerial, dull - so exactly matches the voice
Who Gordon Britass or Starmer ;-)
In the show Britass was always launching a new initiative with a terrible slogan to try and turn around the failing leisure centre without ever tackling the root causes problem.
On Starmer’s voice - I’m genuinely surprised that Lord Alli didn’t stump up for surgery and/or training.
Starmer sounds like he’s responsible for health and safety at a model railway convention.
I have repeatedly got shot down on here for saying he reminds me of Gordon Brittas...
It is doubly unfortunate that his personality - peevish, vain, unimaginative, managerial, dull - so exactly matches the voice
Who Gordon Britass or Starmer ;-)
In the show Britass was always launching a new initiative with a terrible slogan to try and turn around the failing leisure centre without ever tackling the root causes problem.
They really ought to repeat that.
So much of modern existence is foreshadowed in the comedy and satire of the previous generation.
Shall I tell you what really annoys me about London?
It's that I keep getting my Uber rating hammered for calling for the genocide of the wrong Balkan group. I mean, can we not have some kind of sign in the app showing exactly which ethnic subgroup the driver is from?
Fascinating article on how Bluesky is tailing off, and slowly self-destructing
TLDR: it's become a bubble chamber of leftoids, who are angry and intolerant of opposing opinions (esp but not always rightwing opinions). This makes it hostile to a lot of newcomers, and so the newbies stop coming. Without opposing opinions to tackle, the Blueskyers either turn on each other, or tediously and pointlessly agree with each other. And they become increasingly misinformed
So basically like all social media channels, then. Especially X.
I still use X quite a bit. Is there no longer a range of views on there? I would say there is (even if it's become open to nutters).
Absolutely there is a range of views.Let's do an experiment. I can look at my feed right now. I deliberately follow people all along the spectrum.
First ten definitely political tweets in my feed as of this moment:
1. Centre left Scottish Nationalist (ex of PB!)
2. Alt right feminist lady
3. Toby Young
4. Centre left Economist journo Shashank Joshi
5. Conservative Polish MEP
6. Trumpite American
7. Very left Briton angry about Israel
8. Centre right Canadian
9. Soft left American journalist
10. Reformy Brit
That's a pretty good mix. It tilts somewhat to the right but it's not absurd, and there are lots of left voices
But that is in my curated feed. The For You stuff is much wilder
An "alt right feminist" ... that's pretty niche.
QED
You think that's niche because you never encounter these people
There is a growing number of western women who are very feminist but also alt-right on issues like migration, because they think mass immigration has been bad for women, made the streets less safe, reintroduced patriarchal attitudes, etc
Look at the leaders of the populist right on the continent. Le Pen, Meloni, Alice Weidel (AfD)
Much of this movement is driven by women
I think Labour should be less worried about Farage than the increasing number of articulate young women identifying with the right. I don't remember a situation like that in my adult life.
Where are you getting this impression from? Young women are more left inclined than ever. Many articles written on how they're going the opposite way to young men.
Look younger, and look across the world
Le Pen gets big suppport from the young. The AdF are really big with German kids. Girls very much included
TikTok is full of alt.right teenies and 19 year old white priders. Part of it is surely the youthful desire to shock. Being a commie or a transsexual no longer remotely shocks, being hard right really does. But also it is a genuine political shift
How do you know that TikTok is full of alt.right teenies?
Because I've watched them. Next question
That probably says more about you and your algorithm and likes than it does about TikTok or the youth.
I don't use TikTok, my wife does, and I've never once heard anything alt-right on her streams.
Yes TikTok takes your own tastes and magnifies them until everything you get is directly in tune with your own political views, cultural preferences and hobbies. No wonder Leon is getting alt-right teenies. My son’s feed is full of libs concerned about climate change.
No, this is a thing. This denial is really low IQ stuff when 2 minutes search would show I am right
"Europe’s far right uses TikTok to win youth vote Gen Z influencers inspire right-wing leaders like France’s Jordan Bardella ahead of June’s EU election."
“I am right about a thing. Therefore anyone who doesn’t entirely subscribe to my particular view of events is entirely wrong”.
It’s perfectly possible for both to be true, and almost certainly is: that the alt right is using TikTok to inveigle its way into young minds, and having some success among the curious, and that you are getting a highly concentrated and unrepresentative dose of it on your feed precisely because you are politically that way inclined.
Why on earth was the Foreign Secretary being driven 360 miles in a taxi between two countries with no bodyguards or offficials? Most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
I genuinely thought that the Foreign Secretary would have body guards and officially organised transportation for everything. It is one of the most senior roles in government. Where as if somebody told me Lisa Nandy has to get her own Ubers everywhere that is totally believable.
I told the story on here before about bumping into Denis Thatcher on his holidays. Yes he was husband of the PM and different times in terms of an active IRA, but there were Range Rovers full of bodyguards ready to tackle a 10 year old kid to the ground.
Its British civil service computer says no penny pinching. Apparently the Italians offered a car, and the officials said no that’s not within our expenses rules.
Hard to imagine the French or Italian foreign minister having to do this.
Not to have any security detail at all, I honestly wouldn't have thought that would be an option regardless of cost.
People made a big thing about Boris Johnson attending that party in Italy without his security detail.
Well we also all remember Cameron on his bike....with two range rovers full of burly men following where ever he went.
Anyone who thinks the Tories problems are down to Brexit needs their head examining.
Much of the challenges we and they face today are down to decisions the Coalition did, or didn't, take. And the Tories got virtually nowhere in by-elections or in the opinion polling after 1997 until Gordon Brown took office and the GFC hit.
They just lost confidence and political awareness and slowly atrophied after the early 1990s.
Brexit begat Johnson and Truss. Johnson begat the Boriswave.
Brexit, destroyed any pretence to economic competence, or indeed to actual conservatism as long understood.
Brexit provided a sugar rush of populist support but fatally tarnished the brand. It wasn’t the only factor of course, but it was the coup de grace.
You go on about it because you hate it and you want it to be the answer to any problem that is postulated.
You are intelligent enough to know that simply isn't true.
I was merely responding to your post, not “going on about it”. Your chronology of the Tory party’s decline has a glaring great hole called Brexit.
One doesn’t exactly need to be Sigmund Freud…
Because your position is bullshit.
Brexit if anything postponed the Tories decline and bought them time.
Perhaps ask yourself why this board contains several ex Tories who will never go back.
Once again, I’m astonished you are employed in a job that requires some sort of analysis.
But, then, you're looking at the symptom not the cause.
You have to look at the wider changes in political trends over the last 25+ years, and the failure of the Tories to respond to them.
There’s no such thing as a completely independent variable in history.
Brexit was of course a symptom unto itself, but it was also the coup de grace for the Tories.
Iraq played an almost similar role for Labour, bringing us Corbyn, for example.
I am a Leaver (and I would vote Leave again) but I am happy to say you are correct. Brexit killed the Tories, it led them in the wrong direction politically - to an unsustainable coalition of voters - plus it chopped away a talented chunk of the party. I really don't like a lot of ultra-Remainers, but there was undeniable brains and energy in the Remainer wing, now gone
That said, the coup de grace was the Boriswave. To do all that, to put the country through all that, so as to "take back control", and then to undeniably LOSE control of migration, to the extent that you "accidentally" let in a million people a year, for several years...
I don't see how the Tories can come back from this. Perhaps a brilliant, inspirational leader might do it... er....
Fascinating article on how Bluesky is tailing off, and slowly self-destructing
TLDR: it's become a bubble chamber of leftoids, who are angry and intolerant of opposing opinions (esp but not always rightwing opinions). This makes it hostile to a lot of newcomers, and so the newbies stop coming. Without opposing opinions to tackle, the Blueskyers either turn on each other, or tediously and pointlessly agree with each other. And they become increasingly misinformed
So basically like all social media channels, then. Especially X.
I still use X quite a bit. Is there no longer a range of views on there? I would say there is (even if it's become open to nutters).
Absolutely there is a range of views.Let's do an experiment. I can look at my feed right now. I deliberately follow people all along the spectrum.
First ten definitely political tweets in my feed as of this moment:
1. Centre left Scottish Nationalist (ex of PB!)
2. Alt right feminist lady
3. Toby Young
4. Centre left Economist journo Shashank Joshi
5. Conservative Polish MEP
6. Trumpite American
7. Very left Briton angry about Israel
8. Centre right Canadian
9. Soft left American journalist
10. Reformy Brit
That's a pretty good mix. It tilts somewhat to the right but it's not absurd, and there are lots of left voices
But that is in my curated feed. The For You stuff is much wilder
An "alt right feminist" ... that's pretty niche.
QED
You think that's niche because you never encounter these people
There is a growing number of western women who are very feminist but also alt-right on issues like migration, because they think mass immigration has been bad for women, made the streets less safe, reintroduced patriarchal attitudes, etc
Look at the leaders of the populist right on the continent. Le Pen, Meloni, Alice Weidel (AfD)
Much of this movement is driven by women
I think Labour should be less worried about Farage than the increasing number of articulate young women identifying with the right. I don't remember a situation like that in my adult life.
Where are you getting this impression from? Young women are more left inclined than ever. Many articles written on how they're going the opposite way to young men.
Look younger, and look across the world
Le Pen gets big suppport from the young. The AdF are really big with German kids. Girls very much included
TikTok is full of alt.right teenies and 19 year old white priders. Part of it is surely the youthful desire to shock. Being a commie or a transsexual no longer remotely shocks, being hard right really does. But also it is a genuine political shift
How do you know that TikTok is full of alt.right teenies?
Because I've watched them. Next question
That probably says more about you and your algorithm and likes than it does about TikTok or the youth.
I don't use TikTok, my wife does, and I've never once heard anything alt-right on her streams.
Yes TikTok takes your own tastes and magnifies them until everything you get is directly in tune with your own political views, cultural preferences and hobbies. No wonder Leon is getting alt-right teenies. My son’s feed is full of libs concerned about climate change.
No, this is a thing. This denial is really low IQ stuff when 2 minutes search would show I am right
"Europe’s far right uses TikTok to win youth vote Gen Z influencers inspire right-wing leaders like France’s Jordan Bardella ahead of June’s EU election."
“I am right about a thing. Therefore anyone who doesn’t entirely subscribe to my particular view of events is entirely wrong”.
It’s perfectly possible for both to be true, and almost certainly is: that the alt right is using TikTok to inveigle its way into young minds, and having some success among the curious, abc that you are getting a highly concentrated and unrepresentative dose of it on your feed precisely because you are politically that way inclined.
Same with Twitter and YouTube.
You could have just saved time and said "Ok I was wrong, you are right"
Because I am right, and you are wrong, as we now see
I think the biggest issue we have with Eurovision is that any artist who is good enough to win is also good enough to get a record contract and go for the big time. In Europe the contest is seen as a potential platform for a European artist to go global or at least get some long term success if they win. Over here it's not and the potential upside is low for someone really good but the downside risk is huge if you end up in a year where there is a big political event that makes us unpopular (Brexit, the Iraq war etc...) in Europe you could see your career growth strangled at birth with a low placing or the dreaded null points.
The best way to think about it is what would have been in it for Charli xcx to do Eurovision before she released her first singles or EP? She is clearly super talented, why take the risk?
I think the best we can do is select a legacy (clapped out) popstar or band (like when we sent I think boyband Five), who had fame and name recognition on the continent and want a bit of a publicity junket for their new album. It's not really a winning strategy but it is a not losing too badly strategy.
S-Club 7 (sadly now 6), the Saturdays, Mcfly, that sort of thing.
Fascinating article on how Bluesky is tailing off, and slowly self-destructing
TLDR: it's become a bubble chamber of leftoids, who are angry and intolerant of opposing opinions (esp but not always rightwing opinions). This makes it hostile to a lot of newcomers, and so the newbies stop coming. Without opposing opinions to tackle, the Blueskyers either turn on each other, or tediously and pointlessly agree with each other. And they become increasingly misinformed
So basically like all social media channels, then. Especially X.
I still use X quite a bit. Is there no longer a range of views on there? I would say there is (even if it's become open to nutters).
Absolutely there is a range of views.Let's do an experiment. I can look at my feed right now. I deliberately follow people all along the spectrum.
First ten definitely political tweets in my feed as of this moment:
1. Centre left Scottish Nationalist (ex of PB!)
2. Alt right feminist lady
3. Toby Young
4. Centre left Economist journo Shashank Joshi
5. Conservative Polish MEP
6. Trumpite American
7. Very left Briton angry about Israel
8. Centre right Canadian
9. Soft left American journalist
10. Reformy Brit
That's a pretty good mix. It tilts somewhat to the right but it's not absurd, and there are lots of left voices
But that is in my curated feed. The For You stuff is much wilder
An "alt right feminist" ... that's pretty niche.
QED
You think that's niche because you never encounter these people
There is a growing number of western women who are very feminist but also alt-right on issues like migration, because they think mass immigration has been bad for women, made the streets less safe, reintroduced patriarchal attitudes, etc
Look at the leaders of the populist right on the continent. Le Pen, Meloni, Alice Weidel (AfD)
Much of this movement is driven by women
I think Labour should be less worried about Farage than the increasing number of articulate young women identifying with the right. I don't remember a situation like that in my adult life.
Where are you getting this impression from? Young women are more left inclined than ever. Many articles written on how they're going the opposite way to young men.
Look younger, and look across the world
Le Pen gets big suppport from the young. The AdF are really big with German kids. Girls very much included
TikTok is full of alt.right teenies and 19 year old white priders. Part of it is surely the youthful desire to shock. Being a commie or a transsexual no longer remotely shocks, being hard right really does. But also it is a genuine political shift
How do you know that TikTok is full of alt.right teenies?
Because I've watched them. Next question
That probably says more about you and your algorithm and likes than it does about TikTok or the youth.
I don't use TikTok, my wife does, and I've never once heard anything alt-right on her streams.
Yes TikTok takes your own tastes and magnifies them until everything you get is directly in tune with your own political views, cultural preferences and hobbies. No wonder Leon is getting alt-right teenies. My son’s feed is full of libs concerned about climate change.
No, this is a thing. This denial is really low IQ stuff when 2 minutes search would show I am right
"Europe’s far right uses TikTok to win youth vote Gen Z influencers inspire right-wing leaders like France’s Jordan Bardella ahead of June’s EU election."
Are there enough hot, teenaged but probably legal, ferociously right-wing girls on social media to fill your feed? Undoubtedly yes.
Are there enough hot yada yada girls on social media for it to be a challenge for the rest of politics? Yes, and yes again.
Does that show that the distaff yoot are going fash as a whole? Of course it doesn't. Media in general and social media in particular are windows on the world, but highly distorting ones.
This stuff isn't difficult for a bright chap to understand.
Anyone who thinks the Tories problems are down to Brexit needs their head examining.
Much of the challenges we and they face today are down to decisions the Coalition did, or didn't, take. And the Tories got virtually nowhere in by-elections or in the opinion polling after 1997 until Gordon Brown took office and the GFC hit.
They just lost confidence and political awareness and slowly atrophied after the early 1990s.
Brexit begat Johnson and Truss. Johnson begat the Boriswave.
Brexit, destroyed any pretence to economic competence, or indeed to actual conservatism as long understood.
Brexit provided a sugar rush of populist support but fatally tarnished the brand. It wasn’t the only factor of course, but it was the coup de grace.
You go on about it because you hate it and you want it to be the answer to any problem that is postulated.
You are intelligent enough to know that simply isn't true.
I was merely responding to your post, not “going on about it”. Your chronology of the Tory party’s decline has a glaring great hole called Brexit.
One doesn’t exactly need to be Sigmund Freud…
Because your position is bullshit.
Brexit if anything postponed the Tories decline and bought them time.
Perhaps ask yourself why this board contains several ex Tories who will never go back.
Once again, I’m astonished you are employed in a job that requires some sort of analysis.
But, then, you're looking at the symptom not the cause.
You have to look at the wider changes in political trends over the last 25+ years, and the failure of the Tories to respond to them.
There’s no such thing as a completely independent variable in history.
Brexit was of course a symptom unto itself, but it was also the coup de grace for the Tories.
Iraq played an almost similar role for Labour, bringing us Corbyn, for example.
I am a Leaver (and I would vote Leave again) but I am happy to say you are correct. Brexit killed the Tories, it led them in the wrong direction politically - to an unsustainable coalition of voters - plus it chopped away a talented chunk of the party. I really don't like a lot of ultra-Remainers, but there was undeniable brains and energy in the Remainer wing, now gone
That said, the coup de grace was the Boriswave. To do all that, to put the country through all that, so as to "take back control", and then to undeniably LOSE control of migration, to the extent that you "accidentally" let in a million people a year, for several years...
I don't see how the Tories can come back from this. Perhaps a brilliant, inspirational leader might do it... er....
I'd say the opposite: it led them to the right coalition but they couldn't (and lots of them didn't want to) deliver on it.
May and Johnson clocked well over 40% of the vote, something that Cameron and Osborne never did.
Why?
Because their political analysis was about 10 years out of date, and more about making them and their social circles feel more comfortable about having the Conservatives in office again.
Anyone who thinks the Tories problems are down to Brexit needs their head examining.
Much of the challenges we and they face today are down to decisions the Coalition did, or didn't, take. And the Tories got virtually nowhere in by-elections or in the opinion polling after 1997 until Gordon Brown took office and the GFC hit.
They just lost confidence and political awareness and slowly atrophied after the early 1990s.
Brexit begat Johnson and Truss. Johnson begat the Boriswave.
Brexit, destroyed any pretence to economic competence, or indeed to actual conservatism as long understood.
Brexit provided a sugar rush of populist support but fatally tarnished the brand. It wasn’t the only factor of course, but it was the coup de grace.
You go on about it because you hate it and you want it to be the answer to any problem that is postulated.
You are intelligent enough to know that simply isn't true.
I was merely responding to your post, not “going on about it”. Your chronology of the Tory party’s decline has a glaring great hole called Brexit.
One doesn’t exactly need to be Sigmund Freud…
Because your position is bullshit.
Brexit if anything postponed the Tories decline and bought them time.
Perhaps ask yourself why this board contains several ex Tories who will never go back.
Once again, I’m astonished you are employed in a job that requires some sort of analysis.
But, then, you're looking at the symptom not the cause.
You have to look at the wider changes in political trends over the last 25+ years, and the failure of the Tories to respond to them.
There’s no such thing as a completely independent variable in history.
Brexit was of course a symptom unto itself, but it was also the coup de grace for the Tories.
Iraq played an almost similar role for Labour, bringing us Corbyn, for example.
I am a Leaver (and I would vote Leave again) but I am happy to say you are correct. Brexit killed the Tories, it led them in the wrong direction politically - to an unsustainable coalition of voters - plus it chopped away a talented chunk of the party. I really don't like a lot of ultra-Remainers, but there was undeniable brains and energy in the Remainer wing, now gone
That said, the coup de grace was the Boriswave. To do all that, to put the country through all that, so as to "take back control", and then to undeniably LOSE control of migration, to the extent that you "accidentally" let in a million people a year, for several years...
I don't see how the Tories can come back from this. Perhaps a brilliant, inspirational leader might do it... er....
They need a confident platform for growth that resonates with the under 60s, and a cultural (small c) conservatism that works for the over 60s.
At present they stand for nothing except having separate toilets. It’s laughable that this is supposed to be the same party of Thatcher, Lawson, Joseph, Clarke, MacMillan etc.
Badenoch is historically stupid, even by “stupid party” standards.
The head of professional standards at Dorset Police is being investigated over sexual misconduct allegations, The Telegraph can reveal. Det Supt Ricky Dhanda took on the role after his predecessor, Paul Kessell, was forced to resign after pleading guilty to a drink driving charge.
But wait there is more...
Mr Dhanda is understood to have been brought into the force at the same time as former Chief Constable Scott Chilton, who retired last month after moving to Hampshire Police following being accused of having relationships with two colleagues.
Fascinating article on how Bluesky is tailing off, and slowly self-destructing
TLDR: it's become a bubble chamber of leftoids, who are angry and intolerant of opposing opinions (esp but not always rightwing opinions). This makes it hostile to a lot of newcomers, and so the newbies stop coming. Without opposing opinions to tackle, the Blueskyers either turn on each other, or tediously and pointlessly agree with each other. And they become increasingly misinformed
So basically like all social media channels, then. Especially X.
I still use X quite a bit. Is there no longer a range of views on there? I would say there is (even if it's become open to nutters).
Absolutely there is a range of views.Let's do an experiment. I can look at my feed right now. I deliberately follow people all along the spectrum.
First ten definitely political tweets in my feed as of this moment:
1. Centre left Scottish Nationalist (ex of PB!)
2. Alt right feminist lady
3. Toby Young
4. Centre left Economist journo Shashank Joshi
5. Conservative Polish MEP
6. Trumpite American
7. Very left Briton angry about Israel
8. Centre right Canadian
9. Soft left American journalist
10. Reformy Brit
That's a pretty good mix. It tilts somewhat to the right but it's not absurd, and there are lots of left voices
But that is in my curated feed. The For You stuff is much wilder
An "alt right feminist" ... that's pretty niche.
QED
You think that's niche because you never encounter these people
There is a growing number of western women who are very feminist but also alt-right on issues like migration, because they think mass immigration has been bad for women, made the streets less safe, reintroduced patriarchal attitudes, etc
Look at the leaders of the populist right on the continent. Le Pen, Meloni, Alice Weidel (AfD)
Much of this movement is driven by women
I think Labour should be less worried about Farage than the increasing number of articulate young women identifying with the right. I don't remember a situation like that in my adult life.
Where are you getting this impression from? Young women are more left inclined than ever. Many articles written on how they're going the opposite way to young men.
Look younger, and look across the world
Le Pen gets big suppport from the young. The AdF are really big with German kids. Girls very much included
TikTok is full of alt.right teenies and 19 year old white priders. Part of it is surely the youthful desire to shock. Being a commie or a transsexual no longer remotely shocks, being hard right really does. But also it is a genuine political shift
How do you know that TikTok is full of alt.right teenies?
Because I've watched them. Next question
Three quarters of U.K. 15-24 yr olds use TikTok, so it’s going to be full of all sorts. And it’s going to be somewhat selective in what it shows you.
But it’s true that the U.K. right has been much quicker than its opponents to adopt it as a platform.
Fascinating article on how Bluesky is tailing off, and slowly self-destructing
TLDR: it's become a bubble chamber of leftoids, who are angry and intolerant of opposing opinions (esp but not always rightwing opinions). This makes it hostile to a lot of newcomers, and so the newbies stop coming. Without opposing opinions to tackle, the Blueskyers either turn on each other, or tediously and pointlessly agree with each other. And they become increasingly misinformed
So basically like all social media channels, then. Especially X.
I still use X quite a bit. Is there no longer a range of views on there? I would say there is (even if it's become open to nutters).
Absolutely there is a range of views.Let's do an experiment. I can look at my feed right now. I deliberately follow people all along the spectrum.
First ten definitely political tweets in my feed as of this moment:
1. Centre left Scottish Nationalist (ex of PB!)
2. Alt right feminist lady
3. Toby Young
4. Centre left Economist journo Shashank Joshi
5. Conservative Polish MEP
6. Trumpite American
7. Very left Briton angry about Israel
8. Centre right Canadian
9. Soft left American journalist
10. Reformy Brit
That's a pretty good mix. It tilts somewhat to the right but it's not absurd, and there are lots of left voices
But that is in my curated feed. The For You stuff is much wilder
An "alt right feminist" ... that's pretty niche.
QED
You think that's niche because you never encounter these people
There is a growing number of western women who are very feminist but also alt-right on issues like migration, because they think mass immigration has been bad for women, made the streets less safe, reintroduced patriarchal attitudes, etc
Look at the leaders of the populist right on the continent. Le Pen, Meloni, Alice Weidel (AfD)
Much of this movement is driven by women
I think Labour should be less worried about Farage than the increasing number of articulate young women identifying with the right. I don't remember a situation like that in my adult life.
Where are you getting this impression from? Young women are more left inclined than ever. Many articles written on how they're going the opposite way to young men.
Look younger, and look across the world
Le Pen gets big suppport from the young. The AdF are really big with German kids. Girls very much included
TikTok is full of alt.right teenies and 19 year old white priders. Part of it is surely the youthful desire to shock. Being a commie or a transsexual no longer remotely shocks, being hard right really does. But also it is a genuine political shift
How do you know that TikTok is full of alt.right teenies?
Because I've watched them. Next question
I imagine you're seeking them out. You find most things on TikTok if you seek them out and that includes alt.right teenies. Eg I watch youtube 'shorts' on golf, specifically bunker play. But does this mean "youtube is full of men playing bunker shots"? Not really. It's just seems that way to me because it's all I watch.
On Starmer’s voice - I’m genuinely surprised that Lord Alli didn’t stump up for surgery and/or training.
Starmer sounds like he’s responsible for health and safety at a model railway convention.
I have repeatedly got shot down on here for saying he reminds me of Gordon Brittas...
It is doubly unfortunate that his personality - peevish, vain, unimaginative, managerial, dull - so exactly matches the voice
Absolutely. Vocative determinism.
Here's a thing about Starmer. Whenever a dull politician comes along, there is nearly always a counter narrative that goes: "actually in real life they are a hoot, really good sense of humour". We got it with Major, we got it with Gordon Brown. There was even a lame attempt to do it with TMay
Fascinating article on how Bluesky is tailing off, and slowly self-destructing
TLDR: it's become a bubble chamber of leftoids, who are angry and intolerant of opposing opinions (esp but not always rightwing opinions). This makes it hostile to a lot of newcomers, and so the newbies stop coming. Without opposing opinions to tackle, the Blueskyers either turn on each other, or tediously and pointlessly agree with each other. And they become increasingly misinformed
So basically like all social media channels, then. Especially X.
I still use X quite a bit. Is there no longer a range of views on there? I would say there is (even if it's become open to nutters).
Absolutely there is a range of views.Let's do an experiment. I can look at my feed right now. I deliberately follow people all along the spectrum.
First ten definitely political tweets in my feed as of this moment:
1. Centre left Scottish Nationalist (ex of PB!)
2. Alt right feminist lady
3. Toby Young
4. Centre left Economist journo Shashank Joshi
5. Conservative Polish MEP
6. Trumpite American
7. Very left Briton angry about Israel
8. Centre right Canadian
9. Soft left American journalist
10. Reformy Brit
That's a pretty good mix. It tilts somewhat to the right but it's not absurd, and there are lots of left voices
But that is in my curated feed. The For You stuff is much wilder
An "alt right feminist" ... that's pretty niche.
QED
You think that's niche because you never encounter these people
There is a growing number of western women who are very feminist but also alt-right on issues like migration, because they think mass immigration has been bad for women, made the streets less safe, reintroduced patriarchal attitudes, etc
Look at the leaders of the populist right on the continent. Le Pen, Meloni, Alice Weidel (AfD)
Much of this movement is driven by women
I think Labour should be less worried about Farage than the increasing number of articulate young women identifying with the right. I don't remember a situation like that in my adult life.
Where are you getting this impression from? Young women are more left inclined than ever. Many articles written on how they're going the opposite way to young men.
Look younger, and look across the world
Le Pen gets big suppport from the young. The AdF are really big with German kids. Girls very much included
TikTok is full of alt.right teenies and 19 year old white priders. Part of it is surely the youthful desire to shock. Being a commie or a transsexual no longer remotely shocks, being hard right really does. But also it is a genuine political shift
How do you know that TikTok is full of alt.right teenies?
Because I've watched them. Next question
Three quarters of U.K. 15-24 yr olds use TikTok, so it’s going to be full of all sorts. And it’s going to be somewhat selective in what it shows you.
But it’s true that the U.K. right has been much quicker than its opponents to adopt it as a platform.
My friend and I have a dark joke about how the TikTok algorithm brings you increasingly niche content.
Sadly it is too depraved to share on this platform.
The head of professional standards at Dorset Police is being investigated over sexual misconduct allegations, The Telegraph can reveal. Det Supt Ricky Dhanda took on the role after his predecessor, Paul Kessell, was forced to resign after pleading guilty to a drink driving charge.
But wait there is more...
Mr Dhanda is understood to have been brought into the force at the same time as former Chief Constable Scott Chilton, who retired last month after moving to Hampshire Police following being accused of having relationships with two colleagues.
Well they do appear to comport themselves entirely in accordance with customary police standards, if not with the officially prescribed ones.
Fascinating article on how Bluesky is tailing off, and slowly self-destructing
TLDR: it's become a bubble chamber of leftoids, who are angry and intolerant of opposing opinions (esp but not always rightwing opinions). This makes it hostile to a lot of newcomers, and so the newbies stop coming. Without opposing opinions to tackle, the Blueskyers either turn on each other, or tediously and pointlessly agree with each other. And they become increasingly misinformed
So basically like all social media channels, then. Especially X.
I still use X quite a bit. Is there no longer a range of views on there? I would say there is (even if it's become open to nutters).
Absolutely there is a range of views.Let's do an experiment. I can look at my feed right now. I deliberately follow people all along the spectrum.
First ten definitely political tweets in my feed as of this moment:
1. Centre left Scottish Nationalist (ex of PB!)
2. Alt right feminist lady
3. Toby Young
4. Centre left Economist journo Shashank Joshi
5. Conservative Polish MEP
6. Trumpite American
7. Very left Briton angry about Israel
8. Centre right Canadian
9. Soft left American journalist
10. Reformy Brit
That's a pretty good mix. It tilts somewhat to the right but it's not absurd, and there are lots of left voices
But that is in my curated feed. The For You stuff is much wilder
An "alt right feminist" ... that's pretty niche.
QED
You think that's niche because you never encounter these people
There is a growing number of western women who are very feminist but also alt-right on issues like migration, because they think mass immigration has been bad for women, made the streets less safe, reintroduced patriarchal attitudes, etc
Look at the leaders of the populist right on the continent. Le Pen, Meloni, Alice Weidel (AfD)
Much of this movement is driven by women
I think Labour should be less worried about Farage than the increasing number of articulate young women identifying with the right. I don't remember a situation like that in my adult life.
Where are you getting this impression from? Young women are more left inclined than ever. Many articles written on how they're going the opposite way to young men.
Look younger, and look across the world
Le Pen gets big suppport from the young. The AdF are really big with German kids. Girls very much included
TikTok is full of alt.right teenies and 19 year old white priders. Part of it is surely the youthful desire to shock. Being a commie or a transsexual no longer remotely shocks, being hard right really does. But also it is a genuine political shift
How do you know that TikTok is full of alt.right teenies?
Because I've watched them. Next question
I imagine you're seeking them out. You find most things on TikTok if you seek them out and that will include alt.right teenies. Eg I watch youtube 'shorts' on golf, specifically bunker play. But does this mean that "youtube is full of men playing bunker shots"? Not really. It's just seems like it to me because it's all I watch.
Christ, you're so fucking slow you haven't even read the comments where I've proved that I am right, on this exact question, to the point it has become a matter of concern for academics, politicians, pundits
"While TikTok has established itself as a new platform for political communication, its role during elections remains understudied by researchers. In this article, we present a content analysis of actor dynamics and ideological content characteristics on TikTok during the early phase of the 2022 election campaign in Sweden, combined with an analysis of how political orientation and utilization of TikTok’s platform features impact user engagement.
"Results reveal that party youth organizations had a prominent presence during the campaign, while traditional party actors were less established. TikTok tends to lean toward right-wing content, with right-wing praise being a significant predictor of user engagement. Semiotic resources such as stickers and emoticons but also added music, were widely used platform features, but these features had no or weak negative effects on user engagement. Added speech, particularly when praising right-wing politics, positively influenced user engagement, suggesting the importance of verbal communication on a platform characterized by multimodal experimentation."
Fascinating article on how Bluesky is tailing off, and slowly self-destructing
TLDR: it's become a bubble chamber of leftoids, who are angry and intolerant of opposing opinions (esp but not always rightwing opinions). This makes it hostile to a lot of newcomers, and so the newbies stop coming. Without opposing opinions to tackle, the Blueskyers either turn on each other, or tediously and pointlessly agree with each other. And they become increasingly misinformed
So basically like all social media channels, then. Especially X.
I still use X quite a bit. Is there no longer a range of views on there? I would say there is (even if it's become open to nutters).
Absolutely there is a range of views.Let's do an experiment. I can look at my feed right now. I deliberately follow people all along the spectrum.
First ten definitely political tweets in my feed as of this moment:
1. Centre left Scottish Nationalist (ex of PB!)
2. Alt right feminist lady
3. Toby Young
4. Centre left Economist journo Shashank Joshi
5. Conservative Polish MEP
6. Trumpite American
7. Very left Briton angry about Israel
8. Centre right Canadian
9. Soft left American journalist
10. Reformy Brit
That's a pretty good mix. It tilts somewhat to the right but it's not absurd, and there are lots of left voices
But that is in my curated feed. The For You stuff is much wilder
An "alt right feminist" ... that's pretty niche.
QED
You think that's niche because you never encounter these people
There is a growing number of western women who are very feminist but also alt-right on issues like migration, because they think mass immigration has been bad for women, made the streets less safe, reintroduced patriarchal attitudes, etc
Look at the leaders of the populist right on the continent. Le Pen, Meloni, Alice Weidel (AfD)
Much of this movement is driven by women
I think Labour should be less worried about Farage than the increasing number of articulate young women identifying with the right. I don't remember a situation like that in my adult life.
Where are you getting this impression from? Young women are more left inclined than ever. Many articles written on how they're going the opposite way to young men.
Look younger, and look across the world
Le Pen gets big suppport from the young. The AdF are really big with German kids. Girls very much included
TikTok is full of alt.right teenies and 19 year old white priders. Part of it is surely the youthful desire to shock. Being a commie or a transsexual no longer remotely shocks, being hard right really does. But also it is a genuine political shift
How do you know that TikTok is full of alt.right teenies?
Because I've watched them. Next question
That probably says more about you and your algorithm and likes than it does about TikTok or the youth.
I don't use TikTok, my wife does, and I've never once heard anything alt-right on her streams.
Yes TikTok takes your own tastes and magnifies them until everything you get is directly in tune with your own political views, cultural preferences and hobbies. No wonder Leon is getting alt-right teenies. My son’s feed is full of libs concerned about climate change.
No, this is a thing. This denial is really low IQ stuff when 2 minutes search would show I am right
"Europe’s far right uses TikTok to win youth vote Gen Z influencers inspire right-wing leaders like France’s Jordan Bardella ahead of June’s EU election."
“I am right about a thing. Therefore anyone who doesn’t entirely subscribe to my particular view of events is entirely wrong”.
It’s perfectly possible for both to be true, and almost certainly is: that the alt right is using TikTok to inveigle its way into young minds, and having some success among the curious, abc that you are getting a highly concentrated and unrepresentative dose of it on your feed precisely because you are politically that way inclined.
Same with Twitter and YouTube.
You could have just saved time and said "Ok I was wrong, you are right"
Because I am right, and you are wrong, as we now see
But you're not.
Anyone who's anyone who has any interesting in attracting the youth vote is appearing on TikTok because that's where they are.
That some are on the alt-right doesn't mean all the youth is transforming to be alt-right or that TikTok is full of it.
TikTok is no more "full" of that, than its full of liberals concerned about climate change, or full of people analysing bad hair cuts, or full of people begging for donations, or full of people making silly cat memes, or full of anything else.
It is a broad platform, not full of one thing or another.
He has aged badly in two ways, looks and voice; in the 00s & 10s he was a square jawed, handsome man with a posh voice. The inspiration for Darcy in Bridget Jones. Now he’s overweight, flabby and sounds like Spitting Image’s John Major puppet
On Starmer’s voice - I’m genuinely surprised that Lord Alli didn’t stump up for surgery and/or training.
Starmer sounds like he’s responsible for health and safety at a model railway convention.
I have repeatedly got shot down on here for saying he reminds me of Gordon Brittas...
It is doubly unfortunate that his personality - peevish, vain, unimaginative, managerial, dull - so exactly matches the voice
Absolutely. Vocative determinism.
Here's a thing about Starmer. Whenever a dull politician comes along, there is nearly always a counter narrative that goes: "actually in real life they are a hoot, really good sense of humour". We got it with Major, we got it with Gordon Brown. There was even a lame attempt to do it with TMay
No one has even tried this with Starmer
Starmer, though, is more intelligent than the whole of the Democratic Party in the United States, because he's changed course on immigration, whereas they couldn't change course on Biden's capacity issues.
On Starmer’s voice - I’m genuinely surprised that Lord Alli didn’t stump up for surgery and/or training.
Starmer sounds like he’s responsible for health and safety at a model railway convention.
I have repeatedly got shot down on here for saying he reminds me of Gordon Brittas...
It is doubly unfortunate that his personality - peevish, vain, unimaginative, managerial, dull - so exactly matches the voice
Absolutely. Vocative determinism.
Here's a thing about Starmer. Whenever a dull politician comes along, there is nearly always a counter narrative that goes: "actually in real life they are a hoot, really good sense of humour". We got it with Major, we got it with Gordon Brown. There was even a lame attempt to do it with TMay
No one has even tried this with Starmer
I constantly remind people that he doesn’t even dream, and can’t even name a favourite film or book.
Compared to him, Theresa May is actually charismatic, which is a frankly troubling acknowledgement.
I did fear that Starmer would be another Sadiq Khan. Although I think Starmer is more administratively competent than Khan, who is simply a wibbling non-entity.
On Starmer’s voice - I’m genuinely surprised that Lord Alli didn’t stump up for surgery and/or training.
Starmer sounds like he’s responsible for health and safety at a model railway convention.
I have repeatedly got shot down on here for saying he reminds me of Gordon Brittas...
It is doubly unfortunate that his personality - peevish, vain, unimaginative, managerial, dull - so exactly matches the voice
Absolutely. Vocative determinism.
Here's a thing about Starmer. Whenever a dull politician comes along, there is nearly always a counter narrative that goes: "actually in real life they are a hoot, really good sense of humour". We got it with Major, we got it with Gordon Brown. There was even a lame attempt to do it with TMay
No one has even tried this with Starmer
Starmer, though, is more intelligent than the whole of the Democratic Party in the United States, because he's changed course on immigration, whereas they couldn't change course on Biden's capacity issues.
Starmer is a TTT - and a shameful careerist - but he's smart enough to listen to good advice.
On Starmer’s voice - I’m genuinely surprised that Lord Alli didn’t stump up for surgery and/or training.
Starmer sounds like he’s responsible for health and safety at a model railway convention.
Starmer has an extraordinary lack of self-awareness which makes him uniquely unsuited for politics where you are meant to be asking yourself "was that OK" all the time.
Add to that his total disnumeracy and that is why he comes out with "22 Billion", unable to see either that it doesn't ring with the electorate or that it in numerically preposterous for a party which left the country over £100 Billion in real debt in 2010 should complain about an imaginary debt of £22B 14 years later.
He really thinks he is being smart when he says he was the son of a toolmaker or when he doesn't even begin to answer any of the questions at PMQs. I think his problem at PMQs is he is so lacking in empathy that he doesn't even know he isn't answering the questions being asked.
Truly he leads a government which knows so little that it doesn't know how little it knows.
His lasting legacy to British Politics will the constitutional safeguards which will no doubt be called the Starmer Safeguards which will be put in place to make sure that no-one so deluded ever has power in this country again. In short I don't like him.
More importantly, my pic of the day - an almond croissant. Actually, more like an almond sweet Cornish pasty, with frangipane replacing the customary filling.
Outstanding.
(Apols to Cyclefree for the excessive dusting of chocolate on the coffee.)
Fascinating article on how Bluesky is tailing off, and slowly self-destructing
TLDR: it's become a bubble chamber of leftoids, who are angry and intolerant of opposing opinions (esp but not always rightwing opinions). This makes it hostile to a lot of newcomers, and so the newbies stop coming. Without opposing opinions to tackle, the Blueskyers either turn on each other, or tediously and pointlessly agree with each other. And they become increasingly misinformed
So basically like all social media channels, then. Especially X.
I still use X quite a bit. Is there no longer a range of views on there? I would say there is (even if it's become open to nutters).
Absolutely there is a range of views.Let's do an experiment. I can look at my feed right now. I deliberately follow people all along the spectrum.
First ten definitely political tweets in my feed as of this moment:
1. Centre left Scottish Nationalist (ex of PB!)
2. Alt right feminist lady
3. Toby Young
4. Centre left Economist journo Shashank Joshi
5. Conservative Polish MEP
6. Trumpite American
7. Very left Briton angry about Israel
8. Centre right Canadian
9. Soft left American journalist
10. Reformy Brit
That's a pretty good mix. It tilts somewhat to the right but it's not absurd, and there are lots of left voices
But that is in my curated feed. The For You stuff is much wilder
An "alt right feminist" ... that's pretty niche.
QED
You think that's niche because you never encounter these people
There is a growing number of western women who are very feminist but also alt-right on issues like migration, because they think mass immigration has been bad for women, made the streets less safe, reintroduced patriarchal attitudes, etc
Look at the leaders of the populist right on the continent. Le Pen, Meloni, Alice Weidel (AfD)
Much of this movement is driven by women
I think Labour should be less worried about Farage than the increasing number of articulate young women identifying with the right. I don't remember a situation like that in my adult life.
Where are you getting this impression from? Young women are more left inclined than ever. Many articles written on how they're going the opposite way to young men.
Look younger, and look across the world
Le Pen gets big suppport from the young. The AdF are really big with German kids. Girls very much included
TikTok is full of alt.right teenies and 19 year old white priders. Part of it is surely the youthful desire to shock. Being a commie or a transsexual no longer remotely shocks, being hard right really does. But also it is a genuine political shift
How do you know that TikTok is full of alt.right teenies?
Because I've watched them. Next question
That probably says more about you and your algorithm and likes than it does about TikTok or the youth.
I don't use TikTok, my wife does, and I've never once heard anything alt-right on her streams.
Yes TikTok takes your own tastes and magnifies them until everything you get is directly in tune with your own political views, cultural preferences and hobbies. No wonder Leon is getting alt-right teenies. My son’s feed is full of libs concerned about climate change.
No, this is a thing. This denial is really low IQ stuff when 2 minutes search would show I am right
"Europe’s far right uses TikTok to win youth vote Gen Z influencers inspire right-wing leaders like France’s Jordan Bardella ahead of June’s EU election."
“I am right about a thing. Therefore anyone who doesn’t entirely subscribe to my particular view of events is entirely wrong”.
It’s perfectly possible for both to be true, and almost certainly is: that the alt right is using TikTok to inveigle its way into young minds, and having some success among the curious, abc that you are getting a highly concentrated and unrepresentative dose of it on your feed precisely because you are politically that way inclined.
Same with Twitter and YouTube.
You could have just saved time and said "Ok I was wrong, you are right"
Because I am right, and you are wrong, as we now see
But you're not.
Anyone who's anyone who has any interesting in attracting the youth vote is appearing on TikTok because that's where they are.
That some are on the alt-right doesn't mean all the youth is transforming to be alt-right or that TikTok is full of it.
TikTok is no more "full" of that, than its full of liberals concerned about climate change, or full of people analysing bad hair cuts, or full of people begging for donations, or full of people making silly cat memes, or full of anything else.
It is a broad platform, not full of one thing or another.
I’ve seen a shed load of quite virulent borderline antisemitic leftish stuff over people’s shoulders watching TikTok too (not my son, thankfully).
It’s probably fair to say the platform isn’t brim full of centrist floating voter nuance. But what platform is? (Bits of Reddit perhaps).
More importantly, my pic of the day - an almond croissant. Actually, more like an almond sweet Cornish pasty, with frangipane replacing the customary filling.
Fascinating article on how Bluesky is tailing off, and slowly self-destructing
TLDR: it's become a bubble chamber of leftoids, who are angry and intolerant of opposing opinions (esp but not always rightwing opinions). This makes it hostile to a lot of newcomers, and so the newbies stop coming. Without opposing opinions to tackle, the Blueskyers either turn on each other, or tediously and pointlessly agree with each other. And they become increasingly misinformed
So basically like all social media channels, then. Especially X.
I still use X quite a bit. Is there no longer a range of views on there? I would say there is (even if it's become open to nutters).
Absolutely there is a range of views.Let's do an experiment. I can look at my feed right now. I deliberately follow people all along the spectrum.
First ten definitely political tweets in my feed as of this moment:
1. Centre left Scottish Nationalist (ex of PB!)
2. Alt right feminist lady
3. Toby Young
4. Centre left Economist journo Shashank Joshi
5. Conservative Polish MEP
6. Trumpite American
7. Very left Briton angry about Israel
8. Centre right Canadian
9. Soft left American journalist
10. Reformy Brit
That's a pretty good mix. It tilts somewhat to the right but it's not absurd, and there are lots of left voices
But that is in my curated feed. The For You stuff is much wilder
An "alt right feminist" ... that's pretty niche.
QED
You think that's niche because you never encounter these people
There is a growing number of western women who are very feminist but also alt-right on issues like migration, because they think mass immigration has been bad for women, made the streets less safe, reintroduced patriarchal attitudes, etc
Look at the leaders of the populist right on the continent. Le Pen, Meloni, Alice Weidel (AfD)
Much of this movement is driven by women
I think Labour should be less worried about Farage than the increasing number of articulate young women identifying with the right. I don't remember a situation like that in my adult life.
Where are you getting this impression from? Young women are more left inclined than ever. Many articles written on how they're going the opposite way to young men.
Look younger, and look across the world
Le Pen gets big suppport from the young. The AdF are really big with German kids. Girls very much included
TikTok is full of alt.right teenies and 19 year old white priders. Part of it is surely the youthful desire to shock. Being a commie or a transsexual no longer remotely shocks, being hard right really does. But also it is a genuine political shift
How do you know that TikTok is full of alt.right teenies?
Because I've watched them. Next question
That probably says more about you and your algorithm and likes than it does about TikTok or the youth.
I don't use TikTok, my wife does, and I've never once heard anything alt-right on her streams.
Yes TikTok takes your own tastes and magnifies them until everything you get is directly in tune with your own political views, cultural preferences and hobbies. No wonder Leon is getting alt-right teenies. My son’s feed is full of libs concerned about climate change.
No, this is a thing. This denial is really low IQ stuff when 2 minutes search would show I am right
"Europe’s far right uses TikTok to win youth vote Gen Z influencers inspire right-wing leaders like France’s Jordan Bardella ahead of June’s EU election."
“I am right about a thing. Therefore anyone who doesn’t entirely subscribe to my particular view of events is entirely wrong”.
It’s perfectly possible for both to be true, and almost certainly is: that the alt right is using TikTok to inveigle its way into young minds, and having some success among the curious, and that you are getting a highly concentrated and unrepresentative dose of it on your feed precisely because you are politically that way inclined.
Same with Twitter and YouTube.
Tiktok is particularly bad for it. If you don't work in data, marketing or media you probably wouldn't understand it. Tiktok is literal brainrot and we really should have banned it a long time ago.
On Starmer’s voice - I’m genuinely surprised that Lord Alli didn’t stump up for surgery and/or training.
Starmer sounds like he’s responsible for health and safety at a model railway convention.
I have repeatedly got shot down on here for saying he reminds me of Gordon Brittas...
It is doubly unfortunate that his personality - peevish, vain, unimaginative, managerial, dull - so exactly matches the voice
Absolutely. Vocative determinism.
Here's a thing about Starmer. Whenever a dull politician comes along, there is nearly always a counter narrative that goes: "actually in real life they are a hoot, really good sense of humour". We got it with Major, we got it with Gordon Brown. There was even a lame attempt to do it with TMay
No one has even tried this with Starmer
I constantly remind people that he doesn’t even dream, and can’t even name a favourite film or book.
Compared to him, Theresa May is actually charismatic, which is a frankly troubling acknowledgement.
I did fear that Starmer would be another Sadiq Khan. Although I think Starmer is more administratively competent than Khan, who is simply a wibbling non-entity.
Even things he genuinely does like e.g. football, he has a way of making it sound like he really doesn't and he is faking it / only does it for his kids.
Maybe he has had everything coached out of him so he is literally as beige as possible.
On Starmer’s voice - I’m genuinely surprised that Lord Alli didn’t stump up for surgery and/or training.
Starmer sounds like he’s responsible for health and safety at a model railway convention.
I have repeatedly got shot down on here for saying he reminds me of Gordon Brittas...
It is doubly unfortunate that his personality - peevish, vain, unimaginative, managerial, dull - so exactly matches the voice
Absolutely. Vocative determinism.
Here's a thing about Starmer. Whenever a dull politician comes along, there is nearly always a counter narrative that goes: "actually in real life they are a hoot, really good sense of humour". We got it with Major, we got it with Gordon Brown. There was even a lame attempt to do it with TMay
No one has even tried this with Starmer
Whatever you think of Gordon Brown, Edward Heath and, well, anyone who has climbed to the top of the greasy pole, they must have been charismatic at least among their own small groups, or they'd never have risen so high.
But Starmer did not climb to the top, he was pretty much selected and imposed from outside politics by Blairites looking for the anti-Corbyn. He never had to charm and win acolytes, or what Boris called stooges.
He has aged badly in two ways, looks and voice; in the 00s & 10s he was a square jawed, handsome man with a posh voice. The inspiration for Darcy in Bridget Jones. Now he’s overweight, flabby and sounds like Spitting Image’s John Major puppet
Wow, you’re actually right. That 2017 video is a million miles away from how he speaks now.
I do feel that for the even mildly awkward - Brown, Miliband, May, Starmer - the leadership/premiership becomes a kind of cage to be endured, and the emotional energy it takes to maintain appearances actually just crushes your soul.
On Starmer’s voice - I’m genuinely surprised that Lord Alli didn’t stump up for surgery and/or training.
Starmer sounds like he’s responsible for health and safety at a model railway convention.
I have repeatedly got shot down on here for saying he reminds me of Gordon Brittas...
It is doubly unfortunate that his personality - peevish, vain, unimaginative, managerial, dull - so exactly matches the voice
Absolutely. Vocative determinism.
Here's a thing about Starmer. Whenever a dull politician comes along, there is nearly always a counter narrative that goes: "actually in real life they are a hoot, really good sense of humour". We got it with Major, we got it with Gordon Brown. There was even a lame attempt to do it with TMay
No one has even tried this with Starmer
Starmer, though, is more intelligent than the whole of the Democratic Party in the United States, because he's changed course on immigration, whereas they couldn't change course on Biden's capacity issues.
They dumped Biden for Harris. That is, they changed course on his capacity issues.
He has aged badly in two ways, looks and voice; in the 00s & 10s he was a square jawed, handsome man with a posh voice. The inspiration for Darcy in Bridget Jones. Now he’s overweight, flabby and sounds like Spitting Image’s John Major puppet
Yeah Starmer could do with a personal trainer and diet plan, failing that some ozempic.
On Starmer’s voice - I’m genuinely surprised that Lord Alli didn’t stump up for surgery and/or training.
Starmer sounds like he’s responsible for health and safety at a model railway convention.
I have repeatedly got shot down on here for saying he reminds me of Gordon Brittas...
It is doubly unfortunate that his personality - peevish, vain, unimaginative, managerial, dull - so exactly matches the voice
Absolutely. Vocative determinism.
Here's a thing about Starmer. Whenever a dull politician comes along, there is nearly always a counter narrative that goes: "actually in real life they are a hoot, really good sense of humour". We got it with Major, we got it with Gordon Brown. There was even a lame attempt to do it with TMay
No one has even tried this with Starmer
I just feel so sorry for his wife. She just looks utterly broken. She went AWOL for a while and people started questioning it so she got put on parade again.
Fascinating article on how Bluesky is tailing off, and slowly self-destructing
TLDR: it's become a bubble chamber of leftoids, who are angry and intolerant of opposing opinions (esp but not always rightwing opinions). This makes it hostile to a lot of newcomers, and so the newbies stop coming. Without opposing opinions to tackle, the Blueskyers either turn on each other, or tediously and pointlessly agree with each other. And they become increasingly misinformed
So basically like all social media channels, then. Especially X.
I still use X quite a bit. Is there no longer a range of views on there? I would say there is (even if it's become open to nutters).
Absolutely there is a range of views.Let's do an experiment. I can look at my feed right now. I deliberately follow people all along the spectrum.
First ten definitely political tweets in my feed as of this moment:
1. Centre left Scottish Nationalist (ex of PB!)
2. Alt right feminist lady
3. Toby Young
4. Centre left Economist journo Shashank Joshi
5. Conservative Polish MEP
6. Trumpite American
7. Very left Briton angry about Israel
8. Centre right Canadian
9. Soft left American journalist
10. Reformy Brit
That's a pretty good mix. It tilts somewhat to the right but it's not absurd, and there are lots of left voices
But that is in my curated feed. The For You stuff is much wilder
An "alt right feminist" ... that's pretty niche.
QED
You think that's niche because you never encounter these people
There is a growing number of western women who are very feminist but also alt-right on issues like migration, because they think mass immigration has been bad for women, made the streets less safe, reintroduced patriarchal attitudes, etc
Look at the leaders of the populist right on the continent. Le Pen, Meloni, Alice Weidel (AfD)
Much of this movement is driven by women
I think Labour should be less worried about Farage than the increasing number of articulate young women identifying with the right. I don't remember a situation like that in my adult life.
Where are you getting this impression from? Young women are more left inclined than ever. Many articles written on how they're going the opposite way to young men.
Look younger, and look across the world
Le Pen gets big suppport from the young. The AdF are really big with German kids. Girls very much included
TikTok is full of alt.right teenies and 19 year old white priders. Part of it is surely the youthful desire to shock. Being a commie or a transsexual no longer remotely shocks, being hard right really does. But also it is a genuine political shift
How do you know that TikTok is full of alt.right teenies?
Because I've watched them. Next question
That probably says more about you and your algorithm and likes than it does about TikTok or the youth.
I don't use TikTok, my wife does, and I've never once heard anything alt-right on her streams.
Yes TikTok takes your own tastes and magnifies them until everything you get is directly in tune with your own political views, cultural preferences and hobbies. No wonder Leon is getting alt-right teenies. My son’s feed is full of libs concerned about climate change.
No, this is a thing. This denial is really low IQ stuff when 2 minutes search would show I am right
"Europe’s far right uses TikTok to win youth vote Gen Z influencers inspire right-wing leaders like France’s Jordan Bardella ahead of June’s EU election."
“I am right about a thing. Therefore anyone who doesn’t entirely subscribe to my particular view of events is entirely wrong”.
It’s perfectly possible for both to be true, and almost certainly is: that the alt right is using TikTok to inveigle its way into young minds, and having some success among the curious, abc that you are getting a highly concentrated and unrepresentative dose of it on your feed precisely because you are politically that way inclined.
Same with Twitter and YouTube.
You could have just saved time and said "Ok I was wrong, you are right"
Because I am right, and you are wrong, as we now see
But you're not.
Anyone who's anyone who has any interesting in attracting the youth vote is appearing on TikTok because that's where they are.
That some are on the alt-right doesn't mean all the youth is transforming to be alt-right or that TikTok is full of it.
TikTok is no more "full" of that, than its full of liberals concerned about climate change, or full of people analysing bad hair cuts, or full of people begging for donations, or full of people making silly cat memes, or full of anything else.
It is a broad platform, not full of one thing or another.
I’ve seen a shed load of quite virulent borderline antisemitic leftish stuff over people’s shoulders watching TikTok too (not my son, thankfully).
It’s probably fair to say the platform isn’t brim full of centrist floating voter nuance. But what platform is? (Bits of Reddit perhaps).
The fact your son isn't getting it, is rather demonstrative of the fact its not "full" of it.
Does it exist? Yes. Does it appear to those interested in it? Yes.
Is it there to the exclusion of anything else? No.
For those who like that shit, it will appear. Leon gets it, as its what he likes. Your son doesn't, because he doesn't.
He has aged badly in two ways, looks and voice; in the 00s & 10s he was a square jawed, handsome man with a posh voice. The inspiration for Darcy in Bridget Jones. Now he’s overweight, flabby and sounds like Spitting Image’s John Major puppet
Wow, you’re actually right. That 2017 video is a million miles away from how he speaks now.
I do feel that for the even mildly awkward - Brown, Miliband, May, Starmer - the leadership/premiership becomes a kind of cage to be endured, and the emotional energy it takes to maintain appearances actually just crushes your soul.
However, no one forced them to become the most powerful politician in the country (Miliband aside) so my sympathy is very limited. It is incredibly limited - indeed zero - for Theresa May who was, in her own quiet way, one of the most destructive prime ministers in recent history - from her catastrophic red lines "citizens of nowhere" speech, and onwards
Fascinating article on how Bluesky is tailing off, and slowly self-destructing
TLDR: it's become a bubble chamber of leftoids, who are angry and intolerant of opposing opinions (esp but not always rightwing opinions). This makes it hostile to a lot of newcomers, and so the newbies stop coming. Without opposing opinions to tackle, the Blueskyers either turn on each other, or tediously and pointlessly agree with each other. And they become increasingly misinformed
So basically like all social media channels, then. Especially X.
I still use X quite a bit. Is there no longer a range of views on there? I would say there is (even if it's become open to nutters).
Absolutely there is a range of views.Let's do an experiment. I can look at my feed right now. I deliberately follow people all along the spectrum.
First ten definitely political tweets in my feed as of this moment:
1. Centre left Scottish Nationalist (ex of PB!)
2. Alt right feminist lady
3. Toby Young
4. Centre left Economist journo Shashank Joshi
5. Conservative Polish MEP
6. Trumpite American
7. Very left Briton angry about Israel
8. Centre right Canadian
9. Soft left American journalist
10. Reformy Brit
That's a pretty good mix. It tilts somewhat to the right but it's not absurd, and there are lots of left voices
But that is in my curated feed. The For You stuff is much wilder
An "alt right feminist" ... that's pretty niche.
QED
You think that's niche because you never encounter these people
There is a growing number of western women who are very feminist but also alt-right on issues like migration, because they think mass immigration has been bad for women, made the streets less safe, reintroduced patriarchal attitudes, etc
Look at the leaders of the populist right on the continent. Le Pen, Meloni, Alice Weidel (AfD)
Much of this movement is driven by women
I think Labour should be less worried about Farage than the increasing number of articulate young women identifying with the right. I don't remember a situation like that in my adult life.
Where are you getting this impression from? Young women are more left inclined than ever. Many articles written on how they're going the opposite way to young men.
Look younger, and look across the world
Le Pen gets big suppport from the young. The AdF are really big with German kids. Girls very much included
TikTok is full of alt.right teenies and 19 year old white priders. Part of it is surely the youthful desire to shock. Being a commie or a transsexual no longer remotely shocks, being hard right really does. But also it is a genuine political shift
How do you know that TikTok is full of alt.right teenies?
Because I've watched them. Next question
That probably says more about you and your algorithm and likes than it does about TikTok or the youth.
I don't use TikTok, my wife does, and I've never once heard anything alt-right on her streams.
Yes TikTok takes your own tastes and magnifies them until everything you get is directly in tune with your own political views, cultural preferences and hobbies. No wonder Leon is getting alt-right teenies. My son’s feed is full of libs concerned about climate change.
No, this is a thing. This denial is really low IQ stuff when 2 minutes search would show I am right
"Europe’s far right uses TikTok to win youth vote Gen Z influencers inspire right-wing leaders like France’s Jordan Bardella ahead of June’s EU election."
“I am right about a thing. Therefore anyone who doesn’t entirely subscribe to my particular view of events is entirely wrong”.
It’s perfectly possible for both to be true, and almost certainly is: that the alt right is using TikTok to inveigle its way into young minds, and having some success among the curious, and that you are getting a highly concentrated and unrepresentative dose of it on your feed precisely because you are politically that way inclined.
Same with Twitter and YouTube.
Tiktok is particularly bad for it. If you don't work in data, marketing or media you probably wouldn't understand it. Tiktok is literal brainrot and we really should have banned it a long time ago.
I think one of the most damaging aspects of social media is the way it convinces its users that everyone agrees with them, because that’s all they see.
It’s why in the old days of Twitter the Corbynites were so shocked to find the voters weren’t fully on board with how they saw the world. Because everyone they saw online had exactly the same opinions.
And now it’s convincing hard right wingers that they truly are the will of the people and everything else is the establishment, or false consciousness.
I’ve had a weekend of almost @BartholomewRoberts esque diet. After my fairly balanced meal out on Friday night it’s been:
Saturday breakfast: Bacon, sausage and egg bap Saturday lunch: huge chunks of bbq fillet steak, with courgettes Saturday dinner: barbecued chicken Sunday breakfast: bit of a break, with a cinnamon bun Sunday lunch: a whole rack of barbecued pork ribs and asparagus Sunday dinner: barbecued steak again, and pork chops
Fascinating article on how Bluesky is tailing off, and slowly self-destructing
TLDR: it's become a bubble chamber of leftoids, who are angry and intolerant of opposing opinions (esp but not always rightwing opinions). This makes it hostile to a lot of newcomers, and so the newbies stop coming. Without opposing opinions to tackle, the Blueskyers either turn on each other, or tediously and pointlessly agree with each other. And they become increasingly misinformed
So basically like all social media channels, then. Especially X.
I still use X quite a bit. Is there no longer a range of views on there? I would say there is (even if it's become open to nutters).
Absolutely there is a range of views.Let's do an experiment. I can look at my feed right now. I deliberately follow people all along the spectrum.
First ten definitely political tweets in my feed as of this moment:
1. Centre left Scottish Nationalist (ex of PB!)
2. Alt right feminist lady
3. Toby Young
4. Centre left Economist journo Shashank Joshi
5. Conservative Polish MEP
6. Trumpite American
7. Very left Briton angry about Israel
8. Centre right Canadian
9. Soft left American journalist
10. Reformy Brit
That's a pretty good mix. It tilts somewhat to the right but it's not absurd, and there are lots of left voices
But that is in my curated feed. The For You stuff is much wilder
An "alt right feminist" ... that's pretty niche.
QED
You think that's niche because you never encounter these people
There is a growing number of western women who are very feminist but also alt-right on issues like migration, because they think mass immigration has been bad for women, made the streets less safe, reintroduced patriarchal attitudes, etc
Look at the leaders of the populist right on the continent. Le Pen, Meloni, Alice Weidel (AfD)
Much of this movement is driven by women
I think Labour should be less worried about Farage than the increasing number of articulate young women identifying with the right. I don't remember a situation like that in my adult life.
Where are you getting this impression from? Young women are more left inclined than ever. Many articles written on how they're going the opposite way to young men.
Look younger, and look across the world
Le Pen gets big suppport from the young. The AdF are really big with German kids. Girls very much included
TikTok is full of alt.right teenies and 19 year old white priders. Part of it is surely the youthful desire to shock. Being a commie or a transsexual no longer remotely shocks, being hard right really does. But also it is a genuine political shift
How do you know that TikTok is full of alt.right teenies?
Because I've watched them. Next question
I imagine you're seeking them out. You find most things on TikTok if you seek them out and that will include alt.right teenies. Eg I watch youtube 'shorts' on golf, specifically bunker play. But does this mean that "youtube is full of men playing bunker shots"? Not really. It's just seems like it to me because it's all I watch.
Christ, you're so fucking slow you haven't even read the comments where I've proved that I am right, on this exact question, to the point it has become a matter of concern for academics, politicians, pundits
"While TikTok has established itself as a new platform for political communication, its role during elections remains understudied by researchers. In this article, we present a content analysis of actor dynamics and ideological content characteristics on TikTok during the early phase of the 2022 election campaign in Sweden, combined with an analysis of how political orientation and utilization of TikTok’s platform features impact user engagement.
"Results reveal that party youth organizations had a prominent presence during the campaign, while traditional party actors were less established. TikTok tends to lean toward right-wing content, with right-wing praise being a significant predictor of user engagement. Semiotic resources such as stickers and emoticons but also added music, were widely used platform features, but these features had no or weak negative effects on user engagement. Added speech, particularly when praising right-wing politics, positively influenced user engagement, suggesting the importance of verbal communication on a platform characterized by multimodal experimentation."
You said "because I watched them, next question". Very clear, albeit rather terse. I responded to that. Nothing slow about it. That's a conversation.
This is now a different answer for which many thanks. Disturbing. But I guess I'm not too surprised given the far right famously do use TikTok to try and corrupt the young.
I’ve had a weekend of almost @BartholomewRoberts esque diet. After my fairly balanced meal out on Friday night it’s been:
Saturday breakfast: Bacon, sausage and egg bap Saturday lunch: huge chunks of bbq fillet steak, with courgettes Saturday dinner: barbecued chicken Sunday breakfast: bit of a break, with a cinnamon bun Sunday lunch: a whole rack of barbecued pork ribs and asparagus Sunday dinner: barbecued steak again, and pork chops
Got tummy ache
Did you wash it down with 24 cans of sugar free energy drinks?
Fascinating article on how Bluesky is tailing off, and slowly self-destructing
TLDR: it's become a bubble chamber of leftoids, who are angry and intolerant of opposing opinions (esp but not always rightwing opinions). This makes it hostile to a lot of newcomers, and so the newbies stop coming. Without opposing opinions to tackle, the Blueskyers either turn on each other, or tediously and pointlessly agree with each other. And they become increasingly misinformed
So basically like all social media channels, then. Especially X.
I still use X quite a bit. Is there no longer a range of views on there? I would say there is (even if it's become open to nutters).
Absolutely there is a range of views.Let's do an experiment. I can look at my feed right now. I deliberately follow people all along the spectrum.
First ten definitely political tweets in my feed as of this moment:
1. Centre left Scottish Nationalist (ex of PB!)
2. Alt right feminist lady
3. Toby Young
4. Centre left Economist journo Shashank Joshi
5. Conservative Polish MEP
6. Trumpite American
7. Very left Briton angry about Israel
8. Centre right Canadian
9. Soft left American journalist
10. Reformy Brit
That's a pretty good mix. It tilts somewhat to the right but it's not absurd, and there are lots of left voices
But that is in my curated feed. The For You stuff is much wilder
An "alt right feminist" ... that's pretty niche.
QED
You think that's niche because you never encounter these people
There is a growing number of western women who are very feminist but also alt-right on issues like migration, because they think mass immigration has been bad for women, made the streets less safe, reintroduced patriarchal attitudes, etc
Look at the leaders of the populist right on the continent. Le Pen, Meloni, Alice Weidel (AfD)
Much of this movement is driven by women
I think Labour should be less worried about Farage than the increasing number of articulate young women identifying with the right. I don't remember a situation like that in my adult life.
Where are you getting this impression from? Young women are more left inclined than ever. Many articles written on how they're going the opposite way to young men.
Look younger, and look across the world
Le Pen gets big suppport from the young. The AdF are really big with German kids. Girls very much included
TikTok is full of alt.right teenies and 19 year old white priders. Part of it is surely the youthful desire to shock. Being a commie or a transsexual no longer remotely shocks, being hard right really does. But also it is a genuine political shift
How do you know that TikTok is full of alt.right teenies?
Because I've watched them. Next question
That probably says more about you and your algorithm and likes than it does about TikTok or the youth.
I don't use TikTok, my wife does, and I've never once heard anything alt-right on her streams.
Yes TikTok takes your own tastes and magnifies them until everything you get is directly in tune with your own political views, cultural preferences and hobbies. No wonder Leon is getting alt-right teenies. My son’s feed is full of libs concerned about climate change.
No, this is a thing. This denial is really low IQ stuff when 2 minutes search would show I am right
"Europe’s far right uses TikTok to win youth vote Gen Z influencers inspire right-wing leaders like France’s Jordan Bardella ahead of June’s EU election."
“I am right about a thing. Therefore anyone who doesn’t entirely subscribe to my particular view of events is entirely wrong”.
It’s perfectly possible for both to be true, and almost certainly is: that the alt right is using TikTok to inveigle its way into young minds, and having some success among the curious, abc that you are getting a highly concentrated and unrepresentative dose of it on your feed precisely because you are politically that way inclined.
Same with Twitter and YouTube.
You could have just saved time and said "Ok I was wrong, you are right"
Because I am right, and you are wrong, as we now see
But you're not.
Anyone who's anyone who has any interesting in attracting the youth vote is appearing on TikTok because that's where they are.
That some are on the alt-right doesn't mean all the youth is transforming to be alt-right or that TikTok is full of it.
TikTok is no more "full" of that, than its full of liberals concerned about climate change, or full of people analysing bad hair cuts, or full of people begging for donations, or full of people making silly cat memes, or full of anything else.
It is a broad platform, not full of one thing or another.
I’ve seen a shed load of quite virulent borderline antisemitic leftish stuff over people’s shoulders watching TikTok too (not my son, thankfully).
It’s probably fair to say the platform isn’t brim full of centrist floating voter nuance. But what platform is? (Bits of Reddit perhaps).
The fact your son isn't getting it, is rather demonstrative of the fact its not "full" of it.
Does it exist? Yes. Does it appear to those interested in it? Yes.
Is it there to the exclusion of anything else? No.
For those who like that shit, it will appear. Leon gets it, as its what he likes. Your son doesn't, because he doesn't.
There's no magic here.
I mean, I;ve just given you ten articles proving I am correct, and even an academic study which says:
"TikTok tends to lean toward right-wing content, with right-wing praise being a significant predictor of user engagement."
Does this budge you one iota? No it does not. You just continue banging on and on and on spouting the same tiny-minded semi-detached Warrington based petit bourgeois redbrick Barratt home drivel, even when it is utterly and provably and mortifyingly wrong, like some kind of demented provincial hobgoblin with a fucking air fryer the size of Jupiter shoved up his farcical butt
Why on earth was the Foreign Secretary being driven 360 miles in a taxi between two countries with no bodyguards or offficials? Most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
I genuinely thought that the Foreign Secretary would have body guards and officially organised transportation for everything. It is one of the most senior roles in government. Where as if somebody told me Lisa Nandy has to get her own Ubers everywhere that is totally believable.
When Boris was FS, he still lived in Islington and I lived nearby. I’d pass him out running on the canal, red-faced and huffing, surrounded by his burly security detail.
That is what I would have expected. So it sounds like Boris had round the clock security detail.
To stop him sneaking off to one or other of his lady friends?
Fascinating article on how Bluesky is tailing off, and slowly self-destructing
TLDR: it's become a bubble chamber of leftoids, who are angry and intolerant of opposing opinions (esp but not always rightwing opinions). This makes it hostile to a lot of newcomers, and so the newbies stop coming. Without opposing opinions to tackle, the Blueskyers either turn on each other, or tediously and pointlessly agree with each other. And they become increasingly misinformed
So basically like all social media channels, then. Especially X.
I still use X quite a bit. Is there no longer a range of views on there? I would say there is (even if it's become open to nutters).
Absolutely there is a range of views.Let's do an experiment. I can look at my feed right now. I deliberately follow people all along the spectrum.
First ten definitely political tweets in my feed as of this moment:
1. Centre left Scottish Nationalist (ex of PB!)
2. Alt right feminist lady
3. Toby Young
4. Centre left Economist journo Shashank Joshi
5. Conservative Polish MEP
6. Trumpite American
7. Very left Briton angry about Israel
8. Centre right Canadian
9. Soft left American journalist
10. Reformy Brit
That's a pretty good mix. It tilts somewhat to the right but it's not absurd, and there are lots of left voices
But that is in my curated feed. The For You stuff is much wilder
An "alt right feminist" ... that's pretty niche.
QED
You think that's niche because you never encounter these people
There is a growing number of western women who are very feminist but also alt-right on issues like migration, because they think mass immigration has been bad for women, made the streets less safe, reintroduced patriarchal attitudes, etc
Look at the leaders of the populist right on the continent. Le Pen, Meloni, Alice Weidel (AfD)
Much of this movement is driven by women
I think Labour should be less worried about Farage than the increasing number of articulate young women identifying with the right. I don't remember a situation like that in my adult life.
Where are you getting this impression from? Young women are more left inclined than ever. Many articles written on how they're going the opposite way to young men.
Look younger, and look across the world
Le Pen gets big suppport from the young. The AdF are really big with German kids. Girls very much included
TikTok is full of alt.right teenies and 19 year old white priders. Part of it is surely the youthful desire to shock. Being a commie or a transsexual no longer remotely shocks, being hard right really does. But also it is a genuine political shift
How do you know that TikTok is full of alt.right teenies?
Because I've watched them. Next question
That probably says more about you and your algorithm and likes than it does about TikTok or the youth.
I don't use TikTok, my wife does, and I've never once heard anything alt-right on her streams.
Yes TikTok takes your own tastes and magnifies them until everything you get is directly in tune with your own political views, cultural preferences and hobbies. No wonder Leon is getting alt-right teenies. My son’s feed is full of libs concerned about climate change.
No, this is a thing. This denial is really low IQ stuff when 2 minutes search would show I am right
"Europe’s far right uses TikTok to win youth vote Gen Z influencers inspire right-wing leaders like France’s Jordan Bardella ahead of June’s EU election."
“I am right about a thing. Therefore anyone who doesn’t entirely subscribe to my particular view of events is entirely wrong”.
It’s perfectly possible for both to be true, and almost certainly is: that the alt right is using TikTok to inveigle its way into young minds, and having some success among the curious, abc that you are getting a highly concentrated and unrepresentative dose of it on your feed precisely because you are politically that way inclined.
Same with Twitter and YouTube.
You could have just saved time and said "Ok I was wrong, you are right"
Because I am right, and you are wrong, as we now see
But you're not.
Anyone who's anyone who has any interesting in attracting the youth vote is appearing on TikTok because that's where they are.
That some are on the alt-right doesn't mean all the youth is transforming to be alt-right or that TikTok is full of it.
TikTok is no more "full" of that, than its full of liberals concerned about climate change, or full of people analysing bad hair cuts, or full of people begging for donations, or full of people making silly cat memes, or full of anything else.
It is a broad platform, not full of one thing or another.
I’ve seen a shed load of quite virulent borderline antisemitic leftish stuff over people’s shoulders watching TikTok too (not my son, thankfully).
It’s probably fair to say the platform isn’t brim full of centrist floating voter nuance. But what platform is? (Bits of Reddit perhaps).
The fact your son isn't getting it, is rather demonstrative of the fact its not "full" of it.
Does it exist? Yes. Does it appear to those interested in it? Yes.
Is it there to the exclusion of anything else? No.
For those who like that shit, it will appear. Leon gets it, as its what he likes. Your son doesn't, because he doesn't.
There's no magic here.
I mean, I;ve just given you ten articles proving I am correct, and even an academic study which says:
"TikTok tends to lean toward right-wing content, with right-wing praise being a significant predictor of user engagement."
Does this budge you one iota? No it does not. You just continue banging on and on and on spouting the same tiny-minded semi-detached Warrington based petit bourgeois redbrick Barratt home drivel, even when it is utterly and provably and mortifyingly wrong, like some kind of demented provincial hobgoblin with a fucking air fryer the size of Jupiter shoved up his farcical butt
Dear, sweet naive Leon.
You know those other videos? They were pretending in those as well.
Why on earth was the Foreign Secretary being driven 360 miles in a taxi between two countries with no bodyguards or offficials? Most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
I genuinely thought that the Foreign Secretary would have body guards and officially organised transportation for everything. It is one of the most senior roles in government. Where as if somebody told me Lisa Nandy has to get her own Ubers everywhere that is totally believable.
When Boris was FS, he still lived in Islington and I lived nearby. I’d pass him out running on the canal, red-faced and huffing, surrounded by his burly security detail.
That is what I would have expected. So it sounds like Boris had round the clock security detail.
To stop him sneaking off to one or other of his lady friends?
The head of professional standards at Dorset Police is being investigated over sexual misconduct allegations, The Telegraph can reveal. Det Supt Ricky Dhanda took on the role after his predecessor, Paul Kessell, was forced to resign after pleading guilty to a drink driving charge.
But wait there is more...
Mr Dhanda is understood to have been brought into the force at the same time as former Chief Constable Scott Chilton, who retired last month after moving to Hampshire Police following being accused of having relationships with two colleagues.
I’m not sure I understand the problem.
Both the incumbent and his predecessor demonstrated the level of professional standards that we’ve come to expect from the police.
I’ve had a weekend of almost @BartholomewRoberts esque diet. After my fairly balanced meal out on Friday night it’s been:
Saturday breakfast: Bacon, sausage and egg bap Saturday lunch: huge chunks of bbq fillet steak, with courgettes Saturday dinner: barbecued chicken Sunday breakfast: bit of a break, with a cinnamon bun Sunday lunch: a whole rack of barbecued pork ribs and asparagus Sunday dinner: barbecued steak again, and pork chops
Got tummy ache
Did you wash it down with 24 cans of sugar free energy drinks?
An odd mix of crap Prosecco (at the reunion), tea and coffee, butty bach, and cider.
I’ve had a weekend of almost @BartholomewRoberts esque diet. After my fairly balanced meal out on Friday night it’s been:
Saturday breakfast: Bacon, sausage and egg bap Saturday lunch: huge chunks of bbq fillet steak, with courgettes Saturday dinner: barbecued chicken Sunday breakfast: bit of a break, with a cinnamon bun Sunday lunch: a whole rack of barbecued pork ribs and asparagus Sunday dinner: barbecued steak again, and pork chops
Got tummy ache
Did you wash it down with 24 cans of sugar free energy drinks?
An odd mix of crap Prosecco (at the reunion), tea and coffee, butty bach, and cider.
Sympathies. Life is far far far too short for crap Prosecco
I’ve had a weekend of almost @BartholomewRoberts esque diet. After my fairly balanced meal out on Friday night it’s been:
Saturday breakfast: Bacon, sausage and egg bap Saturday lunch: huge chunks of bbq fillet steak, with courgettes Saturday dinner: barbecued chicken Sunday breakfast: bit of a break, with a cinnamon bun Sunday lunch: a whole rack of barbecued pork ribs and asparagus Sunday dinner: barbecued steak again, and pork chops
Got tummy ache
Did you wash it down with 24 cans of sugar free energy drinks?
An odd mix of crap Prosecco (at the reunion), tea and coffee, butty bach, and cider.
Obviously some people haven't been nudged hard enough by the sugar tax...
I’ve had a weekend of almost @BartholomewRoberts esque diet. After my fairly balanced meal out on Friday night it’s been:
Saturday breakfast: Bacon, sausage and egg bap Saturday lunch: huge chunks of bbq fillet steak, with courgettes Saturday dinner: barbecued chicken Sunday breakfast: bit of a break, with a cinnamon bun Sunday lunch: a whole rack of barbecued pork ribs and asparagus Sunday dinner: barbecued steak again, and pork chops
Got tummy ache
Did you wash it down with 24 cans of sugar free energy drinks?
An odd mix of crap Prosecco (at the reunion), tea and coffee, butty bach, and cider.
Sympathies. Life is far far far too short for crap Prosecco
The stuff has infested the social corners of Britain like Japanese knotweed.
I’ve had a weekend of almost @BartholomewRoberts esque diet. After my fairly balanced meal out on Friday night it’s been:
Saturday breakfast: Bacon, sausage and egg bap Saturday lunch: huge chunks of bbq fillet steak, with courgettes Saturday dinner: barbecued chicken Sunday breakfast: bit of a break, with a cinnamon bun Sunday lunch: a whole rack of barbecued pork ribs and asparagus Sunday dinner: barbecued steak again, and pork chops
Got tummy ache
Did you wash it down with 24 cans of sugar free energy drinks?
An odd mix of crap Prosecco (at the reunion), tea and coffee, butty bach, and cider.
Sympathies. Life is far far far too short for crap Prosecco
The stuff has infested the social corners of Britain like Japanese knotweed.
Are we going to look back on their period and compare it to how Blue Nun and Liebfraumilch were popular in the 70s.
I’ve had a weekend of almost @BartholomewRoberts esque diet. After my fairly balanced meal out on Friday night it’s been:
Saturday breakfast: Bacon, sausage and egg bap Saturday lunch: huge chunks of bbq fillet steak, with courgettes Saturday dinner: barbecued chicken Sunday breakfast: bit of a break, with a cinnamon bun Sunday lunch: a whole rack of barbecued pork ribs and asparagus Sunday dinner: barbecued steak again, and pork chops
Got tummy ache
Did you wash it down with 24 cans of sugar free energy drinks?
An odd mix of crap Prosecco (at the reunion), tea and coffee, butty bach, and cider.
Sympathies. Life is far far far too short for crap Prosecco
The stuff has infested the social corners of Britain like Japanese knotweed.
Are we going to look back on their period and compare it to how Blue Nun and Liebfraumilch were popular in the 70s.
Except then, we kind of had an excuse in not knowing better, ore really having access to anything better. (Probably through the 80s and early 90s as well.) Now we do, despite Brexit.
I’ve had a weekend of almost @BartholomewRoberts esque diet. After my fairly balanced meal out on Friday night it’s been:
Saturday breakfast: Bacon, sausage and egg bap Saturday lunch: huge chunks of bbq fillet steak, with courgettes Saturday dinner: barbecued chicken Sunday breakfast: bit of a break, with a cinnamon bun Sunday lunch: a whole rack of barbecued pork ribs and asparagus Sunday dinner: barbecued steak again, and pork chops
Got tummy ache
Did you wash it down with 24 cans of sugar free energy drinks?
An odd mix of crap Prosecco (at the reunion), tea and coffee, butty bach, and cider.
Sympathies. Life is far far far too short for crap Prosecco
When we were trainees together we got invited to my boss's house for a party. My future wife muttered under her breath on her arrival, "fizzy wine? Surely he can do better than that." It was her introduction to champagne, a relationship which, on a good day, I think has proven only second to our own over the last 40 odd years.
I’ve had a weekend of almost @BartholomewRoberts esque diet. After my fairly balanced meal out on Friday night it’s been:
Saturday breakfast: Bacon, sausage and egg bap Saturday lunch: huge chunks of bbq fillet steak, with courgettes Saturday dinner: barbecued chicken Sunday breakfast: bit of a break, with a cinnamon bun Sunday lunch: a whole rack of barbecued pork ribs and asparagus Sunday dinner: barbecued steak again, and pork chops
Got tummy ache
Did you wash it down with 24 cans of sugar free energy drinks?
An odd mix of crap Prosecco (at the reunion), tea and coffee, butty bach, and cider.
Sympathies. Life is far far far too short for crap Prosecco
The stuff has infested the social corners of Britain like Japanese knotweed.
Are we going to look back on their period and compare it to how Blue Nun and Liebfraumilch were popular in the 70s.
Except then, we kind of had an excuse in not knowing better, ore really having access to anything better. (Probably through the 80s and early 90s as well.) Now we do, despite Brexit.
The turning point was symbolised by the opening of Elmo's Wine Bar.
You're wrong to scoff. As an aside there's generally too much scoffing on here. The unhurried intimacy of Desert Island Discs draws out the essence of the guest and Keir Starmer's essence was most appealing. Everyone I know who listened to it thought so.
You're wrong to scoff. As an aside there's generally too much scoffing on here. The unhurried intimacy of Desert Island Discs draws out the essence of the guest and Keir Starmer's essence was most appealing. Everyone I know who listened to it thought so.
Picking Stormzy was so authentic, don't you think?
You're wrong to scoff. As an aside there's generally too much scoffing on here. The unhurried intimacy of Desert Island Discs draws out the essence of the guest and Keir Starmer's essence was most appealing. Everyone I know who listened to it thought so.
Picking Stormzy was so authentic, don't you think?
I’ve had a weekend of almost @BartholomewRoberts esque diet. After my fairly balanced meal out on Friday night it’s been:
Saturday breakfast: Bacon, sausage and egg bap Saturday lunch: huge chunks of bbq fillet steak, with courgettes Saturday dinner: barbecued chicken Sunday breakfast: bit of a break, with a cinnamon bun Sunday lunch: a whole rack of barbecued pork ribs and asparagus Sunday dinner: barbecued steak again, and pork chops
Got tummy ache
If I may say so, you don't appear to be big on vegetables.
I’ve had a weekend of almost @BartholomewRoberts esque diet. After my fairly balanced meal out on Friday night it’s been:
Saturday breakfast: Bacon, sausage and egg bap Saturday lunch: huge chunks of bbq fillet steak, with courgettes Saturday dinner: barbecued chicken Sunday breakfast: bit of a break, with a cinnamon bun Sunday lunch: a whole rack of barbecued pork ribs and asparagus Sunday dinner: barbecued steak again, and pork chops
Got tummy ache
Did you wash it down with 24 cans of sugar free energy drinks?
An odd mix of crap Prosecco (at the reunion), tea and coffee, butty bach, and cider.
Sympathies. Life is far far far too short for crap Prosecco
When we were trainees together we got invited to my boss's house for a party. My future wife muttered under her breath on her arrival, "fizzy wine? Surely he can do better than that." It was her introduction to champagne, a relationship which, on a good day, I think has proven only second to our own over the last 40 odd years.
She doesn't drink prosecco.
I assume she adds a splash of lemonade to make it palatable.
I’ve had a weekend of almost @BartholomewRoberts esque diet. After my fairly balanced meal out on Friday night it’s been:
Saturday breakfast: Bacon, sausage and egg bap Saturday lunch: huge chunks of bbq fillet steak, with courgettes Saturday dinner: barbecued chicken Sunday breakfast: bit of a break, with a cinnamon bun Sunday lunch: a whole rack of barbecued pork ribs and asparagus Sunday dinner: barbecued steak again, and pork chops
Got tummy ache
Did you wash it down with 24 cans of sugar free energy drinks?
An odd mix of crap Prosecco (at the reunion), tea and coffee, butty bach, and cider.
Sympathies. Life is far far far too short for crap Prosecco
The stuff has infested the social corners of Britain like Japanese knotweed.
Are we going to look back on their period and compare it to how Blue Nun and Liebfraumilch were popular in the 70s.
German plonk paved the way for the French. Speaking of which, no-one cares about Beaujolais Nouveau any more. That was big in the 80s; who would be first? Do restaurants still ask red or white?
I’ve had a weekend of almost @BartholomewRoberts esque diet. After my fairly balanced meal out on Friday night it’s been:
Saturday breakfast: Bacon, sausage and egg bap Saturday lunch: huge chunks of bbq fillet steak, with courgettes Saturday dinner: barbecued chicken Sunday breakfast: bit of a break, with a cinnamon bun Sunday lunch: a whole rack of barbecued pork ribs and asparagus Sunday dinner: barbecued steak again, and pork chops
Got tummy ache
Did you wash it down with 24 cans of sugar free energy drinks?
An odd mix of crap Prosecco (at the reunion), tea and coffee, butty bach, and cider.
Sympathies. Life is far far far too short for crap Prosecco
When we were trainees together we got invited to my boss's house for a party. My future wife muttered under her breath on her arrival, "fizzy wine? Surely he can do better than that." It was her introduction to champagne, a relationship which, on a good day, I think has proven only second to our own over the last 40 odd years.
She doesn't drink prosecco.
I assume she adds a splash of lemonade to make it palatable.
I’ve had a weekend of almost @BartholomewRoberts esque diet. After my fairly balanced meal out on Friday night it’s been:
Saturday breakfast: Bacon, sausage and egg bap Saturday lunch: huge chunks of bbq fillet steak, with courgettes Saturday dinner: barbecued chicken Sunday breakfast: bit of a break, with a cinnamon bun Sunday lunch: a whole rack of barbecued pork ribs and asparagus Sunday dinner: barbecued steak again, and pork chops
Got tummy ache
Did you wash it down with 24 cans of sugar free energy drinks?
An odd mix of crap Prosecco (at the reunion), tea and coffee, butty bach, and cider.
Sympathies. Life is far far far too short for crap Prosecco
The stuff has infested the social corners of Britain like Japanese knotweed.
I bet the Italians can’t believe their luck that we are all paying hard money for their shittiest fizzy wine
Congrats to the guys who came up with the name “Prosecco” tho. It’s a local village I think. Genius branding
You're wrong to scoff. As an aside there's generally too much scoffing on here. The unhurried intimacy of Desert Island Discs draws out the essence of the guest and Keir Starmer's essence was most appealing. Everyone I know who listened to it thought so.
Good evening
You do know that some people would say the same about Kemi Badenoch but it seems in both cases, they are an ever decreasing number
I’ve had a weekend of almost @BartholomewRoberts esque diet. After my fairly balanced meal out on Friday night it’s been:
Saturday breakfast: Bacon, sausage and egg bap Saturday lunch: huge chunks of bbq fillet steak, with courgettes Saturday dinner: barbecued chicken Sunday breakfast: bit of a break, with a cinnamon bun Sunday lunch: a whole rack of barbecued pork ribs and asparagus Sunday dinner: barbecued steak again, and pork chops
Got tummy ache
Did you wash it down with 24 cans of sugar free energy drinks?
An odd mix of crap Prosecco (at the reunion), tea and coffee, butty bach, and cider.
Sympathies. Life is far far far too short for crap Prosecco
The stuff has infested the social corners of Britain like Japanese knotweed.
I bet the Italians can’t believe their luck that we are all paying hard money for their shittiest fizzy wine
Congrats to the guys who came up with the name “Prosecco” tho. It’s a local village I think. Genius branding
At least it is Italian.
Whereas Madri lager is as Spanish as Newcastle Brown Ale.
Educated the expensive way Knows his claret from his Beuajolais
The only time I've come across the stuff. On other music related news, I see it was Eurovision's lack of true democracy that stopped Israel winning. Was it all about the song or is something else going on?
You're wrong to scoff. As an aside there's generally too much scoffing on here. The unhurried intimacy of Desert Island Discs draws out the essence of the guest and Keir Starmer's essence was most appealing. Everyone I know who listened to it thought so.
Good evening
You do know that some people would say the same about Kemi Badenoch but it seems in both cases, they are an ever decreasing number
You're wrong to scoff. As an aside there's generally too much scoffing on here. The unhurried intimacy of Desert Island Discs draws out the essence of the guest and Keir Starmer's essence was most appealing. Everyone I know who listened to it thought so.
Good evening
You do know that some people would say the same about Kemi Badenoch but it seems in both cases, they are an ever decreasing number
I’ve had a weekend of almost @BartholomewRoberts esque diet. After my fairly balanced meal out on Friday night it’s been:
Saturday breakfast: Bacon, sausage and egg bap Saturday lunch: huge chunks of bbq fillet steak, with courgettes Saturday dinner: barbecued chicken Sunday breakfast: bit of a break, with a cinnamon bun Sunday lunch: a whole rack of barbecued pork ribs and asparagus Sunday dinner: barbecued steak again, and pork chops
Got tummy ache
Did you wash it down with 24 cans of sugar free energy drinks?
An odd mix of crap Prosecco (at the reunion), tea and coffee, butty bach, and cider.
Sympathies. Life is far far far too short for crap Prosecco
The stuff has infested the social corners of Britain like Japanese knotweed.
I bet the Italians can’t believe their luck that we are all paying hard money for their shittiest fizzy wine
Congrats to the guys who came up with the name “Prosecco” tho. It’s a local village I think. Genius branding
At least it is Italian.
Whereas Madri lager is as Spanish as Newcastle Brown Ale.
Carling Black Label rebranded...whoever was responsible for the marketing did an incredible job.
AB InBev and Heineken Corp have done an amazing job convincing UK consumers to buy all these exotic sounding beer brands which are either fake brands or that are all made under licence in sexy places like Barnsley or Blackburn etc (and all owned by those two companies) and bare very little resemble to the real stuff.
I know nothing about Romania politics so who is Dan ?
I assume he not anti west
Nicușor Dan is the mainstream centre-right candidate, currently Mayor of Bucharest. George Simion is pro-Trump, pro-Putin and wants Romania to expand to 'unite all Romanians' by taking over Moldova, a little bit of Ukraine and parts of Serbia.
I’ve had a weekend of almost @BartholomewRoberts esque diet. After my fairly balanced meal out on Friday night it’s been:
Saturday breakfast: Bacon, sausage and egg bap Saturday lunch: huge chunks of bbq fillet steak, with courgettes Saturday dinner: barbecued chicken Sunday breakfast: bit of a break, with a cinnamon bun Sunday lunch: a whole rack of barbecued pork ribs and asparagus Sunday dinner: barbecued steak again, and pork chops
Got tummy ache
Did you wash it down with 24 cans of sugar free energy drinks?
An odd mix of crap Prosecco (at the reunion), tea and coffee, butty bach, and cider.
Sympathies. Life is far far far too short for crap Prosecco
The stuff has infested the social corners of Britain like Japanese knotweed.
I bet the Italians can’t believe their luck that we are all paying hard money for their shittiest fizzy wine
Congrats to the guys who came up with the name “Prosecco” tho. It’s a local village I think. Genius branding
There's a lot to congratulate the makers of Prosecco on. They and German car manufacturers saw to it that Britain got the absolute optimal version of Brexit.
I know nothing about Romania politics so who is Dan ?
I assume he not anti west
Nicușor Dan is the mainstream centre-right candidate, currently Mayor of Bucharest. George Simion is pro-Trump, pro-Putin and wants Romania to expand to 'unite all Romanians' by taking over Moldova, a little bit of Ukraine and parts of Serbia.
I know nothing about Romania politics so who is Dan ?
I assume he not anti west
Nicușor Dan is the mainstream centre-right candidate, currently Mayor of Bucharest. George Simion is pro-Trump, pro-Putin and wants Romania to expand to 'unite all Romanians' by taking over Moldova, a little bit of Ukraine and parts of Serbia.
TBF Moldova might be consensual. How any Romanian nationalist can be anti Ukraine I don't understand. It's Russia that has been part occupying Moldova since the 1990s.
Romanian Exit polls aren’t the gold standard and they normally don’t include the diaspora vote .
That's a good point, the diaspora voted 60-25 in favour of Simion, so it would be reasonable to suggest a 67-33 split for Simion in the 2nd round.
In Romania, it was 11.5m votes 30 minutes before the close of polls and 1.6m in the diaspora, so that would be something like 6.7m votes for Dan, 6.4m for Simion.
Educated the expensive way Knows his claret from his Beuajolais
The only time I've come across the stuff. On other music related news, I see it was Eurovision's lack of true democracy that stopped Israel winning. Was it all about the song or is something else going on?
Israel had a decent song but an unrivaled astroturfing operation, with voters able to vote 20 times each across a wide range of countries.
To describe the voting system as a democracy takes a shovel full of salt.
I’ve had a weekend of almost @BartholomewRoberts esque diet. After my fairly balanced meal out on Friday night it’s been:
Saturday breakfast: Bacon, sausage and egg bap Saturday lunch: huge chunks of bbq fillet steak, with courgettes Saturday dinner: barbecued chicken Sunday breakfast: bit of a break, with a cinnamon bun Sunday lunch: a whole rack of barbecued pork ribs and asparagus Sunday dinner: barbecued steak again, and pork chops
Got tummy ache
Did you wash it down with 24 cans of sugar free energy drinks?
An odd mix of crap Prosecco (at the reunion), tea and coffee, butty bach, and cider.
Sympathies. Life is far far far too short for crap Prosecco
The stuff has infested the social corners of Britain like Japanese knotweed.
I bet the Italians can’t believe their luck that we are all paying hard money for their shittiest fizzy wine
Congrats to the guys who came up with the name “Prosecco” tho. It’s a local village I think. Genius branding
Cleverer than that. Prosecco was (is) the name of the grape variety used by the vast majority of producers. They realised that a grape variety could be grown elsewhere - Australian Prosecco, Romanian Prosecco etc - so they cunningly renamed the grape variety to the much less widely used Glera, and made Prosecco the PDO name. Thereby protecting it from copycats.
I’ve had a weekend of almost @BartholomewRoberts esque diet. After my fairly balanced meal out on Friday night it’s been:
Saturday breakfast: Bacon, sausage and egg bap Saturday lunch: huge chunks of bbq fillet steak, with courgettes Saturday dinner: barbecued chicken Sunday breakfast: bit of a break, with a cinnamon bun Sunday lunch: a whole rack of barbecued pork ribs and asparagus Sunday dinner: barbecued steak again, and pork chops
Got tummy ache
Did you wash it down with 24 cans of sugar free energy drinks?
An odd mix of crap Prosecco (at the reunion), tea and coffee, butty bach, and cider.
Sympathies. Life is far far far too short for crap Prosecco
When we were trainees together we got invited to my boss's house for a party. My future wife muttered under her breath on her arrival, "fizzy wine? Surely he can do better than that." It was her introduction to champagne, a relationship which, on a good day, I think has proven only second to our own over the last 40 odd years.
She doesn't drink prosecco.
I am a big fan of prosecco. Since covid altered Mrs Foxy's tastebuds she prefers it to all other wines, flat other sparkling. I can't bear the stuff myself but it's saving me a bloody fortune.
Educated the expensive way Knows his claret from his Beuajolais
The only time I've come across the stuff. On other music related news, I see it was Eurovision's lack of true democracy that stopped Israel winning. Was it all about the song or is something else going on?
Israel had a decent song but an unrivaled astroturfing operation, with voters able to vote 20 times each across a wide range of countries.
To describe the voting system as a democracy takes a shovel full of salt.
Seems like Israel has form for this sort of thing.
Rival acts may have to watch out for exploding mobile phones.
Educated the expensive way Knows his claret from his Beuajolais
The only time I've come across the stuff. On other music related news, I see it was Eurovision's lack of true democracy that stopped Israel winning. Was it all about the song or is something else going on?
Israel had a decent song but an unrivaled astroturfing operation, with voters able to vote 20 times each across a wide range of countries.
To describe the voting system as a democracy takes a shovel full of salt.
Does Eurovision HQ release the actual numbers of televotes?
Educated the expensive way Knows his claret from his Beuajolais
The only time I've come across the stuff. On other music related news, I see it was Eurovision's lack of true democracy that stopped Israel winning. Was it all about the song or is something else going on?
Israel had a decent song but an unrivaled astroturfing operation, with voters able to vote 20 times each across a wide range of countries.
To describe the voting system as a democracy takes a shovel full of salt.
'Unrivalled astroturfing operation' - any evidence for this? I see the British gave 10 points to Poland. No surprise there! Weren't disappointed were you.
I do wonder if there was an element of the sympathy vote or even if people have quite frankly had enough of pro Hamas demonstrations on our streets week after week.
Comments
We haven't had this, really, since 2008 and in its absence people will cling to nurse (the State) because they need security and protection and feel they can't afford to do anything else. See also: tax rises on other people being rather popular.
Conversely, if you have a bit of cash the State is stifling, inefficient and annoying, and you want to be captain of your own boat, and you'll probably be more entrepreneurial and innovative too.
In the show Britass was always launching a new initiative with a terrible slogan to try and turn around the failing leisure centre without ever tackling the root causes problem.
Vocative determinism.
So much of modern existence is foreshadowed in the comedy and satire of the previous generation.
It's that I keep getting my Uber rating hammered for calling for the genocide of the wrong Balkan group. I mean, can we not have some kind of sign in the app showing exactly which ethnic subgroup the driver is from?
“I am right about a thing. Therefore anyone who doesn’t entirely subscribe to my particular view of events is entirely wrong”.
It’s perfectly possible for both to be true, and almost certainly is: that the alt right is using TikTok to inveigle its way into young minds, and having some success among the curious, and that you are getting a highly concentrated and unrepresentative dose of it on your feed precisely because you are politically that way inclined.
Same with Twitter and YouTube.
That said, the coup de grace was the Boriswave. To do all that, to put the country through all that, so as to "take back control", and then to undeniably LOSE control of migration, to the extent that you "accidentally" let in a million people a year, for several years...
I don't see how the Tories can come back from this. Perhaps a brilliant, inspirational leader might do it... er....
Because I am right, and you are wrong, as we now see
S-Club 7 (sadly now 6), the Saturdays, Mcfly, that sort of thing.
Are there enough hot, teenaged but probably legal, ferociously right-wing girls on social media to fill your feed? Undoubtedly yes.
Are there enough hot yada yada girls on social media for it to be a challenge for the rest of politics? Yes, and yes again.
Does that show that the distaff yoot are going fash as a whole? Of course it doesn't. Media in general and social media in particular are windows on the world, but highly distorting ones.
This stuff isn't difficult for a bright chap to understand.
May and Johnson clocked well over 40% of the vote, something that Cameron and Osborne never did.
Why?
Because their political analysis was about 10 years out of date, and more about making them and their social circles feel more comfortable about having the Conservatives in office again.
At present they stand for nothing except having separate toilets. It’s laughable that this is supposed to be the same party of Thatcher, Lawson, Joseph, Clarke, MacMillan etc.
Badenoch is historically stupid, even by “stupid party” standards.
But wait there is more...
Mr Dhanda is understood to have been brought into the force at the same time as former Chief Constable Scott Chilton, who retired last month after moving to Hampshire Police following being accused of having relationships with two colleagues.
But it’s true that the U.K. right has been much quicker than its opponents to adopt it as a platform.
No one has even tried this with Starmer
Sadly it is too depraved to share on this platform.
https://www.businessinsider.com/transphobia-ted-kaczynski-tiktok-algorithm-right-wing-self-radicalization-2021-11
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/aug/02/how-tiktok-bots-and-ai-have-powered-a-resurgence-in-uk-far-right-violence
Academia:
"While TikTok has established itself as a new platform for political communication, its role during elections remains understudied by researchers. In this article, we present a content analysis of actor dynamics and ideological content characteristics on TikTok during the early phase of the 2022 election campaign in Sweden, combined with an analysis of how political orientation and utilization of TikTok’s platform features impact user engagement.
"Results reveal that party youth organizations had a prominent presence during the campaign, while traditional party actors were less established. TikTok tends to lean toward right-wing content, with right-wing praise being a significant predictor of user engagement. Semiotic resources such as stickers and emoticons but also added music, were widely used platform features, but these features had no or weak negative effects on user engagement. Added speech, particularly when praising right-wing politics, positively influenced user engagement, suggesting the importance of verbal communication on a platform characterized by multimodal experimentation."
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20563051241269266
Anyone who's anyone who has any interesting in attracting the youth vote is appearing on TikTok because that's where they are.
That some are on the alt-right doesn't mean all the youth is transforming to be alt-right or that TikTok is full of it.
TikTok is no more "full" of that, than its full of liberals concerned about climate change, or full of people analysing bad hair cuts, or full of people begging for donations, or full of people making silly cat memes, or full of anything else.
It is a broad platform, not full of one thing or another.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/13/why-did-keir-starmer-have-his-voice-fixed-he-sounded-much-better-before
He has aged badly in two ways, looks and voice; in the 00s & 10s he was a square jawed, handsome man with a posh voice. The inspiration for Darcy in Bridget Jones. Now he’s overweight, flabby and sounds like Spitting Image’s John Major puppet
Compared to him, Theresa May is actually charismatic, which is a frankly troubling acknowledgement.
I did fear that Starmer would be another Sadiq Khan.
Although I think Starmer is more administratively competent than Khan, who is simply a wibbling non-entity.
Do none of you check and research before posting? Do you never think "ooh, hold on, Leon might be right, I'd better have a look first?"
Add to that his total disnumeracy and that is why he comes out with "22 Billion", unable to see either that it doesn't ring with the electorate or that it in numerically preposterous for a party which left the country over £100 Billion in real debt in 2010 should complain about an imaginary debt of £22B 14 years later.
He really thinks he is being smart when he says he was the son of a toolmaker or when he doesn't even begin to answer any of the questions at PMQs. I think his problem at PMQs is he is so lacking in empathy that he doesn't even know he isn't answering the questions being asked.
Truly he leads a government which knows so little that it doesn't know how little it knows.
His lasting legacy to British Politics will the constitutional safeguards which will no doubt be called the Starmer Safeguards which will be put in place to make sure that no-one so deluded ever has power in this country again. In short I don't like him.
Actually, more like an almond sweet Cornish pasty, with frangipane replacing the customary filling.
Outstanding.
(Apols to Cyclefree for the excessive dusting of chocolate on the coffee.)
It’s probably fair to say the platform isn’t brim full of centrist floating voter nuance. But what platform is? (Bits of Reddit perhaps).
Maybe he has had everything coached out of him so he is literally as beige as possible.
But Starmer did not climb to the top, he was pretty much selected and imposed from outside politics by Blairites looking for the anti-Corbyn. He never had to charm and win acolytes, or what Boris called stooges.
That 2017 video is a million miles away from how he speaks now.
I do feel that for the even mildly awkward - Brown, Miliband, May, Starmer - the leadership/premiership becomes a kind of cage to be endured, and the emotional energy it takes to maintain appearances actually just crushes your soul.
Does it exist? Yes. Does it appear to those interested in it? Yes.
Is it there to the exclusion of anything else? No.
For those who like that shit, it will appear. Leon gets it, as its what he likes. Your son doesn't, because he doesn't.
There's no magic here.
It’s why in the old days of Twitter the Corbynites were so shocked to find the voters weren’t fully on board with how they saw the world. Because everyone they saw online had exactly the same opinions.
And now it’s convincing hard right wingers that they truly are the will of the people and everything else is the establishment, or false consciousness.
Saturday breakfast: Bacon, sausage and egg bap
Saturday lunch: huge chunks of bbq fillet steak, with courgettes
Saturday dinner: barbecued chicken
Sunday breakfast: bit of a break, with a cinnamon bun
Sunday lunch: a whole rack of barbecued pork ribs and asparagus
Sunday dinner: barbecued steak again, and pork chops
Got tummy ache
This is now a different answer for which many thanks. Disturbing. But I guess I'm not too surprised given the far right famously do use TikTok to try and corrupt the young.
"TikTok tends to lean toward right-wing content, with right-wing praise being a significant predictor of user engagement."
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20563051241269266
Does this budge you one iota? No it does not. You just continue banging on and on and on spouting the same tiny-minded semi-detached Warrington based petit bourgeois redbrick Barratt home drivel, even when it is utterly and provably and mortifyingly wrong, like some kind of demented provincial hobgoblin with a fucking air fryer the size of Jupiter shoved up his farcical butt
You know those other videos? They were pretending in those as well.
Both the incumbent and his predecessor demonstrated the level of professional standards that we’ve come to expect from the police.
A very interesting interview with Zia Yusuf, who dispite appearing to shit the bed massively in relation to Lowe, continues to impress me.
Cling on
She doesn't drink prosecco.
Congrats to the guys who came up with the name “Prosecco” tho. It’s a local village I think. Genius branding
You do know that some people would say the same about Kemi Badenoch but it seems in both cases, they are an ever decreasing number
Whereas Madri lager is as Spanish as Newcastle Brown Ale.
Let's hope it stays that way.
Knows his claret from his Beuajolais
The only time I've come across the stuff. On other music related news, I see it was Eurovision's lack of true democracy that stopped Israel winning. Was it all about the song or is something else going on?
Just wall to wall sunshine with no rain for what seems like weeks, and our solar panels are at record levels of energy production
AB InBev and Heineken Corp have done an amazing job convincing UK consumers to buy all these exotic sounding beer brands which are either fake brands or that are all made under licence in sexy places like Barnsley or Blackburn etc (and all owned by those two companies) and bare very little resemble to the real stuff.
I assume he not anti west
Unfortunately the polls have tended to underestimate the Putinists - and they exclude the diaspora vote, which has tended to back the Putinists too.
This is a good start to the evening, but no more than that. Need confirmation before counting any chickens.
In Romania, it was 11.5m votes 30 minutes before the close of polls and 1.6m in the diaspora, so that would be something like 6.7m votes for Dan, 6.4m for Simion.
Yes, it is an important result.
We don’t want another Serbia or Hungary trying to block a united anti-Putin front.
To describe the voting system as a democracy takes a shovel full of salt.
Rival acts may have to watch out for exploding mobile phones.
If he loses, “Desperate Dan cannot get the Simion monkey off his back”.
I do wonder if there was an element of the sympathy vote or even if people have quite frankly had enough of pro Hamas demonstrations on our streets week after week.