From the previous thread: That Guardian list does not include Huckleberry Finn, or any book by Asimov, Clark, or Heinlein.
Which reminds me of a conversation I had with a good friend, recently. We agreed that, if men want to understand women, they should read a few romance novels -- and if women want to understand men, they should read a few war histories.
As I recall, Disraeli made a similar point way back when.
(For the record: I haven't taken my own advice, but haven't given up on the idea.)
The last two Labour leaders have been London based. I like London, it’s awesome.
But I wonder if a leader not from London will make a positive impact just by the virtue of killing the idea that Labour is a southern party that doesn’t understand the north.
It might help; but one wonders how the party managed to alienate itself so badly from its origins.
On my flegpole today. I think I am the only PB.com inmate with such a domestic amenity.
Honestly, after the utter shitshow of the Nancy Experiment, the bhois should never have been within sniffing distance of the SPL championship. Of course, that will be little comfort if they don't beat the jambos.
An Gorta Mór commemoration day tomorrow as reflected on Celtic’s jerseys. All the Rangers fans going mental at a match they’re not involved in will be going even more mental.
Is your Hearts support in danger of stretching to a week??
This site has a problem, and this thread reveals it. It is endlessly anti Reform. Insulting them, laughing at them, scorning them, belittling them. It begins at the beginning of the thread and carries on through the thread
You have to step back a bit to notice it but then, boy, do you notice it
The problem is that Reform is, by a distance, the most popular political party in the country. Looking at PB you would imagine they were some tiny but dangerous radical group, supported by very few but menacing society
I’ve never known PB so out of kilter with British public opinion. On a site that likes to make bets on British politics this is a very bad thing. It’s like what happened to Bluesky
I don't think anybody is referring to them in a way that suggests they are 'tiny.' As for popular, Putin is popular. Netanyahu is popular. Even Trump was fairly popular a couple of years ago. Hitler, Mussolini, Horthy, Stalin were all the most popular politicians in their country at the time. As was Chavez, or Castro.
Just because somebody is popular - and Reform are not actually *that* popular, their polling is comparable to the voteshare Major got in 1997 or Hague in 2001 - doesn't mean they're not dangerous.
So your comparisons for Reform include: Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin
This is Micky Donovan who played drums in a band before losing his way in life and ending up in the Macari Centre. I visited him in hospital on Thursday and was planning to go back that night when they rang me. Another gone before his time, that is homelessness for you. RIP Micky
On my flegpole today. I think I am the only PB.com inmate with such a domestic amenity.
Honestly, after the utter shitshow of the Nancy Experiment, the bhois should never have been within sniffing distance of the SPL championship. Of course, that will be little comfort if they don't beat the jambos.
An Gorta Mór commemoration day tomorrow as reflected on Celtic’s jerseys. All the Rangers fans going mental at a match they’re not involved in will be going even more mental.
Is your Hearts support in danger of stretching to a week??
McInnes has been a bit of an arsehole this week so pretty much guarded neutrality now. Got good pals in both camps so will have folk to rip the piss out of whatever happens.
How the myth that Labour have done nothing in 2 years became fixed in the minds of voters .
A relentless anti Labour campaign by the media and poor No 10 communications culminated in where we are today.
It isn't the task of the media to be a PR company for any government. This government has been terrible at communications, and especially the art of communicating convincingly by answering questions and not being evasive.
also terrible decision making. Sacking Robbins and then clinging on....
I think that is largely correct.
But neither is it the job of Allister Heath and Allison Pearson to represent fiction as fact. The job of the Telegraph ( and GB News and Talk TV) is to report the news objectively not to use smoke and mirrors to roll the pitch for the next Government in 3,4,5 years time. One could argue a competent Government should have the wherewithal to call out and correct inaccuracies, but it seems this one didn't.
Starmer is wholly to blame for this.
Largely agree, but there is no such thing as objective news coverage. They could all try harder to separate fact and opinion. So we have to rely on an open free media.
There are loads of outlets who would reasonably fairly but critically report on Labour doing well. Mirror, Guardian, FT, New Statesman, Economist, Ch4, ITV, BBC, Times to some extent, vast numbers on X and other social media. An infinity of podcasts.
As to the Right Wing media, in general they gave the Tories a hard time in government IIRC. I find it hard to follow because it's unreadable.
Whereas I accept there will be a bias when reporting news, any news, it is the out and out lies I was objecting to.
It's like giving a false equivalent to reporting by Rachel Maddows and. Jesse Watters. Maddows takes a story, reports the story and opines from the left. Jesse Watters ignores any story but just makes stuff up with no basis upon fact, to promote his cause, which is invariably Trump.
Largely agree. I think in this particular age the prevalence of lies is going to be a reality and unavoidable. I imagine most people just avoid wasting much time on lying outlets. I think everyone knows that in a social media age you have the same sort of duty towards fact checking and lie detection that you do towards locking your front door when you go on holiday.
In outlets regarded as responsible (there are lots) the principle distortion is done by story selection. Take the BBC, which I greatly admire. They would, I think, never run a series, fully researched, to try to demonstrate all the ways in which people manipulate and abuse the benefits and welfare system. Or do detailed case studies on how particular families spend years and generations doing little at our expense. (The sort of project the odious Matt Goodwin would be fond of). But they are never short of super people who are going to suffer egregiously from any change in the system.
The BBC are to an extent even more pernicious. Providing false equivalence is unforgivable. Giving equal billing to the Chairman of the World Bank and Andrea Leadsom to determine the economic effects of Brexit was outrageous. The BBC were also great exponents of the Minford Paradigm. Once again providing a disreputable but largely hidden false equivalence. Theyveould take their pick of any one of 1,000 economists who would maintain Brexit was an economic disaster against Patrick Minford, who was the only one who thought Brexit would be great.
Yet it hasn't been an economic disaster, nor anything resembling one, as has been demonstrated amply by some very good recent thread headers that I must have missed your rebbutal of. So Leadsom was more accurate than the Head of the World Bank, which rather seems to vindicate her being platformed.
My mistake. It was Pascal Lamy if the WTO.
Oh and you are wrong about the eloquent @Fishing thread headers
Beautifully written but fundamentally wildly inaccurate.
On my flegpole today. I think I am the only PB.com inmate with such a domestic amenity.
Honestly, after the utter shitshow of the Nancy Experiment, the bhois should never have been within sniffing distance of the SPL championship. Of course, that will be little comfort if they don't beat the jambos.
An Gorta Mór commemoration day tomorrow as reflected on Celtic’s jerseys. All the Rangers fans going mental at a match they’re not involved in will be going even more mental.
Is your Hearts support in danger of stretching to a week??
McInnes has been a bit of an arsehole this week so pretty much guarded neutrality now. Got good pals in both camps so will have folk to rip the piss out of whatever happens.
Bloody hell, look away for a minute..
Well that's the important thing. Its all about being able to take the p1ss.
This site has a problem, and this thread reveals it. It is endlessly anti Reform. Insulting them, laughing at them, scorning them, belittling them. It begins at the beginning of the thread and carries on through the thread
You have to step back a bit to notice it but then, boy, do you notice it
The problem is that Reform is, by a distance, the most popular political party in the country. Looking at PB you would imagine they were some tiny but dangerous radical group, supported by very few but menacing society
I’ve never known PB so out of kilter with British public opinion. On a site that likes to make bets on British politics this is a very bad thing. It’s like what happened to Bluesky
I don't think anybody is referring to them in a way that suggests they are 'tiny.' As for popular, Putin is popular. Netanyahu is popular. Even Trump was fairly popular a couple of years ago. Hitler, Mussolini, Horthy, Stalin were all the most popular politicians in their country at the time. As was Chavez, or Castro.
Just because somebody is popular - and Reform are not actually *that* popular, their polling is comparable to the voteshare Major got in 1997 or Hague in 2001 - doesn't mean they're not dangerous.
So your comparisons for Reform include: Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin
Get a fucking grip, son
Whoever is operating @Leon_VotedForStarmer today is not up to the usual "devil-may-care" standard. This one seems like he's about to burst into tears.
On my flegpole today. I think I am the only PB.com inmate with such a domestic amenity.
Honestly, after the utter shitshow of the Nancy Experiment, the bhois should never have been within sniffing distance of the SPL championship. Of course, that will be little comfort if they don't beat the jambos.
An Gorta Mór commemoration day tomorrow as reflected on Celtic’s jerseys. All the Rangers fans going mental at a match they’re not involved in will be going even more mental.
Is your Hearts support in danger of stretching to a week??
McInnes has been a bit of an arsehole this week so pretty much guarded neutrality now. Got good pals in both camps so will have folk to rip the piss out of whatever happens.
Bloody hell, look away for a minute..
Well that's the important thing. Its all about being able to take the p1ss.
Very much better than issuing death threats and forcing folk to have police protection I’d say,
This site has a problem, and this thread reveals it. It is endlessly anti Reform. Insulting them, laughing at them, scorning them, belittling them. It begins at the beginning of the thread and carries on through the thread
You have to step back a bit to notice it but then, boy, do you notice it
The problem is that Reform is, by a distance, the most popular political party in the country. Looking at PB you would imagine they were some tiny but dangerous radical group, supported by very few but menacing society
I’ve never known PB so out of kilter with British public opinion. On a site that likes to make bets on British politics this is a very bad thing. It’s like what happened to Bluesky
I don't think anybody is referring to them in a way that suggests they are 'tiny.' As for popular, Putin is popular. Netanyahu is popular. Even Trump was fairly popular a couple of years ago. Hitler, Mussolini, Horthy, Stalin were all the most popular politicians in their country at the time. As was Chavez, or Castro.
Just because somebody is popular - and Reform are not actually *that* popular, their polling is comparable to the voteshare Major got in 1997 or Hague in 2001 - doesn't mean they're not dangerous.
So your comparisons for Reform include: Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin
Get a fucking grip, son
Whoever is operating @Leon_VotedForStarmer today is not up to the usual "devil-may-care" standard. This one seems like he's about to burst into tears.
I'm calmly drinking tea contemplating the brilliant juxtaposition of my 400,000 year old bifacial flint hand axe from the north Kent coast - creator: Homo heidelbergensis (£70 on eBay) sitting next to my c4,000BC Bactrian kohl vessel (£60 on eBay, the seller had on idea what he was selling)
Honestly, the noom is intense and somehow made intenser by their collision, on my windowsill, now renamed my Wondersill
This site has a problem, and this thread reveals it. It is endlessly anti Reform. Insulting them, laughing at them, scorning them, belittling them. It begins at the beginning of the thread and carries on through the thread
You have to step back a bit to notice it but then, boy, do you notice it
The problem is that Reform is, by a distance, the most popular political party in the country. Looking at PB you would imagine they were some tiny but dangerous radical group, supported by very few but menacing society
I’ve never known PB so out of kilter with British public opinion. On a site that likes to make bets on British politics this is a very bad thing. It’s like what happened to Bluesky
I don't think anybody is referring to them in a way that suggests they are 'tiny.' As for popular, Putin is popular. Netanyahu is popular. Even Trump was fairly popular a couple of years ago. Hitler, Mussolini, Horthy, Stalin were all the most popular politicians in their country at the time. As was Chavez, or Castro.
Just because somebody is popular - and Reform are not actually *that* popular, their polling is comparable to the voteshare Major got in 1997 or Hague in 2001 - doesn't mean they're not dangerous.
So your comparisons for Reform include: Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin
On topic: Here's the latest on the generic ballot from Nate Silver:
Today, the generic congressional ballot broke D +6 for the first time this cycle. It’s currently at D +6.1, to be precise. That’s not a huge change from where it was last week (D +5.9), but still, Democrats are making slow but steady gains. Before April, the generic ballot had hovered around D +5.4 since the beginning of the year.
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has set out his views on Labour's path forward and the policy challenges facing the country.
Speaking to Channel 4 News' Andrew Misra, Burnham said he wanted Labour to become “a party that they can believe in again, a party solidly on the side of working class people.”
Reform's official policy is only the Union or county flags should fly from government or council buildings, they say they still support Ukraine but their policy is consistent. They will also ban flying of Rainbow Pride flags on government and council buildings, which many will also be appalled by
I don't really mind elected councils flying flags of countries that they promised to support, or British flags if they said they'd do that, or indeed refusing to fly flags. That's democracy. But I object to anyone putting up any flags they fancy on public flagpoles, just because the council can't be bothered to prosecture them for littering. It's well-established locally that Oxfordshire flags are being put up by far-right provocateurs. Why aren't they being prosecuted?
Because unless you catch them in the act you can't identify who did it..
In my patch they aren't making any effort to deny doing it - they say it's just being patriotic.
Reform's official policy is only the Union or county flags should fly from government or council buildings, they say they still support Ukraine but their policy is consistent. They will also ban flying of Rainbow Pride flags on government and council buildings, which many will also be appalled by
I don't really mind elected councils flying flags of countries that they promised to support, or British flags if they said they'd do that, or indeed refusing to fly flags. That's democracy. But I object to anyone putting up any flags they fancy on public flagpoles, just because the council can't be bothered to prosecture them for littering. It's well-established locally that Oxfordshire flags are being put up by far-right provocateurs. Why aren't they being prosecuted?
Because unless you catch them in the act you can't identify who did it..
In my patch they aren't making any effort to deny doing it - they say it's just being patriotic.
The problem is you can’t fine the people just for claiming that they’ve done it once the threat of being fined they change their tune and start demanding you prove what they’ve done
This site has a problem, and this thread reveals it. It is endlessly anti Reform. Insulting them, laughing at them, scorning them, belittling them. It begins at the beginning of the thread and carries on through the thread
You have to step back a bit to notice it but then, boy, do you notice it
The problem is that Reform is, by a distance, the most popular political party in the country. Looking at PB you would imagine they were some tiny but dangerous radical group, supported by very few but menacing society
I’ve never known PB so out of kilter with British public opinion. On a site that likes to make bets on British politics this is a very bad thing. It’s like what happened to Bluesky
I don't think anybody is referring to them in a way that suggests they are 'tiny.' As for popular, Putin is popular. Netanyahu is popular. Even Trump was fairly popular a couple of years ago. Hitler, Mussolini, Horthy, Stalin were all the most popular politicians in their country at the time. As was Chavez, or Castro.
Just because somebody is popular - and Reform are not actually *that* popular, their polling is comparable to the voteshare Major got in 1997 or Hague in 2001 - doesn't mean they're not dangerous.
So your comparisons for Reform include: Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin
Get a fucking grip, son
On Horthy - he had a robust attitude to Fascists of a certain kind.
A night at the opera -
“… two or three men were on the floor and he [Horthy] had another by the throat, slapping his face and shouting what I learned afterward was: "So you would betray your country, would you?" The Regent was alone, but he had the situation in hand.... The whole incident was typical not only of the Regent's deep hatred of alien doctrine, but of the kind of man he is. Although he was around seventy-two years of age, it did not occur to him to ask for help; he went right ahead like a skipper with a mutiny on his hands.”
How the myth that Labour have done nothing in 2 years became fixed in the minds of voters .
A relentless anti Labour campaign by the media and poor No 10 communications culminated in where we are today.
It isn't the task of the media to be a PR company for any government. This government has been terrible at communications, and especially the art of communicating convincingly by answering questions and not being evasive.
also terrible decision making. Sacking Robbins and then clinging on....
I think that is largely correct.
But neither is it the job of Allister Heath and Allison Pearson to represent fiction as fact. The job of the Telegraph ( and GB News and Talk TV) is to report the news objectively not to use smoke and mirrors to roll the pitch for the next Government in 3,4,5 years time. One could argue a competent Government should have the wherewithal to call out and correct inaccuracies, but it seems this one didn't.
Starmer is wholly to blame for this.
Largely agree, but there is no such thing as objective news coverage. They could all try harder to separate fact and opinion. So we have to rely on an open free media.
There are loads of outlets who would reasonably fairly but critically report on Labour doing well. Mirror, Guardian, FT, New Statesman, Economist, Ch4, ITV, BBC, Times to some extent, vast numbers on X and other social media. An infinity of podcasts.
As to the Right Wing media, in general they gave the Tories a hard time in government IIRC. I find it hard to follow because it's unreadable.
Whereas I accept there will be a bias when reporting news, any news, it is the out and out lies I was objecting to.
It's like giving a false equivalent to reporting by Rachel Maddows and. Jesse Watters. Maddows takes a story, reports the story and opines from the left. Jesse Watters ignores any story but just makes stuff up with no basis upon fact, to promote his cause, which is invariably Trump.
Largely agree. I think in this particular age the prevalence of lies is going to be a reality and unavoidable. I imagine most people just avoid wasting much time on lying outlets. I think everyone knows that in a social media age you have the same sort of duty towards fact checking and lie detection that you do towards locking your front door when you go on holiday.
In outlets regarded as responsible (there are lots) the principle distortion is done by story selection. Take the BBC, which I greatly admire. They would, I think, never run a series, fully researched, to try to demonstrate all the ways in which people manipulate and abuse the benefits and welfare system. Or do detailed case studies on how particular families spend years and generations doing little at our expense. (The sort of project the odious Matt Goodwin would be fond of). But they are never short of super people who are going to suffer egregiously from any change in the system.
The BBC are to an extent even more pernicious. Providing false equivalence is unforgivable. Giving equal billing to the Chairman of the World Bank and Andrea Leadsom to determine the economic effects of Brexit was outrageous. The BBC were also great exponents of the Minford Paradigm. Once again providing a disreputable but largely hidden false equivalence. Theyveould take their pick of any one of 1,000 economists who would maintain Brexit was an economic disaster against Patrick Minford, who was the only one who thought Brexit would be great.
Yet it hasn't been an economic disaster, nor anything resembling one, as has been demonstrated amply by some very good recent thread headers that I must have missed your rebbutal of. So Leadsom was more accurate than the Head of the World Bank, which rather seems to vindicate her being platformed.
With so many open and interesting questions to get stuck into it seems crazy to focus energy on ones that are settled, such as has Brexit thus far been good or bad for the economy.
Yes, annoying when someone brings all sorts of 'facts' the the fore - all very unsettling for you.
Yesterday I was striding the open vastness of Ad Gefrin, Northumberland. One of the cradles of the English nation
Today, nearly 1500 years later, England is marching across London. But two very different Englands
That's a Gazette piece right there, isn't it? What the fuck am I doing sitting on my butt. talking to the dull PB Dads?
*packs Pinochet shirt and keffiyeh; heads out*
The most important march in London however is taking place tomorrow with the Grand Flanneur Walk. There won’t be a keffiyeh or Stone Island product* in sight.
How the myth that Labour have done nothing in 2 years became fixed in the minds of voters .
A relentless anti Labour campaign by the media and poor No 10 communications culminated in where we are today.
It isn't the task of the media to be a PR company for any government. This government has been terrible at communications, and especially the art of communicating convincingly by answering questions and not being evasive.
also terrible decision making. Sacking Robbins and then clinging on....
I think that is largely correct.
But neither is it the job of Allister Heath and Allison Pearson to represent fiction as fact. The job of the Telegraph ( and GB News and Talk TV) is to report the news objectively not to use smoke and mirrors to roll the pitch for the next Government in 3,4,5 years time. One could argue a competent Government should have the wherewithal to call out and correct inaccuracies, but it seems this one didn't.
Starmer is wholly to blame for this.
Largely agree, but there is no such thing as objective news coverage. They could all try harder to separate fact and opinion. So we have to rely on an open free media.
There are loads of outlets who would reasonably fairly but critically report on Labour doing well. Mirror, Guardian, FT, New Statesman, Economist, Ch4, ITV, BBC, Times to some extent, vast numbers on X and other social media. An infinity of podcasts.
As to the Right Wing media, in general they gave the Tories a hard time in government IIRC. I find it hard to follow because it's unreadable.
Whereas I accept there will be a bias when reporting news, any news, it is the out and out lies I was objecting to.
It's like giving a false equivalent to reporting by Rachel Maddows and. Jesse Watters. Maddows takes a story, reports the story and opines from the left. Jesse Watters ignores any story but just makes stuff up with no basis upon fact, to promote his cause, which is invariably Trump.
Largely agree. I think in this particular age the prevalence of lies is going to be a reality and unavoidable. I imagine most people just avoid wasting much time on lying outlets. I think everyone knows that in a social media age you have the same sort of duty towards fact checking and lie detection that you do towards locking your front door when you go on holiday.
In outlets regarded as responsible (there are lots) the principle distortion is done by story selection. Take the BBC, which I greatly admire. They would, I think, never run a series, fully researched, to try to demonstrate all the ways in which people manipulate and abuse the benefits and welfare system. Or do detailed case studies on how particular families spend years and generations doing little at our expense. (The sort of project the odious Matt Goodwin would be fond of). But they are never short of super people who are going to suffer egregiously from any change in the system.
The BBC are to an extent even more pernicious. Providing false equivalence is unforgivable. Giving equal billing to the Chairman of the World Bank and Andrea Leadsom to determine the economic effects of Brexit was outrageous. The BBC were also great exponents of the Minford Paradigm. Once again providing a disreputable but largely hidden false equivalence. Theyveould take their pick of any one of 1,000 economists who would maintain Brexit was an economic disaster against Patrick Minford, who was the only one who thought Brexit would be great.
Yet it hasn't been an economic disaster, nor anything resembling one, as has been demonstrated amply by some very good recent thread headers that I must have missed your rebbutal of. So Leadsom was more accurate than the Head of the World Bank, which rather seems to vindicate her being platformed.
My mistake. It was Pascal Lamy if the WTO.
Oh and you are wrong about the eloquent @Fishing thread headers
Beautifully written but fundamentally wildly inaccurate.
Wild innacuracies that I'm sure you'll be happy to list, with sources confirming their innacuracy. Or are they just innacurate because they're prejudicial to your opinion.
All three statements are undoubtedly true. But is there a (recent) context for statement one?
So the Reform council in Essex has taken down the flag of Ukraine from the council HQ.
James Cleverly criticised it.
Here's one of Farage's top aides defending it
If you were wondering why the Conservative Party just suffered its worst defeat in Essex - and why it will cease to exist there after the next general election - look no further.
The Tories spent 14 years treating the national interest as one priority among many.
Nadhim Zahawi retweeted it and other comments defending the decisions and wrote this
No one disagrees that we should remain steadfast in our support of the brave Ukrainians. I still believe that public services should be focused on delivery for the British people & our flag is a proud reminder of who we prioritise.
His former colleagues are calling out his pro-Putinism
Reform being so openly hostile to Britain’s support for Ukraine is one of the most off-putting things about them.
Flying the flag of a free and sovereign Ukraine is a mark of our upholding their right to exist as a nation in the face of the murder, rape and pillage of Putin’s unprovoked invasion.
Doing so does not detract from or diminish Britain’s national interest. It enhances it. We have a clear national interest in the defence of Europe, and not emboldening further Russian aggression.
I am also astonished to see @nadhimzahawi retweeting what Mr Orr posted. He, like me, served in the Cabinet of @BorisJohnson.
He, like me, knows how critical Britain’s military and moral support has been to preventing a Russian conquest. He used to believe in these things.
Reform's official policy is only the Union or county flags should fly from government or council buildings, they say they still support Ukraine but their policy is consistent. They will also ban flying of Pride flags on government and council buildings, which many will also be appalled by
Bollocks.
The outrage is the Reform traitors saying that helping Ukraine isn't in the UK's national interest and the top priority for the UK in so many ways.
I am looking forward to the end of the era of performative emoting via flag. It will at the very least save on flags.
All three statements are undoubtedly true. But is there a (recent) context for statement one?
So the Reform council in Essex has taken down the flag of Ukraine from the council HQ.
James Cleverly criticised it.
Here's one of Farage's top aides defending it
If you were wondering why the Conservative Party just suffered its worst defeat in Essex - and why it will cease to exist there after the next general election - look no further.
The Tories spent 14 years treating the national interest as one priority among many.
Nadhim Zahawi retweeted it and other comments defending the decisions and wrote this
No one disagrees that we should remain steadfast in our support of the brave Ukrainians. I still believe that public services should be focused on delivery for the British people & our flag is a proud reminder of who we prioritise.
His former colleagues are calling out his pro-Putinism
Reform being so openly hostile to Britain’s support for Ukraine is one of the most off-putting things about them.
Flying the flag of a free and sovereign Ukraine is a mark of our upholding their right to exist as a nation in the face of the murder, rape and pillage of Putin’s unprovoked invasion.
Doing so does not detract from or diminish Britain’s national interest. It enhances it. We have a clear national interest in the defence of Europe, and not emboldening further Russian aggression.
I am also astonished to see @nadhimzahawi retweeting what Mr Orr posted. He, like me, served in the Cabinet of @BorisJohnson.
He, like me, knows how critical Britain’s military and moral support has been to preventing a Russian conquest. He used to believe in these things.
Reform's official policy is only the Union or county flags should fly from government or council buildings, they say they still support Ukraine but their policy is consistent. They will also ban flying of Pride flags on government and council buildings, which many will also be appalled by
Bollocks.
The outrage is the Reform traitors saying that helping Ukraine isn't in the UK's national interest and the top priority for the UK in so many ways.
I am looking forward to the end of the era of performative emoting via flag. It will at the very least save on flags.
All three statements are undoubtedly true. But is there a (recent) context for statement one?
So the Reform council in Essex has taken down the flag of Ukraine from the council HQ.
James Cleverly criticised it.
Here's one of Farage's top aides defending it
If you were wondering why the Conservative Party just suffered its worst defeat in Essex - and why it will cease to exist there after the next general election - look no further.
The Tories spent 14 years treating the national interest as one priority among many.
Nadhim Zahawi retweeted it and other comments defending the decisions and wrote this
No one disagrees that we should remain steadfast in our support of the brave Ukrainians. I still believe that public services should be focused on delivery for the British people & our flag is a proud reminder of who we prioritise.
His former colleagues are calling out his pro-Putinism
Reform being so openly hostile to Britain’s support for Ukraine is one of the most off-putting things about them.
Flying the flag of a free and sovereign Ukraine is a mark of our upholding their right to exist as a nation in the face of the murder, rape and pillage of Putin’s unprovoked invasion.
Doing so does not detract from or diminish Britain’s national interest. It enhances it. We have a clear national interest in the defence of Europe, and not emboldening further Russian aggression.
I am also astonished to see @nadhimzahawi retweeting what Mr Orr posted. He, like me, served in the Cabinet of @BorisJohnson.
He, like me, knows how critical Britain’s military and moral support has been to preventing a Russian conquest. He used to believe in these things.
Reform's official policy is only the Union or county flags should fly from government or council buildings, they say they still support Ukraine but their policy is consistent. They will also ban flying of Pride flags on government and council buildings, which many will also be appalled by
Bollocks.
The outrage is the Reform traitors saying that helping Ukraine isn't in the UK's national interest and the top priority for the UK in so many ways.
I am looking forward to the end of the era of performative emoting via flag. It will at the very least save on flags.
Yesterday I was striding the open vastness of Ad Gefrin, Northumberland. One of the cradles of the English nation
Today, nearly 1500 years later, England is marching across London. But two very different Englands
That's a Gazette piece right there, isn't it? What the fuck am I doing sitting on my butt. talking to the dull PB Dads?
*packs Pinochet shirt and keffiyeh; heads out*
The most important march in London however is taking place tomorrow with the Grand Flanneur Walk. There won’t be a keffiyeh or Stone Island product* in sight.
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has set out his views on Labour's path forward and the policy challenges facing the country.
Speaking to Channel 4 News' Andrew Misra, Burnham said he wanted Labour to become “a party that they can believe in again, a party solidly on the side of working class people.”
Saying working *class* people instead of the usual 'working people' formulation signals a left turn. Whether that will escape from rhetoric into policy is the question. Given the fiscal position and the twitchy bond markets he's going to have his work cut out to do anything big and radical that costs money. I'm genuinely interested to see.
All three statements are undoubtedly true. But is there a (recent) context for statement one?
So the Reform council in Essex has taken down the flag of Ukraine from the council HQ.
James Cleverly criticised it.
Here's one of Farage's top aides defending it
If you were wondering why the Conservative Party just suffered its worst defeat in Essex - and why it will cease to exist there after the next general election - look no further.
The Tories spent 14 years treating the national interest as one priority among many.
Nadhim Zahawi retweeted it and other comments defending the decisions and wrote this
No one disagrees that we should remain steadfast in our support of the brave Ukrainians. I still believe that public services should be focused on delivery for the British people & our flag is a proud reminder of who we prioritise.
His former colleagues are calling out his pro-Putinism
Reform being so openly hostile to Britain’s support for Ukraine is one of the most off-putting things about them.
Flying the flag of a free and sovereign Ukraine is a mark of our upholding their right to exist as a nation in the face of the murder, rape and pillage of Putin’s unprovoked invasion.
Doing so does not detract from or diminish Britain’s national interest. It enhances it. We have a clear national interest in the defence of Europe, and not emboldening further Russian aggression.
I am also astonished to see @nadhimzahawi retweeting what Mr Orr posted. He, like me, served in the Cabinet of @BorisJohnson.
He, like me, knows how critical Britain’s military and moral support has been to preventing a Russian conquest. He used to believe in these things.
Reform's official policy is only the Union or county flags should fly from government or council buildings, they say they still support Ukraine but their policy is consistent. They will also ban flying of Pride flags on government and council buildings, which many will also be appalled by
Bollocks.
The outrage is the Reform traitors saying that helping Ukraine isn't in the UK's national interest and the top priority for the UK in so many ways.
I am looking forward to the end of the era of performative emoting via flag. It will at the very least save on flags.
Palestine flag okay
Ukraine flag okay
British flag not okay
He said he was looking forward to the end of it.
Eee have to be careful here.
If the whole performative flag thing collapses…
1) import of flags from China collapses 2) there’s probably a whole town devoted to making performative flags. 3) this will spark a recession in the Chinese economy 4) to see off the riots, the Chinese government invades Taiwan. 5) this bring in the US 6) fighting between the US and China escalates 7) nuclear weapons are used.
Performative flags are all that stands between us and Armageddon.
Yesterday I was striding the open vastness of Ad Gefrin, Northumberland. One of the cradles of the English nation
Today, nearly 1500 years later, England is marching across London. But two very different Englands
That's a Gazette piece right there, isn't it? What the fuck am I doing sitting on my butt. talking to the dull PB Dads?
*packs Pinochet shirt and keffiyeh; heads out*
The most important march in London however is taking place tomorrow with the Grand Flanneur Walk. There won’t be a keffiyeh or Stone Island product* in sight.
*Fake of course.
I am an idiot. It was last week.
I think you were right the first time. In a radical departure I believe there’s also a Grand Flaneuse (sp?) for the ladies.
How the myth that Labour have done nothing in 2 years became fixed in the minds of voters .
A relentless anti Labour campaign by the media and poor No 10 communications culminated in where we are today.
It isn't the task of the media to be a PR company for any government. This government has been terrible at communications, and especially the art of communicating convincingly by answering questions and not being evasive.
also terrible decision making. Sacking Robbins and then clinging on....
I think that is largely correct.
But neither is it the job of Allister Heath and Allison Pearson to represent fiction as fact. The job of the Telegraph ( and GB News and Talk TV) is to report the news objectively not to use smoke and mirrors to roll the pitch for the next Government in 3,4,5 years time. One could argue a competent Government should have the wherewithal to call out and correct inaccuracies, but it seems this one didn't.
Starmer is wholly to blame for this.
Largely agree, but there is no such thing as objective news coverage. They could all try harder to separate fact and opinion. So we have to rely on an open free media.
There are loads of outlets who would reasonably fairly but critically report on Labour doing well. Mirror, Guardian, FT, New Statesman, Economist, Ch4, ITV, BBC, Times to some extent, vast numbers on X and other social media. An infinity of podcasts.
As to the Right Wing media, in general they gave the Tories a hard time in government IIRC. I find it hard to follow because it's unreadable.
Whereas I accept there will be a bias when reporting news, any news, it is the out and out lies I was objecting to.
It's like giving a false equivalent to reporting by Rachel Maddows and. Jesse Watters. Maddows takes a story, reports the story and opines from the left. Jesse Watters ignores any story but just makes stuff up with no basis upon fact, to promote his cause, which is invariably Trump.
Largely agree. I think in this particular age the prevalence of lies is going to be a reality and unavoidable. I imagine most people just avoid wasting much time on lying outlets. I think everyone knows that in a social media age you have the same sort of duty towards fact checking and lie detection that you do towards locking your front door when you go on holiday.
In outlets regarded as responsible (there are lots) the principle distortion is done by story selection. Take the BBC, which I greatly admire. They would, I think, never run a series, fully researched, to try to demonstrate all the ways in which people manipulate and abuse the benefits and welfare system. Or do detailed case studies on how particular families spend years and generations doing little at our expense. (The sort of project the odious Matt Goodwin would be fond of). But they are never short of super people who are going to suffer egregiously from any change in the system.
The BBC are to an extent even more pernicious. Providing false equivalence is unforgivable. Giving equal billing to the Chairman of the World Bank and Andrea Leadsom to determine the economic effects of Brexit was outrageous. The BBC were also great exponents of the Minford Paradigm. Once again providing a disreputable but largely hidden false equivalence. Theyveould take their pick of any one of 1,000 economists who would maintain Brexit was an economic disaster against Patrick Minford, who was the only one who thought Brexit would be great.
Yet it hasn't been an economic disaster, nor anything resembling one, as has been demonstrated amply by some very good recent thread headers that I must have missed your rebbutal of. So Leadsom was more accurate than the Head of the World Bank, which rather seems to vindicate her being platformed.
My mistake. It was Pascal Lamy if the WTO.
Oh and you are wrong about the eloquent @Fishing thread headers
Beautifully written but fundamentally wildly inaccurate.
Wild innacuracies that I'm sure you'll be happy to list, with sources confirming their innacuracy. Or are they just innacurate because they're prejudicial to your opinion.
Rupert Lowe has confirmed Restore Britain will stand a candidate in the Makerfield by-election
I didn't have Rupert down as a Burnham fanboi. But then Andy is going to need all the help he can get to see off Reform.
Given Survation has Burnham beating Reform by less than 5% in Makerfield, Restore could certainly help him over the line. If Burnham does scrape home he may owe Lowe a rather large pint
Yesterday I was striding the open vastness of Ad Gefrin, Northumberland. One of the cradles of the English nation
Today, nearly 1500 years later, England is marching across London. But two very different Englands
That's a Gazette piece right there, isn't it? What the fuck am I doing sitting on my butt. talking to the dull PB Dads?
*packs Pinochet shirt and keffiyeh; heads out*
The most important march in London however is taking place tomorrow with the Grand Flanneur Walk. There won’t be a keffiyeh or Stone Island product* in sight.
*Fake of course.
I am an idiot. It was last week.
I think you were right the first time. In a radical departure I believe there’s also a Grand Flaneuse (sp?) for the ladies.
How the myth that Labour have done nothing in 2 years became fixed in the minds of voters .
A relentless anti Labour campaign by the media and poor No 10 communications culminated in where we are today.
It isn't the task of the media to be a PR company for any government. This government has been terrible at communications, and especially the art of communicating convincingly by answering questions and not being evasive.
also terrible decision making. Sacking Robbins and then clinging on....
I think that is largely correct.
But neither is it the job of Allister Heath and Allison Pearson to represent fiction as fact. The job of the Telegraph ( and GB News and Talk TV) is to report the news objectively not to use smoke and mirrors to roll the pitch for the next Government in 3,4,5 years time. One could argue a competent Government should have the wherewithal to call out and correct inaccuracies, but it seems this one didn't.
Starmer is wholly to blame for this.
Largely agree, but there is no such thing as objective news coverage. They could all try harder to separate fact and opinion. So we have to rely on an open free media.
There are loads of outlets who would reasonably fairly but critically report on Labour doing well. Mirror, Guardian, FT, New Statesman, Economist, Ch4, ITV, BBC, Times to some extent, vast numbers on X and other social media. An infinity of podcasts.
As to the Right Wing media, in general they gave the Tories a hard time in government IIRC. I find it hard to follow because it's unreadable.
Whereas I accept there will be a bias when reporting news, any news, it is the out and out lies I was objecting to.
It's like giving a false equivalent to reporting by Rachel Maddows and. Jesse Watters. Maddows takes a story, reports the story and opines from the left. Jesse Watters ignores any story but just makes stuff up with no basis upon fact, to promote his cause, which is invariably Trump.
Largely agree. I think in this particular age the prevalence of lies is going to be a reality and unavoidable. I imagine most people just avoid wasting much time on lying outlets. I think everyone knows that in a social media age you have the same sort of duty towards fact checking and lie detection that you do towards locking your front door when you go on holiday.
In outlets regarded as responsible (there are lots) the principle distortion is done by story selection. Take the BBC, which I greatly admire. They would, I think, never run a series, fully researched, to try to demonstrate all the ways in which people manipulate and abuse the benefits and welfare system. Or do detailed case studies on how particular families spend years and generations doing little at our expense. (The sort of project the odious Matt Goodwin would be fond of). But they are never short of super people who are going to suffer egregiously from any change in the system.
The BBC are to an extent even more pernicious. Providing false equivalence is unforgivable. Giving equal billing to the Chairman of the World Bank and Andrea Leadsom to determine the economic effects of Brexit was outrageous. The BBC were also great exponents of the Minford Paradigm. Once again providing a disreputable but largely hidden false equivalence. Theyveould take their pick of any one of 1,000 economists who would maintain Brexit was an economic disaster against Patrick Minford, who was the only one who thought Brexit would be great.
Yet it hasn't been an economic disaster, nor anything resembling one, as has been demonstrated amply by some very good recent thread headers that I must have missed your rebbutal of. So Leadsom was more accurate than the Head of the World Bank, which rather seems to vindicate her being platformed.
My mistake. It was Pascal Lamy if the WTO.
Oh and you are wrong about the eloquent @Fishing thread headers
Beautifully written but fundamentally wildly inaccurate.
Wild innacuracies that I'm sure you'll be happy to list, with sources confirming their innacuracy. Or are they just innacurate because they're prejudicial to your opinion.
The last two Labour leaders have been London based. I like London, it’s awesome.
But I wonder if a leader not from London will make a positive impact just by the virtue of killing the idea that Labour is a southern party that doesn’t understand the north.
It might help; but one wonders how the party managed to alienate itself so badly from its origins.
It's been going for a long time. I've just finished "Making the Weather: Six Politicians Who Changed Modern Britain" by Vernon Bogdanor (thoroughly recommend, btw), and there was a snippet in there about realising as far back as the 1950s that their voters weren't socialist and that nationalisation wasn't supported by even the workers in those industries. There was a frantic search for alternatives (Benn rotated through the alternatives in his writings: full nationalisation, siege economy, guild socialism, syndicalism, etc) but none gained traction. Callaghan realised the game was up but was a solid union man and couldn't make the intellectual leap to the alternative: Thatcher had no such compunction and implemented her version: free markets, deregulation, denationalisation, detaching the economy from the nation. Blair (possibly unthinkingly?) accepted this and slapped a human face on it, using the Cold War dividend to file off the raw edges of Thatcherism and moving the party from the workers to the professional classes and public sector workers, from economic issues to social issues. Its adoption of identity politics was a natural progress from that.
In short, Labour abandoned its working-class origins decades ago and hid the smell by spraying money everywhere, using Cold War dividend and economic boom money to do it. And it worked. But post-Brexit, post-COVID, and post-boom it can't do that any more and has been running like a coyote suspended in air ever since. Starmer was gravity catching up to it.
How the myth that Labour have done nothing in 2 years became fixed in the minds of voters .
A relentless anti Labour campaign by the media and poor No 10 communications culminated in where we are today.
It isn't the task of the media to be a PR company for any government. This government has been terrible at communications, and especially the art of communicating convincingly by answering questions and not being evasive.
also terrible decision making. Sacking Robbins and then clinging on....
I think that is largely correct.
But neither is it the job of Allister Heath and Allison Pearson to represent fiction as fact. The job of the Telegraph ( and GB News and Talk TV) is to report the news objectively not to use smoke and mirrors to roll the pitch for the next Government in 3,4,5 years time. One could argue a competent Government should have the wherewithal to call out and correct inaccuracies, but it seems this one didn't.
Starmer is wholly to blame for this.
Largely agree, but there is no such thing as objective news coverage. They could all try harder to separate fact and opinion. So we have to rely on an open free media.
There are loads of outlets who would reasonably fairly but critically report on Labour doing well. Mirror, Guardian, FT, New Statesman, Economist, Ch4, ITV, BBC, Times to some extent, vast numbers on X and other social media. An infinity of podcasts.
As to the Right Wing media, in general they gave the Tories a hard time in government IIRC. I find it hard to follow because it's unreadable.
Whereas I accept there will be a bias when reporting news, any news, it is the out and out lies I was objecting to.
It's like giving a false equivalent to reporting by Rachel Maddows and. Jesse Watters. Maddows takes a story, reports the story and opines from the left. Jesse Watters ignores any story but just makes stuff up with no basis upon fact, to promote his cause, which is invariably Trump.
Largely agree. I think in this particular age the prevalence of lies is going to be a reality and unavoidable. I imagine most people just avoid wasting much time on lying outlets. I think everyone knows that in a social media age you have the same sort of duty towards fact checking and lie detection that you do towards locking your front door when you go on holiday.
In outlets regarded as responsible (there are lots) the principle distortion is done by story selection. Take the BBC, which I greatly admire. They would, I think, never run a series, fully researched, to try to demonstrate all the ways in which people manipulate and abuse the benefits and welfare system. Or do detailed case studies on how particular families spend years and generations doing little at our expense. (The sort of project the odious Matt Goodwin would be fond of). But they are never short of super people who are going to suffer egregiously from any change in the system.
The BBC are to an extent even more pernicious. Providing false equivalence is unforgivable. Giving equal billing to the Chairman of the World Bank and Andrea Leadsom to determine the economic effects of Brexit was outrageous. The BBC were also great exponents of the Minford Paradigm. Once again providing a disreputable but largely hidden false equivalence. Theyveould take their pick of any one of 1,000 economists who would maintain Brexit was an economic disaster against Patrick Minford, who was the only one who thought Brexit would be great.
Yet it hasn't been an economic disaster, nor anything resembling one, as has been demonstrated amply by some very good recent thread headers that I must have missed your rebbutal of. So Leadsom was more accurate than the Head of the World Bank, which rather seems to vindicate her being platformed.
My mistake. It was Pascal Lamy if the WTO.
Oh and you are wrong about the eloquent @Fishing thread headers
Beautifully written but fundamentally wildly inaccurate.
Wild innacuracies that I'm sure you'll be happy to list, with sources confirming their innacuracy. Or are they just innacurate because they're prejudicial to your opinion.
They do but the governing Union and SPD coalition are still on 34% combined to the AfD's 29% and as Germany has PR Merz will remain chancellor
But still. This is the EU the Remainers want to Rejoin? Germany maybe led by the AfD. Italy already led by Meloni. A good chance Bardella will with the French presidency
Comments
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p0f9sz77
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/class-clips-video/articles/zfm46v4
Get a fucking grip, son
This is Micky Donovan who played drums in a band before losing his way in life and ending up in the Macari Centre. I visited him in hospital on Thursday and was planning to go back that night when they rang me. Another gone before his time, that is homelessness for you. RIP Micky
https://x.com/loumacari10/status/2055615065827557690?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
This is about as balanced as a GOP gerrymander.
Bloody hell, look away for a minute..
Oh and you are wrong about the eloquent @Fishing thread headers
Beautifully written but fundamentally wildly inaccurate.
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/new-research-finds-uk-investment-up-to-18-per-cent-lower-as-a-result-of-brexit
Honestly, the noom is intense and somehow made intenser by their collision, on my windowsill, now renamed my Wondersill
https://x.com/theipaper/status/2055522273570820169
As of now, I would give a slight edge to the Democrats in the coming mid-term elections -- and I agree with Silver on the "slow but steady" gains.
(One thing to look for: Signs of differential turnout, between men and women. Right now I would expect women to be more likely to vote.)
Mahmood stays as home secretary
Speaking to Channel 4 News' Andrew Misra, Burnham said he wanted Labour to become “a party that they can believe in again, a party solidly on the side of working class people.”
https://x.com/Channel4News/status/2055630159835705517
Because if now, this is a very, very strange reshuffle.
I have to say U-turns are very on message for post 2024 Labour Prime Ministers. Wasn't that one of my key criticisms of the current one?
Today, nearly 1500 years later, England is marching across London. But two very different Englands
That's a Gazette piece right there, isn't it? What the fuck am I doing sitting on my butt. talking to the dull PB Dads?
*packs Pinochet shirt and keffiyeh; heads out*
Another 3 years and we get another personally signed card from Charles and Camilla
Happy Anniversary and may there be a good few more to come.
"Swamped by Farage's idiots. TV crews and Labour MP's of all shapes and sizes. People accosted in the street for their views."
I must have been very bad in a previous life.
He would split the vote seven ways and make Burnham a certainty.
She tells everyone she had a silent prayer with the Good Lord to excuse her from the last bit !!!!!
A night at the opera -
“… two or three men were on the floor and he [Horthy] had another by the throat, slapping his face and shouting what I learned afterward was: "So you would betray your country, would you?" The Regent was alone, but he had the situation in hand.... The whole incident was typical not only of the Regent's deep hatred of alien doctrine, but of the kind of man he is. Although he was around seventy-two years of age, it did not occur to him to ask for help; he went right ahead like a skipper with a mutiny on his hands.”
When the bride came to the bit about obedience, she stuck her tongue out at the groom before affirming.
Strange experience all round...
*Fake of course.
Ukraine flag okay
British flag not okay
Who are the vegan organic oat milk racists?
"FAKE NEWS from the Cambridge-educated lawyer, A.K.A the SCHEMING OGLES!"
https://x.com/wahlen_de/status/2055627030457167991
AfD: 29% (+1)
Union: 22% (-1)
GRÜNE: 14% (+1)
SPD: 12% (-1)
LINKE: 10% (-1)
BSW: 3%
FDP: 3%
Sonstige: 7% (+1)
If the whole performative flag thing collapses…
1) import of flags from China collapses
2) there’s probably a whole town devoted to making performative flags.
3) this will spark a recession in the Chinese economy
4) to see off the riots, the Chinese government invades Taiwan.
5) this bring in the US
6) fighting between the US and China escalates
7) nuclear weapons are used.
Performative flags are all that stands between us and Armageddon.
https://thechap.co.uk/grand-flaneur-walk-2026/
In short, Labour abandoned its working-class origins decades ago and hid the smell by spraying money everywhere, using Cold War dividend and economic boom money to do it. And it worked. But post-Brexit, post-COVID, and post-boom it can't do that any more and has been running like a coyote suspended in air ever since. Starmer was gravity catching up to it.
Etc